Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In this question I am going to comment and evaluate the ways in which my film magazine, poster and trailer challenge forms and conventions of media products. I will look at the typical conventions of film magazines, posters and trailers and see how they compare to my media package.

Film magazine.

Below is a word cloud of the typical conventions of a film magazine front cover that I created on 'worditout';

This wordcloud can be used to compare what I have included on my film magazine cover. Below is an analysis using 'thinglink' of my film magazine cover and how it uses or challenges the typical conventions of a film magazine cover: (Hover over dots to view points)





Overall, I think that my magazine is more conventional than not because it has been inspired by magazines like 'Total film' and 'Empire' magazine, so it is likely to portray some similar conventions, I think my film magazine cover has most of the typical conventions of a film magazine and doesn't challenge the forms and conventions of real film magazines too drastically although there are some areas in which I have strayed away from which might challenge some of the typical conventions of film magazines which I have noted in the above analysis.



Poster

Key conventions of film posters.

Analysis of my film poster (hover over dots to view points)




Film trailers

Conventions of Film trailers

Below is a presentation I made on emaze illustrating how my film trailer challenges forms and conventions.



Key learning points
This section of the evaluation has helped me recognise what parts of my film trailer follow or go against the generic conventions of film trailers, posters and magazine covers. I have evaluated how my main and ancillary products compare to real promotional film packages and if I have effectively followed or tested conventions and forms of real film campaign's promotional packages.

Focus Group on final Promotional Package

During the lesson today we discussed what questions we're thinking of asking participants in each of our focus groups. The general consensus was that a focus group should consist of semi-structured interviews with prompts to enable an in depth response to be obtained.

Before conducting the focus group, I need to consider the following questions;

Where?
I'm going to need to use a quiet room to record the responses because this will mean that the feedback is clear and easy to understand, I could use the studio in school to record responses or a quiet room elsewhere.

How?
I will consider whether to use a camera to record responses so the person being asked is seen on a video, or whether to just record the voices and cut out the visuals or whether I will just record my findings and present them in a typed up format. This is dependant on whether respondents are happy to be on camera/have their voices recorded or not and also if the information gathered can be more clearly presented in a visual, typed up format. I will also need to think about what questions will be asked and what I want my respondents to think about, this could mean providing a prompt sheet or asking a direct set of questions to ensure that the feedback is as useful as possible.

Why?
This will enable me to have recognised aspects of my trailer, film cover and poster that work well and what I can learn from if  creating a promotional package for a film again in the future.

What?
 I'm intending to use the following elements in an unstructured manner to ensure that I get a wide range of responses and in depth detailed responses.
Aspects to think about
-Is genre effectively conveyed?
>Does the magazine cover, poster and trailer together work to show genre?
-Narrative
>Does the narrative show a clear storyline in the trailer?
>What do you think about the Scripting in the trailer?
>Engaging?
-Overall quality
>What Do you think about overall think the quality of my promotional package?
-Music
>Does it suit the genre?
>Do you think it adds emphasis to any themes?
-Editing
>What do you think about the way my film poster and cover have been edited
>Editing of trailer
-Camerawork
>What are your views on the use of camerawork?
-Colour
>Does the colour help define genre?
>Does the colour enable texts to stand out?
-Fonts
-Images
-Use of language
-Realistic?
-Compared to draft versions.
>notable improvements

Key learning points
In this blog post I planned how I was going to record and present my focus group and the questions I want to ask my respondents to gain the most useful feedback possible. Without planning for a focus group, I would not be able to get well thought questions to receive useful feedback.

Finished Film Magazine

Below is my final film magazine cover;

Finished Film Poster

After receiving feedback from my draft film poster, I have taken this in to account and worked to improve the areas where I was initially constructively criticised, below is my final film poster;