Evaluation

In what way does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?
I think that our film uses some typical conventions of similar products, but also has some unique qualties that would be very different to another Vampire Film.Our film is stylisticly similar to convential vampire movies, With costume ideas similar to the recent Film Twilight.

The Film is set in a mainly urban environment, but with autumn leaves and trees visible in a lot of shots, This breaks the conventions of most vampire films which are set in Rural Landscapes (Van Helsing, Lesbian Vampire Killers) OR a city atmosphere like in Underworld.

One Way Our film Challenges the conventions of other products is that our Film uses a nonlinear narrative, meaning that the events are not shown in chronological order, such as flashbacks (similar to 500 Days of Summer and TV'S Lost). This helps us weave more depth into our story and create more background into the characters shown. (Below is a crucial flashback sequence from our film).

How Effective is The combination of your main project and the ancillary texts ?
For our film we created a radio trailer to promote it, which included audio from the film, music, and a voiceover saying the time and channel it wll be shown on.

We also created 4 seperate posters to advertise the film, and then we made a group poster, combining elements from (in our opinion) the two most eye catching and best posters (Luke Parker's and my own).

The Ancillary texts and out film work well together because the all have simialar stylistic features and as a collective represent our body of work very well.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The original ending we had for our film didnt work very well, as the friend we showed it to found it confusing, and we had one major jump-cut that needed refilming, also practical problems such as the area being to small to film in, we changed the location of the alternate ending aswell as altering the dialogue from the script and adding a dramatic climax.

From our film feedback on youtube we decided to alter thigns about our film such as adding more music and sound effects. We also got approval for our use of a strong female lead character and didnt receive any critism about the film's production, rather the poor quality of the acting.

Our audience liked the 'Bite Me' pun and didnt comment on the mild language used. Either way we decided our film should be showed after the watershed. (9pm).

A sequence from the original ending >>>>

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the duration of making this film we have used Youtube, we used the popular video hosting site to research into short films, we used it find videos to get inspiration and conventions. in the evaluation stage we uploaded our film onto it so that we could get audience feedback.

We used the website facebook to help promote our film. We used Blogger to record our progress. We used media equipment such as a Sony HD 1000 camera to film our film, along with a zoom recorder for voiceover work. We also used a DV100 to get our film onto the editing software from the camera which was IMOVIE HD
We used photoshop elements to create our film posters and we used garageband to create our radio trailer. All of theses technologies were crucial to the making our film.

evaluation

In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I personally don't think our production pushes the boundries of the vast media industry. But instead i think we have proved with only a camera and a lot of work you can create a good value media film. WE made our film in six months only working on it for four and a half hours per week and at the same time we ahd to produce a blog and everything that comes with making a film (script, screen shots etc). we had no money to make the film so we used what we had to make it. Our film was different because we used itunes instead of final cut pro to edit it . also in our film we had to include a few jump cuts because we had a few flash back which meant we had to have them in . we also edit the feel of the film in our flashbacks because we darkened the scences to make them more like Blade or Underworld. our film also doesn't follow the normal film conventions because we had a voice over playing in the credits to tie the film up at the end because in our audience feedback they said they didn't understand what abby was. so we decided to tie it up at the end of the film. our film develops the media industry because we have followed the conventions of the most recent vampire films (Twilight) so we developed on them and make them have a classiuc vampire film ending.
How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
our film and its relevent our products ( poster , radio trailer ) all are linked together. we made this possible by whilst making the film we took picutures and we used them for our poster and we used clips from our film in our radio trailer nad we also used the same music used in our film. we did this so that people when they see or hear one of them can relate it to our film. our two ancillary texts are our film poster and radio trailer. we work as a group to produce each of them. although for our poster we made individual ones and then put the best bits from both together to make our over all poster. our marketing products are what would be used in the industry.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
i think we learnt alot from our audience feedback because without it our ending would be still confusing and it also helpt use understand what mistakes we have made with this production and how not to do them in future productions. Before we started our production we did a intail questionnaire and gather some results which helped us understand which way in the industry is going to and helped us decided on what genre of film we were making. whilst making and editing our film we put up a nearly finished film on youtube and we gathered some audience feedback on youtube facebook dailybooth and msn and face to face conversations. with this feedback we were able to make the film more audience pleasureable and better.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
whilst making our film we used a range of technological products . firstly when we started to research the genre we used youtube to llok at relevent films and trailers . this was a very useful tool to use because it saved us time which we didn't have much of . during production we filmed in the sony hd cameras, these are industry standard cameras and give a amazing picture quality and are really easy to use . to upload our film to the mac we used a dv 1000 which are really useful and easy to use . whilst on the macs we used i movie to edit our film this is a very easy tool to use and is used in the industry. to record our voiceovers and radio trailer we used a zoom recorder. we did all of our work on macs. for editing our radio trailer we used garageband which the music studnets also use. we did our film poster on photoshop which is the industry photography tool to edit photos this was a easy and very craetive and professional tool. we also used microsoft word to write our coursework which we would later upload to blogger. we put all of our coursework on a public blog on blogger .