My Final Pieces: Teaser Trailer, Magazine Front Cover and Character Poster

From final notes from my target audience I have made small alterations to my pieces and below are now my final teaser trailer, Little White Lies magazine front cover and character film poster.

Evaluation Question 4:How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation question 4.

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Evaluation Question 3:What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

I ended up creating a number of different versions of my teaser trailer before the final one; this was due to feedback I got from my target audience. From this feedback my final trailer looks very different from the first version of it.

First Version.

My audience said they didn’t understand a number of the shots I used of the secondary characters from the film, and my audience said that they weren’t in it enough to work out any reasons as to what they are in relation to the story.

They did however find the shots of the main character effective as it shows the panic and worry that I wanted to convey and also makes it clear it is about her, and that she doesn’t understand where she is or why she is there.

I also got a lot of feedback saying that the film festival logos didn’t work as they felt that they slowed the pace of the trailer down, while others felt the whole trailer needed a faster pace already, including making the music tempo and volume change in order to create more drama.

My audience also liked the wording of my inter-titles but felt the font didn’t fit in with the rest of my trailer and was also too difficult to read with the speed I wanted them to appear and disappear.

Second Version.

Before showing them this version I asked them to ignore the fact that the music or inter-titles weren’t on it as I wanted to get the clips in the right order before I started to create the music as I felt it would be easier to do it in this order.

As I wanted to try and keep some of the shots of the secondary characters in, I changed the clips of them to see if it helped the audience understand that they were following the main character; my audience stated they still didn’t understand these shots and thought it would be more effective and scary if they weren’t in the trailer so that they didn’t know what/who was following the main character.

They did say that the shots I used of my main character were effective in both the order and the speed of them as it made them confused as to what was going on and why she was lost in the forest. However they did also say that maybe I should have some shorter, quicker shots of her to add in an extra element.

Third Version.

The next version I showed them was highly similar to the second, however I had replaced the clips of the secondary characters with my inter-titles. They thought this was effective as it gave them more to think about as the text used was quite cryptic.

The cello music I had added in they felt just clashed too much with the feel of the trailer, and it needed something that started subtler and also something that sounded more metallic and more daunting.

A number of them also really liked the point of view shots of running through the forest and felt that they were highly effective as it made them feel involved and like they were part of the film.

Forth Version.

The only difference between the third and fourth versions is the music I have in the background. They felt that the music was working better than in the third one as it was more sinister to begin with but felt it didn’t really go anywhere and stayed level throughout where it should have started to build more and more to fit in with the speed of my trailer.

A number of them also said they would go and watch it which I was really pleased about as it meant that I had created an effective trailer. When asking what about it made them want to see it, a lot of them said they liked how quick the shots were and that the white flashes made it really work as it made you think about if it was a changing shot or just a flash of something else that you might miss.

Fifth Version.

From building on the comment about them trying to work out if it was a white flash or a mini shot they might miss I went and did some re-filming to include clips of images of the main character from before she was lost in the forest, I added these clips in and made sure they were extremely quick to make the audience re-watch it to find out what it was they missed. My audience really liked this idea and said it added an extra back story to the trailer rather than making it feel like it just happened but that there was a more sinister thought and feel to the film as a whole.

They’re only real criticisms with the trailer still were that a couple of the shots felt a bit long, and to maybe swap some of the around to break up the ones of my main character walking. The second criticism was that the font on the inter-titles and the title being the same made it less obvious to what the actual title was and which ones were the inter-titles.

Magazine cover feedback.

As I knew I was doing a Little White Lies magazine cover I showed my audience a number of the official covers that they have created by printing them off, and then after showing them those, I printed off the two drafts of my front cover, to see which one they preferred and why. They came to the same conclusion I had which was that the background colour needed to be somewhere in between of the two I had printed off, and also that the image itself needed to be more cartoon-esque.

I tried playing around with more filters on Photoshop but once I started adding more layers in I lost the details in the picture too much and it just looked a bit too childish so I left the image as it was but took the advice on the background colour and found a colour that I felt really fitted in with what I was looking for.

Once I had gotten the image/background right I started to add the text and masthead on to the cover I had created. To keep with the magazines conventions I only included a small amount of the text ‘The gone issue’ as on each issue the only text on it relates directly to the cover image. I felt the cover looked too boring with the text just in the bottom corner so I created a secondary cover with the writing stretched out to make it look more dynamic. As I still wasn’t sure which cover I thought was best I got my target audience to say which one they felt was both more effective and more appealing to them. The majority of them chose the one with the standard text.

Poster Feedback.

I knew I wanted to create a character poster for my film as I felt it would be more effective as it has a clearer and simpler focus within it. Once I had created my flat plan I got my target audience to tell me what they thought about my idea of doing a character poster and by merging a number of different images of the same character together and the top and the location at the bottom. The majority of them said they really liked the idea and felt it would be really effective, the main things they said they would want me to change from the flat plan would be to have the images either all in colour or all in black and white as they feel it looks to complicated being in many different colours but also to have them different sizes so it doesn’t look like they’ve just been stuck next to each other.

I took on this advice and used four different images at the top and put them into black and white as it looked too messy having the images in colour as they were taken in different areas of the forest in which I shot the trailer also. However I felt the poster looked a bit dull being purely in black and white so I changed the location image at the bottom back into colour so it would add more contrast into the image. After showing both of the posters to my target audience they felt that the poster with the small splash of colour worked more as it was still able to grab their attention with colour without overloading them with a mass of colours.

From my audience feedback I learnt that in order to create an effective teaser trailer for the horror genre I needed to make sure it was fast paced, and the music built and built as the trailer continued and that it was also essential to make the audience question what was happening with the character to make her like she is.

I also learnt that when creating a front cover for a magazine simplicity is sometime the best route to follow as if you over complicate it or try and make it look too dramatic it puts the reader off as they don’t know where they’re meant to look first or what the main articles within the magazine are.

I found that when making a poster it is important to have a definitive idea of wither to do an initial promotional poster or if to character poster and to also make sure that the difference is made clear enough for your audience to be able to work out without having to explain it to them.

Evaluation Question 2:How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that my ancillary tasks fit in well with my main project as they all link in clearly together through the minimal number of characters; a main reason as to why I chose to do a character poster.

Evaluation Question 1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have chosen to screen shot a selection of different conventional moments from a variety of trailers that all fall under the genre of psychological thriller.

1. This is a screen shot from the start of ‘American Psycho’. I chose this shot because it instantly shows the audience a key character from within the film which is then continued throughout the whole trailer; making it clear this is the main character.

2. This is an effective shot from ‘Taxi Driver’, the reason I find this shot so effecti

ve is because the low angle makes the character look more dramatic and daunting without explaining or showing why.

3. The location shot from ‘Identity’ is a dramatic way to set the mise-en-scene of the film as the lights being a greenish colour in the dark, also this shot is shown through white flashes and the lighting of the

word also is flickering quickly.

4. The location used in the establishing shot for ‘Hide and Seek’ is highl

y different to the one used in identity, yet is still as effective as it starts to bring intrigue to how the voice over and following shots of the country side link together.

5. The shot I’ve taken from ‘The Orphan’ shows the thriller/horror side to th

e genre more than the psychological area. This makes it effective as it makes it clear to the audience what the main genre is without having to watch either the whole trailer or the film itself.

6. The shot from ‘2012’ works well as it shows a key member from the film, or at least a character the audience can perceive as a key member without actually showing the audience who they are.

7. I have chosen this shot from the film ‘Transsiberian’ as it again shows the horror portrayed throughout the trailer. The dark lighting in the film also enhances the tension in this section enforcing the genre for the film.

8. This shot from ‘The Game’ shows a character we as an audience assume is the mai

n character and therefore makes the audience question why he is falling next to a building at a great speed.

9. This shot from ‘Phone booth’ is effective, especially for my film as it doesn’t show who the main character is talking to on the phone but rather just shows things from the outsider’s point of view.

I then chose a number of different shots from my own trailer and have analysed them in comparison to shots from existing media texts.

1. This shot from my trailer I feel is effective as since it is at the start of the trailer it instantly links the audience with the main character. Also it shows her confusion and shock from the beginning.

2. This is another shot showing the panic and worry from the main character, the reason it looks pale and whitened out is because it is a quick clip shown in between two white flashes. The reason I have chosen to use a lot of white flashes within my trailer is because it keeps a fast pace in the trailer.

3. This shot shows the main character turning around whilst running, the reason I chose to put this in is because it follows the convention of having the character knowing/seeing something that the audience is unable to know and therefore creates a sense of mystery and intrigue.

4. This establishing shot of the location is important when creating a media product, especially one within moving image media products, so I have tried to include a varying number of these where I feel they add to the trailer. The reasons they are able to add to the impact I am creating with my teaser trailer is as it shows that it is set in a conventional location for horror films whilst still being an unusual location to find yourself in.

5. This clip is again another quick shot. This time it is of the main character yet it is clear to see that it isn’t from the same time that rest of the clips are from, this shows that the storyline is more complex than her just being chased in a forest.

6. This is a still from a clip where the character is rocking back and forth whilst being sat against a tree. The effectiveness of this is that it shows how scared this character is, without having to give away anything else from the storyline.

7. This is the first shot we have the girl running; I wanted to wait until near the end of the teaser trailer to show her running for the first time. The reason I chose to do this is because I wanted it to link into where the trailer as a whole picked up pace, so it would link in with the speed of cuts, music and also the volume.

8. This is the last clip of her facial expressions close up during the trailer, the reason I chose to have this one as the last close up is because it shows that she is scared but also because it’s shows her scanning around as though she is completely lost, and therefore shows her vulnerability; an element I believe to be key in psychological thrillers from my research.

Final Poster

My trailer in Genre terms.

My trailer in terms of Genre

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Versions of my poster

Since I knew how I wanted my poster to look, I chose to get the whole thing finished in one go. I set a day aside to just sit and work through creating my poster.

Once I had finished after creating it all in black and white I felt like it just lacked colour a bit too much so altered my final image, the location shot, back into colour and feel this made a huge impact on the poster as a whole

Final Front Cover

After talking to my audience, and asking them for feedback on the two front covers I found that the majority of them preferred the one with straightforward text rather than the stretched one.

From this feedback I have decided that this is the Front Cover I am going to keep.

chosen pictures for poster

Poster

Whilst I am in the process of having my target audience decided between my two magazine front covers I am going to start work on my film poster.

Below is a rough plan of what I want to do with my poster, I chose to focus it on just the main character rather than including other characters as well as I am going to create a character poster which would be released further into the promotion campaign.

From this quick flat plan I created I have decided that I really like the idea of using multiple images but instead use a larger range and also vary the size of Dominique in them rather than keeping them all the same size as it doesn't make as big an impact as I am hoping to achieve. I am going to put all the images of her into black and white as well as I feel that will again have a larger impact as there will be a higher contrast between her and the location at the bottom of the screen. I also just added the image of the forest setting to see if it looks as though it will work and I like the idea of having the character and the setting on the poster. I think though I need to edit the image in order to make it 'pop' more and make it look a bit more sinister.

Final magazine covers

Above are the two versions of my magazine cover I have made. The reason I still have two versions is because the text is slightly different on them. In order to decided which one to use as my actual cover I am going to print both versions off and ask my target audience to choose which one they prefer.

Stages of my magazine.

Whilst editing the image I had I knew I wasn't going to paint over the original background and because of this I was able to make a smoother line of where her hair would end as in the original photograph of Dominique there are a few hairs that were still out of place but weren't enough of a distraction that I needed to edit them out.

It was also helpful still having the original background there whilst editing her as it showed the difference the filters were making as I only edited her face as apposed to the whole image.

Once I felt I had edited her enough I started to think about what colour to have the background, in keeping with the majority of Little White Lies covers I knew I wanted to have the background one solid colour rather than editing the original background. Also by having one colour as the background it helps the image stand out more as there isn't other areas of detail to daw the eye to.

From looking at my second version of my front cover I felt that both the background colour was too dark and didn't have enough contrast against the darkness of her hair so decided to lighten it, however the colour I have in the image above I think is now a bit too bright and am going to find a colour in the middle of them both. I also felt that the image of Dominique needed more filters put over it in order to make it look more like a front cover for Little White Lies, there might now only be a subtle difference between the two but I now feel as though the focal image would fit in with the conventions of Little White Lies.

chosen picture for magazine cover

As I have chosen to make a magazine front cover for Little White Lies I need to choose a picture that fits in with the conventions of this magazine. I feel that the image below does this.

Before i started playing around with filters in order to make this picture look like an effective Little White Lies cover I did some retouching of the image as there was a piece of hair that fell oddly onto her face and also I wanted to increase the contrast in the picture. In order to make the contrast stronger I used the burn and dodge tools as it makes the shadows darker without making the whole image darker and the light spots brighter without making it look to bright.

Below is the picture after the first stage of editing.

Photoshoot

For my front cover and poster I knew I wanted to keep the character in the same outfit she wore during the filming, this is because it helps link in with the idea that the film takes place over a relatively short amount of time.

Below is a slideshow of all the photographs I took to be able to use for my poster/front cover.

Teaser Trailer

This is my final teaser trailer.

After audience feedback I altered small things to it, such as, I slowed down the clip of my main character running, as her legs looked like they were moving to unrealistically fast and therefore made it look comedic.

Posters in style I want for mine.

Version 3.

This is essentially the same trailer as the entry below, however I have changed the music in the background as I feel it gives the atmosphere I want to achieve more. I still want to add more layers into the music to completely capture the mood as I don't think I'm quite there yet.