Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

In the creation of this evaluation post I was originally making a powerpoint, however it had to be paid for to access it so I decided to put the slides onto Adobe Premiere Pro and make a video of it instead- this meant that I could no longer click on the video links I inserted into the powerpoint. To ensure the viewer of the video had the choice whether to watch the example clips or not I added the full video into my own.

The "3 minutes" short film begins at: 0:20 and ends at 6:17 so it is down to the viewer if they choose to watch this or skip over it to continue the evaluation.

I would also recommend pausing the video to ensure you have time to read through all of the information coming up on the screen.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Ideas

As I am going to be creating an evaluation for the work I have produced, it is important to go through the previous responses to these questions and analyse how other people have approached answering them. Here are some of the methods that I saw people using.

• Vlogging the response
• Using a two-camera set-up in the filming of the response
• Adding in examples of where conventions have been conformed or subverted to from the final product of the short film
• Use examples from real media products in contrast to how you have used the same techniques
• Podcast- question and answer from social media
• Google slides presentation
• Short film plot- example Sam Lapham’s kidnap situation for the evaluation response
• Voice over of clips and images from the short film and ancillary tasks

Here are some of the ideas that I came up with in a group of people to begin answering the questions:

Question 1

• Vlog- video response
• Two camera set-up
• Take breaks between filming- edit with transitions
• Add background music
• Act confident in front of the camera
• Answer the question directly

Question 2

• Add in clips and images to the video to compare them
• Visual illustrations and a voice over- showing examples
• Show continuation and consistency
• Visual bibliography

Question 3

• Radio show
• Focus group
• Q + A
• Script it

Question 4

• Vlogs with various transitions
• Pictures of the different forms of media technologies used
• Show progression

Magazine Review Page Final Product

This is the finished product of my second ancillary task and I would say that I am happy with how it looks because it conforms to the codes and conventions I wanted to use. I think it will be effective in engaging the target audience and encouraging them to watch my short film. I think that it looks professional and well thought out in terms of editing and the chosen colour scheme. The use of red, yellow and black is effective because it creates a strong link to the first ancillary task as well as the thriller genre itself. This continuity is what I had initially wanted to create so I am glad that I could maintain this successfully. I like how the text is spaced apart because it means that the audience are not bored with too much to read and they are not bombarded with information, only important parts have been written down. The cast interview gives the readers a more entertaining article because it gives them an idea as to what the actors behind the characters are like. The use of the social media links is something else I am pleased with because I think that online following is essential in today's society where I believe more people have social media accounts than those who buy magazines. I am pleased with the photos I shot and chose to include on this review as I think they have character and effectively engage the target audience with the direct gazes the actors have with the camera. Overall I think that this magazine review page would be successful in advertising my film to the target audience on a large scale.

Magazine Review Page Editing Process

I began on Photoshop with a double page spread sized page as I had seen that many successful magazine review pages had taken up two pages in total so I decided to conform to this convention.

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Above is the first screenshot from my short film that I added in to Photoshop but after seeing how it looked on the page I decided that I didn't like it and that the colours in the image did not give me a lot to work with so I disregarded this idea.

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Then I decided that the base colour of my backdrop would be black as this has dark connotations linking to my thriller genre. I made the space for the image much larger than for the text because, I discovered in my research and planning stages that my target audience found it much more engaging to have more pictures than text. This gave me a lot of room to work with.

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I wanted to look through the pictures of the actors and find the most effective individual ones so that I could put them under their own spotlights, as opposed to one spotlight for all of them. This was the first photograph I chose so I put him into the first quarter of the space and edited the lighting around him to look like a spotlight from above. I liked the idea of having a spotlight because it has different connotations. One interpretation would be that they are celebrities under the shining spotlight however they could also be criminals under an interrogation light.

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The next step was to add the next actor in, next to the first one. I planned to line them all up next to one another as if they are all in one photograph together, putting the text below them.

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This shows how it looked once I had added the third actor in place next to the others.

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This is the final shot of the four actors being added in to Photoshop next to each other. I had to ensure that all of the photos were cropped correctly so that they aligned well. I was happy with how this looked and thought the spotlights were effective as they created a darker background, also leaving me space to add in writing below them or over the darker sections.

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As the colour scheme was dark so far I also decided that I wanted to use yellow and red for the writing as this is very fitting for the thriller genre itself. I wanted to add a review from another source I put this over the photo of the actors as it is clear it is about them. In the review I wanted to hint what the film represented without giving away any obvious details. I think this quote works because the "great representation of today's youth" indicates how typical youth behaviour is demonstrated in the film. The "what an ending" part reveals that the ending is a surprise to the audience and that the twist works well, automatically encouraging people to watch and see what happens at the end.

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I thought that the review looked a little plain on it's own so I decided to add in a star rating. This is a common convention of magazine review pages and I feel that it worked well on my own so this was something I conformed to. I think it looks good especially where it is in the same font as the review. Having a high star rating is effective because people often go to watch films based upon reviews, so the more stars a film has the higher the uptake on viewing it.

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I had to edit all of the text in at once as this was written up on Lightroom. The reason for this being I wanted to have a dropped caps at the beginning of my text and this cannot be done on Photoshop. I like the effect that the dropped caps gives the text because it tells people where to start reading and having such a bold letter is eye-catching. I also separated the text into equal columns as this was much more aesthetically pleasing and looked more professional than uneven chunks of writing. I think it looks better in red than it does in black because this was another opportunity to link to the genre of the film. It also brightened up the page as I think it would have looked far too dull in black writing.

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With the space I had left I was thinking about how else to engage my target audience. I then thought about today's society and how it is overrun by social media and technology. This lead me to the idea of the social media links on the page as this gets large levels of following before film release. Fan groups are created online when films are successful in engaging the target audience. Looking back at older example of magazine review pages there is no evidence of these links, however social media was either non-existent or unpopular whereas now there are not many people who do not use it/ have an account on some form of it.

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Having more than one form of social media available to keep up with automatically appeals to a wider audience as not everyone enjoys using the same platforms of social media. Using multiple formats means there are various ways to access information and post about the film.

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When adding each of these images I wanted to make sure these were aligned correctly just as the text had been, so that it would look aesthetically pleasing and so that it did not looked overcrowded if they were spaced apart with the right distance. 

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Looking at the space I had I decided to go with four forms of social media. To decide upon which platforms I would use out of the many choices, I looked online to find the most used applications among my target audience and these were the results.

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I still had space above the images of the social media applications so I wanted to add in some text above which told the audience what the social media links were for.

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Once the final text had been added in I wanted to add in the name of the magazine link next to each of its accounts across social media platforms. This way, readers did not have to go onto each app and search for the magazine guessing its username. This gave them a direct name to follow. 

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This was the same for all four of the social media applications. As I was adding in the usernames I had to make sure each text box was aligned to the previous one and that altogether it aligned with the images. The text section had to have most effort with making it look aesthetically pleasing as this was typically the section people were less interested in. By making it look aesthetically pleasing I thought that this would make it more engaging for my target audience.

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This image shows the third name of the social media accounts being added on to the review page.

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This was the fourth account name being added. After this I had to make sure that all of the images and text aligned in a way that I was happy with so I sat and altered each section until it looked like this. I was happy with how it looked but after analysing the page I decided I needed something in the top left corner of the page as it looked a little bare.

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Finally I made the decision to add in the name of the magazine in red. This made it clear to see over the dark background and it linked to the thriller genre. Had I have made a front cover for this magazine, this would have been the font for the main title. Therefore this would be fitting for the house style and created continuity for the readers. Continuity is effective for a target audience and regular readers of a magazine because it creates familiarity and they know what to expect in each issue.