Magazine front cover + Poster

iView– Magazine front cover .

 

Poster – Poster for “Cluckin’ Hell ! “

Trailer “Cluckin’ Hell !”

Evaluation

below are the links to the audience feedback questionnaire and the actual questionnaire which was distributed :

Audience Feedback Questionnaire Results

Audience Feedback Questionnaire

Evaluation

The product we created for our media project was a combination of a horror parody trailer, a front cover of a movie magazine and a poster promoting the movie we had produced.  The assignment brief we chose stated ““a promotion package for a film, to include a teaser trailer, together with a film magazine front cover featuring the film & a poster for the film.” The typical attributes of any media product is mandatory to be focused upon due to its specific establishment of what media is. In reference to the statement made above a teaser trailer is essentially an advert for a future film which is set to be released, its primary aim is to promote the film, and illustrate itself to be as appealing as possible. Some may argue that trailers can be deceitful because the producer/editor specifically chooses a series of shots that portray the funniest/scariest/ most dramatic and most memorable parts of an upcoming film and thus the whole real picture isn’t shown. However, this is the fundamental role a trailer plays. The trailer we created does comply to the typical forms and conventions of a trailer in many ways. Firstly the complete, full narrative of the trailer is not unveiled , this has a hunger effect on the audience as it provoked to want to see more. The aim of the trailer innately exploits Todorov’s narrative theory of equilibrium. His theory referred to five stages, firstly a state of equilibrium, where all is as it should be, then a disruption of that order by an event that occurs, the third stage is the recognition that a dilemma has been created. The fourth stage is an attempt to destroy the obstacles and repair the damage of the disruption. Then the final stage is the return of the equilibrium, where all is well again and peace is restored creating a new equilibrium. Despite never restoring an equilibrium once one is broken our trailer follows Todorov’s theory for perhaps the first and third stage of his theory. The first stage is established in the establishing scene, which is of the college, and then switches to the main characters eating lunch, which is a portrayal of a balanced equilibrium being maintained. There is a jump to the third stage when the colour of the trailer desaturates and turns to black and white, the camera work becomes shaky and eerie music is introduced within the library scene. The significance of an un-resolved dilemma and narrative and not completing Todorov’s theory is extremely crucial to the point of a trailer, as the film would be appealing or desirable to any viewer, if they were aware of the conclusion, and thus the audience would be discouraged to view it.

Once completing our research we discovered that a conventional teaser trailer should be extremely short in length, approximately around 30-60 seconds. Our trailer certainly challenges that particular norm and convention as our trailer is 128 seconds longer. The reason being despite an original plan of setting a specific 60-75 second trailer time aim, upon analysation of the horror trailers during our secondary research we discovered the vitality of a horror trailer is to heighten and intensify the tension, and due to the commencing of our trailer being categorized under the horror genre, it would have been more appropriate for us to change the story board. Thus we extended the canteen and library scene. By extending our scenes we were able to merge the horror and comedy elements together due to the natural pace which was created via the rapid cuts and fast paced synchronous music playing over. Critics would dispute that a teaser trailer being over 2 minutes is unacceptable, however depending on the results of our audience feedback, perhaps it shall be unveiled that in fact a longer trailer does create more tension which compliments the comedy aspect very well, concluding in a successfully constructed teaser trailer.

It can be argued that our genre is generally unconventional due to the combination we decided upon challenging. By merging the two elements of horror and comedy together it could be an extravagant liability because the spectrum of these two genres is so far wide apart, perhaps this is why it is scarcely distributed in the film industry. However if created with great attention to detail and providence, in order to thwart disorientation iver what genre the film both elements would have to play their role in an appropriate amount. Thus we decided to have comedy as a dominant theme and as the main genre, and only use the genre of horror as an incentive, to consume the reader and build up tension. Which resulted in a narrative much easier absorbed. The beauty lies within the surprise and shock element of the sudden unexpected introduction to the element of comedy, which is thrusted upon the audience, commanding a curiosity to be triggered. After watching trailers of ‘The scary movie’ series we decided that the idea of parody’s would be an extremely popular theme in a trailer which was aimed at the younger contemporary generation. Therefore, we decided to make ‘spoofs’ of well known characters from blockbuster hits i.e. Harry potter (protagonist of the ‘Harry Potter’ series) and ‘The Joker’ ( the antagonist of the ‘Batman/Dark Knight’ series). Although parody films are considered as a complete different genre to regular comedy films due to their post modern discovery, they are attached by sharing the same purpose which is primarily to achieve laughter from the audience. The script being written by us, the contemporary students, living in the society which promotes the collateral culture where our target audience have an accepting attitude towards the genre we have chosen, possibly results to our advantage, and is an almost vindication of our trailer. In essence our trailer does conform to many conventions of a typical film trailer, however some attributes have been challenged and a variety of features have been developed in order to mirror the society our target audience are currently living within, and perhaps a meta narrative was created whilst in attempt to combine the two genres.

The conventional magazine cover including the ancillary text of our production, did not challenge norms too much due to the strict and limited structure of a magazine cover.  Despite the importance of maintaining the structure of the conventional cover, and moving forward in pursuit of the draft we created much was changed through out the development. During our primary and secondary research we branched out to analysing magazine covers of profoundly well known film magazines such as ‘Empire’ and ‘Total Film’ by evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, we were guided in the appropriate direction when creating our own magazine cover.  The conventional magazine carries 2 straplines; one at the top and one at the bottom, but we thought it more adequate for our cover if only one strapline was included and one tag line at the top. The main coverline was originally central  not set to the side, the reason being our aim was to promote the image as most people have a visual memory, it would linger within their minds for a longer period of time. The central image was originally aimed to portray the parody side of our trailer, thus only including ‘harry pothead’ and ‘the joker’ as a main image. However, this changed as we thought it more appropriate if this months theme of ‘iView’ was highlighting the antagonists of ‘Cluckin’ Hell ! The final feature that was challenged was possibly the barcode, at first it is visible within our draft structure that it was placed within an awkward position that was a disadvantage to us as editors because it didn’t compliment the image of the magazine, as well as not conforming to the typical magazine layout structure, which we then changed to adopt. In summary to our magazine front cover, many changes were made from the original draft, but they developed as we realised that despite the specific genre of our choice, the magazine front cover should show no reflection of it, because its demographics are much wider, and it (unlike our trailer) was not just targeting one group or generation of people. The only challenge within our finished product was possibly the blank plain black background that we chose to have, because it would be more difficult for the main image and subheading would be to stand out, thus disadvantaging us within the promotion of our magazine which was advertising our movie.

The final sector of our project was the poster for our film which underwent very limited amount of alteration from its establishing structure draft. Only 2 main aspects were victims of arguably major alterations. Firstly the position of the tagline/slogan and the contents of the images. Although the manipulation of the title was also affected as were were intending to have a chicken nugget with a bite taken out of it to form the letter “C”  at the beginning of ‘Clukin’ Hell !, as well the re-adjustment of the position of the billing. Although one may argue these changes are not significant at all. The taglines position is possibly extremely appropriate and bold, thus eye catching, as its been edited on photoshop to be more contrasting as well as being in closer proximity to the main image. The actual tagline is “GET BIRDSEE OR DIE CLUCKIN’” Which is a pun on the rapper 50 cent album “Get rich or die tryin’” we chose to create this pun because once again our aim was to promote this film within our target audience, and our target audience would be very familiar with this contemporary artist and album. Thus would find it amusing as they would understand its historical background and relation. This coincidently increases the humour the slogan intends to bring. The bluntness of this parody of 50 cent’s album would be a unique thus useful move towards a successful promotion method.

The ancillary texts were the film magazine front cover and, with our film being the main image, and a poster promoting our film with more of the character, the poster evidently shows more of a balanced dimension. They both combined well with our horror/comedy/parody trailer, as it was necessary for them to merge and compliment the trailer in order to appeal to more viewers and thwart discombobulation, and to guarantee the audience don’t gain a negative perception of the film. Adversely this can also be possible if the viewer doesn’t approve of the trailer, then paying attention to the poster or purchasing the magazine will be less likely.

It can be argued that the combination does work effectively as there is a dominant theme is all three products, and that’s the element of comedy, as well as visually, to ensure maximum recognition, the font of the two ancillary texts are the same when ‘Cluckin Hell !’ is written. The magazine is possibly the most important factor of promotion, possibly because it spreads the audience demographic very wide open, not only because it is featured on the front cover as the main image, but also because regular consumers of that particular magazine, are paying money, thus they are more likely to read the article, provoking them to be interested in viewing the trailer and the film eventually.

However, it can criticised that due to the beginning of our trailer suggesting it may be a horror film, because of the horror narrative, it fails to harmonise with the poster as the poster implies that the theme and bases of the film is comical. And the magazine front cover only depicts the horror comedy slightly, with the black background and the expression of the main antagonist. This could evidently be a disadvantage to us as the viewer may make assumptions of the genre of the film, due to the deprivation of all the genres presenting themselves equally within the poster and the magazine. Although, due to our target audience being the younger contemporary youths, then this shock and sudden switch in genre may actually be a pleasant surprise, and they may appreciate it more, as they would be more open to these contrasting, and contradicting parodies.

To gain feedback from our potential audience, we conducted a questionnaire and gave this out to our focus group as they viewed the trailer and replied with their comments. To gain qualitative feedback we will ask questions verbally and note down the replies in order to give reasons for the quantitative data following. The questionnaire provided that as well statistical data. Taking two forms of interpretation from the audience will ensure maximum feedback in an convenient manner. We learned that from asking 10 people; five females and five males, we discovered that only 1 was under 16 years of age, and one was over 30 years of age, the rest were in our target audience range age wise, this was beneficial as that will be our selling point. Out of the 10 asked 7 were students, again this was another advantage as our target audience, as we have mentioned before are students, either in uni, college or secondary school. When asked about the main genre, 80% voted for comedy/parody, meaning that our aim to portray the theme of comedy/parody was successful. When asked about the sub-genre, 80% voted for horror, which is to our advantage, because it was indeed a sub-genre, and therefore this means the first few scenes of canteen , library and parts of the cubicle scene, worked to their aim of suggestive horror. The weakness of our trailer unveiled itself when the audience were asked if the dialogue was clear, 60% voted for partially, this means that perhaps that was one of our limitations, the dialogue problem was rooted from the technical difficulties were having with the microphone, which is elaborated further, when discussing media technologies. The 7th question asked was weather our trailer, triggered interest as a whole , fortunately 90% voted yes, making the outcome a success. The censorship rating was not decided, but upon our questionnaire results, it is likely to be a 15, due to 60% vote on 15, possibly because of the drug references.  The best technical and worst technical features, were the only questions with mixed results.  The best technical feature went to editing with 30% of the vote, and followed by soundtrack and acting each with 20%. This is actually very much to our advantage because it means our trailer was very balanced out and no single feature was lacking ( except dialogue which got 0%). The worst technical effect was even more balanced, but mis-en-scene won with 30% of the votes, in our defence we are students, filming in a college, and could  not afford great props which may have worked more adequately. The overall rating for our trailer being 80%, meant that our trailer was a wholesome success. Our magazine cover only managed to get 6/10, which was the lowest out of the 3 projects, probably due to the blankness of the background, which was actually intentional, but evidently now, it is something that we would have changed if enough time was given. When asked if the magazine cover represented the film appropriately no one voted no which was a good signal, indicating that despite not receiving all yes’s, the theme was righteous and people were able to understand, but not clarify. which could be something we would change.  80% of the votes for the aesthetic rating of the poster was 8/10 or over, with even one person voting 10/10. This was a brilliant advantage, as it suggested that our Photoshop skills were developed in the right areas, and the image we were trying to illustrate was received in the appropriate way, making it enjoyable for the viewer, and thus promoting the poster in a positive way. This was backed up when the audience were asked if the poster would interest them in the whole film and 70% voted yes, which means our methods and means of promotion was a success. The quantitative shows that as a whole our trailer and posters and even magazine front cover were a success as over half our viewers, enjoyed all of them. Although, the feedback has assisted us in exploring into our mistakes, and perhaps trying to vindicate what we would have done differently, if we had the chance to.

During the process of viewing, our participants gave us verbal feedback, which fell under the category of qualitative data. As a whole, their views were partially mixed; but dominated mostly by positivity many stated that it was extremely funny and comical. They really enjoyed the switch of themes during the library scene, they stated it was unexpected and worked exceptionally well going from a horror/thriller to comedy. They also very much enjoyed the egg splatter on the actress’s face; many were even provoked to laugh out loud, as they could not maintain their amusement. The favourite part however by most was the parody sections. Our viewers explained how clever the dialogue was and they were impressed with the amount of time we put into choosing those particular sentences. For example, ‘Harry Pothead’ says he has a ‘leaky cauldron’ this is a pun on the location of a pub in the actually Harry Potter series, however it also can translate into a character needing to release their bladder content. This is a use of intertextual reference, which worked very well, judging on our viewer feedback. Another favourite scene was possibly the ‘Joker’ character pinning down ‘Harry Pothead’ and stating ‘lets put a scar on that face’, with then having a reply of ‘ But I’ve already got one’, highlighting the parody factor of the famous Harry Potter scar, merged with the famous Joker line, to create a brilliant comical fusion.

Alternatively, some criticized the trailer for being slightly confusing, the idea of a chicken demon, apparently wasn’t as clear as intended. And due to the dialogue, the themes are rather unclear also. The narration’s tone and pace of speech didn’t mirror the events that were occurring, for example when saying “splattering your screens this summer” its very monotone and doesn’t reflect the actions of the trailer. Some didn’t think the black background for the Magazine front cover was good enough, they stated we could have provided more effects to make it more exciting and eye catching, as its rather plain. In reference to the poster, for many it was their favorite due to their comical factor of the characters positions and expressions they were portraying on the layout. The highlight of the discussion was the tagline “Get birdseed or die Cluckin’” which is a pun on rapper 50 cent’s Album “Get rich or die tryin’”   which also provoked many of the viewers to exert the humor to laugh out loud. In conclusion, most of our viewers on average really enjoyed the trailer, poster and front cover of the magazine, they confirmed that it was similar to most of the trailers, posters and magazine front covers they have witnessed, and thus conforms to the conventions of the typical media attributes of a trailer, a magazine front cover and a poster.

The link below is a print screen shot of the views we have received during the 7 days that it has been on Youtube. it shows the surprisingly high amount of views we received not only in England but also in middle eastern countries, showing the power of globalisation.

 

 

Producing our project would have been impossible if the right technologies were lacking from our reach.  The first stages of primary and secondary research, it was essential to have connection to the internet, which was accessible at college as well our homes, this evidently made researching much easier as it saved us much time and had no financial strain upon us. For example if we were to analyse posters of blockbuster hits, we would have been forced to go to shops and purchase them for the average movie poster price of £10. And being students this would have been an impossible obstacle to obliterate.Producing our project would have been impossible if the right new media technologies were lacking from our reach.  The first stages of primary and secondary research, it was essential to have connection to the internet and the search engines such as ‘Google’, which was accessible at college as well our homes, this evidently made researching much easier as it saved us much time and had no financial strain upon us. For example if we were to analyse posters of blockbuster hits, we would have been forced to go to shops and purchase them for the average movie poster price of £10. And being students this would have been an impossible obstacle to obliterate. Evenmore, through out the process of creating our trailer, magazine front cover and poster we used various hard and soft wares.  The first initial step, was to create the drafts and final front cover and poster for our project. Using photoshop for these, was great practise and due to the fact we done a draft for each piece, our skill had a chance to develop over the period. Creating drafts for final cut pro ( for our trailer) however was rather impossible due to our scarcity of footage that wasn’t available. However, to plan our trailer we had to create story boards, and in order to know how to construct one, we once again used the internet as a catalyst to aid us through as it provided assets such as templates. Having a template proved to be extremely effective and useful, thus we decided upon using it for more areas of our pre-production. We used it in all the appropriate areas such as location release, talent release, budget, risk assessment and production schedule etc. Fortunate enough to attend a college which provided us with a virtual learning environment. The way documents were handled was only possibly because of VLE such as being able to email work or use a USB stick to transfer, which assisted us when it came to saving time.  During production was when technologies were heightened. Commencing from the posters being hand sketched, to illustrate the desired structure, for which we then had to use a professional camera to take picures of and upload onto our blog. Using the camera was profoundly simple for me as I had used it previously when tackling my AS level.  Therefore this meant that my skills were already developed enough, so no time was wasted.  However, a new piece of technology software was introduced when we reached the stages of editing, I hadn’t used Final cut pro yet thus it was fun to learn how it worked and what you had to do , I was given a tutorial by my teacher and I was able to share the load of editing with my partner who also did his best to guide me through as he was more experienced in that area. Which may have caused some time delaying issues but the issue was tackled with quickly. Even so We did stumble across obstacles, whilst filming the boom mic at times just stopped working, meaning that the sound volume and quality were very different in various scenes, which would have a negative impact on our professionalism as it portrays inadequate continuity. Fortunately, we were able to resolve this with the use of final cut pro by adjusting the sound levels.  Also, holding the boom mic proved to be another dilemma as our team only consisted of 2 members and both of us were acting in our trailer at one point or another. Which means that delays were caused due to the lack of an extra member to hold the boom mic, causing valuable time to wasted. Moreover, as much as I was unfamiliar with final cut pro my partner was unfamiliar with Photoshop thus some time had to be donated to teaching him some basic things, which was very easy as he was able to adapt and develop his skills quickly, making this construction stage an effortless hurdle.  In summary of the usefulness of media technologies is absorbed into and integrated through internet, with the convergence being available through the world wide web, analysing my work and moving from one product to another, for example from final cut pro to downloading soundtracks from the internet to ancillary texts, It has enabled me to see how far I am and what needs to be improved. The internet makes it possible for all these different media platforms to co-exist and compliment each other in a harmonious way, allowing me to increase the level of focus on each product, for a more advanced conclusion.