Evaluation Question 4

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

Arcane Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from you audience feedback?



Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your Main Product and your Ancillary Tasks?

Evaluation Question 1

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

Arcane Evaluation Question 1

After exporting our video from iMovie, there was a glitch in the video which has caused our music from our trailer to play over the top of a section.
The following transcript is what should be heard:
"One of the conventions we challenged was the idea of having a voiceover. We found that generally in a teaser trailer, the voiceover was speech from part of the film, which is proven in the trailer for Man of Steel.
(Voiceover) One day, you're gonna have to make a choice.
This adds to the air of mystery and grabs the viewers attention, however we found this was not necessary or suited to our trailer.
(Voiceover) Stay safe.
(Voiceover) What do you want from me?
We tried using a voiceover and found that it took away from the look of the trailer, so decided against it. We do not feel that this hindered our trailers appeal as it meant that the audience are more focussed on the shots and what they are being shown."

Thomas Schatz Genre Theory (1981)

Thomas Schatz believes that there are only two genres:

Genres of order (western, gangster, sci-fi etc)

Hero - Individual, male - dominant
Setting - Contested space which is argued over (ideologically unstable)
Conflict - Externalised, against others (expressed through violence)
Resolution/ending - Elimination (death)
Thematics - The hero takes upon himself the problems, contradictions of his society and saves us from them
                  - Macho code of behaviour
                  - Isolated self-resiliance (either through his departure or death, the hero does not fit in with the values /lifestyles of the community but maintains individuality)

Genres of Integration (Musicals, comedies, domestic melodramas etc)

Hero - Couple or collective e.g. family
Setting - Civilised space (ideologically stable)
Conflict - Internalised - between themselves (expressed through emotion)
Resolution/ending - embrace (love)
Thematics - The romantic couple or family are integrated into the wider community, their personal antagonists resolved
                  - Maternal, familiar code
                  - Community co-operation

'Genres of order' is the genre that relates to 'Arcane'. Throughout our Teaser Trailer we have featured each of the above elements, although some elements e.g. Resolution cannot be shown or revealed in the Trailer, ultimately adding more suspense and mystery for the viewer.

Rick Altman Genre Theory (1999)

Genre offers audiences 'a set of pleasures'

Emotional Pleasures - The emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particulary significant when they genreate a strong audience response.

Visceral Pleasures - Visceral pleasures are 'gut' responses and are defined by how the film's stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed or a 'roller coaster ride'.

Intellectual Puzzles - Certain film genres such as the thriller offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle. Pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or being surprised by the unexpected.

Our Teaser Trailer relates to the 'Intellectual Puzzles'. One of the conventions of a teaser trailer is the 'mystery' that it holds for the viewer. The purpose of the film is to help the viewer 'unravel a mystery or puzzle', and so throughout the whole film the viewer will understand and establish the majority of our plot.

Tom Ryall Genre Theory (1978)

Ryall proposes the theory that the types of conventions found in genres can be grouped within the following categories:

Iconographies - Symbolic symbols associated with the genre
Narrative - Structure, open/closed
Representations - Characters/Stereotypes
Ideologies - Beliefs and ideas of the 'ideal' concept, themes

If we recognise the genre of a text it enables us to feel at home and we gain enjoyment from "spotting the conventions" (repetitions) and making comparisons with other films of the same genre.

If a text deviates from the conventions, it can confuse us, but at the same time we enjoy seeing the rules broken, providing that the film-maker doesn't go too far.

Genre offers audiences a structure enabling us to feel secure in our knowledge.

Audiences like the anticipation of watching for the predictable features.

- Our Teaser Trailer does hold the convention of keeping the story-line a mystery to the viewer, nevertheless Ryall's theory does apply to our trailer. Throughout the trailer, we have applied many Action/Thriller conventions e.g. Located in a built up city, victim and a villain, chase scenes etc, which is ultimately what the audience will be expecting. However, to create an increased element of surprise, we have gone against and contradicted certain conventions to ensure that we keep the viewers entertained throughout.

Initial Website Draft

These are the stills from our initial website draft.

Home Page 

- We decided to apply a background image that had a large relevance to our film. Using a landscape photograph of the Thames with the Houses of Parliament as our background informs the viewer that a large proportion of our trailer is set in Central London. We made our background image full screen. 

Throughout our Teaser Trailer we altered the colour of each moving image, and layered a coloured wash over the shots to make the images appear more dark, sinister and ultimately, it uses an Action/Thriller convention. We edited our background image, by increasing the contrast and shadow, whilst applying a very subtle colour wash.    

- We inserted and uploaded our Teaser Trailer to the Home Page. Once the Home Page loads, the Trailer plays automatically, and has been positioned in the centre of the screen underneath the Film Title and above the Film Awards. As you can see below in our Screen Shot, the Trailer has a black border around the left and right side, and have given the trailer the 'Video Default' setting. 

- We decided to position and place our Film Title 'Arcane' in the centre of our Home Page. The Wix settings would not allow us to use our desired font that we used in our Trailer. In order to overcome this we copy an pasted our background image into 'Paint' and placed the wording 'Coming Soon', 'Arcane' and 'Nominated for the Film of the year by the London Film Critics' Circle' over the image in individual text boxes. Once we had saved this as an image, we uploaded and saved it as our background image on our website.  

About The Film

- We added the link 'About the Film' to the top of our Home Page. It has been written in white and in capitals. Once the link has been selected the wording changes from white to black to show the user which one has been selected. Each link has been separated by a plain thin black line. 

- The wording 'Page under Construction' in capitals appears when the link has been selected.

- We used consistent fonts throughout (except for the Film Title) where we used Arial in capitals. 

Cast

- Under the link 'Cast' we uploaded images of each cast member featuring in our Teaser Trailer. We took these shots in London when we were filming. Not only does it demonstrate what they look like to the viewer but it also shows the outfits that they are wearing. 

- Next to each image we have written the Actor's names and their character names, along with 'Actor Information coming soon'.  

- Again we kept the same font, using Arial in Capitals and in the colour white. The reason for this is because white stands out and appears more bold against our edited background. 

Gallery 

- The majority of these images below were taken in London. They demonstrate the London Eye, New Change Shopping Centre, The Thames. We also took some location shots in Tunbridge Wells in the Car Park and on the rooftop. Again, we edited several images to make them appear more gloomy and dark.
- When the user hovers over each image with their mouse, the location shots become transparent and the location of each image is displayed.

Social Networking links

- We have provided links for our Social Networking sites and more. In the top right hand corner on each page we have provided emoticons for Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. When the user clicks on these links, they are transferred directly to their desired website. We kept on emoticons very simple and in the colour white, which is in keeping with the overall theme of our website.

City Productions

- In the top left hand corner of each page we decided to place 'City Productions' in white to inform the user. We are yet to produce a logo for the 'City Productions' company.

Website Ideas - Awards

After researching a number of official film websites, we are currently considering featuring awards which our film ‘Arcane’ has won on our own homepage.  After researching the official websites of popular films such as ‘The Artist’, ‘Argo’ and ‘Life of Pi’, we discovered that they all display their achievements in cinema to promote themselves.   If a film has received multiple accolades from recognized and trustworthy sources, then it triggers curiosity in the public as to why they are so highly recommended. 

 We are currently thinking about choosing an award from the Academy Awards, BAFTAs or Cannes Film Festival for our film, as these are often considered the grandest honors to receive in terms of cinematic recognition.  

Below is an image of how we will present our film's awards on the website homepage if we do go through with the concept.

Final Poster Design

After deconstructing existing posters, designing our own posters and developing our draft, this is our final design of our poster.

We have changed various aspects of our draft in order to develop and finalize our poster design: 

- We have changed the tagline, 'Innocence is no excuse', to Italics. This represents and reflects the characters' movement and action 

- We have lowered the title 'Arcane', as we could not find any existing action thriller posters that did this 

- Audience feedback suggested that the target was too faint, and so we increased the intensity and thickness of the line

- We also enclosed the target more so it appears more focused on the main character i.e the protagonist

- We altered the tagline font, and made it to plain white Arial in capitals 

Initial Poster Draft (Poster 2)

This is our initial Poster Draft. 

We previously posted our Poster Deconstructions of 'The Bourne Identity', 'The Bourne Legacy', 'Limitless', 'Enemy of the State' and 'Die Hard'. The reason why we looked at existing posters prior to producing our own is to look at conventions and similarities. 

We provided a link to our survey which was primarily used to help demonstrate which poster appealed more to our viewers.  The table below shows our results. 

Poster 2 (which is the draft image above) has received 72.4% compared with Poster 1 which was given 27.6%. It is evidently clear that Poster 2 is the most appealing, which is why we have selected this particular poster as our Draft.  

The Title has been modified by changing the font. We have used the font which appears in our Teaser Trailer and on our website to keep it consistent throughout. Placing the white title over the black background helps it to stand out and makes it appear more bold. All of the typography that is visible on the Poster is in capitals. 

We have positioned the target slightly lower and have closed it in a little to create more of a focus on our main character. 

The Poster credits have taken inspiration from other poster designs, where the font, size, colour and overall layout have strong similarities. We decided to position the credits centrally at the bottom. 

Finally, we added an 'Age Rating' next to the title on the right hand side. This informs the viewer on whether it is suitable for themselves to view this particular film or not. 

DECONSTRUCTION: Bourne Legacy Website

This is the first of our website deconstructions. By looking at existing media products, we can see what ours should be like and discover the conventions. 

DECONSTRUCTION: Haywire Website

DECONSTRUCTION: Die Hard Website

This is the second website deconstruction which enabled us to look at more existing media products before creating our own.

First Draft Trailer Feedback

Upon finishing the first draft of our trailer, we decided to publish it on YouTube.  This would act as a useful service for receiving constructive criticism from the public, allowing us to improve our product further.  We have also shown our trailer to our media teachers for the same reasons.

After receiving audience feedback and reviewing the draft ourselves, we have created a list of the trailer's strengths and weaknesses to work from.

Strengths

• Sticks to the conventions of a teaser trailer:  1 minute and 24 seconds in length, begins with showing the film’s production companies,  has been created intentionally for marketing/to build anticipation for the film’s release, ‘teases’ the audience with short snippets from the film (establishing the concept and genre of the film but without revealing too much of the plot), ends conventionally by informing the audience of the film’s title and stating that it is 'coming soon' rather than providing a specific date.

• Sticks to the conventions of the 'Action-Thriller' genre: has the concept of a male protagonist fighting for survive, a government body act as an adversary, use of enigmas, striking establishing shots, multiple chase scenes which use tracking/panning shots, urban setting, effective use of both high key and low key lighting, fast paced editing, variety of transitions (mainly jump cuts), dramatic climaxing music, use of a tag line, edgy typography.

Weaknesses 

• The trailer does not contain any reviews or awards it has received, a missing feature which would generate more interest in our impressionable target audience.

• The trailer does not include a 'billing block' of film credits at the end, with only the words 'coming soon' being shown.  This is unconventional for any teaser trailer, as it is often considered an essential feature.   

• The footage used forms too much of a coherent whole, potentially spoiling the film's plot by being too chronological.

Initial Poster Designs

These are our initial ideas for our Film Poster. Whilst shooting in Tunbridge Wells we decided to take numerous photographic evidence of our time throughout filming. We then used specific images that we think would be ideal for our Poster. 

This is the first design for our Poster. We decided to take a scene from within our trailer, so our viewers could relate it to both the Poster and the Trailer.
Taking note of codes and conventions I used plain white Arial font in capitals for the majority of the text on the Poster. Existing Posters such as Limitless and The Bourne Identity have used Arial Fonts in white either in the centre or at the bottom. We went against this convention and positioned our title centrally at the top.
On Microsoft Word I edited and enhanced the image by increasing the contrast and darkness. This created a more 'moody' and 'negative' effect to the Poster, whilst enhancing and improving the quality.
We previously deconstructed the Enemy of the State and The Bourne Identity Poster, both of which had a subtle target that was placed directly over the top of the main characters, and so I experimented and created this target on Microsoft Word.
The positioning of the Actors' names also plays an importance. 'Alex Gylanders' is our main character as so we positioned him centrally, which is where the viewers' eyes land.    

This is our second design for our Poster. As demonstrated this appears to be more of a thriller compared to the first design which does not relate to the action genre. 

We guided our actor's and asked them to perform a chase scene within Tunbridge Wells Car Park. Whilst doing this we took continuous shots of them both running. From a selection of five, we chose this image above. 

We believe that this particular shot captures a lot of action and informs the viewer that the Poster is representing an Action/Political Thriller. 

I have also used the same font and colour compared to the first design, as well as the positioning of the subtle white target directly highlighting the protagonist. 

This poster is a lot more dark and sinister, which truly represents a Thriller Poster. Darkness represent isolation, fear, anxiety, secretive etc which all are reflected in the Trailer.  

We have created a survey for our target market to complete which will help us develop their chosen poster to our final design. The survey can be found here.

Current Action-Thriller Film Research

In order to understand the modern market for action-thriller style films, we have researched any new releases of this genre.  By analysing the main themes in these films, we have established a trending concept that we can subsequently integrate into our own teaser trailer.

Here are a number of the films we have researched, and a small break down of their key themes next to each:

‘Resident Evil: Retribution’ (2012) - Action, Adventure, Horror, Thriller – virus attacks Earth’s population/ heroine is the human race's last and only hope/ hunts for those responsible for the outbreak/ must fight to survive.

‘The Bourne Legacy’ (2012) - Action, Adventure, Thriller – top secret government program/ intends to wipe out all the genetically modified killers it created/ protagonist must flee in order to save his life.

‘Haywire’ (2012) – Action, Thriller - female covert ops specialist/ hunted down/ discovers she has been double-crossed by someone close to her in the agency/ strikes back.

‘Safe House’ (2012) - Thriller, Action, Adventure - young CIA agent/ tasked with looking after a fugitive in a safe house/ safe house is attacked/ forced to go on the run with his charge.

‘Act of Valor’ (2012) - War, Action, Adventure, Thriller - mission to recover a kidnapped CIA operative/ unexpectedly discovers imminent global threat/ elite team of Navy SEALs must embark on a secret operation.

‘Premium Rush’ (2012) – Action, Thriller - bike messenger picks up an envelope/ attracts the interest of a dirty cop/ pursues the cyclist through Manhattan.

‘Jack Reacher’ (2012) – Action, Thriller – gunman takes five lives/ evidence points to the suspect in custody/ suspect blames the man Jack Reacher/ Jack Reacher investigates the case himself.

‘Contraband’ (2012) – Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller – former drug smuggler/ needs to protect his brother-in-law from a drug lord/ sets out to bring back some counterfeit currency.

‘Man on a Ledge’ (2012) – Action, Crime, Thriller - police psychologist/ tries to talk down an ex-con who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel rooftop/ the biggest diamond heist ever committed is in motion.

‘Now You See Me’ (2013) – Action, Thriller - FBI agents/ track a team of illusionists who pull off bank heists during their performances/ reward their audiences with the money.

‘Alex Cross’ (2012) – Action, Crime, Mystery, Thriller - homicide detective/ pushed to the brink of his moral and physical limits/ attempting to track down a serial killer who specializes in torture and pain.

‘Taken 2’ (2012) – Action, Thriller - retired CIA operative Mills/ he and his ex-wife taken hostage/ culprit is the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while rescuing his daughter.

‘The Company You Keep’ (2012) – Political, Action, Thriller - former Weather Underground activist/ journalist discovers his identity/ forced to go on the run.

‘Assassin’s Bullet' (2012) – Action, Drama, Thriller - unknown vigilante/ begins killing high-priority terrorists/ former FBI field agent brought in/ ordered to discover the identity of the assassin.

‘Cleanskin’ (2012) – Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller - British secret service agent/ ordered to kill a British-born suicide bomber and his terrorist cell.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012) – Action, Drama, History, Thriller - female CIA operative/ pursues leads to uncover the whereabouts of Al Qaeda's leader/ in 2011 U.S. Navy SEAL team is sent to kill or capture Bin Laden.

‘Riddick’ (2013) - Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller – Riddick betrayed and left for dead/ fights for survival against alien predators/ bounty hunters try to find him/ Riddick unleashes an attack of vengeance.

‘Welcome to the Punch’ (2013) – Action, Adventure, Crime, Thriller - former criminal/ forced to return to London/ gives detective one last chance to catch him/ uncover a deeper conspiracy they both need to solve in order to survive.

‘Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters’ (2013) - Action, Comedy, Horror, Thriller - Hansel and Gretel/ vigilantes/ hell bent on retribution/ unknowingly become the hunted.

‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ (2013) - Action, Adventure, Thriller - Katniss Everdeen/ returns home after winning the 74th Annual Hunger Games/ must embark on a Victor's Tour/ senses that a rebellion is simmering/ the 75th Annual Hunger Games is about to begin.

‘Safe’ (2012) - Action, Adventure, Crime, Thriller – former elite agent/ Russian Mafia murders his family/ he rescues a Chinese girl/ they are pursued by the same gangsters, corrupt New York Police and the Triads.

The main concept that we wish to adopt from these current action-thrillers, is the idea that our protagonist has to fight to survive.  Just like in the films ‘Premium Rush’ and ‘Safe’, our main character is forced to go on the run, when he is pursued for something in his possession.  Then similarly to films such as ‘Haywire’ and ‘The Bourne Legacy’, our protagonist’s adversary is the government itself.  This consequently sparks debate in the audience about the morality of the authority's actions.