Evaluation: How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Constructions And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Above are pictures of myself holding the equipment that we used to create our final product. As a group we all took turns in using the digitatl camera to record our footage. With some of the footage we used the tripod to get a sturdy, accurate shot of the image.
We did use a microphone while filming all of our footage, however, once we got to editing our product we decided to have the whole thing silent.

Once we had finished with our filming we editing everything together in Adobe Premiere.

We found the music that we used on www.youtube.com

And then we converted it from youtube by using www.listentoyoutube.com

We also used another converter called www.mediaconverter.org which allowed us to gain the possession of  the Legendary Pictures production sequence.

We used blogger to upload our daily encounters.

And we also used Slideshare to create an animated storyboard.

Evaluation: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Our teaser trailer doesn't remind me of just one trailer as we have used different aspects of other horror teaser trailers, we used aspects from 'Scream' and 'The Strangers' for the footage and close ups of the Killer in the mask. And we also used aspects from 'The Blair Witch Project' with the hand held footage and the night vision effect. However, we also did use our own imaginations (ie. having the footage sped up and rewound at the end to make the audience feel confused and uneasy).

The strengths of our teaser trailer that I think are:

• The speed of the frames create the confusing and create the montage of the events that the audience will be witnessing throughout our product. I think this is a strength because this emphasises the tension and suspense that we were wanting to impact our audience with.
• Another strength is the way we did the inter-titles. The inter-titles that say 'The Haunting Of Therfield' and 'Don't Cross The Line..' These inter-titles quickly flash on to the screen and then re-appear so that the audience can read them. The fact that they quickly flash on makes the audience confused to whether they were supposed to be like that but then because they re-appear the audience feel slightly better.
• Our teaser trailer is an original narrative as we haven't used any other type of footage or scenes from another horror genre film.

The weaknesses of our teaser trailer that I think are:

• I think that the main weakness of our teaser trailer is that the music of our production company is too loud and doesn't fit well with our non-diagetic music of the trailer. The sound from the production company is completely different to our own choice of music, this throws off the audience of the eeriness and mystery of the teaser trailer.
• Another weakness is the scenes that we used with the dog. This is because you can see the hand of the Killer making the dog growl. However, this does make the audience feel uneasy and nervous and it shows that the Killer is inside someones house.

Audience feedback from social networking sites:

• 'Its really good guys well done, just one thing is that the trailer doesnt really tell you anything about the film like any plot or anything its all very vague?'
• 'I like the bit with the writing, where it looks like she is erasing it. I thought it was really effective as it could show the character is trying to erase her actions. I also liked the contrast between the Black and White colour scenes and the Coloured scenes.
• 'good bits:
  ambiguous plot, makes people want to find out more
  editing is really quick by the end which makes it really exciting? idk its cool :)
  the reverse thing is really cool & memorable :)
  i liked the nightvision & how you can only just see the person in the background, tis creeeepy
  i liked the jumpy bit with the murderer (where they move really suddenly)
  maybe its a little too vaigue, but tis no biggie'
• 'Overall this is a really good video. It's really well put together and I think that the quick editing works really well with the horror genre. The green night vision effect looks really creepy. Also the fact that you've made Hannah and Milly smile and act normal makes it seem even scarier, in the sense that it could happen to ANYONE. The music fits in really well and adds a really creepy effect to the whole video. The only negative comment I have is that I feel in places, the plot isn't clear.'

Evaluation: How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

As a group we filmed ourselves talking how our product and ancillary texts are all linked together and appeal to our target audience.

Evaluation: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Shot 1: We chose to have our title in the centre of the shot in bold (Birch STD) font. This makes the title stand out to the audience and it also is large enough so that the audience can read it. Having the title of the film on a black scene is very similar to other horror genre products such as; Scream, The Strangers, Blair Witch Project and Saw. I think our title of our product follows the conventions of a real horror genre teaser trailer.
Shot 2: This shots shows our audience the setting and location of our product. It shows the audience the Killer standing aimlessly around some garages and houses. We used this area as it was very realistic to our narrative of product. Having the houses behind the Killer makes the audience wonder what they are doing in that area and whether the Killer has found their target. Having the Killer down an alley way next to some garages makes the location seem deserted. The audience will feel uneasy as you can come across this area in your daily lives. Once again this shot follows the convention of a horror genre product as the location is somewhere familiar to all the characters and also the audience. Knowing that something bad can happen in a safe environment creates the tension we wanted.

Shot 3: Here is a shot of the Killer in the mask. This character was the only one that really had a costume and a prop that the audience wouldn't be use to seeing. As the Killer is the horrorfying character that uses the mask to scare their victims as well as the audience, we decided to use similar shots to this as our main image of our poster and magazine front cover. This is because the mask is our unique selling point, (like Scream).
The mask that we used has its own theatrical features creating suspense and mystery to who is behind the mask.
Shot 4: This shot is of Amelia being dragged backwards. The shot is at a cantered angle to make the audience sit on the edge of their seats and have the tension build up. This shot is also our beginning scene which helps with the tension building. We changed the colour of the scene to an effect called 'old film' to make the audience wonder whether this film is contempory or vintage. Also with this shot, that we couldn't capture in a screen grab is that we time stretched this scene by having Amelia seeming as if the Killer is pushing her forward rather than dragging backwards to make the audience uneasy. This isn't something I have seen in a horror genre product, however, I don't believe that this challenges the conventions of a horror genre product.

Shot 5: The title font and style of our teaser trailer, poster and magazine front cover all follow the same theme. We used 'Minion Pro Black 89' style which is what creates the ghost like background which makes the inter-titles bold and stand out so that it attracts the attention of our target audience. Then we decided to use 'Birch STD' as the font for all inter-titles and font used on our ancillary texts. This is so that all three advertising texts are linked together and look professional so that our audience will appreciate the texts and watch our product. The text is quite gothic creating suspense and tension for the audience as the font is creepy like our product.

Shot 6: Our teaser trailer is very ambiguous which isn't always used in other teaser trailers. We decided to make our product like this because if our product was ever made into a feature our narrative wouldn't be linear. However, with this shot in the screen grab it slightly shows the audeince a glimps of what the characters are trying to do and what the narrative is going to be about. The shot says 'we want to join' which we used to make our audience ask themselves many questions to what the meaning of this phrase could mean, creating more mystery throughout the product.

Shot 7: This shot of the Killer with a knife shows the audience that our product is a horror genre product. The audience will be able to realise that our product is horror because of the Killer's intentions of violence towards the character who is on the floor about to be attacked by a knife.
Shot 8: Throughout our teaser trailer our characters have been introduced. With this shot though the audience are properly introduced to Amelia who is the main victim character. Amelia is an conventional character that you would see during a horror films she is the typical blonde girl.

Shot 9: We used one type of special effect and that was our night vision scenes (green shots). We decided to use the night vision effect to make the hand held footage more realistic so then the audience can relate to the scenes they are witnessing. The effects also show that the characters were planning on staying up and filming throughout the night. This makes the audience feel uneasy as they know that something bad is going to happen.