Final Ancillary Products

Directors Commentary Of Finished Film + Finished Film

Q4: How did you use new media technoligies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is how I created my production pieces:

Q4: How did you use new media technoligies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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The project has helped me broaden my use of new media technologies. Through the development of media technology and web 2.0, amateur producers like myself now have a much greater opportunity to produce  high quality media texts. Amateur producers can now gain much more varied and useful information on audience through the use of web 2.0. Whereas in the past I would be limited to a very small audience, I can now receive instant feedback on my media products from anyone in the world through sites such as Youtube. Therefore new media technologies has transformed the consumer into the producer.

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 Audience feedback has been of primary importance in every stage of the project. Initially it was important to establish a target audience before getting audience feedback. From research online it was clear that psychological thrillers and horrors generally attracted a fairly young audience. The target audience I decided on was ages ranging from 16-24. Once I had a target audience it was vital that I targeted them through a number of mediums. Blogger is tool I used to create a poll. This wasn’t a very successful form of audience feedback as not many people replied. It was also difficult to get feedback from a specific audience. I therefore did it manually by asking people in my media class and people in the sixth form what they thought would be the best title. Yahoo answers were a useful way in which to get quick feedback. We used it when we were creating the narrative of our film. During the research stages my partner and I asked our friends what they’d like to see in a psychological thriller. After gaining insight into what would attract our target audience we began producing our film. The preliminary filming was very useful in gaining insight into what worked and what didn’t. Youtube was another way we gained feedback. The comment section helped us gain further understanding of our target audience and statistics from Youtube showed us who was watching our video. This helped understand what age demographics we should target.

The figures below indicate that our target audience could be older than first anticipated.

Facebook was the most useful way in which to improve my production pieces. I adjusted my double page spread after I gained feedback from Natasha Harmer and Henry Scott. Henry (aged 18)also thought it looked excellent which indicates that it would attract my target audience. I also changed my poster after getting feedback from Facebook. It was suggested that the age certificate wasn't necessary so I took it off and its its place created my own "LJ pictures" logo. This is because existing media texts often contain logo's of the production company e.g. Warner Bros.

My ancillaries were improved from constant feedback from my peers and target audience. Here is the latest development from my target audience. Here is also another post in which I showed my development through audience feedback.

Here is the transformation after receiving feedback from my audience. From the audience feedback shown above I:
-        Removed the age certificate
-        Reduced the font size on the credits
-        Created a ‘LJ productions’ logo
-         Rearranged the page

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

All my texts are linked together using consistent imagery, colours, fonts and location to name a few. It is important to have a strong house style so that people attracted to the poster or double page spread so the film meets their expectations. A clear link between all three pieces is the actress. I organised a photo shoot so that the images would be high quality (rather than using screen shots from the film). This is what the majority of films do. The images were taken in a similar location to where the film was shot to make sure there was continuity between the pieces. I made sure the costumes were the same for both the protagonist and antagonist to make sure they looked the same in all production pieces. The picture I chose for the poster included both the protagonist and antagonist. I chose to place the protagonist in the foreground to connote that she is the main character. The close-up of her face and jacket shows her fear of the situation and that he is not. The dark lighting, in contrast to the subject in the foreground helps to establish the man as the antagonist. He is situated behind a tree; a feature of the film. I wanted to create a narrative (reflective of the film) in the image to make people want to watch the film. The recurring motif of the red jacket is also highlighted in the poster. It is poignant as it signifies that she is in danger.

The strong house style continues from the poster to the double page spread in which the same fonts are used (e.g. Myriad Pro Condensed). The title also uses a consistent font from the poster to the double page spread which helps link the two ancillaries together. Once again the protagonist, red jacket, location and colours used in both the film and poster are included in the double page spread.

Evaluation Q2

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Audience feedback on the combination between the main product and ancillaries:

• "I think the film goes really well with the ancillary tasks...I'm not sure how you would improve anything"- Sam H.
• "They link very well together", "The poster would inspire me to watch the film as I really enjoy psychological thrillers" William S.
• "I think the colours help link the ancillaries with the film really well" Saffie W.
• "Red really connotes the horror and thriller genre", "I think the poster looks like a mixture of horror and psychological thriller but the blurring of genre conventions suits the film well" Natasha H.
• "I think it all works great together, honestly I wouldn't change anything!", "Some people might not like the gaussion blurred effect on the DPS but it suits a teenage market well" George G. 

The feedback indicates that I have produced media products that successfully promote each other and link to each other. Each text contains very similar elements as previously stated (e.g. the protagonist) and so combine very effectively. 

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Q1: In relation to the film

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Evaluation Q1: In relation to film part 2

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Evaluation Q1: In relation to ancillary tasks

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I found an interesting article about The Final Girl. The article explains that teenage audiences of my film may enjoy the idea of watching women get tortured, killed and raped in films. This is disturbing but the article also believes that many audience members want to empathise with the woman. This tells me that sticking to genre stereotypes and using conventions such as phallic symbols will help attract my target audience.

I have also studied a number of genre and narrative theorists which can be viewed in these presentations:

Genre Theory

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Narrative Theory

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Ancillary Development

The video below shows the development of my poster. It also shows the techniques I used during the process of editing on Photoshop to create my ancillary product. Tools used to create my poster include the clone brush, colour filters and gradient filters. To record myself editing my poster I used free video capture software called "aTube". It allowed me to record my editing in high definition to produce a high quality video. I used the song "Don't Stop" by "Foster the People" as I felt the upbeat tune went well with the video.

Here is the first poster I created. I sought feedback from my peers. The first thing that Dan Bates said (one of my friends, aged 17) was that there was too much empty space. I then went around the media class with a likes/dislikes page in which they wrote down what they thought was good and what could be improved. They all commented that the image was great but that there wasn't enough content. They also thought that the image was too bright. Henry Scott (another friend, aged 17) said that the title should be at the top as it would improve the composition. I agreed with him and added a gradient filter to reduce the lighting. A key feature from my research was that psychological thriller posters were often used dark, low-key lighting to create enigma and mystery.

This shows the progression I made from audience
feedback.

This was my first attempt at a double page spread. A convention used in double page spreads is an image running between both pages. I used a screenshot from my film and the quality wasn't very good. I tried to improve the quality of it using filters on Photoshop but unfortunately it just wasn't a good enough image. The feedback I got was also negative with negative comments on both the image and the font (as it was too big and bold for the genre).

When producing my actual double page spread I will use Empires layout as I thought it was professional and appealing to a younger audience. I will use an image from my photo-shoot and hope to create a professional looking DPS.