Film Magazine Front Cover
Film Poster
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Evaluation
Media Evaluation
The brief I was set for my main task of the media advanced was to make a promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer and two ancillary texts. I had three choices for my ancillary texts, these where a film magazine front cover a film poster or a website homepage for the respective film. I selected a film poster and Magazine front cover for my ancillary texts. I picked these two as in my previous year I had done these before and was driven to try and improve and use different skills than what I had done in before in my original AS work.
When researching into my chosen genre of film I conducted a series of questionnaires to procure as much reliable information I could about my target audience, both quantitative and qualitative. As well as this I analysed existing media texts relating to my genre using the LIIAR method. This research when gathered helped inform my planning in the way that it had given me the data to make choices based on what the target audience wanted, and not have a bias view of what I thought they wanted, a focus group also helped somewhat when researching and drafting up ideas based on my genre.
As I planned out my project I asked focus groups to constantly critique my current stage of work to meet there expectations of a Film Trailer. I feel it is worth noting that my original film trailer was going to be pure match on action, using various camera shots to tell a story. This changed in the early to mid stages as audience feedback of my current revision of the film trailer stated that it didn’t have the feel of a film trailer and needed to be “mixed up”. I acknowledged this and proceeded to cut the linear footage into an interesting composition that, when shown to the same focus group they announced it was an improvement. Also for the poster I altered it slightly as a trial audience stated that it lacked a film rating and production information, because of this I went back to my project and added these conventions, which gave it a distinct improved look.
My target audience was young people around the age range of 16- 25, although if it had been a real film it would of changed it to 18-25. The reasoning behind selecting a younger age group is that they are already heavily influenced by the media in public places, and so could give insightful feedback when participating in my research. The target audience appears to be mainly young males, as this is a stereotypical interest of that target audience, however to not be bias and to reveal if females have similar interests and tastes as males I planned to include an amount of females as balanced as possible. For my media products I researched deeply into what my target audiences wanted, this started off with questionnaires, to get my data, both qualitive and quantitative I decided to make a questionnaire that could be mass produced to reach a large spectrum of people, I opted out of doing an on line poll as the main audience would be bias towards the media related work I was doing, as it is a high probability they would of found the blogger due to its content. This then gave me a sizeable chunk of data that I used to create graphs using the website http:// nces.ed.gov /nceskids/ creategraph/default.aspx These graphs made it clear to see the trends for each quantitive question and give a clear idea of what the audience wanted for the majority. Other ways a delved into finding out what the audience wanted was to use focus groups of the target age group and test screen my products and have them tell me what they liked and disliked about it, this allowed me to get firsthand feedback that could be acted upon and changed/improved straight away. Finally I looked at successful media texts that was similar to my chosen medium, by making a textual analysis and the use of LIIAR for each of these I could come to grips and pick out the conventions that I would then use for my own work, insuring that if it was similar to the real thing, and thus up to the audiences expectations.
The media products that I created are a film trailer, film poster and a film magazine front cover. For both my main task and my two ancillary texts I tried to make use of the conventional forms that create a successful piece of media for my chosen medium. Ways in which I did this was to analyze existing media texts and incorporate there conventions into my work. Styles of the genre also played a factor in the creation of my pieces, for example in my film the choice of cuts and editing was done in such a way to mimic the action/apocalyptic genre of film trailers. Another example is taking the notable styles of the posters I looked at which featured the colour red and sepia tones which connotes danger/ vitality/ violence/anger and a death/out of time feel to the audience. I made use of the sepia tones and the colour red within my film trailer, this was done on purpose to connote the symbolic meaning of the colour, you can see specific red cargo crates that the character runs to in the trailer, also at the start there is a slight sepia tone to enforce the effect of things being out of focus with reality. The Magazine I feel challenged the conventions of media products the least as I tried to make it conform exactly like a current film magazine so the ideology would be perceived how I intended for the audience. As I carried out my project I looked at many media texts relating to my genre and by following the conventions shown within them, my products can be stylistically compared.
In the creative process, I had taken inspiration and conventions from a different form of the media, this was digital games. I had noticed in my research that the way game advertisements and trailers where done, differed slightly compared to film trailers, posters and magazine front covers. I wondered why this would be the case, as whereas most trailers had some form of narrative in the form of a narrator many game trailers didn’t have any and still appeared very effective. The same went for advertisements in posters for games; many would be more of a teaser relying on iconic images for the audience to be expected to relate to. After some research into media related to games, I decided that some of the conventions used in making a game which is not real seem realistic to immerse the player in, could perhaps be transferred over in the film medium.
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts I feel has a sense of intertextuality. I have carried running themes and styles through each, using similar text and colours for both my main product and ancillary texts. My custom logo was used in the poster and the film, I made it very simplistic and iconic so people would recall it when it appeared again in an alternate media text to the one they saw. Combining my media products as a package as would be used for a real film I think would be successful, the conventions used in each I have included for the best effect and to the best of my ability.
The feedback I have received has been instrumental in the design process of my media texts, as it has highlighted flaws in my work and helped shape it into what I feel is a conventional piece for all three of my texts, below I will highlight what I have learnt from my audience feedback for each of my media texts.
I have learned a lot from the feedback the audience has given me throughout the project. During the research stage, from a statistical side of things from my film trailer research/questionnaires, a higher percentage of males preferred the action/violence genre compared to females, with the majority overall having been to the cinema at least once in the past three months. Also my research has found that the majority of the target audience does go to the cinema at least once in 3 months.
On a qualitative side I also incorporated Qualitive questions into my questionnaire such as “What do you like about Action films?””What do you dislike Action films?” And “What would make you want to see Action films at the cinema? I had feedback such as “the setting gives it a good feel” and “special effects” for “what do you like about action films” question. Some examples of feedback for the dislike question was “the mindless violence” and “the story plots”. I kept this feedback as a reference when creating my own project so I wouldn’t stumble into too many pitfalls and produce something my target audience wanted. I also repeated this process for my film poster and magazine to pool all the data together with the same reasoning.
After I had finished my main project and two ancillary texts I conducted a questionnaire/ rating sheet for each to gather feedback. The people who participated in my feedback methods were random.
The feedback I had got once I had finished my film trailer was for the most part positive, many people commented on the setting I had used such as the snow, which to the general trend of the feedback was “what made the film trailer”. Another successful, convention that I challenged was my choice of scrapping verbal narrative for my film trailer in favour of a piece of music by Gary Jules, the song was Mad World. I did this to enhance the ambience of the film trailer and give it a distinct feel, indeed; many people commented on that choice in which they stated similar things such like it gave the trailer a mysterious almost melancholy feel that suited the content. On the other hand the short version of the trailer was much faster paced and used quick cuts in time with the music which was an orchestral piece called lacrimosa. Criticism that I did get from the audience though was the lighting of the indoor lab scenes, the scenes appeared to have a flat feel to them, and when looking back I agree, this could be improved.
Please refer to my audience feedback post for more details on the statistics.
When it came to getting audience feedback for my poster there was mixed reactions, many of the males that participated in the questionnaire/ ratings gave it a positive answer or rating. But the females I had in my questionnaire had a varied outlook on it. Going by the quantitive comments I received I achieved the effect I wanted to communicate to the audience. Namely the choice of colour and text affect which, when asked about it reminded them of danger or blood. This outcome supports my research into the target audience for my genre.
The feedback for the film magazine I found quite exciting to see what convention would be the most popular out the people who had taken my questionnaire. Once I had my results it became clear that the image was what drew the attention of the audience the most, followed by the title. Out of the qualitive data, the response from the people who had participated was that the magazine front cover looked like a real mainstream piece of work. This was the same view from both Male and Female.
Please refer to my audience feedback post for more details on the statistics.
Regarding the action genre of film trailers, the effects of digitalization is evident, the traditional conventions are being broken as CGI and other assorted effects are making the production something more than it is, this could be classed as postmodern. With my products I tried to replicate what a real institution would do, and that is of media convergence. This can be classed as vertical integration as from my first main media text, my other media products came about. Real Institutions often diversify into other media avenues from the existing text, such as selling the sound track to a film for example.
I used Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 to create my final products, my skills with Photoshop have improved greatly from my AS project, I know how to manipulate images, use an increased array of tools and filters at a much more professional standard then the previous year’s work. Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 I used for the first time this year, it took a little while to get used to, but was quite similar to Photoshop and Windows Movie maker, which I had experience with before. I had used Windows Movie maker to produce my Animatic.File types I used for my images where Jpeg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and PNG (Portable Network Graphics) the jpeg images where used as they was small enough to be used on most sites at a decent quality, namely for use in my film poster, film magazine cover and for general blog use. The PNG images however I used for the logo of my film and partly blogger. This made it a slightly larger image but allowed for me to have a better quality image that could be overlaid onto any digital background without cutting off the object it was on. I also used a video camera and a digital camera for my work, for the video camera the file format was AVI (Audio Video Interleave) and the digital camera used BMP(bitmap) file format for its pictures, this gave my pictures taken with it a very high quality, although the file size would be large and in need of converting to a jpeg image. When converting and compressing my film I changed it from AVI to .WMV (Windows Movie Video).
I used the websites blogger and YouTube respectively to host my coursework on the internet, with the use of HTML code scripting to integrate (embed videos) to be viewed as one piece on the blogger. nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ was the site I used to make graphs. Other technical equipment I used was the scanner to scan drafts and hand written/drawn works onto my computer for use on the blog. A printer was also used for reference sheets, questionnaires and storyboard sheets. Blogger also had the ability to add gadgets to the blog which would allow me to do an online poll, but as stated previously in my blog, I made the decision to go about it in a more traditional way to prevent bias.
When it came to converting my project to be used on YouTube, I noticed that the videos has a combing effect, I de-interlaced it so that the video would run smooth and be clearer.
To look at improvements I could have made if I was to do the project again are as follows:
Cast
The planning and logistical organizing I found I was un prepared for and could of handled it better if I had been aware of what was needed to make it work, I think I would of created a detailed schedule and been in closer contact with the film actors.
Lighting
As mentioned above, the lighting in some scenes wasn’t the best, it was workable however, but it had the positional to be a lot better. I would have made arrangements to get hold of professional equipment for this area if I was to do it again.
Weather
The weather played a big part in this film trailer, but it could be quite temperamental when filming, if I was to do it again in similar conditions, or for most conditions outdoors I would have brought extra equipment in case of malfunctions.
Feedback
I was quite linear in my approach to gathering audience feedback, if i was to do it again I would of broadened the ways in which I gathered my information.
Poster
I would have created a higher amount of mock posters to give me a varied pool of designs compared to drawing up rough drafts then sticking to a limited amount of ideas.
Magazine
Same as above.
The brief I was set for my main task of the media advanced was to make a promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer and two ancillary texts. I had three choices for my ancillary texts, these where a film magazine front cover a film poster or a website homepage for the respective film. I selected a film poster and Magazine front cover for my ancillary texts. I picked these two as in my previous year I had done these before and was driven to try and improve and use different skills than what I had done in before in my original AS work.
When researching into my chosen genre of film I conducted a series of questionnaires to procure as much reliable information I could about my target audience, both quantitative and qualitative. As well as this I analysed existing media texts relating to my genre using the LIIAR method. This research when gathered helped inform my planning in the way that it had given me the data to make choices based on what the target audience wanted, and not have a bias view of what I thought they wanted, a focus group also helped somewhat when researching and drafting up ideas based on my genre.
As I planned out my project I asked focus groups to constantly critique my current stage of work to meet there expectations of a Film Trailer. I feel it is worth noting that my original film trailer was going to be pure match on action, using various camera shots to tell a story. This changed in the early to mid stages as audience feedback of my current revision of the film trailer stated that it didn’t have the feel of a film trailer and needed to be “mixed up”. I acknowledged this and proceeded to cut the linear footage into an interesting composition that, when shown to the same focus group they announced it was an improvement. Also for the poster I altered it slightly as a trial audience stated that it lacked a film rating and production information, because of this I went back to my project and added these conventions, which gave it a distinct improved look.
My target audience was young people around the age range of 16- 25, although if it had been a real film it would of changed it to 18-25. The reasoning behind selecting a younger age group is that they are already heavily influenced by the media in public places, and so could give insightful feedback when participating in my research. The target audience appears to be mainly young males, as this is a stereotypical interest of that target audience, however to not be bias and to reveal if females have similar interests and tastes as males I planned to include an amount of females as balanced as possible. For my media products I researched deeply into what my target audiences wanted, this started off with questionnaires, to get my data, both qualitive and quantitative I decided to make a questionnaire that could be mass produced to reach a large spectrum of people, I opted out of doing an on line poll as the main audience would be bias towards the media related work I was doing, as it is a high probability they would of found the blogger due to its content. This then gave me a sizeable chunk of data that I used to create graphs using the website http:// nces.ed.gov /nceskids/ creategraph/default.aspx These graphs made it clear to see the trends for each quantitive question and give a clear idea of what the audience wanted for the majority. Other ways a delved into finding out what the audience wanted was to use focus groups of the target age group and test screen my products and have them tell me what they liked and disliked about it, this allowed me to get firsthand feedback that could be acted upon and changed/improved straight away. Finally I looked at successful media texts that was similar to my chosen medium, by making a textual analysis and the use of LIIAR for each of these I could come to grips and pick out the conventions that I would then use for my own work, insuring that if it was similar to the real thing, and thus up to the audiences expectations.
The media products that I created are a film trailer, film poster and a film magazine front cover. For both my main task and my two ancillary texts I tried to make use of the conventional forms that create a successful piece of media for my chosen medium. Ways in which I did this was to analyze existing media texts and incorporate there conventions into my work. Styles of the genre also played a factor in the creation of my pieces, for example in my film the choice of cuts and editing was done in such a way to mimic the action/apocalyptic genre of film trailers. Another example is taking the notable styles of the posters I looked at which featured the colour red and sepia tones which connotes danger/ vitality/ violence/anger and a death/out of time feel to the audience. I made use of the sepia tones and the colour red within my film trailer, this was done on purpose to connote the symbolic meaning of the colour, you can see specific red cargo crates that the character runs to in the trailer, also at the start there is a slight sepia tone to enforce the effect of things being out of focus with reality. The Magazine I feel challenged the conventions of media products the least as I tried to make it conform exactly like a current film magazine so the ideology would be perceived how I intended for the audience. As I carried out my project I looked at many media texts relating to my genre and by following the conventions shown within them, my products can be stylistically compared.
In the creative process, I had taken inspiration and conventions from a different form of the media, this was digital games. I had noticed in my research that the way game advertisements and trailers where done, differed slightly compared to film trailers, posters and magazine front covers. I wondered why this would be the case, as whereas most trailers had some form of narrative in the form of a narrator many game trailers didn’t have any and still appeared very effective. The same went for advertisements in posters for games; many would be more of a teaser relying on iconic images for the audience to be expected to relate to. After some research into media related to games, I decided that some of the conventions used in making a game which is not real seem realistic to immerse the player in, could perhaps be transferred over in the film medium.
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts I feel has a sense of intertextuality. I have carried running themes and styles through each, using similar text and colours for both my main product and ancillary texts. My custom logo was used in the poster and the film, I made it very simplistic and iconic so people would recall it when it appeared again in an alternate media text to the one they saw. Combining my media products as a package as would be used for a real film I think would be successful, the conventions used in each I have included for the best effect and to the best of my ability.
The feedback I have received has been instrumental in the design process of my media texts, as it has highlighted flaws in my work and helped shape it into what I feel is a conventional piece for all three of my texts, below I will highlight what I have learnt from my audience feedback for each of my media texts.
I have learned a lot from the feedback the audience has given me throughout the project. During the research stage, from a statistical side of things from my film trailer research/questionnaires, a higher percentage of males preferred the action/violence genre compared to females, with the majority overall having been to the cinema at least once in the past three months. Also my research has found that the majority of the target audience does go to the cinema at least once in 3 months.
On a qualitative side I also incorporated Qualitive questions into my questionnaire such as “What do you like about Action films?””What do you dislike Action films?” And “What would make you want to see Action films at the cinema? I had feedback such as “the setting gives it a good feel” and “special effects” for “what do you like about action films” question. Some examples of feedback for the dislike question was “the mindless violence” and “the story plots”. I kept this feedback as a reference when creating my own project so I wouldn’t stumble into too many pitfalls and produce something my target audience wanted. I also repeated this process for my film poster and magazine to pool all the data together with the same reasoning.
After I had finished my main project and two ancillary texts I conducted a questionnaire/ rating sheet for each to gather feedback. The people who participated in my feedback methods were random.
The feedback I had got once I had finished my film trailer was for the most part positive, many people commented on the setting I had used such as the snow, which to the general trend of the feedback was “what made the film trailer”. Another successful, convention that I challenged was my choice of scrapping verbal narrative for my film trailer in favour of a piece of music by Gary Jules, the song was Mad World. I did this to enhance the ambience of the film trailer and give it a distinct feel, indeed; many people commented on that choice in which they stated similar things such like it gave the trailer a mysterious almost melancholy feel that suited the content. On the other hand the short version of the trailer was much faster paced and used quick cuts in time with the music which was an orchestral piece called lacrimosa. Criticism that I did get from the audience though was the lighting of the indoor lab scenes, the scenes appeared to have a flat feel to them, and when looking back I agree, this could be improved.
Please refer to my audience feedback post for more details on the statistics.
When it came to getting audience feedback for my poster there was mixed reactions, many of the males that participated in the questionnaire/ ratings gave it a positive answer or rating. But the females I had in my questionnaire had a varied outlook on it. Going by the quantitive comments I received I achieved the effect I wanted to communicate to the audience. Namely the choice of colour and text affect which, when asked about it reminded them of danger or blood. This outcome supports my research into the target audience for my genre.
The feedback for the film magazine I found quite exciting to see what convention would be the most popular out the people who had taken my questionnaire. Once I had my results it became clear that the image was what drew the attention of the audience the most, followed by the title. Out of the qualitive data, the response from the people who had participated was that the magazine front cover looked like a real mainstream piece of work. This was the same view from both Male and Female.
Please refer to my audience feedback post for more details on the statistics.
Regarding the action genre of film trailers, the effects of digitalization is evident, the traditional conventions are being broken as CGI and other assorted effects are making the production something more than it is, this could be classed as postmodern. With my products I tried to replicate what a real institution would do, and that is of media convergence. This can be classed as vertical integration as from my first main media text, my other media products came about. Real Institutions often diversify into other media avenues from the existing text, such as selling the sound track to a film for example.
I used Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 to create my final products, my skills with Photoshop have improved greatly from my AS project, I know how to manipulate images, use an increased array of tools and filters at a much more professional standard then the previous year’s work. Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 I used for the first time this year, it took a little while to get used to, but was quite similar to Photoshop and Windows Movie maker, which I had experience with before. I had used Windows Movie maker to produce my Animatic.File types I used for my images where Jpeg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and PNG (Portable Network Graphics) the jpeg images where used as they was small enough to be used on most sites at a decent quality, namely for use in my film poster, film magazine cover and for general blog use. The PNG images however I used for the logo of my film and partly blogger. This made it a slightly larger image but allowed for me to have a better quality image that could be overlaid onto any digital background without cutting off the object it was on. I also used a video camera and a digital camera for my work, for the video camera the file format was AVI (Audio Video Interleave) and the digital camera used BMP(bitmap) file format for its pictures, this gave my pictures taken with it a very high quality, although the file size would be large and in need of converting to a jpeg image. When converting and compressing my film I changed it from AVI to .WMV (Windows Movie Video).
I used the websites blogger and YouTube respectively to host my coursework on the internet, with the use of HTML code scripting to integrate (embed videos) to be viewed as one piece on the blogger. nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ was the site I used to make graphs. Other technical equipment I used was the scanner to scan drafts and hand written/drawn works onto my computer for use on the blog. A printer was also used for reference sheets, questionnaires and storyboard sheets. Blogger also had the ability to add gadgets to the blog which would allow me to do an online poll, but as stated previously in my blog, I made the decision to go about it in a more traditional way to prevent bias.
When it came to converting my project to be used on YouTube, I noticed that the videos has a combing effect, I de-interlaced it so that the video would run smooth and be clearer.
To look at improvements I could have made if I was to do the project again are as follows:
Cast
The planning and logistical organizing I found I was un prepared for and could of handled it better if I had been aware of what was needed to make it work, I think I would of created a detailed schedule and been in closer contact with the film actors.
Lighting
As mentioned above, the lighting in some scenes wasn’t the best, it was workable however, but it had the positional to be a lot better. I would have made arrangements to get hold of professional equipment for this area if I was to do it again.
Weather
The weather played a big part in this film trailer, but it could be quite temperamental when filming, if I was to do it again in similar conditions, or for most conditions outdoors I would have brought extra equipment in case of malfunctions.
Feedback
I was quite linear in my approach to gathering audience feedback, if i was to do it again I would of broadened the ways in which I gathered my information.
Poster
I would have created a higher amount of mock posters to give me a varied pool of designs compared to drawing up rough drafts then sticking to a limited amount of ideas.
Magazine
Same as above.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Audience feedback
Now that I had my two ancillary texts and main task completed I went about the process of gathering audience feedback on my productions. I did this by carrying out a likert rating questionnaire with 17 graphic design students for each of my products. Eight of the voters are male and nine voters are female. This is the first questionnaire where females are the higher percentage.
Film poster questionnaire,
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1.) The layout of the poster overall ( )
2.) The effectiveness of the imagery ( )
3.) The use of text i.e production info, slogan ect ( )
4.) Colour usage ( )
5.) Quality/professionalism of the poster overall, i.e quality of text/images ( )
What genre of poster do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
Out of the 20 people who took part in this questionnaire the results from the one to ten rating are as follows:
The average for the layout was 8 out of 10
The average for the imagery effectiveness was 7 out of 10
The use of text scored an average of 8 out of 10
Colour usage scored 10 out of 10 on average
The quality of the production scored 9 out of 10 on average
18 people stated the poster was of the action genre, with two stating it could be of the horror genre.
From these results I can see that the research and design of my poster achieved its desired effect on the target audience for the most part, with the ratings being generally high for each question, and having the genre easily recognized by the majority.
Film Magazine front cover questionnaire,
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1.) The layout of the cover overall ( )
2.) The effectiveness of the imagery ( )
3.) The use of text i.e headline, plugs ect ( )
4.) Colour usage ( )
5.) Quality/professionalism of the front cover overall, i.e quality of text/images ( )
What genre of film magazine do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
Out of the 20 people who took part in this questionnaire the results from the one to ten rating are as follows:
The average for the layout was 9 out of 10
The average for the imagery effectiveness was 8 out of 10
The use of text scored an average of 7 out of 10
Colour usage scored 7 out of 10 on average.
The quality of the production scored 9 out of 10 on average.
20 (all) people stated the magazine was of the action genre, I think this is due to the characters attire and gun being prominent.
From these results I can see that the research and design of my poster achieved its desired effect on the target audience for the most part, with the ratings being generally high for each question, and having the genre easily recognized by everyone. Two weak areas I have found were in the colour usage and use of text in areas of the magazine.
Film trailer questionnaire
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1. Camera work, i.e. how the shots where used/quality of camera work ( )
2. Quality of the footage taken ( )
3. Setting ( )
4. Use of captions ( )
5. Use of sound ( )
6. Continuity ( )
7. Use of lighting ( )
8. What genre of film poster do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
The average for camera work was 9 out of 10
The average for quality was 9 out of 10
The average for setting was 10 out of 10
The average for caption use was 9 out 10
The average for sound was 8 out of 10
The average for continuity was 9 out of 10
The average for lighting was 6 out of 10
20 people out of 20 stated it was of an action genre.
This shows that the audience views my film product positively with a high rating for the most part, although one serious flaw was that of lighting for my trailer.
Film poster questionnaire,
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1.) The layout of the poster overall ( )
2.) The effectiveness of the imagery ( )
3.) The use of text i.e production info, slogan ect ( )
4.) Colour usage ( )
5.) Quality/professionalism of the poster overall, i.e quality of text/images ( )
What genre of poster do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
Out of the 20 people who took part in this questionnaire the results from the one to ten rating are as follows:
The average for the layout was 8 out of 10
The average for the imagery effectiveness was 7 out of 10
The use of text scored an average of 8 out of 10
Colour usage scored 10 out of 10 on average
The quality of the production scored 9 out of 10 on average
18 people stated the poster was of the action genre, with two stating it could be of the horror genre.
From these results I can see that the research and design of my poster achieved its desired effect on the target audience for the most part, with the ratings being generally high for each question, and having the genre easily recognized by the majority.
Film Magazine front cover questionnaire,
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1.) The layout of the cover overall ( )
2.) The effectiveness of the imagery ( )
3.) The use of text i.e headline, plugs ect ( )
4.) Colour usage ( )
5.) Quality/professionalism of the front cover overall, i.e quality of text/images ( )
What genre of film magazine do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
Out of the 20 people who took part in this questionnaire the results from the one to ten rating are as follows:
The average for the layout was 9 out of 10
The average for the imagery effectiveness was 8 out of 10
The use of text scored an average of 7 out of 10
Colour usage scored 7 out of 10 on average.
The quality of the production scored 9 out of 10 on average.
20 (all) people stated the magazine was of the action genre, I think this is due to the characters attire and gun being prominent.
From these results I can see that the research and design of my poster achieved its desired effect on the target audience for the most part, with the ratings being generally high for each question, and having the genre easily recognized by everyone. Two weak areas I have found were in the colour usage and use of text in areas of the magazine.
Film trailer questionnaire
For each question please choose a number from one to ten, one being poor and ten being superb.
1. Camera work, i.e. how the shots where used/quality of camera work ( )
2. Quality of the footage taken ( )
3. Setting ( )
4. Use of captions ( )
5. Use of sound ( )
6. Continuity ( )
7. Use of lighting ( )
8. What genre of film poster do you think this is?
Action ( ) Romance ( ) Comedy ( ) Horror ( ) Film Noir ( ) Other ( )
The average for camera work was 9 out of 10
The average for quality was 9 out of 10
The average for setting was 10 out of 10
The average for caption use was 9 out 10
The average for sound was 8 out of 10
The average for continuity was 9 out of 10
The average for lighting was 6 out of 10
20 people out of 20 stated it was of an action genre.
This shows that the audience views my film product positively with a high rating for the most part, although one serious flaw was that of lighting for my trailer.
Summary of medium conventions in my Ancillary Texts
Featured conventions in film posters:
logo of the Production company
Film release date
Film title
Main image
Strapline
Names of main actors
Name of director/producer
Featured conventions in film magazine covers:
Website address(of the magazine)
Free gifts
Competition adverts
Plugs
Price
Barcode
Headline
Sub-headings
Masthead
Strapline
Main image
logo of the Production company
Film release date
Film title
Main image
Strapline
Names of main actors
Name of director/producer
Featured conventions in film magazine covers:
Website address(of the magazine)
Free gifts
Competition adverts
Plugs
Price
Barcode
Headline
Sub-headings
Masthead
Strapline
Main image
Main Product
This is the final version of my secondary ancillary text, a Magazine front cover .After researching and analysing existing media texts, along with audience research, I applied the style and conventions of my genre of film to my film magazine in a way that would best reach my target audience.
The process in which I achieved my final design was to create a number of drafts and determine which looked the most suitable and effective. I had previously analysed existing film magazines using the LIIAR technique, this gave me an understanding of the conventions used within a film magazine and what appeals to the viewer.
The masthead for my magazine came about when I was drafting up title ideas in my “silver note book”. I settled on the name “Unlock” as I had developed a strapline “We search, You Discover, Unlock your world” The strapline itself is totally original to me, as I used no references or inspiration when coming up with it. The strapline works in harmony with the title I feel as it supports the message and effect of each to the audience. The font I used for the title was a custom one made by a friend of mine, it was called GW 2.
I added the primary conventions such as the barcode, pricing, issue and date in negative space created in the design, I placed them in such a way that it was easy to see and helped give the magazine a solid unified look.
I did not add advertisements or a website address to my front cover as I wanted to try keeping the cover simplistic in nature. However, I did add plugs to the cover; this was done in the form of subheadings with pictures I had taken, featuring a robot I created, and image from Hull Fair, and me on my travels, each I felt had a dynamic feel to it and would entice the viewer to read more. The subheading under the masthead also helps entice the viewer with the slogan”The magazine that unlocks the film information you want”
I used another custom font from the site Dafont.com, it was called “masterplan” I chose this font as it gave a weathered and worn look suitable for my genre of film. I also used this font in my headline and in some of my other subheadings to give it some unity. The text I used for the headline and strapline give it a feeling of reality and urgency for example “Shields First Contact” and “Interview with the survivor” This is a form of wordplay, that I had taken inspiration from some of the magazine covers I had analyzed. Also I think it’s worth noting that the subheading “Meet the new actor” has been designed in such a way that it is shaped along the main image gun barrel, leading the audience to the main heading.
The main image was chosen out of many trial images taken in the blue room of the media facility. The reasoning behind taking the pictures in this room is that it would allow for the best lighting quality and the background could be easily changed for the picture via Photoshop CS3. I settled on the image on the cover as the visual imagery gives it an almost 3d like quality as if it is coming out of the page and staring/aiming out to the viewer. I positioned it in front of part of the masthead as this is a technique used by many popular magazines that do not need to show their title to be recognized, this also gave it a realistic quality.
I created the whole front cover in Photoshop CS3 using many tools, some examples are the opacity level for the text boxes, transform tool for re-sizing objects, crop and magic wand tools for cutting out images and the text tool.
Drafts
As with the film poster I tried out some hand drawn drafts of ideas I had for a magazine cover, I already had some experiance designing magazine covers in my AS year, so I knew which conventions needed to be placed in the design of the drafts.
I used the Media Studies facility to make use of the blue room for ease of editing the pictures later.( Cutting out the figure of a person or object is much easier when there is a solid contrasting colour behind it, depending on the tolerance of the tool)
I tried to get a varied set of pictures as this would give me a Plethora of possibilities to make use of the images. I even took inspiration from one of the Terminator posters to set up a shot in a similar way!
I used the Media Studies facility to make use of the blue room for ease of editing the pictures later.( Cutting out the figure of a person or object is much easier when there is a solid contrasting colour behind it, depending on the tolerance of the tool)
I tried to get a varied set of pictures as this would give me a Plethora of possibilities to make use of the images. I even took inspiration from one of the Terminator posters to set up a shot in a similar way!
Audience Research
For my audience research I have created a questionnaire for my target audience, this will help show me what they are mainly interested in, and what content I should work to including when designing my film poster.
I decided to make a questionnaire that could be mass produced to reach a large spectrum of people. The target audience for my trailer is of the 16 to 25 age range, so I chose to try and get those of that age to fill out my questionnaire. I opted out of doing an on line poll as the main audience would be bias towards the media related work I was doing, as they would of found the blogger due to its content. The questionnaire itself features roughly 50% quantitative questions and 50% qualitative questions.
I asked 31 people to do my questionnaire from an As/A2 Photography classes at Wyke College; this as an alternate audience to just randomly asking people and would have a higher probability of being more visually inclined. This would be interesting to see if a trend emerged among these students. Out of the 31 people I gave my questionnaire to 18 of them was Male and 13 Female.
I asked the following quantitative questions; Age, gender, opinion on the most important feature and a choice of poster cover. After I had gathered the completed questionnaires I tallied them up and made them into graphs using the Graph builder on nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph . The questionaire sheet was made in Microsoft Word.
The results show that the 28 out of the 31 people were aged between 16-18, with only 3 aged 19-21. The ratio of males to females is only slightly higher with 18 males to 13 females. The age group that my questionnaire has been undertaken by is the suitable age and mix of gender that I require to get valid research for my production work.
The results of the question “What in your opinion do you think is the most important feature of a film poster” came out very varied. The prominent feature however, was that of imagery, followed by colours and effects, this I will take into account when creating my poster.
The final quantitative question posed to the people who undertook my questionnaire was which poster of the genre I had chosen did they prefer, The 28 days later poster was much more popular then the I am legend one as 23 people picked the 28 days later compared to only 8 picking I am legend. This shows me the style which appeals most to my target audience, and thus I will try to amplify that in my own work.
I also incorporated Qualitive questions into my questionnaire such as “what interests you about a film poster” and “when you see a film poster, what grabs your interest first”. The various comments differed among the people who the questions where posed to, but the most common results were similar to my quantitative results for “What in your opinion do you think is the most important feature of a film poster”
This feedback and the rest of my research I will review on my Questionnaire sheets while in the creating process of my film poster.
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Textual Analysis of Existing Products
Although not a Film Magazine , I saw fit to include this magazine as it contains many conventions used in the structuring of a conventional magazine.
The text in this magazine cover contrasts with the pure white background; the masthead for this front cover attracts the attention of the viewer as it is a deep red and stands out among the text. The main head line “Strong and Fit” is in large bold text and is shaped around the shoulder of the famous person Jay-Z. This gives the impressions that the article is about being like an iconic figure Jay-Z. The secondary Heading “Strip Away Stress” is a plug to grab the interest of the audience.
The colour theme for the front cover is mainly black, red and with hints of yellow. The yellow parts highlight the subheading message and also “187 ways to be a better man” an obvious plug for people to the magazine.
The figure is centred almost in the center of the cover, in a pose that suggests power. He is staring directly at the reader as if to engage them.
The strap lines are spaced out with key points/facts larger while the rest of the information is smaller, forcing people to take more time to pay attention to what is on the cover.
This cover goes against the usual conventions of typical film magazine. This can be blatantly seen with graffiti like text daubed over an otherwise conventional cover. Batman is usually stereotyped to be the one in control of things, but this cover says otherwise.
As can be seen the text and image have been twisted from the graffiti portraying him to be the bad guy, this engages the viewer to make sense of it all, and ultimately we see the joker is behind it. This realisation gives the audience a sense of what the film must be like and encourages them to read on.
The plug under the main heading states in large lettering “free sex & spandex” obviously appealing to more a more mature audience.
This cover differs from the first cover that I analysed due to the main picture making part of the background for the front cover. The picture itself has been digitally edited to give a more weathered and prominent effect, it is interesting to note that in my study of film posters and also to some degree magazine covers relating to my chosen genre, the terminator salvation advertising and media coverage uses the same stylistics. The sepia tone and shadows of the back ground highlight the actors face and bring out the magazine title “EMPIRE” .this title can be clearly seen from the quite complex machinery in background as it makes uses of a solid title with a colour that contrasts with the image.
The colour scheme with the text used in this cover is red and white. The cover makes use of a silver background to highlight certain pieces of text. Examples of this are “Free” above the magazine title,
“Bale: The First Interview” above the main heading “Terminator Salvation” and finally at the bottom of the page to go behind the pictures and “plus” information. The usage of this silver background gives the text a uniformed look, makes it easier to read and helps highlight content within the magazine.
The silver also could symbolize metal or artificiality, while the red could symbolize blood or humanity.
The third magazine cover that I looked at was also from the magazine “Empire”. I noted that the Empire magazine has an iconic title that they use for most of their covers, a bold red depiction of the word EMPIRE. This helps the audience locate and recognize the brand of magazine.
The main heading and the subheading follow the curve of the figure, who is the famous person Megan Fox, from what can be determined from this cover of Empire magazine it is an established magazine as it covers its title partially, indicating its audience knows what it is regardless.
Megan Fox appeals mainly to males aged 15 and over, this magazine enforces that belief as it plays on the sexual appeal to men. The image depicts her topless with tight fitting leggings, accentuating her figure. There is small writing on her figure to make the viewers take a closer look at her and thus drawing readers to the magazine.
The background is pure white, in stark contrast to the figure, bringing out the details of both text and form. Key words in the headings are done purposely to grab the attention of people and give an initial impression. An example of this is the words “HOT” and “FOX” at a glance people read these key words and want to know more.
totalfilm.com for magazine cover image.
industryfinest.com for magazine image.
empireonline.com for magazine covers.
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