My Whole Film Package

'CONTAGION'- Teaser Trailer



'EMPIRE' - Magazine Front Cover

'CONTAGION' - Film Poster

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

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Tutorial from 'DivShare'

Evaluation Question Three - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question Two - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

In order to entice and inform the target market and reach out to various audiences who may actually be interested in my film, even though they are not usually fans of horror films, I need to stretch out to the largest audience possible, therefore all demographics and their advised methods of promotion should be considered. This means any chance possible to produce forms of promotional packages should be taken in to consideration. This results in the larger audiences reached and engaged in the production, the more increasing chances of a larger sum in revenue.

The two ancillary tasks I have chosen to produce are:

A promotional film magazine 

A promotional film poster

To ensure that these products are as authentic and professional as possible, I researched a variety of real media texts to look at conventions they follow. For example, placing the masthead at the top of the page, and having the main image filling the majority of the page. I then decided to use ‘Empire’ magazine to base my ideas on as I believe the layout and the audience targeted are suitable for my film production. I tried to make my poster and magazine look similar so that they would be recognizable to the audience and would therefore be encouraged to see the film. Another option for and ancillary task was to produce a webpage. Now after having completed this project, I think a webpage is also a great idea from a promotional aspect, as millions of people globally access the internet nowadays, so would therefore be more easily consumed by a much broader audience. However, I am happy with my film poster as they would be seen outside cinemas so passing trade or people who go to the cinema often would be interested and also placed in bus stations and London underground for example would be viewed by millions of people. I am also happy to have my film published in ‘Empire’ magazine as this is a very respected and popular magazine, and by having ‘ATTENTION’ on the my front cover immediately grabs audiences eyes to read the magazine.

Magazine front cover

For the graphics on my magazine front cover I used the three young ghost girls as I thought these would be most recognizable for my audience. I did this because I found that Empire often have their main star personas in costume relating to their character. Some examples are shown below featuring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Heath Ledger as the joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ and finally Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’

Just like the above ‘EMPIRE’ magazine front covers I have included conventional elements in my own production. For example, I have included the bold, recognisable, red masthead. Sell lines such as ‘Free twilight posters inside,’ ‘PLUS Win tickets to Black Swan premier’ and ‘The world’s best movie magazine to encourage my audience to purchase my magazine. Even though my main graphic has a direct mode of address, I have slightly gone against the convention of the low angle shot. We usually see the star personas straight on. However, I believe this image makes the girls look superior to us and makes us feel slightly intimidated which is very effective.

I chose Empire as I think it is an acknowledged and well acclaimed magazine company, who reaches out to a niche ‘film-fanatic’ audience. I also believe that Empire is one of the most recognisable film magazines which stands out from its familiar bold, red masthead. So even for the people who do not read these magazines are fully aware that it is Empire, even the people who see it on the shelves are attracted by the front cover. This increases audience’s existence of the film. I also found from my market research that 'Empire' was the most well known film magazine for my target market which also helped me decide to publish in Empire magazine.

Poster

For my film poster I decided not to have any of the characters included as I thought it would interest the audience but keep them asking questions. I kept my audience intrigued by a burning a tissue. I chose this as it relates to the ‘Ring O Ring of Roses’ nursery rhyme I have in my teaser trailer. I  have a tissue on fire to reference to the meaning behind the rhyme. The nursery rhyme is about the plague and that people died from the spreading of a contagious infection. Hence the reason to why I named my film ‘Contagion.’

I have also included ‘COMING SOON’ on my poster as it is a teaser poster and just projects the films existence. In this poster I have also included a website address for where the audience can gather more information. A webpage is a very good promotional package as Empire magazine is only available throughout Britain, Australia, Turkey and Russia, so having a web page would really take full advantage of the ‘global village’, a term used by Marshall Luhan (a Canadian educator who focused on media theory.) Although, to reach the broadest audience possible, I think the best way to promote is to use all of these promotional packages to make audiences aware of the productions existence to eventually make a revenue.

Overall, I believe the combination of my main products are very effective as you can easily identify that they are all promoting the same film as I have used similar backgrounds, such as the forest location in my trailer as featured in my film poster and magazine front cover. The audience can also easily recognise the female actresses used both in my trailer and on my front cover. I have also focused on using conventions in my own work form real media texts to engage my target market to purchase my products. A final selling point for my magazine is that my star personas are in costume so they get a taster of an element of the film and that I have included conventional sell lines such as 'Free Twilight Posters Inside' and 'Win tickets to Black Swan premier' which makes the audience think they are getting things for free.

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

Evaluation Question one(To view the music files on this power point simply click on jade freeman, download the powerpoint and double click to listen to the mp3 files)

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Ancillary Task Two - Film Poster Production

Ancillary Task Two - Film Poster

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Ancillary Task One - Magazine Front Cover

Ancillary Task One - Empire Magazine

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http://alevelteasertrailer.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-whole-film-package.html

Adding a Filter on top of my Teaser Trailer

When showing my teaser trailer to another group of 20 people they suggested I added a filter on top of my trailer if I wanted to enhance the spooky and sinister atmosphere. I then began looking at tutorials on Youtube of how to add filters as I didn't know how to do this. I first added a sepia filter, which I found that you just had to highlight all clips and then add the filter over the top.

This was the result of my film with a sepia filter


I also tried using a black and white filter which looks like this


I then had 8 people view the trailers with both filters and all of them said they prefer it in black and white, rather than sepia or realistic colour. I therefore kept my trailer in black and white which I also believe looks more professional and emboldens the sinister atmosphere.

Further Editing and Improvements

I have now made several amendments to my teaser trailer. Below shows the next sequence which is getting closer towards my final piece. After receiving my audience feedback I have now made some of my clips shorter to help the trailer flow and encourage the audience to stay focused. I have also changed the fonts on the inter-titles as after showing it to another person in my target audience group mentioned the font reminded them of the Flintstones text, which didn't relate to the horror genre so I have changed them to a suitable font which fits the genre.


My first original font for my title is the font named 'cracked' (shown below) I had it coloured in red to connotate blood, death and danger. I also used the transition effect which introduces a letter at each time, although my audience thought it wasn't very eye catching and didn't grab their attention.





I then changed it to white and blue 'cracked' font which came in the shot a lot more speedy to grab the audience (which is shown below) However, the same group still thought it didn't fit with the trailer.





One of my audiences suggested that I went for a more simple font. when I created another set of inter-titles with a 'Papyrus' font they said they believed this was a much stronger font which grabbed their attention, so I included this in my next draft shown below


In my audience feedback I also discovered that sound effects was a key issue as this is what the audience believed to trailers to the next level and enhanced the atmosphere in film across all genres. I added loud crashes and heavy breathing to help emphasise this which i believe made the trailer a lot more enjoyable to view. Below shows my final cut based on the shots and sound effects.

Improvements Suggested by Target Market Research

After reviewing the video of my audience feedback (shown below) I now know that I need to

• Experiment with filters to help emphasise the dark and sinister atmosphere
• Shorten some of the shots at the beggining
• Move the 'COMING SOON!' closer to the title of 'CONTAGION' and also move the website further down
• Add in some more sound effects just to help heighten the tension

I selected 9 people (in my target audience age group of 15-23) to view my second draft of my teaser trailer and asked for any feedback for improvements I could make to make my teaser trailer more effective. The video shown above are the comments people made.

Second cut

When I showed my first rough cut to 14 people aged 17 and 18 years of age they like the idea of the trailer beginning slowly then increasing in pace. However, some thought that it took too long for the characters to say their lines in the nursery rhyme. Another issue suggested was the location of the area that the teenage girl was shot in. They said it confused them of the sudden change in location and that they found it difficult to link the ghost girls with the older girl. So I therefore had a re-shoot and put my older character in the same location as the 3 young girls. So shown below is my second cut with my added alterations.

Permission for Soundtrack

I discovered some music off of YouTube which I thought would fit perfectly for my teaser trailer. I then sent them a message to both people (which is previewed above) to ask for their permission to use their soundtrack for my trailer. The image below shows the email from 'FuelFrHatred' who were pleased to let me use the music in my project.

The music from 'Frigg567' said that they did not have the right to be able to give me there permission as it wasn't their music. However, they directed me to the website of the band where I then emailed them for their permission although I was a little concerned as they stated on the site 'Unfortunately we cannot reply to everyone and sorry for any inconveniences. 

However, they emailed me back giving me permission as long as I stated the music in my credits, which is shown in the screen shot below.



First Rough Cut

After I had converted all my clips to MOV files and imported them in to Final Cut Express I was then ready to begin with editing. For my first draft I selected the clips I wanted and transferred them on to the tome line. At this stage I hadn't given much thought on special effects, such as sound effects or transitions. I just simply put my shots in chronological order along with my sound over the top which I found off YouTube and my inter-titles I had made using the LiveType programme. Personally, I chose the font named 'Cracked' which was white on a black background to make it easily readable for my audience.

I have made the shots quite long and slow at the beginning to increase tension and a dramatic atmosphere, which then sped up to grab the audiences attention. I did this by creating a variety of shots from extreme close ups to long shots.