Evaluation - Question 4

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

Camera - I was fairly familiar when using the video cameras as I had been using them to make other products, both print and film in my previous few years of studying media, so I was comfortable with using the settings and various options, including the various modes and still image options. 
What I did struggle with was when I had to record sound as it appeared to be low quality with fuzzy feedback and I needed crisp, high quality to produce professional results, I eventually had to resort to using the sound recorder on my I Phone. 
The zoom also posed problems for me as the camera had a hard time focusing when the camera was at full zoom, I then decided I wouldn't use any slow zoom shots and that I would use panning shots instead.

Tripod - I had used the tripod on various occasions when taking still images to keep the pictures level and at the same height but had never used a tripod when filming so was unfamiliar with the options for allowing the camera to pan horizontally and vertically and to tilt on a slanted angle, this posed problems when trying to pan smoothly but improved with practice.

Light Box - Using the light box was a massive help when filming in dark areas as it gave a soft light that allowed the scene to still look like it had been shot in the dark.

Photoshop - Photoshop has always been the editing program I've used when doing print work so I was perfectly comfortable when using it to create my film poster and magazine front cover. I have done plenty of exploring on Photoshop due to its vast amount of options and editing techniques so I am always learning and finding new things to try out.
When making the film poster, the focus of my experimentation was the hue of the characters faces. I had originally planned for the characters to be in black and white but they looked too dull and seemed to blend in with the background, I then decided that it would look better if the characters matched the base colour of the secondary picture, the yard, which was a copper-like colour. I changed the hue of the pictures from black and white to get the copper colour and then changed the brightness and contrast to add more shade and highlights to the character's faces so they would appear sharper and more crisp. 
I struggled a little to get the two characters to match in hue and contrast as I had taken the pictures separately and at different times of the day so their original shadows differed, resulting in the same amount of colour and shading to cause a different effect.
I also experimented with the brightness and contrast when making the magazine front cover so the that the flash of the camera didn't make the subjects face too shiny and, with the use of shading, made the subject's features more prominent.   

Pinnacle - I had only used pinnacle once before making this product so experimented massively with the options throughout the production of the trailer.
I managed to change the lighting in various scenes to make it appear darker and more relevant to it's genre and seemed to take away the glare when the sun had been shining in some scenes.
I struggled a little at first with cutting the clips down to the right time, making the transitions the same length and having it tie in with the pace of the music, this seemed to improve after multiple attempts and practice. 

 

Blog - This was the first time I had used a blog to document my work so the whole concept was pretty new to me, though it only posed problems for a few days while I figured out how it worked and which button did what. It then became a sort of asset to me as I was recording my work as I went, this decreased the chances of me losing any paper work and allowed me to be completley detailed in my documentation.

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When I first revealed my product it was to just to my classmates and teacher as we had decided to share out pieces so we could give critical and honest comments to help us improve our work if necessary.

The strongest comment I received was that my storyline wasn't very clear as the audience was confused as to why the characters were at that specific location in the first place and why young women were working there. To remedy this I decided to use text between transitions to explain a little more about the content of the trailer and to give the audience a clear depiction of what it entailed. The first question I conducted in my questionnaire was whether the audiences fully understood the content within the trailer and whether the could explain what the trailer was about. Almost everyone asked understood the trailer and knew that the characters were community workers.

Through the audience feedback I received through the other answers in the questionnaire I learned that, though everyone agreed that they would watch the full length feature after seeing the trailer, but a lot of people disagreed with the choice in film classification and said that the content was too disturbing to be a 15 as there were scenes that involved dead bodies, a large majority of the audience suggested that it should possibly be given the higher age classification of 18.

Other than that, the feedback I received was mostly positive, with a vast majority of the audience agreeing with the choices I made when making this product.

Evaluation - Question 2

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

To answer this question I conducted a questionnaire, consisting of 10 questions, which I handed out to a group of people varying in age and gender, below are a some examples of filled in questionnaires:-

After reading all the questionnaires I then converted the answers into pie charts:-

Question 1

The majority of the people I questioned fully understood the storyline and correctly explained what it entailed, the people who answered 'No' were confused as to what the antagonist was, whether it was supernatural, alien, or human.

Question 2

 Almost every person I asked said that they would watch the full length feature due to their curiosity as to who or what was killing the characters and wanting to know whether anyone survived, the people who answered 'no' stated that they simply didn't like the horror genre.

Question 3

More than half of the people I asked said that they believed the trailer was aimed at them due to the characters being the same age and gender and the fact they liked the horror genre, others disagreed, saying that it was either because there were no male actors or actors of their own age.

Question 4

Everyone I asked agreed that the trailer was appropriate to its genre, saying that the scenes within the trailer were scary and disturbing enough to conform to the horror genre.

Question 5

Less than half the people I asked agreed with the age classification, with some saying that even people at the age of 12 would be able to handle the content, these people were mainly under the age of 16. The majority of the people I asked disagreed with the classification, saying that the content was to disturbing.

Question 6

Half of the people I asked related to the content, saying that the characters were around the same age and gender, the other half said no, due to the fact that they had never been on community service.

Question 7

Every person I asked said that they had seen similar trailers with most people stating films like 'The Woman in Black' and 'Insidious'.

Question 8

When asked if they could state any differences, the majority of people noted that the trailer had been filmed in daylight and that there was no spoken narrative. 

Question 9

Almost every person agreed with the choice of music, saying that it worked well with the trailer and that it was sufficiently disturbing and scary, the people who disagreed said it was because the music was a little repetitive.

Question 10

When asked if anything was lacking in the trailer, almost every person said that I could have added some spoken narrative.

Ancillary Texts:

• When asked about how effective the ancillary texts were. the majority of people asked stated that they would be enticed into watching the main product due to the professional look of both pieces and the fact that, though there were only female models, there had been a clear attempt to keep the ancillary texts gender neutral because of the blue and black based colour schemes. When asked if there was anything that could have been added or improved to either of the texts , most people said that the top of the film poster looked a little incomplete due to the lack of text and that the text on the film magazine front cover could have been clearer, possibly with a contrasting colour scheme.

Overall, I believe that the the combination of my main product and ancillary texts was quite effective, with the questionnaire producing mostly positive feedback.