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

Closed Questionnaire

Results of closed questionnaires from reece131

Open Questionnaire

Promotion

This a print screen of the event which was made on a social networking site in order to gain an audience for our media screening.

 We felt this would be a good advertising method because it was a good way to contact a wide range of people who would be interested in media. Other people which were in attendance were media students from lower years so they can gather an understanding what is required from them if they choose to do A Levels.

Evaluation - Questionnaires

In order to gain audience feedback, we produced open and closed questionnaire. I distributed these to a viewing audience in the media classroom.

 

I thought it would be appropriate to produce both quantitative and qualitative data.

Closed Questionnaire

Open Questionnaire

 

Figment - Horror Trailer FINISHED

Figment - Horror Trailer from Reece Beveridge on Vimeo.

Evaluation

Evaluation

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

Our media product which is a horror trailer uses many typical horror conventions. As a group, we believed that using typical conventions was as important as breaking them. One film we used as inspiration was Sinister and we ended up using some conventions which were found in this film. We used two main characters, one the protagonist and the other was a masked character who was the villain. 

The face of the figure is never revealed during the trailer, so that it creates more tension and suspense for the audience therefore making more scarier for

 them. 

Vladimir Propp suggested that each narrative includes many characters. This convention has been broken in our trailer as we only have three characters -  the other being the protagonist's mother. By using mainly the girl and villain, it almost adds a personal element as the audience could put themselves into the protagonists shoes and could personally think of the experience.

Todorov's theory that every narrative can be split into five categories has, by a degree, used in our trailer. He believes that it can be split down into;

• A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be)
• A disruption of that order by an event
• A recognition that the disorder has occurred
• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
• A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

We use equilibrium; where the main character is sitting in her bedroom, by herself looking at old family photographs. Then there is disequilibrium; where the protagonist is walking alone at night and the villain is in the behind her in the background following her.

Another extremely typical convention used in our trailer is the lack of lighting. We filmed a big proportion outdoors at night and those filmed in other locations feature dark, disconcert lighting which creates a more chilling effect. 

When editing the trailer together it was key that we made the trailer appear as realistic as we included a production screen at the start which appears in every film trailer and used text cards which appear in many horror trailers. 

As a group we felt that sound was a key part of our project and getting the right sound to accompany the trailer was vital to get a good mark. We felt that adding a lyric song would create an unprofessional feel to it. 

We used different sound clips which were all downloaded from SoundSnap which is a website which allows users to download soundtracks. This non-diegetic sound added suspense and creates a sense of horror for the viewing audience. One feature which was lacking in our trailer was the use of dialogue. We only had one clip of dialogue which was the protagonists mother speaking to the camera about her daughter. The reason we didn't have the main characters speaking is because of the accent – having a Geordie accent could make the trailer sound less professional. 

Our genre is horror and we tried to ensure that we used typical horror conventions.

Tom Ryall states; “Genre provides a framework of structuring rules, in the shape of patterns/forms/styles/structures”

This enabled us to use certain characteristics that would abide with the horror genre we set out to create. Throughout the creation of the trailer, we have conformed to using many typical convention which appear in horror movies but have also broke some conventions by the lack of characters. 

Locations

One location we used was the 'underpass' which is a walkway underneath a motorway close to our school. We chose to shoot here because at night it creates an eerie atmosphere and looks really effective, - another good factor is it does not regularly get used so we don't need to stop recording a lot to let people pass through.

A Viewing of Our Work

On the 9th May we are going to be presenting our horror trailer to a theatre of students for feedback on what they liked what they believed we could have done better.

I have decided to create a horror poster which could be distributed around school or shown in the hall to give the students a preview of what the trailer is going to be like. 

Timeline

Nightmare

Waking up scared

Underpass, walking alone

Mother Dialogue

Looking at photographs

Killer is following her and as soon as she turns he had disappeared

Mother dialogue

Opens door to reveal mask on the door step

Protagonist kneels down and picks up the mask

Mother dialogue

Girl being chased down the alley

Walking down tunnel

Looks at camera

Girl strangles mother and then is restrained

Running through the woods

Title

Girl walks towards camera wearing mask

Credits

Finished Ancillary Tasks

Magazine

Poster