evaluation 4

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

To create my promotional material for my film i used a range of different media to achieve this. Some of the technology i was familular with but with otheres i have to learn completely from scratch.

Photoshop- I have used photoshop a lot as i do graphic design so i am very familiar with it. I had difficultys it actually making a zombie face. So i found an image of some skin that looked horrible then used a technique called a layer mask, with the layer mask it shows through selected areas of the layer underneath to create what we see as the zombies face. As for my magazine i used the same technique for the splattered font and the text behind it. I also downloaded several brushes which gave the effect of splattered blood on the zombies face and on the tombstone. I also used photoshop in my trailer for my titles in my film, i did this by having a black background and using font that was relivant over the top.

Premier- I had used adobe premier to edit my trailer, i didnt know how to use the software but by experimenting with this i soon realised how to use it. I had some difficultys with premier regarding footage that wouldnt upload as it didnt recognise the footage of the camera but i managed to come over this.

Music- For my music my dad's friend who is film maker had made me a cd with lots of sound effects that he had made. He had made these in a studio by using lots of different effects and making sounds to be used in a horror film. I had to literally tell him what i wanted and he made them for me to use.

Format factory - With the problems that i had encountered with the footage uploading i was advised to use format factory. This was a new thing that i had learnt to use, you put in the file that you want to covert and you can change it to whatever file suits your need. This helped me solve my footage problem.

Youtube - I had used Youtube to search for different trailers that i wanted to put on my blog then used a code that you pasted onto blogger to put it onto my blogger account. This way was a quick and easy way to share the trailers that i wanted to compare my trailer to. Also I had never had a Youtube account before so i had made one so i could upload my trailer quickly and efficiantly.

Search engine- The search engine that i used mostly was google. I used it to search films that were similar to my film , images, and film posters. I think that google helped me a lot to find exactly what i wanted to use.

Blogger- I had used blogger previously in my As coursework and i found putting my coursework on a blog very useful. I found that it was very easy to use and upload things onto also i liked that we used this so we didnt lose any of our course work and had it there to fall back on.

evaluation 3

'What have you learned from your audience feedback?'





From my audience feedback i have learnt a number of things about what people think about my trailer, film poster and magazine. I decided to interview two 18 year olds one male and one female then i decided to interview a nine year old male. Even though the nine year old isnt my target audience i decided to interview him as he has an interest in zombie games and i thought it would be interesting to see his view on it.



Trailer-I learnt from my feedback that all the people that i intervieed really liked my trailer, they liked the overall theme of it. I realised from my feedback even though there is a younger audience out there for zombie influenced things such as games, the younger audience doesnt necissairly want to see the film. The older audience liked the camera shots and use of angles and thought that it could actually be a horror film. I have also learnt from my feedback that i have succsessfully made a trailer that follows the convetions of the horror genre, and my audience noticed this and wanted to see the film.



Poster- I had positive feedback from all of my audience they liked how the make up had shown how i wanted to do the make up for the film. I have learnt that i have gave across the message that i wanted to use, that i didnt want to give too much away and sort of let the audience make up there own mind to what they think the film is about. I feel that my audience have told me that the think my poster is conventional of the horror genre, and from the poster they would like to see my film.



Magazine- My audience had took notice of the fact that ym magazine looks simular to something that sight and sound would have on there front cover. I have learnt from my audeince feed back that people like the magazines to be traditional so that they can relate to the theme to see what the film is about.







Overall i think i have succsefully created a magazine, poster and trailer that my traget audience would like. From my feedback you can tell in each part of it that my audience really like the pieces and think it would be a film that they would want to see. I think by looking at a younger audience also shows that my film is definatly for an older audience and not to move the age rating of it down. I think my audience would see my film also as it doesnt look like a covnvetional zombie horror in the sense of the budget. Most zombie horrors have a big budget on make up, locations and costumes, where i have learnt from my feedback people would like to see it as it's low budget and gritty and realistic.

evaluation 2

'How effective is the combonation of your main product (trailer) and ancillary texts (poster and magazine)?'

I think that the combonation of my three products are effective together as they all have a simular house style, use of the same actor and typograpy. By using this within my work you can automatically tell that they are a promotional series and that they are suppose to work together to attract the audiences attention.

My trailer is effective as it follows all of the conventions of a horror film by setting the locations in eery places such as a grave yard, and by having a lot of scenes filmed at night when you cant see as much so this disturbs the audience. The effect of having no music and having the heart beats and static continuously playing creates a lot of tension and makes you feel uncomfertable. The filiming techniques also such as the quick jump cuts and filming through things create illusions, with the use of make up also i have actually created the monster.

This is continued through to my magazine i decided to use sight and sound as it was the sort of magazine that would feature my film seeing as it is low budget. I researched sight and sound to follow their conventions and house style, this gave me a chance to design a qwirky horror themed cover in the sight and sound style. I used the zombie which features throughout my 3 products on the front cover but put him to the side so i could fill the rest of the cover up with elaborate text as they do in sight and sound. Using this zombie and the bloody background also shows that this is a part of my 3 products , also by using traditional horror movie fonts show a link to what horror has been like in previous years.

With my poster it brings my film to life, showing the zombie with full make up that has been edited to what i would liked to have achived if i had the time and the money to do so. The poster works well with the other pieces as it is using the house style that i have achieved throughout the series, with the scratched fonts ,darkness, grave yard location and the picture of the zombie. There is an un- conventional part to my poster though, the placement of the title 'flesh'. I decided to put it on the grave stone to obviously make it look like the name on some ones grave stone, also i thought it looked un expected as you dont normally put a title in places like that. The poster also is only a teaser poster so it doesnt give much away, but with the main image i wanted it to look groeusome as i wanted to make people decide what was going to happen in the film for themselves.

Overall i think that my 3 pieces work well together as a promotional campaign as they have a simular house style that i have kept throughout them. With the use of simular fonts, colors , images and text you can see how they relate together and are part of the same series.

evaluation 1

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

I decided early on that I wanted my product to go along with the conventions of the horror genre. I decided to use horror, as it is a genre that i am very familiar with and i thought it would be an interesting subject to explore. To start with i wanted my media products to challenge the media forms by using different, and little explored, camera techniques such as hand camera. However I soon realised though that it was easier said than done, when this technique is used in high budget films they use the highest quality cameras so that you can get a completely clear image yet its still shaky, when i did this though the image on my camera the footage looked all over the place and you couldnt make out what was going on. So I therefore decided to follow the typical horror genre, by using basic shots and relying on my actors, make up, and special effects shots . With my trailer i showed this by using lots of jump cut shots which gave the illusion in some parts of a hand camera style, in particular the scene where the girl is running i had the camera face at my level and literally just ran and acted with it. I decided to not have music in my trailer as i thought that having music would take away the scare factor from my trailer , so i used repeatitive heart beats throughout that built tension then inbetween them i had recorded static to show the effect that it was a recorded video that had been cut off in places. Similar to the sterotypical horror films, i had scenes of people running away from the 'creature', but as the audience we did not see who or what was after them. I showed this by just mainly focusing on the protagonist of the scene. The titles also that i have used are a sterotypical horror font which has been used for many horror styled advertisements, this is why i decided to use this font and to color it red to symbolise this.

This theme follows through to my magazine i decided to use a film magazine that already existed, i decided to use sight and sound magazine as it is the sort of magazine that would feature my magazine in it as it features well known films as well as low budget films. I decided to research a film festival that my film would show at and seeing as it is a low budget film it would most likely take the arthouse route after. The image that i have used shows the zombie from my film i decided to have the actor with make up on, but the amount so that you can recognise him as an actor also. The placement of the image i decided to put to the side and when i researched sight and sound they tend to have images put in strange ways to fit in elaborate typography. With the typography i wanted to stay true to the horror genre, with the 'flesh' title i chose to have the scratched font as it makes the magazine look scary. The rest of the typography even though its all different it links with eachother for instance the 'horror revival' text, the font that i have used is what is used for old fashioned horror posters and i thought that using this font would have a good link with that. As for the smaller font i thought the type writer style could symbolise a horror film such as the shinning where a type writer is used for one of the most iconic parts of the film. I used the blood splattered background as i thought that it brought the image together as a whole and it really shows off the horror connections that this issue of sight and sound would have.

My film poster also works well alongside my trailer and magazine, as it uses the same conventions as the other two. The image that i decided to use set an eery mode as the character is peering over his shoulder and is looking at the audience. With the characters face i photoshopped it exactly how if i had the money for the special effects and make up for what i want it to look like. I decided for it to look grouesome as it would look disturbing and make the audience feel uncomfertable when looking at it. The image also relates to my tagline ' better watch your back' as he is doing the action and audiences would automatically look behind thier backs when reading the poster becuase of its disturbing nature. As my poster is only a teaser also i decided not to have credits along the bottom and just 'coming soon' in a font under the image, i did this as i think the image gives you a taste of what the film is about, also the name of the film is blended in as it is written on the tomb.

Overall i think as a series i think my magazine, poster and trailer work well together and follow the typical conventions of a horror film. In each of them you can see an obvious link , with the same characters mood and style. I think that if i were to make the film and to distribute it this series that i have made would do my film justice as i have felt that i have followed the horror conventions and codes and have made a sucsessful series.

Final trailer

Overall i think that my trailer turned out the way that i wanted it to, the things that i wasnt happy about were some of the voice overs as they sounded a bit crackly and louder than what i wanted them to sound like. I was happy with all of the camera shots and effects and i have acheived what i set out to make. I think that my filming went well for my trailer but the only trouble i had were camera problems which i overcame.

Final film poster and magazine

Here is my final film poster i decided to have the location in the grave yard as i thought that it would be creepy and a sterotypical place to have a horror film. The pose of the character i decided to have him looking over his shoulder as it looks like he is staring right at the audience, also when he is in this pose it gives the illusion that he is crouched over some one attacking them. With the editing on his face i wanted it to look as grouesome as possible, i did this and i think the effect of this would scare the audience and also make them wonder what the film is about. I decided on the scratched typogaphy as it is a conventional style of font for the horror genre, i decided on coming soon as i wanted it to be a teaser trailer and wanted to not give a lot of the film away. I put the title flesh on the grave stone as i thought it would be a more interesting placement of the title rather than having it put in a conventional place.

I had the picture of my character to the side as when i researched sight and sound they tended to move the image to fill the cover with either text or have a huge background image. The backgroung image that i decided to use kept to the style of the horror genre and this is echoed through the blood on the character's face. I have used the scratched font for 'flesh' as this is continued throughout my promotional series. The horror revival font is what i researched and had been used for old horror film promotions and i thought that this would had been something sight and sound would of used. The smaller font I had a link to the classic horror film 'The shinning' where Jack Nicholson uses a type writer to write possesed notes, i thought that audiences would notice this if they were die hard horror fans.

Posters

I was searching horror film posters of 2011 and i came across Red riding hood and it has simular conventions that i would like to use in my poster. It uses a very dark image that i would like to use yet you can see see everything it has complimenting colors witht the red which stands out from the poster and also it echoed throughout the poster, also where this is a teaser trailer it doesnt have and bottom credits it jsut says comming soon which i would liketo use for my poster as i think i might make it a teaser trailer.

Deciding what to feature in my magazine

For my version of sight and sound i knew i wanted to look

at a film festival that my film could feature in as my film is

low budget and not a lot of people would see it at first i wanted

to enter it in a film festival that isn't very mainstream. So

i looked on google for independant film festivals in England

and i came accross the London Independant film festival and

below you can see it has films from all over the country wich are a bit unusual and quite arty, so i knew that it was the one i wanted to feature and they have a programme that i have looked at and i have used the names of the filmsi liked on my magazine front cover.

Plot for film

As before i didnt have a complete story line for my film i have come up with a basic plot that i can use, we know that in my story a virus has broken out we may not nesissairly see this happening but it could be shown through different news reports and voice overs that i could use in my trailer and there are possibly 3 main character that you will see a lot throughout the trailer there will be a main boy, girl and zombie but you with see additional cast throughout. As for settings it will be based in a town that has been taken ove yet it is very secluded so you will see minimal characters and things like cars but its set where the goverment have completely given up so people have to reply on themselves to survive, so there will be quite a lot of shots used to show this.

Photos and locations for my film poster

Here is a second location that i have used in my film it is an old cemetery just up the road from my house i decided to use this location as it looked very eery and it had old grave stones that i could use in my film. Below you can see photos that i took of my brother the ones in his pajamas are the test shots that i did to decide on the poses that i wanted him to do and the other images in the grave yard are the actual photos that i am going to use for my poster.

Audience feedback

Here i have explained the concept of my film to two of my friends and i have asked thier opinion on my film, i have also asked others but i did not get a chance to film them. I asked people who were my target audience which was late teenagers early twenties so about 15-20 and all of them liked my concept and thought that it was a film that they would be interested in seeing.

Filming update

With my filming i have various parts of scenes that i have already filmed but i need to tie up the loose ends an i have had an idea i have thought about my original idea of using the hand camera technique within my film and i am going to use that in my film revolving around my main character like he is making diary entries about his survival. I took inspiration for this idea from Danny Boyle's 127 hours where the main character's arm is stuck between a boulder for a number of days and he uses the camera to leave messages to his loved ones. I think using this in my film would make the audience empathise with the character more also we could show his emotions throughout the trailer in this way.

So i will continue to film these scenes and interaction with the other characters in the next week then hopefully at the end of this week i will be ready to edit my film.

Sight and sound

For my magazine cover i have decided to use sight and sound, i have chosen to use this magazine as they look at all different genres and languages of films and dont have a specialized type that they focus on.

Here we have the cover that they had for 'Inglorious Bastards' where they have Quentin Tarantino in an unusual pose pointing at the camera, this pose shows that he is trying to connect with the audience and that this could be seen as people want to buy it asd they are being approached in this way. the color scheme that is used is ver dark with reds and blacks that refelect that its about a dark film also it reflects that its a film about war. This darkness contrasts to the 'sight and sound' banner even though its the magazines house style it contrasts nicely with the layout. The rest of the layout is very spaced out with different typeography that looks as if some one has written it then there is a quirky way of adding some text too with the gun shot i thought that this was a different idea that worked really well.

In comparison to this cover which is a completely different take on the magazine its very bland with just a plan blue background the house style with the titles is used again and contrasts nicely the typography that is used s very sketchy and looks as if it has been written, this works becuase it says on the cover than he is talking about roald dahl's book fantastic Mr. fox and the interview is about the film so i suppose its in Dahl's style.

With sight and sound they tend to have a bland background with an image then they use typography that refelects to the theme i think i will use this in my magazine as it will reflect well with the horror genre and i could play around with different layouts that they use.

First try at filming

Last thursday i had my first go at filming i just filmed different scenes that had came to my head that i could use in a zombie apocolypse. I had one of my zombies biting into a person, some one getting pulled away from a zombie and various zombies up against windows. Most of the shots turned out good first time as the time of day was early evening so that it gave the dark effect yet you could still see everything. For these scenes i have used my house and outside it and i have used myself my brother and my dad in the scenes. I will continue to use shots like this also i have some sound effects like ones from horror films etc. that i have been given which i will play over the top of some of the scenes. I dont have an overall filming plan for my film as its pretty much when i have a free moment setting it up and doing it. The scenes that i need to do now are just various different running scenes and scenes with special effects such as the use of blood packs and stuff like that and bits just to fill in the trailer itself.

Storyline

I have decided on a vague storyline for my trailer i want it to start with a couple announcing there engagement and you hear in the background like a family cheereing and congratulating them then i want it to jump to lots of different shots of the couple running for thier lives and trying to survive this zombie apocolypse.

make up test

As i wasnt able to get hold of the camera for the holidays i decided to do the test make up here i have used my brother and have only used basic face paints to create this effect. I like this make up as it is very easy to do not time consuming and looks very effective.