Trailer

Evaluation question four

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


In the research stage we used a range of different media technologies:

• We used Youtube to watch romance film trailers
• We also used Youtube to look at contrasting genre trailers
• We used Sky+ to watch films, we used this particular TV provider as it was easily accessible and we could rewind to watch specific parts of films
• We went to the cinema and watch the trailers and previews before the film started
• We looked at the posters outside the cinema
• We used the Sanyo Xacti HD cameras to practise shots and find out what would work best.
• We watched DVD's to learn about the conventions of the romance genre

We used the internet as our main source of research. We round we had most control and freedom with the internet and knew we would have a good outcome at the end.

When we were in the planning stages, we used our smart phones and calendars on our laptops to log what needed to be done and by what date. We also conversed using email and text so that everybody knew the plans and what had been completed.

When in the constructing stage we used Sanyo Xacti HD cameras as we were familiar with them cameras and thought that produced a good outcome. We also used photography lights to lighten the room for filming. As well as these, we used my iMac, with iMovie to watch and edit the clips as we went along. This way we knew what worked and what didn't work while we were constructing it.

We also used iDVD to burn the trailer to disc. 

We used Adobe Fireworks to create both the poster and the magazine cover.

We used Adobe Fireworks to create the poster and the magazine cover.

In the evaluation stage we used Survey Monkey for our audience feedback questionnaire, however we found we were more suited to doing this manually, so we would speak to the people giving the feedback about our products. We used Microsoft Word to create our questionnaires and Excel to create the graphs. 

Evaluation question three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the results of our audience feedback questionnaire we were able to gain view on how successful our media products were and what needed to be improved. Perhaps most importantly it allowed us to know what was our target audience, age and gender should be.


For gender there was a vast difference between who viewed our media. It is clear from our results that females are more attracted to the romance genre than males and they generally gave more positive feedback than the questioned males. But we must consider that our sample was fairly small and would not be generalisable. However we are awake by our own knowledge that on average women enjoy romance genre media more than men.

Our results for age was far more varied and we discovered that romance films are appreciated by a wide range of ages. Our target audience is females around  the age of 15 and over, but we should specifically target professional women 25 and over as these are the people who are most likely to have a surplus within their income to spend on leisure activities such as going to the cinema and reading film magazines. So we should make our products appeal to them to enable us to gain a big profit from our products.




The questions asked in regards to the film trailer were:

• With 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how well do you think our trailer fitted the romance genre?
• How would you rate the camera work?
• How would you rate the film overall?
• How would you rate the choice of setting?

Considering our questions about our romance trailer we mostly received positive feedback, getting mostly 4s and 5s out of 5. Unfortunately when asking if the trailer fitted the romance genre we received feedback of two people rating 3 out of 5 which is only regarded as satisfactory. Because of this we are aware that there is some room for improvement in this area. We wanted to know what we could have done to improve so following the completion of the questionnaire we asked the respondents the reasons for their low marks.
When asking the two people the reasons for their 'satisfactory' grade, the reasons were:

• 'It wasn't romantic enough. There was just not enough 'love' involved, The film seemed to be based too much around Alice's life without George rather than there relationship together.'
• 'It seemed to fit more in the genre of drama. Although there was love involved in the storyline, the main theme was George's death.'

From this feedback we discovered that some participants thought that the genre of romance was too broad for the trailer. However, we need to consider that we decided to make our genre a sub-genre of 'romance-tragedy'. We are now aware that we should have worded out questionnaire more specifically and when we asked the two respondents the same question but replacing 'romance' with 'romance tragedy' they both gave a rating of 4.

We received all 4's and 5's for our camera work, with the majority giving us a 5. This showed us that our camera work was viewed as an excellent standard. Even though we were pleased with our rating of 4 it was the lowest rating on that question we asked one of the participants why they rated it a 4 and not a 5.

• 'I didn't like the hand held camera work. Although I can understand why it was used, personally i just don't think it fits in well with the romance genre, it's too scary and reminds me of horror films that have used that technique. However,  all the other camera work was great, and i would have given it a 5 if the hand held was not in it.'

We felt that this response was based around personal experience rather that the specific camera work and they thought that the rest of the camera work was worth a 5. However because they have seen other films that they have been frightened by using this particular filming technique they have linked this to our use of it and still find hand-held camera work uncomfortable to watch. 


We hadn't thought of this when deciding to use this technique as it didn't occur to us that people would make this link. Even though we were aware that it was used in horror films including 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'Paranormal Activity' we thought that romance was a vastly different genre and with the use of romantic conventions people would make a link and it would be a refreshing use of the technique.

Below is a comparison of screenshots of the horror genre and our romance trailer when using the hand-held technique.

Paranormal Activity 3

The Blair Witch Project

Our trailer 'Until The End'

We only included one question regarding the magazine cover in our questionnaire as we felt that along with asking the participants the reasons for their answers, we would receive enough feedback. 

We asked:

How well do you think our magazine cover fitted the romance genre?

We received mostly 3's and 4's for this question, and although we would had preferred higher marks we only had limited resources to analyse to gain knowledge on what conventions were of a romance magazine cover in real media would be.

When we asked the participants who gave us 2's and 3's why they had done so, we discovered the main reason was being able to acknowledge what in involved in a magazine cover. The respondents informed us that they thought the magazine cover looked professional and followed the conventions of a normal magazine cover, they were unsure whether it would conform to the convention of a romance magazine cover. They gave us suggestions on how we could improve it by making the romance genre more obvious, like by including George with myself in a loving embrace on the front cover (however we didn't want it to be too similar to our poster) or that we should have used more romantic themed colours.

We found that we had done a reasonably good job for the magazine cover, however as we were not clearly aware of the conventions needed we were not able to produce it to the best we could. We could have made the romance genre more obvious by including George on the cover but we had already used a similar picture for our poster and we didn't want it to look the same. We also didn't want our romance theme to look too extreme and risk looking tacky, which could put the audience off from buying it. 


We also only asked one question about the poster in our questionnaire:

How well do you think our poster fitted the romance genre?

                                                                                                        

From our results we found that we did a good job for our poster, with getting a majority of 4's which is a good rating. When we asked the respondents the reason for their 4 rating they said that it was clear that the film was of a romance genre. This is because George and I are in a romantic embrace with a quote below the title. The reason why they didn't give us a rating of 5 was that they felt we could have made our poster more simplistic and that there wasn't a need to include all of the additional writing on the poster.

Getting audience feedback was a highly important part of our project as we were able to use other people's opinions/potential audience's opinions on what we did well and where we needed to improve. We received a good response and we feel that our feedback tells us that we did a fairly good job, particularly on our film trailer and the poster. However with our magazine cover there is still room for improvement however if it would be released into the real media it would be included in the rare few that currently exist.

Evaluation question two

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

Evaluation question one

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
We spent a lot of time looking at the forms and conventions of the romance genre in order to conform to some but also to challenge and develop them in some ways.
We have used the typical conventions of the tragic romance genre in that our plot follows this idea:

In Todorov’s terms the narrative is structured as follows:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption
4. an attempt to repair the disruption
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium

Thesis > Antithesis > Synthesis

We have a clear beginning, the state of equilibrium, where Alice and George are happy; there is then a disruption of the equilibrium, caused by George's car accident, resulting in death; there is then a recognition of this disruption, where Alice spends a long time unhappy; Alice then attempts to repair the disruption by pursuing the dream George had for her; there is then a clear reinstatement of equilibrium when Alice gets a job working with her clothing designs. 

In this respect, our plot conforms to the conventions of the genre in real media. Our trailer reflects this.

For our trailer we made sure we clearly followed the conventions of a romance movie trailer. This included having a light hearted mood which is demonstrated through the use of saturated colours and sunny weather which relate to cheerful, romantic ambiance. We checked the weather forecast in advance to make sure we filmed on an appropriate day. We also chose light hearted and cheerful music that would help encourage the audience to experience this mood;  we used Noah And The Whale, Five Years Time. The camera movements used are very quick with the transitions between clips also being fast; the camera is positioned mainly at mid-height, showing a comfortable viewing image for the audience; the two characters share the same amount of screen time, showing they are equal and equally important. This all helped to build on the romantic genre allowing the audience into the characters relationship, but most importantly showing them that there was a relationship.

The swiftly changes which we showed by changing the colours and speed of the film. The colours become de-saturated which creates a dull and depressing mood. We slowed down the speed of the camera movements as well as slowing the speed of the transitions. This would dramatise the situation within the trailer to the audience. There was also a slight change in the camera angles of me, they were positioned more above, looking down on me to demonstrate the low emotions I was feeling because of the death of George.

Nearer the end the mood reverses back to positive and therefore we changed the colour back to being lighter and saturated. We filmed me using more mid-shots and long-shots as I began to overcome the situation within the film. 

We felt it was highly important to use a voice-over in our trailer to make sure in conformed to the conventions of a romance trailer in real media. After reviewing other romance trailers I felt it was best to use a deep but soft male voice to speak; we decided the end of the trailer would be the most appropriate as I found this most occurring in other romance trailers. 


As well as romance conventions we also incorporated conventions which aren't particularly associated with a romance trailer. For example we included the use of hand-held shots which are usually related to the horror genre, used in films including 'The Blair Witch Project' and the 'Paranormal Activity' trilogy. However we chose to use it as it illustrated the relationship between me and George and involved the audience in this. 

When producing our poster we found that our picture suited a landscape view; this challenges the typical conventions of romance film posters within media as they are usually in a portrait view. We felt that using a landscape view will also make it stand out within media for this reason and therefore decided to keep it in this format. We aimed to make George and myself positioned in the centre of the poster, to make it the focal point to the audience.


George and I are pictured in an embrace which strongly conforms to the conventions of a typical romance poster; all the romance posters we looked at involve a couple embracing or having some kind of obvious romantic contact. By using this position of me and George with us clearly happy this allows the audience to acknowledge they're in love which is clearly involved in romance.

We made the title of the film the largest font on the poster to make it stand out, and black to contrast with the background image, enabling the audience to remember it. We chose to release our film around valentines days as this would be appropriate for our genre and could potentially draw in a bigger crowd of couples going to the cinema; this date was included on our poster to allow the audience to perhaps plan or remember this. We further included the names of the directors, the actors a quote from the film and a quote from the magazine on our poster. The quote was a significant part of the romance genre and including it conform the conventions of a romance poster in the media. It is significant as it often becomes a slogan or catchphrase of the film which would be recognisable by the audience. We used the computer programme Adobe Fireworks to blur the background so that Alice and George and the writing would be the focal point. In this respect we have followed the conventions of a romance genre.

We have mainly conformed to the forms and conventions of the romance genre with the magazine cover. The main feature is a picture of the main character from a scene in the film.

After looking at other posters we followed a basic layout of a generic film magazine. For this the magazine name is at the top with different sections of information placed around the character. We felt that as we were promoting a romance film we would further include romance genre related topics for our sections of information. This included an interview with the director of 'When Harry Met Sally' which is a well known romance film. We also included some free promotional gifts advertised which you would often find on a magazine cover. It isn't often that film magazines promote romance films which made it difficult for us to establish and then follow the conventions of a romance magazine cover. But after analysing other film genre magazine covers we were able to create our own knowledge of what would be required to make it look correct and advertise our film effectively.

Audience feedback Questionnaire

1.What is your gender?

Male      female

This basically allowed us to know the gender of the viewer, and therefore how this may have effected the results overall.





2.   What age range do you fall into?

Under 14              14-18              19-25            26-35          36+

As you can see there were no under 14's asked, we did not purposely not ask anyone of this age range, however we feel people of this age would not fully understand the film. Our main age range of candidates who replied to the questionnaire were between 14 to 35, this is perfect as we planned for our target audience to be between 16 to 35, so their opinions on our media products are most important to us. We added age ranges out of our targeted demographics as we also wanted to know opinions of a wider age range.

3. With 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how well do you think our trailer fitted the romance genre?

1       2        3      4       5

The fundamental conventions of a romance are for the film to be based around feelings of love, often based around a couple, and for there to be a happy ending.  This question not only lets us know whether our film has met these conventions but also indicates people’s opinion on whether our film is successful or not. The majority of people answered 4 or 5, showing us that we have successfully made out trailer fit into a romance genre. Two people answered 3 which is disappointing and shows us that there’s certainly room for improvement. Bearing this in mind we asked in the final question what improvements could be made.

4. How well do you think our poster fitted the romance genre?

1       2         3        4      5

This question is of the same format and the question before, however asking about our poster. We asked this to know the audience's opinion on the poster. The majority of the audience answered with a 4, which indicates that although the conventions weren’t noticeable the best they could have been, they were still strongly recognised by the viewers. 2 people answered 5, which shows that we have made the conventions successfully noticeable. However, one person has answered with a 2 which shows there is room for improvement.

5. How well do you think our magazine cover fitted the romance genre?

1        2        3      4     5

Again, this question is set out the same as the past two, but asking about the magazine cover rather than our other media products. From the results we found there could be much room for improvement, however due to the fact there were no examples of other romance magazine covers to work from, we found this particular task hard. When creating the magazine cover we tried to follow the conventions of a basic magazine cover that would appeal to women, and basic conventions of a romance film. We also deconstructed other magazine covers of different genres to get an idea of how our magazine cover should work.

6. On a scale of 1 to 5 how much did our media products as a whole make you want to watch the film?

1      2       3       4       5

By asking this question it allows us to see if our media products was successful in engaging the audience’s attention. Our whole project is based around the plot. What is the point of the film if you don’t like the storyline? From this feedback we can see out media products worked well as the majority of our feedback were 4s and 5s.

7. How would you rate the camera work?

1        2      3    4      5

Camera work was one of the main ways we could get across the emotions of the characters within the media products. After having experience using the cameras when doing out AS coursework, we we quite confident when using the cameras and when choosing the angles to use. This feedback clearly shows that our camera work is good, 4’s and 5’s show that it is better than average even.

8. How would you rate the film overall?

1       2      3      4      5

Having a majority of 5 is an excellent result, although there is room for improvement due to the lowest result of 3, their rating of the overall film may have been due to personal preference. The results of this question show that we targeted the right audience.

9.How would you rate the choice of setting?

1      2      3       4       5

The setting is a restriction we have, we can do it anywhere, but practically, it can only be within the Peterborough area. However the graph shows that our choice of setting was good. Some people think it could be better, but no one thought it was below satisfactory.

10. Is there anything else you would improve on any of our media products?

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This is an open ended question because we wanted individual people’s opinions.

Some answers given are:

'better setting'

'less sad plot..made me upset'

'Include George in the magazine'

'Make the plot more obvious in the trailer'

Other than these we were told there was nothing we could improve on. This is helpful feedback. It's clear there were a few things that could have been improved, however a high percentage of people were happy with our media products as they were.