Final Film Trailer

Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question One: Film Magazine

In what ways does your media product use, 

develop or challenge forms and conventions 

of real media products?

Evaluation Question One: Film Poster

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

Evaluation Question One Part Two: Film Poster

Above is a general textual analysis of my film poster, that offers some rationale for my creative decisions when producing this product.

Evaluation Question One Part One

Focus Group Video

Above is the film footage of the focus group we conducted with members of our target audience today. By doing this we gathered verbal and written responses (questionnaire results to follow) as well as having video evidence of the physical effects our trailer has on an audience. As a group, we arensatisfied at the outcome and conclusions we gained from conducting this focus group today.

Film Poster final edition

Here is the final edition of my film poster. After previewing my previous draft to memebers of my target audience, I have made the title and symbol smaller on the main image to it does not obscure the hand as much, however I feel this does not damage the overall effect of the title as it is still as memorable because of the graphic nature of the image behind. I have also now added the social media logos at the bottom of the film poster beneath the billing block, as I initially planned, to add an element of interactivity to the poster, which is now common practice in the media industry.

Above is the feedback my group and myself obtained from our focus group yesterday. I shall now use this to assess the success of my trailer as a promotional product. Overall, I'm pleased with the responses we've gained, as I believe it proves how successful we were at achieving the targets we set ourselves in terms of our target audience and genre representation before we began production.

Billing Block Final Copy

Here is the the final edition of my film magazine "Billing Block". I have made the sell lines smaller so they are less intrusive on the main image and have also added an extra colour to make them more vibrant and stand out on the page. This is as a result of the feedback I gathered after showing my previous draft to members of my target audience. I have now added social media addresses, which when combined with the magazine website beneath the masthead, make my magazine interactive, which therefore means it would be competitive with our major leading titles on the market that have also used this device to provide yet more content for their readers. Overall I personally are very happy with the final product as I believe it covers a range of film genres and a variety of features, as well as providing ample analysis of the new releases whilst also championing older classics. I believe it also effectively combines codes and conventions of the magazine industry with my own creativity to ultimately make it a professional, well rounded product.

Here is my film poster as it stands. I have made the billing block myself as the image of the one used on our film trailer was too faint against the background of the main image. I've kept the same details we agreed as a group as we felt the original billing block used the codes and conventions found within the film industry. I have also added the tag line "Demons Never Die" in a font seemingly painted on with blood. I found this on a free website and used it as I felt it was more professional looking than the fonts available on the Adobe products as well it also symbolising the gruseome nature of the film plot. The USP was also used on top of the page as I felt potential audience members would immediately engage with the poster even more because of the success of the film mentioned.

Today I took the main image for my film poster, and began editing it. As previously mentioned, I was inspired by the poster for the "Blair Witch Project", as I liked how the main symbol from the film took centre stage, and was the only major feature on the poster, meaning the final product was simple, yet emphasised the importance of the symbol in the film. I intend to place the symbol from our film on top of the hand, as I believe the severed hand main image is more eye catching than a plain background. The blood and mood on the hand symbolise the gruesome events of the film, and hopefully foreshadow the bleak conclusion to the film. I chose to have a severed hand feature on my film poster, rather than have it attached to the body, as I wanted to symbolise how the characters in the film are "cut off" from civilisation, and ultimately show the effects isolation have on the film.

Above is a Prezi I have found found on Barthes' theory of narrative and the code of enigma. I have found it particularly useful when conducting my background reading into the theories we have began to use in our own film promotional package, and whilst not all of it relative to our production, it has still been interesting to increase my knowledge on this.

I have been researching ideas for my film poster, and have been inspire by this poster for the 2015 film "The Babadook", as I like how the main image is very simple, yet highly effective. The black shape is ambiguous, but implies the code of enigma used in films to leave an audience in suspense. In this context, the main image allows the audience to ask questions about the origin of this symbol, and what its meaning actually is. The long talons at the bottom of the main image, are sinister, and are reminiscent of Freddy Kruger, and so are threatening because of the negative image clusters associated.

Approaches to Analysing Films Continued

Feminism

In considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to the "male gaze" that predominates in classical Hollywood filmmaking. Budd Boetticher summarises the view thus: "What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance." Laura Mulvey's influential essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (written in 1973 and published in 1975) expands on this conception of the passive role of women in cinema to argue that film provides visual pleasure through scopophilia, and identification with the on-screen male actor. She asserts: "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness," and as a result contends that in film a woman is the "bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning." Mulvey argues that Lacan's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society, and 'looking' in itself as a pleasurable act of voyeurism, as "the cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking.". Films depicted from the feminist viewpoint often readdress the distribution of power and wealth in this patriarchal society by placing the female character in the position of authority.

Approaches To Analysing Films

Structuralism

Structuralist film theory is a branch of film theory that is rooted in Structuralism, itself based on structural linguistics. Structuralist film theory emphasises how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication. The work of Vladamir Propp (characters) and Tzvetan Todorov (narrative) is most often used when disucssing structuralism. 

 

Pictured above is one of the main props that our group will use in our film trailer; the demonic book that helps to release the evil entity in the film, at the point where the state of equilibrium breaks. The film's main tag line "Demons Never Die" can be seen scrawled across the left had page above. The words appear to be written in blood, which immediately suggests the sinister nature of this book. The demonic symbol that also plays a key role in the film can be seen seemingly hand written twice on the page. The repetition of the symbol symbolises the importance it has in the film. The fact that is hand written shows it was possibly written in after the book was made, possibly in a state of demonic possession, showing the effects on the mind and well being the book has on anybody it comes into contact with.

On the next pages a small section gives the background to the Cornovii, the tribe behind the demonic possession in the film. The depth the book goes into suggests that the tribe were big and powerful, and had a big influence on the time they lived in. The mysterious symbol can be seen once again which heightens the influence it has in the film whilst also creating a sense of mystery surrounding its origin. The devil can be seen accompanying the symbol and the text which allows the audience to make links between the tribe, and the devil, and the negative image clusters (fire, hell etc) and connotations that surround him

 

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organisation, founded by the film industry in 1912 and is responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom. The BBFC highlights two main goals for their work: to protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful content and to allow parents to make "Informed viewing decisions" (source: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines).

 

The BBFC update their guidelines roughly every four or five years. The most updated version of these guidelines provide these age ratings that the BBFC classify every film with before its release, with the following break down of each rating:

 

 

• U - Universal, suitable for all audiences 
• PG - Parental Guidance, generally suitable for viewing but some scenes maybe unsuitable for smaller children
• 12 - Suitable for children ages 12 and over (Home)
• 12 A - Suitable for children ages 12 and over with an accompanying adult (Cinema)

(12A is normally reserved as a guideline for cinemas and retailers for children to be accompanied by an adult when purchasing or viewing a film with this rating. 12 is normally left on the box of the DVD/Blu-ray release as home supervision cannot be monitored)

 

• 15 - Suitable for children over the ages of 15
• 18 - Suitable for adults only
• R18 - Suitable only for viewing by adults on licensed premises