EVALUATION

In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
There were a whole range of media products used to make this trailer, movie poster and magazine cover successful. Just like any other trailer, special effects is a key element and can be used in so many ways to 'wow' the target audience. There is a part of our trailer where there is a sudden rapid change of pace and this really grabs the audience' attention. Whilst showing the Ward 13 trailer to my target audience, they seemed really drawn to the special effects used such as the flatline and voiceovers. After finishing up with the extended version of the trailer, we tried to make the teaser trailer as rapid and shocking as possible so we worked on creating voiceovers rather than just scenes with dialogue. Information in the trailer about the storyline is limited luring the audience into watching, especially at the end of the trailer when we see the Doctor unconscious but Maya alive.

Above is commentary on the Ward 13 trailer with overall judgements and thoughts of each shot.

We also created and designed a film poster. Whilst creating it I also looked at existing film posters such as 'Let Me In' which included quite dark and calm colours but yet, a shocking photo was used. We made sure to not use too many colours, only the main 'scary' colours which were red, white and black and the image to really 'wow' the audience. Film posters like 'Saw' always include images of torture that asks the question 'how do they do that?' and also lures them into watch something quite uncomfortable. In the Ward 13 film poster, text and image are both very important; the image making the audience wonder if they are a victim or villain, and the words such as the tagline making the audience realise that there is a certain history behind the storyline.

Lastly, we created a magazine cover. We had good experience of hot to create one as in Year 12 we were required to make a music magazine. We included the main elements needed; a bold title indicating the name of the magazine, the title of the film, a catchy image taken from the movie etc. It didn;t take long to do and came out 'looking like an actual magazine publication' which was said by a lot of our target audience which we were very pleased with.

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

I believe our forms of marketing have been very effective as it can reach out to audiences globally and draw in a wide variety of audiences. The bits of dialogue in the trailer where the audience may have not listened to and the rapid movement of Maya will really draw the audience in, wondering why the little girl is now evil. This movie trailer can be promoted in a range of places such as on buses, billboards, and perhaps the most valuable source; the internet(also known as synergy).

Through these sources, news will spread around, not only about the trailer but also the movie poster and magazine cover of torturous images. An example of this type of distribution was also used by Noel Clarke, writer and director of Adulthood (2008), included the advertisement of this movie in music videos, created a Myspace page, hundreds of facebook pages were made as well as advertisement on TV.

This variety of distribution is very good as it reaches out to audiences who prefer to receive advertising in different ways.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I have learnt that there are A LOT of horror movie trailers released very often for a reason - the ideas of directors are very unique - they always start off with an incredible storyline and produce it through shockingly scary images and concepts - which is what I hope Ward 13 has portrayed. Being different is one thing, but being original is something else. Once you have that unique idea of a story line and how it can be conveyed through images, you will end up with a perfect trailer! At first, mine and Eleona's idea of a film trailer were a bit too typical cliche, and would only attract a niche audience, which isn't what we were hoping for.

A lot of the comments including feelings of being 'shocked' and suprised - as if they didn't see anything coming that drastic which was good. I believe this was a good way of getting audience feedback as Facebook is a good way of communicating with people as it is a very well known social networking site. From the feedback, I can see that we did a great job of attracting the target audience. I also believe that we contained something different; a UNIQUE SELLING POINT which was the 'innocent young girl' becoming the villain. Another positive point made by A LOT of people that had watched the trailer was that they would love to see the movie!