Final Evaluation

Now that our film trailer is finish, I will evaluate our media product. I am extremely happy with the final edit of our trailer as i feel that we have had a firm idea and vision from the beginning of the planning process and I feel that our vision has been realised successfully.

Forms & Conventions

Our trailer follows and uses forms and conventions of real media products in the way that it has been produced and edited, along with the music and credits that we have added to give it an authentic and realistic style. we have added in typical credits that we have seen from analysing existing film trailers, including the name of our production company, adding in company logos and an ident, the film title and name of the main actress in our film. In terms of these features, we have analysed typical features of film trailers and adapted and used them in our of media product.

In other ways we have challenged codes and conventions of real media products in terms of the content of our film, film genre and our main protagonist/character. From our analysis of thriller films at the beginning of the planning process, we found that generally protagonists in these films are adult males so we decided to challenge the conventions of this genre and have a young, female main character to act as the lead to our film. We decided to have a social realist twist on our thriller and decided to play upon common ideologies and sterotypes in society about youths in contemporary society being antisocial, disrespectful and violent. We chose to provide an explanation- not an excuse- for the behaviour of some antiscoial youths in today's society. We created a background and life for the character of Erin so that an audience could empathise and relate to her behaviour, therefore challenging people's opinions and views on today's youths as well as relating to our chosen target audience by addressing issues such as abuse, violence and bullying in the trailer.

Ancillary Texts & Brand

I feel that the combination of the ancillary texts with our trailer is very effective as we have kept a continuous visual style through the three products, with the same inner-city, run-down and urban location used specifically towards the end of the trailer where the final scenes are shot in the subway - a significant location that links the poster, magazine cover and trailer together. By using the same 'Distorted & Scratchy' typography for our film title through all three products we have successfully created graphological coherence, reinforcing the brand. The font is also a great visual representation of our film and would act as a logo for an audience to remember, relate to and recognise as part of the 'Raze' brand.

The dress code of our main character Erin is also part of the film brand, as she wears her 'trademark' hooded jacket, white blouse and black trousers throughout the trailer so you become familiar with this dress code. This is also significant when representing the character as a young female, reminding the audience that she is young and still in school. The dress codes of the gang characters, specifically the males is also important when reinforcing the ideologies/stereotypes that we are playing on in our trailer as well as the sound effects of the smashing glass and police siren to really support the urban setting of our trailer.

Audience Feedback

We have recieved very positive feedback from our target audience who have viewed our film trailer. Some comments we have recieved include the use of music in the trailer as its fits well with our social realist/thriller genre. I agree with this comment as we chose a very modern piece of music from the dubstep genre which is extremely popular with young adults and teenagers today. The use of this piece of music would instantly relate to our target audience and get them interested in the film as it is a popular song within the dubstep genre. I also feel that the lyrics of the song are quite haunting and emotional, linking directly to the issues adressed in the content of the trailer and working really effectively with what is going on visually with the character.

Some other feedback we have recieved is that the trailer looks like an authentic media product due to the way we have used common conventions and forms of existing trailers to really give our own a professional and realistic look. The acting of our protagonist has also been positively commented on which I agree with, as I feel that Laura (who played Erin) did fantastic job as our main character, creating a believable performance that engages with the audience as she goes through a visual and emotional transition and change through the trailer that is really believable and strong.

Another comment that we recieved was on the various angles we filmed from, specifically the low view point from the 'victim's point of view and the close ups at the start and end of the trailer. Personally, I am also pleased with the different angles and view points we filmed from as I feel that it adds variety to our trailer as we tried out different things to get the best effect and experimented with angles so we had more options when it came to editing. I feel that by doing this I have also improved my skills greatly when it comes to directing and editing as I have had a much more hands-on and responsible role specifically with editing in comparison to last year. This has allowed me to take an idea that I have in my head for how I want something to look and do it myself, rather than having to explain it to someone else to then edit. Luckily, myself and my working partner Mia had the same vision and idea of how we wanted the trailer to look so it was not too much of a challenge to create the trailer in terms of disagreements and different ideas, although I spent some time on my own editing as she was absent for a short while but this just helped me improve my own skills and learn more about editing on my own.

Overall, all of the feedback we have recieved from our audience has been positive, complimenting the music, acting and direction of the trailer. From this, I can see that our trailer has successfully reached and related to our target audience and I specifically feel that the music choice for our trailer is key when reinforcing the genre and plotline of 'Raze', as it seems to have worked effectively with the audience when supporting the stereotypes we are challenging. I am also extremely happy with the way that we have edited the cuts of the trailer to the beat of the music, with key moments as well as credits really being emphasisied and reinforced with the use of our music.

Media Technologies

When we started planning our trailer, we did a lot of research and analysis on existing trailer to learn common conventions and forms of thriller trailers so that we could use these in our own product. We used YouTube to look at existing trailers to then analyse them on our blogs. This Blogger blog itself has been a vital media technology when documenting the progress throughout the coursework process and writing down any decisions or problems that have occurred.

Adobe Premier Pro has been a significant media program that we have used for the editing process. My editing skills have improved a lot throughout this project as I have learnt many things about this particular editing program in comparision to my very limited knowledge of Premier Pro at the start of this project. I am very pleased with my personal improvement in editing which will help me for my future course at university. My editing skills on Adobe Photoshop have also been developed when editing our film poster and magazine cover, with this media program again being extremely significant to our coursework.

Youtube is, again, an online technology that we have used to gain feedback from our audience and get our product into the public domain to see how effective it is. By uploading our trailer onto YouTube it has been possible for us to get it viewed possibly by millions of people over the world, specifically our target audience and this is important to us when evaluating our product.

Overall Evaluation

To conclude, I am extremely proud of our final media products, specifically our film trailer. I am pleased with the way that we have edited the trailer with the use of different shots, angles and view points to add variety to the trailer with an effective use of music to support our genre and theme of our film to effectively target and address our audience. My personal skills have been developed and improved throughout the planning, production and editing of the trailer as we have done everything ouselves with very little help from anyone not involved in our project.

I feel that our trailer is an authentic media product, with an effective use of credits and effects/transitions between shots, including fades in and out to blend between scenes and credits. The acting in our trailer is generally quite strong and believable, specifically from our main character Erin as well as a clear plotline and story that I feel is easy to understand and follow throughout the trailer.

Some minor issues that I have noticed in the trailer is the swearing in the kitchen scene with the mother. This may be an issue as it would not conform to television regulations as swearing cannot be played before the watershed so the trailer would not be suitable for daytime viewing, but we struggled to edit out the swearing ourselves without harming the rest of the audio for the scene. Apart from this issue, I feel that we have created an extremely successful set of media products that all work effectively together to create a visually recognisable brand for 'Raze'. I think that our plotline is strong throughout the trailer, with the storyline clear and understandable for the audience. The research and planning process has been extremely benificial to the outcome of our trailer and I feel that we have effectively followed and used forms and conventions of real media products, as well as challenging the typical elements of our chosen genre to create a very original and exciting film.