Evaluation Question 2

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

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.

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. 

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.