1. BY HANNAH HOGAN A2 MEDIA EVALUATION 2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? TRAILER INFLUENCES THE WARD The Ward by John Carpenter is a Psychological horror movie which is about a young girl who is in psychiatric facility claiming that a dead girl is stalking her. We see this all throughout the film then at the end we realise she has just many personalities and all of the people that she is seeing is actually her. I liked the change at the end and how it shocked the audience how no one was actually stalking her. This gave me and Caitlin inspiration to do our trailer and base it on a girl who thinks she is being tormented however it is just all in her head. http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/blog-post_13.html http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-ward-2010-official- trailer.html For further analysis on The Ward there are links to my Blog where I did 2 posts analysing it, one on the poster and the other on the trailer. You can see the photos from the trailer of The Ward and the photos that I have took. You can see on the left how the girl is pale and has bags with a tint of red. This is why in our movie trailer we tried to do something similar so it would show how she is ill. Above you can also see a scene from the trailer which we have also tried to do. We done this as it is an effective scene which would make the audience scared. 3. THE CALL Although The Call is not a horror but a crime/thriller genre, it still gave me ideas for what to include in the trailer that I did. Its about a girl who gets killed by a man and then the same man goes after another one, the woman on the phone who is with the police helps them and in the end one of the girls survive. However the whole idea of a phone call was what I wanted to include in the trailer as it makes it seem more serious and dramatic. I thought that if there was a phone call at the start that it could introduce what has actually happened by the actress saying Hes here, youre not helping me again the again shows how its happened before and how the film is about a stalker. We thought this was an effective way of telling the audience it rather than it being a boring way. You can see this on the left. Another from the trailer that I liked was how she was under the bed and you could see the mans footsteps. I thought this was really effective as it caused tension whilst watching the film. At this point she was on the phone so rather than copying it we split the scenes of the actress on the phone in the hall, as she was able to be loud and panicky showing fear, and under the bed focusing more on the footsteps as it would create more tension than if she was on the phone. To see further analysis of the call the link to my blog is: http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-call-trailer-2013-halle-berry- movie.html 4. Amityville: The Awakening Amityville is a horror/thriller about a single mother moves her three children into the haunted house not knowing of the house's bloody history. The house that she moves to is shown a lot in the trailer and is the establishing shot. Most of the movie is based in the house as that is what is haunted. In our movie trailer you can see that the house at the bottom is where are trailer is set. It looks quiet similar to the top one and the others as thats where we got the idea from. We also have done all of our shooting for the trailer in the house as it makes sense that the stalker is tormenting her there. We thought we would create the movie trailer in the house as its ordinary. It shows how it could happen to anyone which makes the film seem more realistic and fearful. FROMTHEDIRECTORSOF BURIEDBELOW AND KEEPQUIET The Amityville trailer throughout also uses words to make the trailer tense as it cuts between building up to something at the end. I liked this and I like the quotes that was used with it as you can see with the trailer how it does look like reality when really some is a dream. Therefore we did the same for our trailer but made the quotes appropriate for it such as When you are looking for a way out and The paranoia will kill you which links also with the poster. These are effective as it makes the audience think and breaks the scenes making it perfect for a teaser trailer. 5. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES EMPIRE I firstly was influenced for my magazine from this cover. I really liked the direct address and the way that he is looking at the audience. This made me then want to do a close up image for both my poster and magazine. For Empire you have to do a certain colour scheme and cover lines etc. and I thought that if there was a colour scheme it would be hard to make it look effective and a horror genre at the same time. That is when I started to look for other magazines that wouldnt do this and focus on the image. This is when I came across Little White Lies magazine and thought it was better for the horror genre. As said about the make up for the girl in the movie and how she has dark circles and pale face, I would like to show this with the lighting on the photo as there wouldnt be any point of having the photo them. Therefore this magazine gave me the inspiration to make sure that the make up was visible and the lighting was right. For more analysis look on my blog: http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/blog-post_29.html 6. LITTLE WHITE LIES You can see that with this Little White Lies magazine you can instantly see that its a horror genre from the blood down the girls face. There is a link between the pale face and the blood to the title of the magazine as both are the same colour contrasting together. When seeing this magazine in made me think of what I could so similar and the dripping down her face made me think of our actress having wet hair and the dripping of the make up and the more of the effect on her eyes. When you think of her having wet hair you think of how and this may be because she was in the bath/shower etc. making us as the audience more sorry and scared for her as we see her as more vulnerable this way. You can see that they have still kept to the typical magazines that they do with a cartoon effect. I like how the background is black and would like to do this for my image as it would make it look more scary. I also like how there is different colours running through the blood making it a realistic photo but not too much. I would like to use some sort of different colour in my magazine to show its not real and a cartoon/drawing edition. When trying to do different cartoon effects on the photo it didnt look effective, with the make up around the eyes going. It didnt look as scary so I thought of using different photos that I had taken to try and fit with the theme of Little White Lies however also be effective Blog link: http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/research-into-similar-products.html 7. I decided to do the Little White Lies magazine for my trailer. With this magazine they dont do normal photos its always a cartoon or drawing effect. I liked this one as it was a close up of her face. I thought that if I did something similar to this it would look effective as you would be able to see the pain on her face. I really liked the text over it. I like how the letters are close together but I also like how it takes nothing away from the picture also. This is why for my magazine I did something similar for my magazine as I thought if you was able to see the face it would be effective. Because of the bags etc. I thought that if I was to do the image white like Little White Lies have done with the background, it may not look like it was for a horror movie as the colour is light and even though other details maybe black it wouldnt be as effective. This is why on the left you can see the two images and how I have used different effects to make sure that they look like they fit in with the Little White Lies theme but also have a dark colour to it making sure they you can see that they have a horror genre. Like I said previously I wanted colour to run through the photo it means that I prefer the right image to the left making me chose that one for my magazine instead. LITTLE WHITE LIES Further analysis go to my blog: http://hanhoga n.blogspot.co.u k/2014/10/blo g-post.html You can see on the right how I tried to do something like the writing on the front like how Little White Lies did with a sample picture. This made me know that using a simple font would be better than a difficult one as nothing gets taken away from the effect of the photo. It also made me decide that a white font would be more effective as you can see it better and how it matches the masthead. 8. POSTER INFLUENCES You can see that for the same movie a magazine cover and poster is not the same, and this applies for all types. Originally I didnt know this so therefore I was planning and researching similar ideas for my magazine and poster. However when I researched the same it was not so therefore I had to change my idea to make it more realistic and professional. Above are the posters that I researched and had influences on for my first poster. You can see how I tried to make it similar with each picture. You can see that with the Orphan poster I tried to make it similar by direct address with the actress. With Paranormal Activity I thought to have the man behind how at a higher level to make him seem more intimidating and her more vulnerable. Then with The Ward poster I tried to make the man have a faded effect as the twist in the story is that he is not actually real. However I had to change these for a different poster idea. 9. THE CONJURING I have already annotated The Conjuring Poster and picked out the conventions and the effects that it has on the audience. With this I was influenced by how the woman isn't facing the camera. I like how she is just facing the wall and you cant see her face as it creates a mystery to who she is and why is she there. It also makes it build tension for the film release as it has the audience asking questions. The woman sitting there is holding something in her hand which is obviously something to do with the doll. Therefore when I had the idea to do have the man facing the wall it meant that I wanted him to do something with his hands rather than just stand there like the photo. This is when I thought that he could either hold a photo or put one on the wall for his profile of the girl. You can see the improvement with all three and how what he is doing with his hands makes a difference. You can see that with these photos the third one would be the best to use as its more effective than just standing there. 10. STALKER Stalker is a programme which is about people getting stalked. It shows what they do and how they stalk them. There is a criminal team that work with them to try and find their stalker that they want to find. This programme, even though it is not a horror movie poster influenced my poster a lot. As the man in the plot for our trailer is stalking / tormenting the girl I thought it was good tolook in the programme and see what the stalker does as it could give ideas. For further analysis on the photos that influenced me for my poster, the blog links are: http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/blog- post_26.html http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/blog- post_25.html http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/blog- post_24.html You can see that from the image of stalker how he is just standing there, from influence from the conjuring poster however you can see how the photo that I took the man is doing something with his hands. You can see how some of the things are similar as there are distant shots of her and drawings, in my photo there is some distant shots of her walking down the road etc. and then some other photos that look like he has took off her social media sites So it looks like he has not only been stalking her in person but on social sites too. I thought if I did my poster like this it would be very effective as it fits in with the whole plot of the trailer. Also it is very different to my magazine cover as the magazine cover focuses on the girl and a close up on her face and this is completely different. 11. GIFS For my movie trailer I was influenced by some GIFS that I found on the internet. You can see that the left GIF shows someone coming out of the dark unexpectedly, I thought this was effective as it would make the audience frightened as it would be unexpected for them. It clearly shows who the stalker is and the power of him to stop the victim getting away. On the left we tried to film something like the GIF, so when the victim looked up in the mirror the man would be there and when she looked again he wouldnt, showing how shes ill and hes not real. From this we did something like this which is the photo at the top in the middle. The girl is looking in the mirror and then you see the man come behind her and she looks up in shock. We used this quick with a bang sound to make it dramatic. This is a scene that is in many horror films as it is known to build up tension and scare the audience. 12. BBFC RATING The BBFC ratings make sure that the right ages are watching the right films, it protects them. I decided to rate my film at a 15 as I feel like it was the most suitable for my genre of film. As my film genre is Horror / Thriller I thought there would be scenes in the film that would be scary / weird rating it at that age. I tried to show this in the trailer by having jumpy parts, creepy music and dark lighting. Every film trailer that I looked at and wrote about on my blog had the age certificate of 15 also, and as I based my horror around things that I have seen in there and got influenced by them, this shown how I made the right choice of basing it at a 15. On the BBFC website it shows you the content of what is allowed in a 15 movie: -strong violence -frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***'). -portrayals of sexual activity -strong verbal references to sex -sexual nudity -brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence -discriminatory language or behaviour -drug taking Blog Link is http://hanhogan.blogs pot.co.uk/2014/09/res earch-and- planning.html Blog Link is http://hanhogan.blog spot.co.uk/2014/10/b log-post_37.html 13. 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? POSTER MAGAZINE COVER You can see that with my ancillary products they are completely different photos, however explained before that they have to be to fit what the little white lies theme and be professional as most horror magazine and posters are not the same. Annapurna Pictures and Little White Lies magazine are both independent companies that do small films. As I have done them both it connects together making it look realistic and professional. Also Little White Lies magazine has done many covers for Annapurna movies. I have picked out some of the similarities with both ancillary products. You can see that both of the font colours are white, this contrasts together showing a connection, it also does with the photo as there is white on both. You can also see that the tag lines on the poster is the same font on the Little White Lies magazine. It is both simple making the photo more effective. Also in each photo the man is doing something with his hands, in the poster his is sticking photos up of her and the other covering her mouth showing the obsession with her and how he is tormenting her. There is still colour running through both even though they are a dark picture. You can see that there is green and purple with the magazine, showing how it isnt just an effect but could be a drawing also. And with the poster you can see the red bricks behind. The final thing which you can see the same is the darkness of the photo. There is a black background for the photo filling most of it showing how it is a horror genre film. 14. REPRESENTATION S http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/research-into-similar-products_17.html For the male I think I have represented him as the typical threatening type. The way he comes over the girl a lot making her seem small shows how he is intimidating. His tall figure and large boots has the representation of fearful and scary, making the audience feel more sympathy and scared for the girl. The way he appears is always above her and when you see his foot steps going to the bed it makes her seem more vulnerable as she is asleep. A stalker is not someone who is known to be normal therefore I feel that I have represented through mise-en-scene as well due to his clothing, hair and make-up looking quite tired. You can also see how there is really no colour to him and how he is just in black. This makes him seem more fearful. The camera angles for each show how the man is in charge and how the woman is the typical type, not standing up for herself and trying to get away. This was shown through low angle shots and panning. http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/re search-into-similar-products_17.html You can see that the representation of the girl is typical. She is vulnerable and looks like the mans possession the way he always grabs onto her in these three pictures suggesting that she cannot get away. Her face in the photo above looks afraid as like she cant do anything as hes the man and the higher power. The hands over the mouth suggest how shes frightened also. How she can never get away. Her eyes half closed can also tell how shes fed up, too frightened to go to sleep so she hasnt been, this is shown by the half closed eyes and the bags underneath them. This is shown through mise-en-scene as her make up is there to show she is tired and worn out. The way she wears a dressing gown at the start also shows how she is vulnerable. 15. For each of the products that I have done I have felt like I have done something well for each of them; -I think I showed good representations with the man and girl, by having her always below him and him always above putting his hands on her allowing to show that he is in control. With Mise-En-Scene I shown the representations through her in a dressing gown seeming vulnerable and him suiting the typical not normal guy. -I think that with my poster you can tell that it fits with the plot of the story and the trailer. The film title Tormented shows how she is being tormented by someone. You can see he is stalking her and when typically someone stalks another they invade there life etc. and I feel like this is shown in my poster. I think that between the trailer and the poster, you can tell they are the same as many of the tag lines and production block is shown. -I am happy with the magazine cover. I think that it is a very effective cover with the photo as you the drawing effect on it with the colouring is very effective. It brings out the bags in her eyes and the pain on her face. It also contrasts with the poster with the font colouring of both. -Overall I feel like I have done a excellent job with both my ancillary tasks and my main product. I feel like they all link together and even though the poster and magazine cover are not the same you can still see why they are different. Doing all the things I have done such as making the two ancillary products different, creating a real looking production block, using plain fonts for most of my products, making up names of some characters, filming and editing. That all together I think that I have done a good job and each of the products suit the horror genre. TRAILER HOW I FEEL POSTER MAGAZINE COVER OVERALL 16. 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? SURVEY MONKEY Survey Monkey is an online questionnaire which applies to anyone who researches it so anyone could answer it. Its specific and can be applied to your target audience making it better as you know the people that are answering the questions count. The link address for the survey is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HMMQXVQ Responses that where most effective on my trailer were: - I found out that most people are more likely to go to a horror film if it is based on events as it makes the film seem more scary. My response to this was that I looked into films that have been based on true events and the story behind it. The example of this I used was Annabelle. - I also gave the option of what genre of horror interested them the most to go and watch, most people than answered said Psychological. This is probably because they are the most creepy without all the gore and from trailers and past experience of watching them, they are also the ones with the most twists. The response to this was making the genre Psychological and having a twist at the end. -There was a question saying would you rather see a normal trailer or a teaser trailer. There was responses that said teaser trailer. I think this was because there is more mystery as you dont know fully what was happening. Because of this we decided to make a teaser trailer and make sure that it doesnt give too much away. We did this with splitting the scenes with quotes so there wasnt loads of filming. -Where do you think the best setting for a horror trailer is? For this many people answered in a house. This is the most typical and realistic setting. For the Psychological horror this would be the best place as if I was to do a Slasher horror it would be best to do this in a warehouse etc. Therefore we responded to this and filmed our trailer in a big house. -One of the questions was telling the audience the plot and asking their opinion on it and if there is anything they would change. Everyones response was that it was a good plot so therefore we didnt change it. http://hanhogan.blogspot.co. uk/2014/10/research-into- similar-products_17.html Blog link is http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/research-into-similar-products_17.html -I asked on survey monkey what are the scariest parts in the trailer, they said that from watching other trailers they think that the end is always the scariest. And how there is fast pace editing of scary clips. Others said that it is from the music and the build up to things. This is why did scenes including the man appearing 3 times and then at the start the music building up. 17. TRAILER FEEDBACK When I shown the first draft of the trailer to people there was improvements to make which we did in the end. When filming the footsteps under the bed there was an improvement to make them louder, therefore we went on toFreesound and got a sound effect for them making them sound more louder as this would add an effect and make the man be more intimidating. Another thing was that at the end when there is a scream of the girl that was said that it should be taken out as it doesnt really fit with everything, it also is just a bit typical and in a random place. Therefore with this feedback we decided that we was going to take the scream out instead. Therefore on the final version of the trailer there is no scream now. Another thing that we did was improve the lighting on one scene so that you can see Sam more, we did this by also slowing down the frame so that it doesnt go too quickly. Also there was improvements such as a twitter andFacebook link added to it and also a production block. This makes it look more professional and realistic. Blog link for the draft is: http://hanhogan.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/blog-post_28.html#comment-form 18. MAGAZINE FEEDBACK For my magazine cover feedback I posted photos on a social media site, twitter. I asked which photo would be better to use for the Little White Lies magazine as they never just have a normal photo. When going into detail about why it was because of the colours used and that it is not just a dark photo. With the colours it looks like its an actual drawing. Someone replied saying the first one is best so I responded to this feedback and made the first photo be the cover photo. I also asked in class 5 people which would be better for the cover, should it just be Tormented or should it be The Tormented Issue. As people said that looking through some of the recent covers of the Little White Lies magazine that just Tormented would be the best option to use as it is more realistic to use and professional. This is why on my cover it just says Tormented. 19. POSTER FEEDBACK For my poster feedback I posted photos on a social media site, twitter to show which one was better. I also asked 5 people in the class to see which layout was better and where I should place everything as I originally had the Tormented at the bottom of the poster. You can see that with the response I got on twitter I acted upon it and used the third photo as I thought it would be better as you can see a bit of colour in the background. When I asked people in my media class also of what layout should I use they all said the layout that is used and not that the Tormented should be at the bottom or in the middle. Also how the names of the actors in the film should be at the top and not the bottom. They found this out because in most horror posters none of the names are at the bottom. 20. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? BLOGGER For me to keep track of all the research and planning I was doing for my media product, I used blogger. It allowed me to upload pictures of things similar to my product and write my ideas on there. I was able to use things on there also such as YouTube where I could upload the videos and write about them. Each post you do is in date order so it shows my progress throughout the year, it shows that I have good time keep and I keep track of what I've done. Keeping it on blogger and not on paper allows no work to get lost or damaged. It also allows me to save it as a draft and then go back and finish it properly at a later date. I like how you can access the internet for different sites on blogger. The main ones that I used were Youtube, Freesound and BeFunky. These all allowed me to do different things that would help me with my final product. These sites allowed me to research into similar products and get ideas from them. BeFunky allowed me to make different effects on the photos. And free sound allowed me to edit in sounds on my trailer. You can see that I can post the photos of the left, you can post the pictures of the setting to show organisation. Show pictures of the draft photos and how they improve, and show you got there with the organisation again. You can also show the characters and the make up etc. Why you did it and how. For each blog I have commented on every post. I used Youtube to research horror trailers and also make up tutorials. This showed me what to expect in a horror teaser trailer, some of the ideas which I could do similar and inspiration for a story line for my trailer. This helped me a lot as I could see the different camera angles, conventions of a trailer to know what is best to include in mine and why I should do it. How it would make the audience feel. 21. For my fonts I used Dafont. This was effective for me as I got to use some different fonts which would suit the horror genre. I also got to use some of the typical fonts that you would see. This helped my poster and magazine cover look real and professional. For this all you had to do was download the font to the computer making it easy to use also. PHOTO EDITORS For my magazine, I had to find new ways to edit my photos as to fit the Little White Lies magazine my image would have to look like a drawing / painting. You can see that websites like BeFunky and Fotor allowed me to do things like this and to get the effect that I was looking for with there several options of effects. On these websites there were also different tools include brightness, shading etc. I experimented with these and on the photo you can see I used it under her eyes to show how bad the bags are. Before finding these I also did simple editing, this was on PagePlus and there Photo Lab option allowing different effects on there. You can see how with the top image how the brightness is turned down to make sure that it is more scary and more effective suiting the genre of the film making sure that each ancillary product fits with the trailer. SOUNDS With the trailer sounds were added in for more effect, this was because there was a sound going all throughout and we wanted to make the sound more visible for the audience. This shows the skill of using movie plus and how we can get the correct sound with the correct scene with the correct timing. FONTS 22. TRAILER During the filming of the trailer I used the Fujifilm FinePix camera. I used this so that none of the shots were blurry and that they looked like a good quality shot. It was also easy to use and if a shot or scene didnt go to plan it was easy to retake it over and over again until it was perfect. After filming all things I then used MoviePlus to actually make the trailer. This allowed me to edit, cut, change, add sounds and lighting. This helped me if my filming was bright or too long. As the scenes were different as I had to film at different times and put them together I had to use tools and effects such as multi-trim and fade in and fade out to make sure that it didnt look unprofessional and all the shots joined together looked effective. MAGAZINE AND POSTER When I was creating my ancillary products I used the same camera I used to film with to take my photos with. I thought that this would be better than using a phone camera as it is a really good camera so therefore I would have better and high quality photos. Then after taking the photos that are needed I used PagePlus which let me use different tools such as Cut Studio and Photo Lab to adjust anything on the photos and add effects. It meant that I could get various different fonts which I felt best. 23. TWITTER When I had a decision to do things such as; the film name, the best photo, the best effect or the best layout I would use twitter to get feedback of which one is better and which one would suit my target audience more. This helped me as it shown what would be best for me to use for my target audience and not just think about my own opinion but others also. For every feedback I would respond to it and then make a decision including theres. Looking back at all the feedback that I did get from twitter I can see that I have decided to do what they say on really every single one. With the effects I picked the one that they thought best, also when the audience said for me to call it Tormented. I did this for every decision that I thought was needed to be made as it would make my product more better and appeal to my audience more. 24. EVALUATION For my evaluation I used PowerPoint, I used PowerPoint as it is a reliable source and will keep all my work safe. I am able to use moving images, sound effects, GIFS, pictures and links to my blog where I have done further analysis of the images. This allowed me to include things that I have researched and that influenced me on my trailer, magazine and poster choice. Its easy to use and you can see clearly what order to go in with the slides. I have used PowerPoint before I am able to use it well and insert the right things. 25. IMPROVEMENT FROM AS TO A2 The My main product at AS is completely different to my main product in A2 as it is a moving image. You can see that my photography has improved as I used a phone to take my photos for AS and for A2 I used a proper camera. You can see that I followed all the conventions on both however with my research for AS being magazines such as Billboard, it doesnt really match my magazine. However when researching my magazine cover for this year I did use Little White Lies and stuck to the conventions. For my poster I had never did one so I therefore had to look at more stuff. I had to research more stuff because of the three different products as in A2 I only had to do a magazine and a double page spread cover, so doing a trailer and a poster I had to learn all of the new convention. I feel like my work this year is much better than my work last year as I feel like everything goes together and look professional.