Where Can My products Be Located?

The finished version of my teaser trailer is located on the home page (page 3) on my website. The link to my website can be located under my blog post of; 'Website Address'. My final subsidiary task of the film poster advertising my main product, is displayed on my blog, under the title of; 'Film Poster Mock-ups'.

Q1) In What Way Does Your Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

In order for my products to fulfil their ultimate purposes of attracting the audience into consuming it, I must use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products.

In my main task of creating a teaser trailer for an upcoming film of a genre of my choice I have, to some extent used a lot of ideas from existing products. The first is the time in which my trailer lasts for; it falls within the 50-90 second boundary that all teaser trailers, regardless of genre, usually last for. I have chosen to use this convention because if my trailer fell outside of these time boundaries, there is a chance that it will be too long to qualify for a teaser trailer or that it will simply be too short and contain too little detail about the narrative of the film. In context, the purpose of a teaser trailer is to tease the audience by creating a sense of enigma, therefore enticing them to consume the full products after completion so by keeping within the time boundaries of existing products, I have been able to give away neither too much, nor too little information regarding the narrative. In the section entitled ‘Codes And Conventions Of A Sports Drama’, I have listed the most common features that tend to appear in majority of films which fall into the same genre as my own. The setting, on a sports pitch, we have used is a common occurrence in real media products, so we decided to use this idea, especially as it matches the genre. The use of the protagonist participating in the sport he loves, on the pitch shows his passion for it, and keeps the key theme of 'sport' playing with the audiences' thoughts.

In order to make my trailer attract my desired audience, I must also develop some of the forms and conventions of real media products. I have done this in my main task of the teaser trailer, by exploring some slightly different themes to those in which existing texts use. In my trailer we chose to to focus on a key theme in detail, the use of drugs and it's effects, not for the protagonists' mind or body, but about how the people they care most about will react to their bad choice in life- whereas real media products, that I have researched 'Save The Last Dance' in which the characters of the narrative are taking drugs as a way of life, our protagonist is taking drugs to help enrich his life for very different reasons.

In order for my product to be a success however, I must also challenge the forms and conventions that are used in real media texts, this is so that the narrative of the trailer cannot be predicted due to the stereotypes that the audience will walk into the cinema with. A key setting of sports dramas is within a prison, this is featured in several films; 'Gridiron Gang', 'Mean Machine' and 'Escape To Victory'. I decided not to use this as a location at all, as I did not want to explore the harsh times associated with prison, this gave me the opportunity then to develop my narrative and explore some more relevant themes that are more likely to be closer to the audience, e.g. the theme of drugs and isolation from friends.

In my subsidiary task of creating a website in order to advertise the main product of the actual film, I must create a site that is going to complete this task effectively I must again, use develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products.

I chose to include a contact form on my website, which has been featured on other websites from films from a similar genre, for example; 'Rocky Balboa' and 'Coach Carter'. This gave my audience the chance to contact me, as the producer, with any comments or queries, this is another way to keep in continuous communication with the audience and gives them the chance to feedback through a different method- therefore this means that the amount of audience I am able to get feedback from is much wider than just the people I am in regular contact with at school. From my section entitled 'Website Analysis', I have identified that a trailer is a common feature on all websites, as an extra way of creating an element of audience participation- which in all is an effective way of keeping the audience attracted to the product. The use of featuring a trailer on the website also allows another way to market the film- using a new and different media technology.

In order to make my product unique and different to those that already exist I must also totally invent some elements to contain on my website. On some real media products that I have analysed there are some inspirational quotes from the film, whereas on some others there are none what so ever. I have chosen to develop the idea of featuring some quotes on my website, however, on the real products they are featured across the website and appear in a random sequence when you click from page to page ('Coach Carter'). However, due to technical issues with the website that I chose to use, I did not manage to figure out how to do this so instead I chose to put a small amount of quotes, 6, on the second page. I do believe, in a way, for this to be as good as the ways the real media products have used it, as when the quotes appear randomly you may see the same one a number of times, whereas all of my ones are there to read on one page.

One way in which I have made my product different unique, by challenging the conventions of real media products, is through the use of my background image. I chose to use an image of a road that seems to go on forever, instead of the conventional use of an image either from the film itself, or one set-up from the film- both still featuring the protagonist somewhere on the screen. My justification for doing this is simple; my website is there as a method to promote my film, and entice the audience to go out there and consume the main product, the film, so giving away too much information too early on does not seem like a logical idea to me, as if the actor playing my protagonist is not well known, this will give away the absolute minimal amount of information about him, and will build suspense for when the audience eventually gets to my casts page and sees them. I also chose to use this image because it links with the tagline of the film which is; 'Which Road Will You Take?', and as the image is of a straight road the audience will be led into believing that the protagonists' path is set out clear ahead of him, and in the early stages of the narrative, this is true- however the trailer which is featured on the website will reveal a different story for them.

My film posters, as my second subsidiary task will also need to use, develop and challenge forms of real media products. I decided to replicate the obvious choice of having the protagonist featured on my actual full film poster, as this gives the audience an insight into the cast list. I also chose to use the conventional layout of showing the title of the film in bold letters, with the inclusion of the actor that plays the main protagonist shown above. This could help to promote the film, as if the actor was well known and their name featured on the cover of the film poster, then the audience would be more enticed to consume the product.

Finally, I have also challenge the forms and conventions of real media products (teaser poster), I have chosen to do this because by doing so, I am effectively challenging the stereotypes associated to a particular genre, which will have the effect of keeping the audience on their toes. Challenging too many forms and conventions however, can leave you're audience split as if you challenge them too much, your product will differ too much to that of existing ones and will require your audience to almost change their views on a particular genre, which would be hard to do considering you are challenging the ideas of many iconic films. I have challenged forms and conventions on my teaser poster, by simply totally changing the layout- I chose to not have the main image, one of my protagonist, but of a couple of playing jerseys instead. This has the effect of creating an enigma for the audience consuming the product as they would almost be second guessing who would be in it. This could also have the opposite effect however, whereby the audience are not attracted to it at all because they are not able to see who the main actor is (if they don't recognise their name). However, when employing the spiral effect, where I attained feedback after creating a particular idea- my audience liked this idea, so I decided to keep it this way. I decided in the first place to challenge this convention because of the context of a teaser poster- it is designed to be released a long time before the film (so actors may not have been confirmed, or script totally written, or production even started) and because the whole idea is not to give away too much information, both of which i believe my product does successfully.

For the main poster, I chose to use the conventions of having a mid-shot of the protagonist as the main image, and have again used conventions but not really revealing the genre of the film with this main image. This too, is used in other products such as the Gridiron Gang and Coach Carter posters which I analysed previously in the blog.

However, in both instances they have used a smaller, or blended another image into the background in order for the genre and specific sport to be realised. But because of technological hinderances, it was not possibly for me to do this with such effect, so instead and the way I challenged codes and conventions was through changing the colour of both images into black and white and blending them together in that way. The majority of similar products in the same genre have not changed the colour to black and white, however, I think it works effectively because of the mise-en-scene of the mian image- the indirect mode of address and generally closed body position of the featured character, suggests that times may be hard, and that the colour has been taken out of his life. Which is a definitive link to the narrative of the trailer.

Q2) How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Subsidiary Tasks?

I believe that my overall product- the main task and the two subsidiary tasks- work very effectively, in unison with each other. There were some very obvious key elements that was a consistent feature throughout the whole range of products that I have produced. The title of the film was shown on each product, this is a way of advertising the film- as without there being featured anywhere people would not know what the poster, website or teaser trailer were for. Within the title, Mikey and myself decided to keep the font, it's colour and it's background colour. This is so that it is recognised as being the real, official product and not a scam from a fake company. These points link the three products together effectively, as once a person has seen how the title is set out once, next time they see it (through another way of marketing) they will remember it from the last time they saw it. Another element that runs consistently throughout the three products, is the use of the colour maroon. This colour has been used because it is the colour of the protagonists' rugby attire. It has been used in the teaser film poster (where the playing jerseys are shown hanging up) on the website (some of the key words in the quotes on the first page are in this colour) and in the main task (when the protagonist is show playing in his team jersey). I believe that this is an effective way to link the three tasks, because maroon is not a colour commonly used- either as the colour of the kit in existing sports dramas (e.g. Mean Machine they wear black, in Gridiron Gang they wear white), or just the colour in itself differs too much from the 6 main colours in the colour spectrum. On the other hand, where in existing products there are quotes on the trailer and film posters and websites, I have chosen to just use them on the website. This is definitely a way in which my products are not linked together by their powerful quotes that send tingles down the back of every member of the audiences' spine. All together I do believe that I have managed to effectively combine my three products so much so that my target audience would be attracted to them, and realise that they are all linked to the same production, and while I do believe that my tasks are not totally linked, but in each they help to create a sense of enigma in their own way.

Q3) What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Throughout the production of my coursework, I have come to realise that receiving audience feedback is one of the most important points to consider when researching, planning and constructing a product. Linking this idea to the 'Triangle of Dependency'- without my audience, the text and the institution are nothing, I must therefore adapt my text to meet the demands of what the audience want, so I have had to use this idea wisely whilst completing each stage of the production. Before production had even taken place I decided that I needed to go out, find a potential target audience for my upcoming production and gain some knowledge about what they would like to see next on the big screen. This was the basis for my research and from here I was able to gradually develop my ideas, attaining regular audience feedback along the way, until I was ready to start planning for my final piece. Throughout this stage I decided to conduct only primary research where I was receiving my answers from various research types first hand. I decided to take a semi-structured approach to this, as I wanted to reach a hypothesis at the end of my research so that my product will be totally influenced by my audience, yet I do not wish to create an idea of bias, as this could influence the thoughts of my audience and they could be led to say something they don't really believe in, and when I crate the product to match this idea, they won't really like it because they have been influenced into saying something they don't mean. The idea of getting regular feedback along the way is called the spiral effect- this is when you create a certain amount of your product, then get audience feedback, then edit your product to match the demands and ideas of what you have most recently found out from the feedback. I found this to be the best way to make sure, at regular intervals, that my product was still matching the needs and requirements expected of me by my audience. At first I interpreted anything negative quite offensively as it appeared that my audience totally dismissed my product, however I learnt to use what they said to adapt my text to match their needs- as after all, it will be them that is consuming the product after completion, so in order for it to sell, they must like it. Before production had started, I got together a focus group of people that fell within my desired target audience, and pitched my initial film idea to them. From them I realised that I had a few minor weaknesses, and that if i were to amend them I would firstly increase my audience pool by, secondly introducing a few more key themes into the narrative that would help to attract a slightly wider audience pool towards my products. I'd say that I have learnt a lot from my audience research- the biggest point being that without my audience, the production is worth nothing. I am glad that I realised this early on in the planning stage as I have been able to keep continuous communication with my audience as every time something was created I required their opinion in order to make it better and more appealing to them- which is ultimately the key requirement when constructing something or such importance.

Q4) How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

New media technologies have been a massive influence in the ways in which the desired audience consume products in today’s world. Newspapers have been around for hundreds of years, but today it is just as easy- and definitely cheaper to consume this product over the Internet.

Almost everything done throughout the production of this piece of coursework I have used the relative new media technology of a computer.

In my planning stages for the subsidiary task of creating a film poster, I decided to find some existing film posters from the same genre that my trailer is going to be for. Once I had discovered one with an iconic image, I decided to replicate it. This gave me the opportunity to familiarise myself with some of the hardware and software I will be expected to use throughout the three tasks. For taking the picture, I used a simple Sony digital camera, once it was uploaded onto my computer I then edited the image using Paintshop Pro.

Also in the planning stages of my production I created a storyboard. Unless you class a pen and pencil under it, this initial stage was not created using any new media technologies- simply because we felt it would be easier to draw the images by hand. Once it was finished however, we used a scanner to upload it onto the computer so we could use it as evidence in our planning stages on our blog (will come back to later).

Whilst conducting my audience research, I discovered that my audience regularly view social networking pages; with the majority being Facebook now that the use of MySpace is becoming ‘out of fashion’. So I entered further research into how I could use a social networking page in order to help me advertise my product. So I have decided that I would use this social networking site as a method of making my product become more known across the World Wide Web.

In the construction stage of my piece I have use the new media technology of a handheld video camcorder. I assumed that the use of this would be easy; however it was much harder than we would have liked. The particular one we used did not upload to a computer easily, instead we had to put it on a DVD compact disk through the television and then editing could commence on a computer.

From the research stages, I have used the Internet in order to view existing products, from the analysis of trailers on YouTube to the still images searched and found on Google Images. The use of the Internet is one widely used by basically everyone that has access to it as it is easy to use, yet can sometimes bring in an idea of bias. This problem of bias has to be overcome, as explained in the section entitled ‘Audience Research’ from my blog.

This brings me onto another new media technology that I have used throughout the planning stages of this piece of coursework- blogging on eBlogger. Through this I have managed to document my every move in terms of everything I have done in order to make my main task and subsidiary tasks. Blogger’s simplistic layout makes it easy to use, organise and publish your work onto the Internet making it easy for a potential audience (or you, the examiners) to access and view. I chose to use this site because I had previously heard good feedback about the site, and upon just messing around with it, I realised for myself that this was in fact so.

Linking back to the use of the new media technology of the usage of a computer in order to construct my coursework piece, I have used this in several stages. As stated earlier, by researching, but then once this has been found via the Internet I have chosen to analyse and annotate this on the software package of Microsoft Word 2007. This is a simplistic package to use which is why I chose to use it. I also used this software in order to create my subsidiary task of the film poster, to advertise the film. I learned from my AS piece last year, that this was the easiest package to use, which influenced my decision into using it again.

I also used the Windows Movie Maker package throughout the construction stage, on both the computers available to me at school and at home. I discovered that this was a fairly easy package to use; it has a very basic layout and does not delve into too much technical jargon which could confuse easily.

Website Address

My website address is; http://www.wix.com/bdrandmac/MEDIA?gu%5Fid=4947acf6%2D4076%2D43e9%2D94d5%2Ddff52bc3be59&partner%5Fid=WMGs4POB1ko%2Da&orgDocID=JRSVP84Vmc0%2Da&wixComputerID=nckCgcibkGN%2BW7pLwLVweB06iZSeyMjDgSL9EsCHTrvqJr7m%2FiqJBK1h1U0U3xNJsBeoIu7g0%2BLNOdMg5lRrIw%3D%3D&experiment%5Fid=empty&wsess=OPqfEzqce9SIZjseXQISz%252BHT70o8fWuaQki9pCQtcS2dYW2T4oEeN%252FY1t%252BH8pNcOEVK0AGSZogdugONLeDabwA%253D%253D

Filming and Editing

Making sure we were sticking to our shooting schedule, Mikey and I filmed the scenes that we storyboarded a week or so previous. There was however going to be some obstacles that we may have had to overcome throughout filming; External Factors that may have an effect on our filming; Weather (will have to be assessed on the day, if possible we could use the good and bad weather in our trailer to reflect the mood of the protagonist- pathetic fallacy) Health and Safety e.g. when using cars (must be overcome and assessed before we undertake and filming, however due to my job I have passed several health and safety, injury prevention and injury treatment tests) Time of day (this should be overcome when creating the shooting schedule, however we must take into account that the length of the days will be varying slightly throughout the time of our production) Permission (this could be from parents, landowners or copyright from record companies. This was overcome when creating the storyboard and shooting schedule though) Technology (this was one of my worst fears when briefed about our A2 coursework, as I am no techno-buff. However, this point is spontaneous for every piece of equipment) Costs e.g. petrol costs (luckily Mikey and myself managed to do this without spending a penny- apart from a Dairy Milk chocolate bar for our rugby coach, for featuring in our trailer and letting us use any sports equipment whenever we needed it) Once the filming was completed (a few days late due to weather conditions too inappropriate to bring in the idea of pathetic fallacy), we were required to edit the clips, put them in order as decided in our storyboard and assign the edits we had decided on previously. In terms of editing, the mark scheme required us to use a wide variety of types of edits, so we have tried to employ this idea. We chose to edit our footage on Windows Movie Maker as it is simple software to use yet still has the ability to make a effective coherent product.