By Laura Coleman

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge conventions of real media products?a. Film posterb. Film magazine coverc. Film trailer

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback? 4) How did you use media technologies in the construction, planning,

research and evaluation stages?

When I was researching horror film posters to do with zombies and such I realised that they usually had white backgrounds, this lead me to use a white background when making mine. I think this is used to create a surgical/hospital effect of cleanliness. As most zombie films are based around an injection having severe side effects. Here are a few examples of posters compared to mine.

A)

Main conventions of a horror movie poster is that it contains a large image usually to the centre, a large text for the title usually edited and bold so it stand out. Short snappy tagline that is easy to remember. Red and black writing.My poster challenges the normal conventions as it uses both large text and small text for the title. The tagline is slightly longer then normal but still memorable. Instead of having a picture in the centre of the page I have placed it slightly to the left of the page besides the title. I decided to use red, black and grey writing.

The next slide shows the differences I have pointed out.

Large text

Small text

Longer tagline

Main image slightly to the left

My cover doesn't really challenge the main conventions of a magazine as it follows the picture in the middle surrounded by text. I decided not to dramatically challenge the conventions of a cover as I wanted it to look real. I did simple things such as change the position of the barcode, price and date.

B)

In my trailer we made some differences such as not including a happy scene, however we still used blackouts, music, fast paces clips, long clips, release date. C)

These are clips from the news reporter, we decided to use banners to make it look more realistic, as real news reports use them.

These are the blackouts we used in-between scenes.

These are examples of our long clips.

Much like the trailer for dawn of the dead we included a news presenter in ours.

The Cure trailer

Dawn of the dead trailer

My main product and ancillary texts work together well as I have used the same style throughout, examples of this are the same colours and characters. By doing this I have made it easy for them to be related with each other. Also on both ancillary products I used the same type of layout by using a white background and simple clear text. All 3 products promote each other which is the main point of each product.

The same colour scheme red, white and black.

The same character used within the trailer and on magazine cover.

So I could get a wide response of feedback on my products, I used the questionnaire website called formsite.com

After I collected some feedback I put the answers into suitable graphs and charts which display it clearly.

This is the link to my questionaire:http://fs6.formsite.com/LauraColeman/form967169879/index.html

3.3.

Poster Questions 1 & 2

Poster Question 3

3.3.

Magazine Questions 4, 5 & 6

3.3.

Magazine Question 7

3.3.

Trailer Question 8 & 9

Trailer Question 9

3.3.

Improvements Question 10

3.3.

This feedback has helped me realise that my poster was good and many people liked the look and composition of it. My magazine could do with more images and maybe a different background. From the results on my trailer I found that my newsreader did not make my trailer contain any more tension, however the subheadings, fast clips and music did.

People liked the name The Cure for our film trailer.

4.4.

ResearchWhen I was doing my research I used website such as Google, Wikipedia and Youtube.

I used Google to research magazine covers and film posters. This was to find out all the types of conventions they both use, and what I would need to use. I Googled the types of images I knew that I would want to use to make my final products.

Wikipedia was used to also find out the conventions of posters and film covers. I also used to research the plot of zombie films that I hadn’t seen but liked the look of the poster.

Youtube was used mainly to research film trailers and to analyse them.

4.4.

PlanningDuring my planning I used main Microsoft office word and Microsoft office excel. Microsoft office word was used to document all my work. I kept a saved back up of all my work on my computer in case a part of my blog deleted.I used Microsoft office excel to do my shot list this is because it’s a pre-made grid and showed my work clearly.

This is an example of my shot list on excel.

I also played around with a camera and a tripod to try and find the right type of angle and shot to use when actually filming our final products. Here are some examples:

4.4.

Planning

Close up

Mid shot

4.4.

ConstructionAfter taking my pictures for my final products. I edited them using a range of programmes. I used Macromedia Fireworks 8, Photoshop shop elements 6.0 and paint. By using many different software I could change the appearance of my pictures by changing the shadows, highlights, lowlights etc. All these programmes allowed me to move things around such as text. It also let me manipulate the font sizes.

Here are some examples of my edited pictures:

4.4.

ConstructionThese are a few examples of the text manipulation I creating when using both Photoshop and fireworks:

This was done by using fireworks.

This was done by using paint.

This was done by using Photoshop.

4.4.

EvaluationIn my evaluation I used many different types of technology. I used PowerPoint to create my slideshow. Then I used slide share to get it onto my blog.I used websites such as form site to produce charts from my questionnaire.

Overall I think I used many different types of technology to create and edit my final pieces both ancillary and main product.