How effective is the combinatinon of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of my promotional package works because not only have I been consistent throughout the different parts of the package but they each have their on components that make them work as a singularity aswell as a package. In order to keep the package consistent I have used the same actors and made sure that the female character has the most dominance throughout the package because she is the main character. From a multimedia approach, in my trailer I used a white flash as a transfer from reality to dreams and I used the white vignette on my poster design in order to create a ghostly feel and replicate the ideas used from my trailer. This is effective as it is a well-known stereotype and fits in with what I was trying to portray within the narrative. Another thing I did in order to keep the consistency was the romantic feel the audience gets from each of my products. I made sure the positioning of the characters implied some form of connection between them and this was effective as it is not only an important stereotype of the romantic genre, but it is important to make the narrative from the trailer come across in the print-based products.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my audience feedback I have learned what they expect to see from a trailer and the high standards of my target audience. Audience feedback is important and significant in the development of future work, also any negative points tend to be choice of opinion (and trailers tend not to please everyone)
Feedback is important as it points out the faults in my trailer as well as things that i have done well. As according to Aristotle's theory of genre ideal, I had achieved the reaction that I wanted to get.
In order to fully evaluate my final work, I need to get audience feedback on my work and therefore compare it to real products.
My intended genre was Romance/Fantasy even though it did have elements of other things such as Mystery, Horror and Drama. This was proven as my target audiences response to the trailer was that the majority noticed that it was a Fantasy. On the other hand, there was good feedback from this usage of the ghost because it adds a little twist to the conventional Romance films and my target audience response to this was that it was a good concept and my trailer portrayed this in a clear and meaningful way. They also noticed the connection between the 2 main characters and therefore deduced that my trailer did revolve around them which is also something i had intended to portray.
The following points are ones that were constant and positive:

1. The use of contrast to distinguish between Reality and Dream sequences.
2. The background music was effective in creating a romantic feeling, even though it may have been a little cheesy, it works.
3. The Narrative was clear and easy to understand.
4. The ending followed trailer conventions of revealing some form of shocking secret that the film would revolved around.
5. "The way in which you edited it".

The following points are ones that were negatives and possible improvements:

1. There was some issues with the colouring in the final edit
2. Some shots were out of focus and could be re-done.
3. I could use some more interesting locations.

What I learned from this feedback, is that my target audience received the narrative well without giving away too much information which was imperative of me because during my audience research this was one of the things that my target audience pointed out to me as being a selling point. People also liked the way the sounds were used and which ones were used because they incorporated into the trailer well which has helped me understand which type of sounds work well in this genre. The feedback I got mainly reflected on the genre stereotypes I followed and how they work in my trailer.

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

In order to create a media product that looks believeable and professional, I needed to follow classic conventions of the mystery genre. Not only with the products themselves, but the narrative and the background that they branch from. In my trailer I used the following conventions in order to achieve this form of professionalism.

1. Narration done by the main character
2. Introduction to the female protagonist.
3. Not giving away too much information
4. Titles used and release date
5. A cross with the horror genre in order to create tension or a sense or eerieness.

The 2 main challenges to genre conventions I have used are through the use of narrative and the way I had edited my trailer. In the narrative the story tends to revolve around and tell the story of a live detective but in this case it is the story of a DEAD girl who is discovering who killed her. The sequence I had created is literally a possible sequence of the film (if it were to be made) instead of different aspects of the film in non-chronological order. In comparison, the trailer of Sherlock Holmes 2, as it comes from a literary genre, it is alot more straightforward in the narrative and the audience can already figure out the ending as because of our culture we learn that the "hero" saves the day and figures out the mystery. Also, this trailer is a lot faster then mine because it does seem to come across as a bit of an action/adventure aswell, which is also why I had a cross between multiple genre's otherwise it may lose my target audiences attention.

In my poster design, I followed many conventions such as

1. One dominant Image
2. Credits and subtext
3. No actual location as a background
4. An information hierarchy through size of text
5. Costume and how the actors are positioned affecting the genre

The main points that a poster needs to hold is the fact that it needs to be eye-catching and captivating so that my target audience will look at it. Another important convention of any poster that I had considered is the use of a tagline, or a quote from the trailer that will stay in the audiences mind. It has to be something clever but quite open at the same time which therefore gives my audience something to think about but can also relate it back to the film.

In my magazine cover I used the following conventions to make it look professional
- Information hierarchy in terms of size of text
- Taglines
- Cover lines
- Dominant and sub-dominant images
- Overlapping texts and images
- Barcodes and advertisements

In the Sherlock Holmes magazine cover however, it utilizes the same sort of conventions but in comparison to mine there is some difference. The Masthead in my product is on the side instead of on the top and this breaks magazine conventions but is also a development as it is different to what people are used to. In order to keep the theme of a camera focus going through my magazine cover, I made a film strip consisting of a screenshots from my trailer which I put on the side and thus making it different in comparison to most other film magazines. One of the main obvious differences between my product and the FILM magazine cover, is the use of colour. In the issue shown of Sherlock Holmes, it utilizes alot of blue and shades of blue as this reflects Sherlock's calm and cool personality and also gives a hint of mystery because of the foggy effect. In my Magazine cover however there is mainly a combination of dark colours for the images and background but in order to make the text more noticeable and easier to read I used bright colours that are in contrast to it which is more effective then using any colour.

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

I have created a powerpoint presentation using Google Documents in order to explain this question.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KxMtkLWLVqo3hvU7qJHIBTqzI4mVxZVyX5_BxaFoaEc/present#slide=id.g16321f8_1_0

Final Video

Audience Feedback of Assignment (Video Focus Group)

Final Magazine Front Cover