Evaluation

At the start of the process Beth and I were very excited as we could be creative and independent when creating our three products. We decided to focus on the horror/thriller genre because in AS level we analysed this genre well and knew some of the basic editing, camera movements and sound/music for thrillers and also for drama products. Once we had decided the genre, we used http://www.youtube.com/ to find some trailers for which you could use as research. The trailers we chose (Gothika, Creep and Taken) are all partially related to the ‘stalker’ theme and gave us ideas on how to present our storyline for example with the music and camera movements. For the research we looked at the techniques and representation the trailers used and applied to our own trailer for example at the beginning of the ‘Creep’ trailer used a handheld camera and we also did this when Chloe was running giving the feeling as if someone is chasing her. Throughout the trailer, magazine cover and poster Chloe looks afraid, weak and innocent and this had to be consistent especially with the magazine cover and poster as this was Chloe’s character ‘Ella' Also in all three of the products the font of the title 'No Escape' is the same, this creates a brand and will become well known to the audience if the have seen the products and also with the magazine and poster we used the same background. However when we printed out a hard copy of the poster the background didn't show very well.


The filming process was definitely a learning experience and challenged my organisation skills, we not only had to organise ourselves but also the actors, equipment and the setting in which we want to film. It was incredibly stressful trying to find accessible destinations to film also however we overcame this by using places which were close to college. Also when directing (as the actors are inexperienced) it was difficult to explain what we needed the actors to do and as we were challenging this we overlooked little things for example when Chloe was sitting at the table talking to Caroline she had her hand underneath the table, but in the next shot she lift her hands to her face as if her hands were on the table. This continuity error shows that when you are filming it can be so easy to overlook the small things.

Beth and I have used the equipment before last year except for the mic which we used indoors to make sure that the audio is clear as the mic in the camera may not have been very good quality. We did have problems with the tapes as we were given a cleaner tape, this delayed us quite badly which was disappointing as we had to rush filming in order to get it ready for editing. Other than that problem we worked well with the camera and tripod and found positioning them wasn't too difficult. This was probably because we filmed in quite open spaces as it is easier for me to access. Using the program Photoshop for the magazine cover and poster was reasonably straight forward once we had taken the photographs. As we could see clearly where text could go and which effects we could apply. While we were going through the editing process team work and discussion was very important. Beth an I had our own individual ideas and we incorporated both and compromised.
Using Premiere Pro at first was a bit daunting as there are so many tools and the set up was completely different to what we were used to, lucky we did have experience so it was just an issue of refreshing our memory of what does what. Throughout this whole process I used http://www.blogger.com/ to document what Beth and I have achieved over these past months and the blog shows the development of our own media products, all the way through planning to editing. After we had finished the trailer we posted it on to YouTube so we could receive feedback from our target audience (enjoy horror/thriller films, in adolescence, and possibly female)

"good atmosphere created with fonts and music to fit genre well. Tension is built up well throughout the scenes. well done :) - Mia"
"Loved the sound effects and music, really added to the atmosphere! I got goosebumps. :3"

Above shows the comments on our video on YouTube from the other Media Studies students. This is want we wanted to achieve with our trailer and I am quite proud to have received this positive feedback as I haven't got that much confidence in the trailer itself. This may be due the fact I have looked at it over and over so I pick out the imperfections easily. I also got some feedback from my sister who is a fan of thriller movies and this was her response after watching the trailer:

"The trailer has good use of angles and different views. I understood the storyline and the music added a uneasy theme to the trailer, which was effective. I think that the font used could have been different as the font is commonly used and is well-recognised as something used in Windows editing software. Overall, the trailer got across the main plot and included much needed suspense to achieve a horror-type trailer"

This was one of the issues that we thought of when picking the font for the trailer as 'Chiller' is well recognisable is makes the trailer have a less professional feel. However other than this the trailer did deliver its purpose, to explain the storyline easily, create an uneasy and suspenseful feel which is what horror/thriller trailers do. And here is some feedback from a couple of my friends who fit the audience criteria:

"I understood the storyline and it follows the genre, however the name seemed a bit 'corny' and could have been improved. The music fits well and the effect at the end was really good"

Beth and I really struggled to find a suitable name for the trailer at first we thought of 'Stalker' but this would have been too predictable, so we looked through many other thriller/horror titles of films to get some ideas and we then chose "No Escape"

"Good use of font and titles, they fit well to the genre and the music is capturing"

The font may be well-recognised however as feedback says above, it does fit the genre.

If I was to repeat this exercise I would try and find some more experienced actors/actresses as I feel that this would have improved the trailer overall. Also I would look out for continuity issues and try not to miss anything when in the filming process so editing would be a lot easier and more straight forward. Also using a higher quality video/camera I feel would have improved the trailer considerably as a few clips are quite blurring and not well defined. I am very pleased with the magazine cover and poster and the research really helped inspire us know what we wanted to do and how to present the content and information. For example on the cover we included other features and mentioned other films and for the poster we included the names of the actors/actresses and also the date of when the film will be showing.