Ancillary texts

Final Product

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

I think that my ancillary tasks compliment our trailer coherently and generally as a promotional package. In ways I have tried to follow the conventions of horror, as well as trying not to conform.

I tried to keep the movie title similar in each project, and applied a scratchy bold font to the trailer and the poster, however for the magazine cover I kept to the theme. For the poster I placed it over the highly contrasted black and which background of the trees, which I think adds to the atmosphere of it, I chose to keep it white because it fits better in the colour theme, whereas in the trailer it looks better in a bold, bloody red colour with a white overlay of the release date. I did find it rather hard to pick appropriate font for my poster, the title almost blends in with the background, it was difficult to get it to stand out more, but I really liked my overall picture for my poster so tried to work with it.

I couldn't find a more appropriate image for my magazine article so used this one (middle image), although I do like it, and think it works, it does look a bit like it has been stretched a pixalated. Instead of having our antagonist as a hidden enigma, we decided to have her appearence quite vivid for the audience. Sticking with the conventions of horror, we followed the biniary opposition rule, whereby we've taken what appears to be a young girl dressed in white, which connotes purity and innocence and made her almost demonic with the eyes and blood running down her white dress. Consistently, I have made it so that she is the main focus of the film, being on the poster repetedly in a ghostly way to reinforce the audience she is there, as well as being blown up on the front of the magazine cover. We have some good close ups of her face in the trailer as well.

for the line of the poster to try and get the audience to be interested in viewing the movie i kept the same inter title as that of the trailer so it is a statement which they'll then associate with the film.

I decided to include a special about having the film being available in 3D in selected cinemas to promote and encourage people to see it in cinemas, I found that when 'Final Destination 3' came out in cinemas in 3D it was.

As part of promoting the film with the trailer and poster, on the magazine I've blown up an image of the main character. Making it the main topic in the article of 'Total Film' would show that it has the potential to be a cinema hit, the 'behind the scenes special' sticker  it has started a whole theme revolving round horror. The only thing I didn't really like about the sticker was the writing which looked a bit squashed up.

How did you use new media technologies in the contruction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

techs
Originally uploaded by daynaroberts

If you click on the photo collage it will link you to my flickr account. To see the notes I have made hover mouse over each image to show the imformation about each one.

I found that using a blog was alot better then using more traditional forms to record my work. I never had to worry about losing my research or work because it was all stored online and I was able to access it at home as well as at college and not have to carry it around with the risk of losing everything. It is easier and clearly to display everything and its sections and I can show my research and own work together with the written work, which helps when comparing and studying.
I was pleased with how final cut pro allowed us to effectivly edit our work to look more like a professional trailer. The different techniques and ways to edit our clips enabled us to change colour, tones and lighting to be more like a conventional horror trailer. We used garage band to edit our sound clips because it was more detailed in what we could do to change and enhance them, we then transferred them onto Final Cut Pro which put them on the time line and let us put them wherever we wanted, this applied to text as well which we included.

What have you learnt about your audience feedback?

Overall I am generally quite pleased with the outcome of our horror trailer. When it was shown to a group of peers, who would be our target audience anyway, we got some really good, constructive feedback. Our test audience generally thought that the audio worked well, the music in the beginning was loud and sudden which grabbed their attention. With the visuals, the dreamy, surreal beat worked in time and created a warped atmosphere, however, there is no build up in speed and tempo of the music which doesn't give any sense of immediate urgency or danger.

The general response to the mise-en-scene is positive, the use of low lighting is consistant and really sets the mood, the red filter which was used in several shots, was particularly effective in the high angled point of view shot, looking down at the monster, connoting that the character is trapped, there is danger and blood. Another successful shot is of the extrem close up of the monster's eye at the end of the trailer, there were mixed reactions to the shot drifting from the close up of one eye to the other, that it would have been better to cut the shot after only a close up of one eye. There was also a split reaction to the tinted red shot of the hand and head drag, I agree with that they don't quite fit into the theme of the forest environment, however, they are good examples of conventional horror shots, where there are extream close ups being dragged into the darkness, this includes the shot of the hand appearing from the black and pulling the characters head into the dark. The point of view shot where the character is running reflects that of The Blair Witch Project, It was effective and appropriate, it put the audience in the characters position. The trailers inter titles weren't clear for the audience to read, the font was too bold and squashed together, they also didn't supply enough information and there was no unique selling point or even enough of a narrative structure to make viewers want to go see it at the cinemas. I didn't like the structure of the titles either, they didn't seem to really fit with the overall theme of the trailer, it seemed a bit random.

We didn't realise this till we got our feedback, our initial trailer which we put together was more structured like a story in the beginning, we saw the characters going to the woods and got a vague idea of why they were there, but we cut this because we thought it was too much and a bit monotimous, the shots of Ben were a bit much as well, it didn't seem right when he looked both ways then suddenly ran. The trailer overall didn't fit the conventional horror theme, it didn't follow the starting with normality leading to some bloody or scary shots then ending with either a shocking final scene or final title which makes the viewer want to see it, and I think that it works both ways for our trailer. Although it isn't a typical, gorey trailer which tempo picks up for the horror shots, it is very mysterious and I think quite orginal.

In what ways does your media text product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?

Here are nine screen shots from horror trailers which I have looked at,which have had some kind of influence on our groups trailer, and  there are nine screen shots from our group's horror trailers. Click on the image to take you to Flickr and over the mouse over each image to enable you to read my annotations.

I think in our teaser trailer it is quite clear who the antagonist is. We do see the character on some occasions clearly, however, like alot of conventional horror teaser trailers, they are quick and we don't always see the character in full. Alot of the shots are done conventionally as well. High angled shots show fear, and that possibly it is something daunting or intimidating. Typically, red is used alot as well because it connotes blood, death and danger. Shots are also quite dark, using both natural and un natural low lighting to create an dark and mysterious atmosphere. Extream close ups don't allow the audience to see what is fully happening which is something that is used to keep the audience scared, the unknown keeps them watching.

Teaser Trailer Storyboard

I have scanned and uploaded our groups stroyboard for our initial ideas for our trailer, click on the image to see it closer up.