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."

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.

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.

DECONSTRUCTION: Limitless Poster

DECONSTRUCTION: The Bourne Identity Poster

DECONSTRUCTION: Enemy of the State Poster

DECONSTRUCTION: Die Hard Poster

The second poster we have looked at is Die Hard.

DECONSTRUCTION: The Bourne Legacy Poster

We decided to look at some existing posters for films within our genre and have deconstructed them to discover some of the conventions of a film poster. The first poster we looked at is for The Bourne Legacy.

Age Rating

Our film will need an age rating that will inform the viewer what to expect, and whether there is anything unsuitable for children. We have looked at the different age ratings below and outlined what each of them means. We will then decide upon our rating based on this, and this information will go on our trailer, poster and website.

 Universal: All ages, nothing unsuitable.

 Parental Guidance: All ages, some scenes may be unsuitable for children.

 12: Nobody younger than 12 can buy or rent - may contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, moderate swear words, infrequent strong language and moderate violence, sex references and nudity.

 15: Only those over 15 can buy/rent- may contain adult themes, hard drugs, frequent strong language and limited use of very strong language, strong violence and strong sex references, and nudity without graphic detail.

 18: Only adults admitted - can contain hard drugs, explicit sex references with detail, strong, gory and/or sadistic violence usually permitted, strong sexual violence.

After looking at these classifications, we believe our film would be a 15. This is due to the occasional violent scenes and strong language.

Action Vs. Thriller

As previously mentioned here, we decided to change our genre to an Action Thriller. Originally, we took inspiration from conspiracy thriller films such as Enemy of the State, The Bourne Films, Limitless and many more. Nevertheless, when it came to selecting our cast, our main character's presence seemed to alter the genre. 

We decided to explore the different conventions when looking at both the Action and Thriller genre. When filming and editing takes place we will combine both aspects to create an Action Thriller film Trailer. 

Location, Location, Location...

For some of our shots, we had the idea to film on a rooftop with our main character, Luke, in a confrontation with the govenment officials. We also want some running shots in a similar urban setting, with inspiration coming from a scene in 'Enemy of the State'. We have found some companies that focus on location shots for moving image and photography. The first is 'Bridge Creative Studios' (see images below).

The next company we found are 'Still Productions', who provide a more extensive range of locations, some of which are shown below. This includes both rooftops and urban settings. We have posted some more images below.

The final location we have looked at is a shopping centre called 'One New Change'. With panormaic views of London, the rooftop overlooks St Pauls Cathedral and would be an ideal location for some of our scenes.

After investigating all these locations, we discovered the first two locations were out of our budget, so we will be considering the third (One New Change).

Alex Gylanders - Actor Photos

These are some photographs of the actor, Alex Gylanders, for our main character, Luke Harris. 

These photos are in relation to our previous blog post, whereby we posted the actor introduction video. The photographs enable us to see what he looks like on camera, and how the lighting appears. 

We then looked back at our questionnaire results, which can be seen here. The results show that the majority of our target audience preferred a broader character. 

More Genre Research

After looking at Conspiracy Thrillers, we searched YouTube for influence.
Whilst scouring YouTube, we have found a rather amusing clip that links into our genre of "Conspiracy Thriller" and have uploaded it below for future reference..

We also found this video concerning Wikileaks and Australian protestors which was uploaded in 2010, and just shows the continuing influence of Wikileaks and the issues concerning freedom of speech.

MacGuffin

When looking at Examples of Films, we found the work of Alfred Hitchcock was very much relevant to our genre and teaser trailer.
A MacGuffin is a plot device used in films and can be in the form of an object, information, or anything desired. The term was popularised by film director and producer, Alfred Hitchcock. The MacGuffin's identity can be left a mystery at the end of the narrative; it gains the viewers attention and drives the plot.

We watched some videos on YouTube about the MacGuffin which we found useful in fully understanding what it is. These can be seen below. The MacGuffin is an appropriate plot device to look at in terms of our narrative as the top secret file is of little importance to the narrative itself; it simply drives the plot forward to the narratives conclusion.

Codes and Conventions of a Thriller

After looking at Codes and Conventions of a Teaser Trailer and deciding upon a Genre, we found the need to research the codes and conventions within this. We used both the internet and watched some of the thrillers ourselves to find some patterns and made a poster (below) to show what we found out.

Codes and Conventions of the Thriller Genre

Codes and Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

After looking at Genre, one of the first things we realised we need to do is to discover the codes and conventions of the very thing we'd be creating. We started out by brainstorming our ideas on what we generally saw in a trailer. It was clear we would need to watch some to further this knowledge, so we watched the likes of Batman, as seen here, The Bourne Identity (here), Collateral (here) and more. This led us to creating the following table, which compares the codes and conventions of a teaser trailer to those of a theatrical trailer.

Teaser Trailer	Theatrical Trailer
Trying to get people interested	More information about the film
Leaves an air of mystery	Voiceover is about the film itself
Voiceovers is speech from a part of the film	More clips from the film
Shorter than Theatrical	Usually shown just before the film is released
Usually start with an establishing shot	Give a lot more information
Build up hype	Reviews and major details
The shots are usually much shorter and faster
Create interest
Long lead time
“Coming soon”, “2013” – vague
Can use symbolism
Do not need footage from the film

We will need to continue to consider these codes and conventions in the production of our own teaser trailer to make it the best it can be.

Iconic image from the Batman teaser trailer

"Coming Soon" - vague release dates are well known in teaser trailers