MY A2 MEDIA EVALUATIONCallum Greenslade Candidate Number: 3201

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of real media products?

Section AFor my overall trailer, I have chosen to base it around a more Gory horror with slight aspects of comedy involved. This has been done as it is a basic genre that is popular amongst many people. Our trailer fits into the horror genre in many ways, from the main antagonists being the Zombies which are one of the main horror sub-genres to the ways in which they are dealt with. We have worked with many different methods of killing off the Zombie characters as it is shown that most people enjoy watching something un-original as to something just being shot with a handgun or hit with a bat. The overall gore in our trailer is basic but gives the audience an idea into what basic standard to expect in a full film. I found a gory horror to be more difficult as having a low budget can’t get you the best gore effects, but can have things that look believable and gruesome.

One of the main movies the overall structure has been influenced by is aspects of “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) by George A Romero. We’ve done this through the use of our central character being an average person with few life skills who develops through the story into our main protagonist. I liked the overall idea that there is comedy throughout his film, which can draw in a larger target audience, so there are elements of comedy throughout the trailer which vary from zombie killings to the overall structure of the characters and how they are portrayed to the audience. Another film that we could relate to would be elements of Shaun of the Dead. This can be seen through its use of comedy and gore. A personal favourite scene which I wanted to re-create was in the Winchester where David is ripped open at the window. This is a good scene as it starts out comedic and then has a Collision Cut to him being ripped apart (Found Here).

Image of Michael and Ana (Dawn of the Dead (2004).

Butchered can link in with Thomas Schatz’s theory of genre. We see this through the fact that there is a male protagonist, in a confined area of the world being a small town with a local butchery where he is working. He is met with a conflict from a problem that occurred with him involved in slightly by not disposing of the tainted product properly and brings it on himself to aid in the survival of humanity by killing off the zombies now confined in the town with him. We have challenged his theory on endings by not giving out information on whether or not the protagonist lives or dies, making possible sequels possible and boosting marketing in the sense of people who are interested in the product will be looking to watch the second edition to find out the possible cliff-hanger.

An image of Thomas Schatz “Hollywood Genres” book.

Section B

When looking at the horror conventions in trailers, I believe we have stuck to them quite well. We can see this for starters by the way that we have chosen to do our trailer. For it, we have done a hybrid of a highlights trailer and a scene trailer, giving a variety and applying Collision Cutting to it by having a sudden jump of action when the Equilibrium is disrupted. The trailer doesn’t give out too many hints on what events will occur but sets a basic style of the original setting allowing the audience to know exactly where we are, what the characters back stories are and whether or not they’ll like them characters or not. I prefer to do things this way as people will already pick favourites and start discussion on it and monitor their development with what has been given to them.

Like all horror trailers, we’ve incorporated a jump scare at the end as it is a way of freaking out the audience. This is through the way that the audience assumes when the credits appear that the trailer is over and relaxes slightly; only to be scared straight after when they’ve let their guard down. The use of inter-titles through the trailer have a comedic aspect to them and also give breaks between each image, allowing a montage of killings to be split up with a tagline for them instead of placing text or dialogue over the image. There have been multiple trailers that have given us ideas on how to create our overall project and from using their ideas; we have developed a mixture of them to create something of many popular trailers that an audience will enjoy.

When looking at the suspense created throughout my trailer, there are multiple techniques used to develop shock and suspense throughout my trailer. One of the methods that I’ve used to create this is through the slow scenes that have a cut into action. There are certain points were the audience is left hanging waiting to see the next event unfold which has a suspenseful outlook on it. At one point in the trailer, we add in shock where our first zombie turns and we see where our hobo first attacks. The main part of our trailer where the audience is supposed to feel fear is at the jump scare as this is something that is intentionally put into the trailer to make sure that the audience is scared.

Overall, I’m not too fond of including too much fear into a trailer as it is only supposed to be a speak peek at what the full product will be like. I’d personally prefer it to show characters and the scenery more so the audience can have a better connection with them. The idea of building suspense and fear in a trailer doesn’t seem to fit into our chosen sub-genre as well as the audience is guaranteed to be expecting aspects of gore. If anything, I’d leave fear and suspense to the psychological horror sub-genre as it is something that needs to be built up over time compared to an expected blood bath.

When analysing my trailer, you can see clear links into other films. One of the main films that we had used was “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) by George A Romero. We wanted to re-create the overall gore element while also having slight comedy involved. For this, Dawn of the Dead was one of the best examples that portrayed this in a real film. There could also be slight links in with “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) by Edgar Wright. This is another film where we can see a hybrid of elements in horror and comedy. It is a well-known film that its overall audience enjoyed, whilst also appealing to audiences out of their genre. This is a good element to add in as it will allow anyone creating a trailer to expand its audience to a wider range than beyond what it had intended for. The overall style around Zombie films is quite basic, but works every time. We see this in the way that many Zombie films have the same aspects but all move to different locations with a slight change of plot.

An example of gore in Dawn of the Dead (2004).

Section C

For my trailer, I have used multiple auteur influences to create it. One of the main ones would be Alfred Hitchcock for his ways of developing fear and suspense through a drawn out period. One of his main features in his films was his female victims, usually blonde with blue eyes as it created the overall female victim connotations. For my trailer, we didn’t use a female victim which can always be changed in later times if necessary. I have had ideas on whether or not to add in a female victim or make her a survivor; I will more than likely use the female survivor because it is more appealing to a wider audience and has no aspects of sexism involved.

I have challenged George A Romero’s auteur style by not using a black protagonist and not having a main female survivor for now. This way, I have similarities and differences from Dawn of the Dead for an analysis. This is good as it means that I haven’t stolen from mainstream Hollywood but I have borrowed elements for my own product. I personally like George A Romero’s auteur style best as it has a variety of changes from going by something considered “normal” and gives you different outlooks on characters that you believe will hold the most power in the film. As Andrew Sarris said, the whole theory of auteurs is that they have a unique style to the vast majority of their films making them what they are. This is why for my trailer I have decided to mix multiple well known auteur styles to create a hybridised film.

When looking at the skills that I have brought to this production, I have personally done Camerawork for this trailer, from which I learned a few years back through doing productions such as BBC News Day. This was a useful skill when creating our trailer as I was already familiar with the type of model we were using and had a clear knowledge of specific shot types that I wanted to shoot. The downside to this is that our Tripod wasn’t of the best quality and jammed up on regular occasions, making it harder to shoot a clean shot. As I’m a fan of gore, I put my personal input into what kind of trailer I wanted to make. Luckily with our group was that we were all fans of the Zombie sub-genre and all big fans of gore, making the choice of sub-genre a lot easier than other groups.

I wasn’t too confident with Adobe Premier, so I didn’t do as much of that as I could have. I’m quite familiar with Adobe Photoshop so while Editing was underway I created a custom production logo for our group which will be displayed to the side. I also had a go at learning to work Adobe After Effects but was limited to what I could make because of the font and plugins that I could use so in the end we had to get some assistance for this part. Overall, the use of second source media’s such as the Adobe products went quite well and everything looked good to a decent standard.

My created Production Logo.

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

Section AWhen looking at my poster, we can see that there are a few key aspects that are noticeable. The main idea I was aiming for was to have a suspenseful villain that isn’t shown through the trailer. This way, people who are truly interested in my trailer will do more research and get hints into who the person on the poster might be. I used very little text and blood effects to not give out too many spoilers because I wanted my audience to predict what this film may have in store, giving starting discussion as to what my trailer is like.

I liked the idea of the darkened room as it gave it a more suspenseful idea and a darker lighting is more stereotypical to the horror genre. When designing my poster, I used a lot of the same ideas as the Smiley (2013) poster. This is because it set in a dark atmosphere with little information into what the narrative is about. I included most of these because they all give different effects and outlooks to my target audience. The use of a variety in the main villain can attract people from the well-known film Friday the 13th because of the main villain wearing a hockey mask and holing a machete.

An image of the Smiley Poster (2013).

After reviewing my magazine cover, there are a few key aspects that I included into this. This can be seen through the use of fonts mainly. I used very specific fonts to give it a more professional look. This way, it appeals to the more mainstream readers of film review magazines. The use of the “smug director” appears as if he is very pleased about his product and is ensured that it will do well in the final release. I have focused my magazine around the main film being Butchered as it makes it the centre of attention, I’ve also added in many sub-categories such as “Best films of 2013” because it gives it a more realistic element to it.

I took the ideas for my magazine cover from Film magazines cover for Inception. It had the main focus point being the character, looking overpowered and pleased and then had all of the basic information about the main film, along with side stories to make it interesting for others.

I chose a specific angle to have my actor in. having him facing to the right. This is because in many film posters, the hero is on the left and many people stereotype media corporations as evil for giving off a single viewpoint. There is also low key lighting to indicate that this man is a serious businessman but also keeping the horror element. The use of the suit gives him power and respect and is quite iconic to compare it to a butchery.

You can see how this relates to my magazine,with the common characteristics between the two.

Section B

After looking through my trailer and magazine cover, they both have elements in them that symbolise the horror genre. It can be seen much better in my poster, with many different examples to go through. One of the main ones being the hockey mask, and how it is iconic to films such as Friday the 13th which set the horror genre. The knife in my poster could be seen as a phallic weapon, giving him power and dominance in my trailer. The use of blood splats gives it a horror outlook and the red connotes danger and death which are the key points to a horror film. When choosing my font, I wanted something that looked worn down with a scary aspect. For this I have used a broken font and added a drop shadow to it, giving it an element of low key lighting.

For my magazine cover, I wanted to aim that more at the higher class mainstream magazine instead of genre based. Doing this would attract a higher target audience and look more professional. For this, the actor is facing right meaning he is looking into the heroes spot on posters, giving him the sense that he’s a villain. The entire cover is more of a low key magazine, with a mixture of fancy and broken fonts. Having this means that it has the horror element, but is keeping a professional standard to it.

My target audience is 16-25 year old middle class males who enjoy a horror film. They will be drawn into the poster because of all the comparisons to real films. I am aiming my poster towards the higher class and middle class with the use of a professional magazine that appeals to more people. I would like this to be 16-30+ who are interested in horror films. I would want the certificate to be 18+.

How did you use media technology with the construction, research, planning and evaluation

stages?Section AFor my research and planning, I used media technologies to find out what had previously been done and how that was a success. I looked through lots of trailers to see how the professionals constructed them, a lot of posters to find the right, stereotypical layout and a few posters to see what common characteristics appeared in the majority of them. For this, YouTube and Google Images came in handy quite a lot.

For the trailers, I looked through a few YouTube trailers and picked out a few that I thought were quite good, with elements of comedy, horror and action. This set out all the pinpoints for what I wanted in my trailer and gave me a look at what a variety of the angles would be like. There is links located below to a few of the ones that influenced me.

Section BWhen creating my products, I used a variety of different techniques to create them. This can be seen in the way that the entire trailer has been edited in beat with the sound and how the clips fade from a range of lightings. I done the majority of this on Adobe Premier. I tried out multiple title screens with Adobe After Effects but couldn’t make it work to how I desired. For this, we ended up using a more basic version for our text and inter titles.

For my magazine and poster, I had to add custom blood packs to it so that I would get a better effect. I changed most of the text to have an effect, and the main image of the magazine cover has an outer glow around the main model. I done this because I believed it gave them more of a distorted look to the rest of the layout, making them the centre of attention. The rule of thirds was used here, as the eye is drawn towards the light on a darker screen and then makes that the focus point of the viewer.

When doing my poster, I wasn’t fond of the eye colour being regular, but just painting over it didn’t seem right either. I selected the area I wanted with the Lasso tool and then re-selected the iris to remove it. From there, I played around with the hue/saturation and lighting of it to give it a stereotypical horror look. Some suggestions for this were to add more noticeable veins, but after trying it I decided not to go with that.

Section CWhen evaluating my product, I used a variety of different media techniques for this.

The main one that was used was my A2 media blog. This is where it was most likely to be found and was also where it needed to be. I emailed classmates and friends out of class and asked their opinions on what they thought about improvements, the links to our media trailer were out on YouTube and could be linked with the title there, so more people would look at it.

As this was not a proper advertising campaign, there wasn’t too much media being used to distribute information about this. If it was a proper production, a lot more products such as social networking sites, adverts, promotional contests through the internet would have been used.

Here are a few of the sites I’ve used, alongwith more that I would use in a full production.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Section AWhen we done the first focus group screening, the vast majority of the class liked it. We were given positive feedback on the lighting, make-up effects and sound. Although a lot of people thought that for a gory horror film, there wasn’t enough gore. We agreed with this as we were already planning on adding in gore later at this stage. We went on to improve this by trying out some Adobe After Effects work with blood effects but that didn’t go too well. The trailer was also said to be too short, and at the point of the first screening, we were short on clips that could be used. We agreed on this and decided that we needed to make it longer than it was (around 40 seconds at this stage). We improved this by adding in different shots, more characters and more deaths to go with the gore feedback.

Overall for our focus group screening, out of 16 we scored 13 which we were very happy with. The group wasn’t actually expecting to get that many from this rough cut, so that helped us finish the rest of it.

Section BFor our last minute changes, we had a couple that had been requested that we strongly agreed with. The main one here was the length of our trailer, we knew it was short and was still a work in production. We added a lot more footage of scenery, text, characters and some random deaths of zombies to make it appeal to our target audience.

We were also told that we needed more gore and with After Effects not being in our favour we had to improvise. For this, we got one of the scream masks that are around at Halloween and cut the pump and blood pack off. Next, we set up a camera at an angle that would make the blood look effective and real, we would do the scene and as the victim was dying, have them squeeze the blood pack so it shoots out. This came out much better than anticipated and actually looked better than a few of the effects we had looked into how to make.

With the mask being quite cheap, this was a good thing to use for a low production horror film as the effects cameout exactly how we wanted it.

Section C When looking through the results of my final cuts screening, I

was quite pleased that we got such a high mark from our target audience. With the lowest score being 7/10 I would say that the group has achieved something good here. Our marks averaged from 7/10-9/10 which is a great thing to see when looking at all of the problems that occurred when creating our product.

Overall, I think that our trailer is directed specifically towards our target audience. We can see this in the gore aspect of the zombies whilst there is also the comedic elements involved at certain points (Egg Shot). The audience we were aiming for would be 16+ Males and I personally think that we have directed it towards them quite good. The next part would be the secondary advertising through the use of Media and other products.

My personal aspect used in the trailer would have to be the Make-Up effects. The person who we had doing them wasn’t very experienced but done a lot of research into the best materials to use. We used a variety of different techniques to get different effects for different zombies which unfortunately didn’t come out too well in the trailer. This links in with some of our feedback where we were told to include more close ups.

An example of the make-up effects used.

My Finished Project – Promotional Poster

My Finished Project – Magazine Cover

My Finished Project - Trailer

Link here in the event of technical problems.