Thursday 7 March 2013

Evaluation - Question 4

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




Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned form your audience feedback?


We gathered feedback before, during and after the making of our trailer in order to try to create the best product possible for our target audience. Before filming began, we created a survey asking people questions such as what they thought the best name for our film would be and what kind of things they think make a good trailer. This allowed us to gather an idea of what we needed to do in order to create an effective product, for example, it is because of this audience feedback that we decided on simply calling our film ‘Slenderman’, as the majority of the audience said they liked the simplicity and obvious link between the name and the Slenderman legend.

During the making of our trailer, we showed a small audience a rough cut of our trailer and asked for feedback and tips in order to improve it before handing in the final version. This proved to be extremely helpful, as it gave us an idea of what was working and what wasn’t. At the time, the trailer had a very long opening scene that included lots of shots of the forest. Audience feedback told us that although these shots were effective, they went on for too long and meant the trailer moved too slowly. After hearing this, we were able to change the opening by shortening it and reducing the number of similar shots, which vastly improved the trailer.

Once we had finished our trailer completely, we showed it to a large audience and asked them to fill out questionnaires afterwards, which asked them for their opinions on it. By gathering the information acquired, we were able to find out the aspects of our trailer that our target audience believe are strong or weak points and understand what we could have done to make it a better product. From the information gathered, we found that the majority of people enjoyed the product overall and thought it looked professional and well made. However, there were a few criticisms, for example, some people did not think the overall narrative was very clear from what was shown in the trailer and others did not like small aspects such as the fonts used for titles. By taking these criticisms on board, we can now fully understand where we went wrong and how we could change these points to improve our trailer.

Here is an example of an interview carried out with a member of the audience who is answering the questions on the questionnaire.   


Evaluation - Question 2

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

    

Evaluation - Question 1

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


Wednesday 6 February 2013

Further Magazine Progress.

After looking into existing front covers of movie magazines, we have noticed that the majority of the time, the image will be taken as if the actor who plays the character is themselves rather than the character. For example, they will be airbrushed and have a neutral expression/smile on their face, rather than portray any emotions commonly associated with the character they play or have any bruises/cuts that may suggest the genre of the movie. We have therefore decided to remove the bruises and cuts that we had put on our image previously and instead airbrush the photo as if we are focusing on the actress more than the character she is playing (although she is still dressed as the final girl).

 We have also resolved the previous issue of being unable to centre the image effectively by taking a new photo which is perfectly symmetrical and fits easily in the middle of that page, allowing writing and pictures to be placed evenly on either side.