Evaluation By Donna Clapp

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

Poster For my poster, I decided to research horror films mainly, however, I then saw the ‘Seven Pounds’ poster and felt that this was the ideal poster that I could base my poster on. I felt that it was simplistic and didn’t give away most of the message and left the audience wondering what it would be about. This was the main feel that I wanted to achieve in my poster. I think that by basing my poster on ‘Seven Pounds’ made my poster feel more professional and something that may be put onto billboards and places to advertise the film. I decided to use one of shots from the film and take a picture that was similar to the shot in the film. I felt that this gave the poster a more realistic view to the film and the poster as it added some continuity to the pieces. Overall, I think that my poster worked well with the film, I tried to continue the theme that Ben and I created in the film, so I used the same colour palette, and a similar mise-en-scene. I also tried to make the message seem as ambiguous as possible to make the audience be intrigued in the film as much as possible.

Double Page Spread I decided to research double page spreads that have been seen be a lot of people because of the interest in the film it would cause. I decided to use an ‘Avatar’ double page spread for this as a lot of people knew about this film and I felt that for Ben and I’s film, we would want a lot of exposure and advertising. I used ‘Avatar’ as I felt that the double page spread attracts the reader’s attention and intrigues the audience into reading it. I think that this double page spread does this by the use of bright colours and many pictures. I tried to mirror this in my double page spread by using a lot of pictures and making the colour palette link to Ben and I’s film. For the shots for the double page spread, Ben and I decided to take pictures as we shoot. We felt that this would give a look into the film as many were action shots, we felt that this gave a sense of quick pace to the film, as this is a regular occurrence in the film. I think that the colour palette and pictures used in my double page spread coincided with the film and the poster.

Film Ben and I felt that the colour palette that we used would connect the poster, double page spread and the film together. Because of this, we mostly used reds, white and blacks in the credits and in the effects that we used. Ben and I also decided to use a similar font throughout the film and I decided to use this font in my two print pieces. I think that this is mainly used through the horror genre because it contrasts with the scariness of the horror, and with quite a plain and simple font it can contrast easily. We felt that this gave the pieces a sense of continuity. I decided to make my print pieces simplistic as a contrast to the film. I felt that because Ben and I’s film was complicated in Florence’s mental condition. By making the print pieces simplistic, it could represent Florence’s friends and that they do not have mental conditions and in that way their minds are simplistic. I think that the three pieces fit together nicely and I tried to use action shots from the film and incorporate it into my two print pieces, which I think worked well.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Questionnaire Ben and I fashioned a questionnaire before we started producing our horror film, we did this to see what preferences people had when it came to horror film and that we could incorporate this into our film. In this questionnaire, we decided to ask such questions as ‘What is your favourite director?’ and ‘What is the most annoying thing in horror movies?’ To the second question of ‘What is the most annoying thing in horror movies?’ many answered “stereotypical screaming women” and “love storylines that aren’t relevant” which Ben and I tried not to include. I feel that this questionnaire gave Ben and I an insight into our target audience, which was mainly teenagers and we wanted to get the target audience’s opinions on what they enjoy in a horror film.

Facebook Ben and I decided to put our film on Facebook to get a broader view on our film and what people thought of it. Many people gave positive feedback about our film and commented on the lack of “lovey storylines” which they enjoyed. Ben and I thought that Facebook gave us a general view of audience feedback, but we felt that we needed more specific data for our audience research and so used this and another technique.

Screening on first edit Ben and I decided that for more specific audience research, we had to give a select number of people of viewing of our film after the first edit. We decided to choose a range of people of a range of ages. We chose to invite the cast of the movie and 2 people of each gender who were in their 30’s and 50’s. We felt that if we could show our film to a wide range of people, we would see their different views and edit the film accordingly. We found that the people who were in their 50’s felt that it was too scary for a 12 certificate and so we opted for a 15. Whereas the cast and the people in their 30’s agreed that some of the editing needed changes, whose notes we took on and altered our film from. We felt that this audience feedback technique proved very effective and decided to repeat it with the same audience and get their view on the final edit.

Screening on final edit Ben and I decided that because the first edit screening went so well and we got so much good feedback and improved our film. We invited the same audience as the first edit, because we felt that this kept the data constant we would get more feedback. The audience felt that our film improved greatly and one participant said “I would go and watch this in the cinema, it feels and looks so professional”. The older generation even said that they would pay money to watch it, which Ben and I weren’t expected to attract an older audience.

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

IMovie All of these technologies were used in the construction of my film and the two corresponding pieces that linked with the film, the double page spread and the poster. IMovie was used to edit and construct our film. We had many different uses for IMovie, we mostly planned our film through editing it. I felt that IMovie was easy and simplistic to use, Ben and I had little trouble editing our movie on it.

Photoshop Photoshop was a program that I had used many times before and I chose to design my poster on it and also edit photos on it. As I had used Photoshop in AS, I felt comfortable using it again and felt that I had remembered how to use most of it. On Photoshop I edited a lot of photos on it, I mainly used the exposure tool on my photos, I mainly used this on the picture I used for the poster.

InDesign This is the same as InDesign, as I had used it in AS and felt comfortable using it again and felt that I had no problems with it. One of the things that I did in InDesign is insert my text into columns and used the text flow for the text. Ben and I have used all of these programs before which made using the programs easier and therefore we could get more work done and not worry about learning about a new program.

ITunes We got most of the non-diegetic sound off of ITunes. We chose to download different tracks that had aspects of sinister music on it. This music would play throughout the film and add a menacing mood to ‘The Deranged’. We chose to use ITunes for our music because both Ben and I have used it before and understands how it works.

Wordpress Again, I have used this site before and had no trouble using it. I had some trouble uploading some of the posts and sometimes Wordpress didn’t work which made it difficult as I had made a lot of notes and Wordpress deleted it, which made it more work than it should have been. Overall, I found Wordpress easy to use, with a few difficulties as I used it.