Finished Trailer....

This is the finished trailer. I used iMovie to construct it. I have had to make adjustments while putting the trailer together, I started to base it on the storyboard, but once I had finished putting the clips and titles together, I noticed that it didn't look right, so moved some of the clips around. I didn't include a voice over, as I felt that it looked better with titles, and the music added drama and I thought it would be too much with both a voice over and music. 

I kept the date, hash-tag and website at the end, but instead of having them on different title slides like I planned on my storyboard, I decided to have them on one. I didn't know how to organise them, so I looked online at some trailers and noticed that they had the date at the top with the website and hash-tag underneath. This looked professional and went with the sound effects I had placed over the text. I added a heartbeat sound effect over the text, I did this as it adds ambiance and brings a sense of calm after the dramatic music. I used fade transitions on most clips, and used cuts for the fast paced moments.

I have also included the green screen at the beginning of the trailer and have left the billing block out as I felt that it looked better without it, and just the release date and the social media - website and hash-tag, as when I looked at other trailers of films within the same genre of my film I noticed that they only had the release date, website and hash-tag.

I watched my trailer several times and I noticed little bits that needed improving. Things like cutting down some clips and making titles slightly longer. Titles were kept the same, however I moved the title; 'From the director of LoanShark' to before the film title near the end, I thought it looked better here and allowed for the other titles to draw in the audience. I used the billing block from my poster for my trailer, and used music from YouTube. I decided to use some dramatic trailer music for my trailer as it built up at the right moments, and went well with what my trailer was about. I thought that the other music that I had in mind wouldn't work well, and I would have had to edit it to fit in with the trailer. 

I think it looks really effective and well done, but no matter how many times I watch it I still feel like there's things that could be added! But I think it looks good and others have said that it's good so I'm happy with it. 

Movie Magazine Front Cover...

As with my movie poster, after I had looked at magazine covers from Empire Magazine and Total Film, I got an idea of how to layout my cover and what to include. As well as the research, after I had finished my movie poster I decided that I wanted my magazine cover to look similar to my poster, as to show a link between the cover and the poster, and to get people to buy the magazine if they recognised the style of the cover and the film. I then decided to do two different covers, one in colour, and one in black and white, then ask my friends which one looks the most effective.

From the photos I took for my poster, I decided to use the ones which involved my main 'actors' standing face on and back to back. I chose these photos as they looked the best suited on a magazine cover and they would match my poster seeing as there is the same background and they are wearing the same outfits. 

From there I starting doing some with the photo showing them standing face on, after a couple of try outs I felt that it didn't look right, so I then decided to use the ones where they are facing back to back. This looked a lot better than the other photo and looked more professional. 

My first drafts involved me using the same background as the photo, after a few copies, I decided it didn't look right. The first draft of my magazine didn't look right for me. I chose to keep the background as I wanted to keep the

magazine cover and poster the same or at least have them linked. I then chose a red, black and white colour scheme for the text as I felt that it worked best with the bold, green colour of the background. For my title, I decided to go for a themed font, and found this movie reel type font which goes perfectly with the theme of the magazine. 

For the cover-lines, I researched the latest news headlines, and chose the Oscars as they were fairly recent, and decided to include a round up of this years biggest summer films as I didn't really know what else to include.

While doing my first cover, I decided I would link it in with my poster. I did this by using a black and white effect on the poster, but keeping the foreground coloured. I did some research and noticed that there are a few magazine covers which do this. I thought it looked okay, but the background made it difficult to read the text. I didn't want to change the text colour as I felt this looked conventional.

I also decided to change the font my film title uses. I felt this looked too tacky and did not look professional. I wanted my magazine cover to have all the conventional features but look like it has come off the shop shelf rather than look rushed. I also decided to that I needed to change the background as it didn't look right. After more research I saw that very few magazine covers use outdoor backgrounds and most use gradient coloured backgrounds instead, so I thought I would try this myself.

So, following on from changing the colours to black and white, I then decided to experiment with plain backgrounds rather than using the original background. I also changed the colour of some of the text to make it easier to read. I found that it looked a lot more cleaner when using a plain background. Here I haven't got all of the features of a magazine as this was more of an experiment, a try-out to see what a plain background would look like. 

I think that the colour scheme needs to be worked on and that I might change the colour of the background to black & white, again to link this cover to my movie poster, the layout needs reorganising and in order to do that, I will research movie magazine covers and look at how they organise the layout of their information.   

This is my final magazine cover. I have kept the colour scheme to grey, white and red, used a gradient background of black and white, I also used a different photo this time as the other one didn't look right in the end. I felt this photo was more appropriate for magazine covers. I used a sans serif font, more specifically, Arial Black for my cover-lines as it looked clear and bold, good for getting the attention of the reader, I used a cursive font for the main text, I decided to use this type of font as I had seen it on other magazine covers and thought it looked effective. I have a slogan, issue number, date, website, price, bar-code, additional information and a unique selling point which is that my magazine is a blockbuster special issue, highlighting all the big movies coming out this year, this gives people a reason to buy my magazine and therefore read it. I like this layout a lot more as it's cleaner, professional, effective and almost matches my original plan. The text works better with the new photo, and the colour scheme works well with the background. I have also added some anchorage to give the main image a meaning and link with the main cover-lines. I felt that without it it looked bare, but also didn't make sense. 

I am now 100% happy with how it came out, I like how the text came out, how the colours work well with other and that you can read the text easily, the image of the actors work well with the positioning of the text and most importantly it does't look like an image with text posted on top, it looks professionally done.   

Since making this post, I have made a few adjustments based on the feedback I received.  In brief, I have added more photos to balance out the use of photos and text, corrected spelling mistakes, and altered the date.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Final version of my magazine cover after audience feedback.

Movie Poster...

After looking at many movie posters and getting an idea of what to include within it, I started doing my own poster for my trailer/movie. At first I did a rough plan, with all of the conventional features of a poster. I decided not to put too much detail in the plan, as it gives me a rough idea of what to include. I decided to do one main poster, even though most mainstream movies have more than one, I thought I would try and be less conventional.

Before I started my poster, I needed to take a few photos of my main characters/actors who were going to be included in the poster. I had them stand in three different poses and chose a forest background as the forest was going to be a location within my film. In the end I chose the first photo on the right for my poster, the second/middle photo for my magazine cover, and chose not to use the last photo as I felt it didn't look right, and that the first two suited the poster and cover better. 

I chose to do a medium close up as I noticed that most posters use a medium close up, rather than a full body close up, and I thought it looked better and emphasised the closeness between the two characters, and also so that people can recognise them, like they do with mainstream posters and the actors. I will also include their names, the release date, film title, slogan, website, hash-tag, billing block and possibly a star rating. 

I also asked them to wear certain clothing to fit the trailer and genre, I based the outfits on the Twilight and The Host posters as they are the same genre of film as my trailer/film. It shows the type of person my main characters are, and gives the audience an idea of what they are like before watching the trailer. The female characters clothing suggests that she is  someone who is determined, is a fighter and is stylish. For the male character, you can tell that they are also stylish, by their facial expressions, they are focused and serious, and shows that this is a serious film, not a comedy



This was the first version of my poster. I chose to use a black and white colour scheme as I like the contrast between light and dark as it links in with the contrast of my two characters, one being part of the evil 'other' the other being a good person and them falling in love, this is shown through colour representation as White represents purity, light & innocence and Black represents power, evil and mystery. I made the text white to coincide with this idea and to also allow readers to be able to read what is on the poster. I have the actors names at the top corners, again like most movie posters, I have also included a link to my previous film 'LOANSHARK' which is conventional on most posters, as they can advertise to fans their previous works, 'you're a fan of this, you might like this film'. Underneath the film link, I have my film title, I used a glowing effect as I though it looked effective and matched the   theme of my trailer. It also works well with the background and makes it seem less plain. I then have my main image and underneath I have my slogan, I used a back-glow behind the text to give it a ghostly effect and looks like the words have been written in dust. For the billing block I used a condensed font, again I made it white in order for it to be visible against the background, I included the director, actors, executive producer, music producer, screen writer, writer, producer. I tried to keep it quite small and centred, like most movie posters, and underneath I had the date, on this one my date was 'Coming Soon', but I think it's too big, and I couldn't fit anymore information. 


After doing my first, I thought that there were some areas that needed changing. The film title, actors names, film link and slogan were fine, however the billing block I felt needed changing. I used a similar condensed font, same colour, but put less information and made it slightly smaller, I used the font Georgia for the release date which I changed to 'NOVEMBER 2014'. Because I managed to make my billing block smaller, I was able to add in the information that I couldn't fit on my first draft. Since twitter has become more mainstream for movies and film companies, using hash-tags on posters increases audience interaction and also adds media convergence. The hash-tag is #THECHOICE and this allows twitter uses to use this when giving opinions and makes it easier for others to find reviews on the film and others who also like the movie, it brings people closer. I have also added a website as well, again to further the media convergence and to increase audience interaction as most film websites offer exclusives such as exclusive trailers, behind-the-scenes footage, games, social networking, wallpapers etc. After looking back at some posters, I noticed that some had the production company logos on the bottom of the poster, so I decided to use the logo I created in AS for my production company and added that on the bottom of the poster. After I added these final touches, I felt that my poster was a lot. It looks much better, much cleaner and much more professional. 

I will ask people for feedback on which they think is the better version, and why. For my magazine cover, I shall use another image but have it black and white to match my poster. Overall I am happy with my refined poster, it's simple yet effective, it has all of the necessary information, and suits the genre of my trailer. 

Since doing this post, I have made a slight adjustment, and have changed the colour of the text for the slogan as it was difficult to read. 

The final version of my poster after making adjustments due to my audience feedback.

Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Like question 1, I have decided to do a video including a voice over and images demonstrating my points.  While doing this video, I realised that I had used quite a lot of media technology throughout this project. 

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback? - Trailer

For my trailer, I decided to film the class having discussion about my film, talking about what they liked, what they didn't like, what could be improved and so on. I felt this would be better than getting Facebook comments and would be much more reliable in terms of getting responses.


I decided to ask my mother and a couple of people from my class so that I could get a varied response from people who are different ages. My mother thought the trailer was well shot, the use of shots were effective, it told the story well, the titles were effective and that the music was appropriate and added that little bit of drama.

For improvements, she thought that the titles could have been made slightly longer, but apart from that she thought it was well done.

Fellow students thought that it was really good, and had similar opinions to the previous video. They thought that the use of sound was effective and that it fit really well with the genre of the trailer, they also thought that the slow motion at the beginning was effective and the shots that set the scenes were also well done. 

Improvements were that some of the clips be shortened down but apart from that, they were happy with the trailer. 

Other feedback was that I could have used a tripod for some of the shots as some were a little shaky, but the music was good and the slow motion effects were good,  and that the editing was good. 

From this, I have found that most liked my trailer. Additional feedback was that is was effective and that not much needed to be tweaked. Most liked the use of music, the shots used, and the titles and effects. Overall, it was mainly positive comments. I have made some adjustments based on some of the feedback I was given. I have made the titles slightly longer and I have shorted some clips down so that it shows the action only, and not random parts of the trailer.

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback? - Magazine Cover and Poster.

I have learned many things from my audience feedback, mostly that my poster is well done, and that my magazine should be more balanced in terms of photos and text. I have also learned that it can be difficult to please everyone as they may give suggestions, but I may prefer to do it another way. These videos show what people have said and how I have applied these suggestions onto my media products.

Audience Feedback - Poster:

Audience Feedback - Magazine Cover:

I have learned that most are happy with my poster and magazine cover.  The only issues were that for the poster, the slogan wasn't clear enough and wasn't easy to read, and for the magazine cover, there was too much text, there were a few spelling mistakes and to change the date from monthly to weekly as the title says 'Films Weekly' and so the date should be weekly as well.

I have changed the poster by adding a brighter glow behind the text, and changing the colour of the text from black to white. For my magazine cover, I have changed the date, corrected the spelling mistakes, and added more pictures to balance out the ratio of pictures to words. Apart from these suggestions, people thought that my poster and magazine cover were really well done and used the conventional features of magazines and posters really well. 

Final version of magazine cover.

Final version of my poster.

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

For this question I have decided to do a prezi explaining the effectiveness of the combination of both my main product and ancillary texts, in terms of reaching target audience, capturing audience appeal, portraying the genre and the promotion/selling of the film.

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