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

My media product is a advertising package for a romance genre film, the advertising package includes a teaser trailer, a poster and a website that all promote the film.

In all advertising packages there are codes and conventions of a normal teaser trailers and posters i conducted research, as this helped us to created our teaser trailer, Our teaser trailer uses a lot of conventions from normal teaser trailers. Normal Trailers and teasers have the same purpose which is to entice the audience to watch the film it also establishes the genre of the film which then also establishes the audience for the film. The production company does this so that they can get money from the audience which will increase their profits.

Teaser trailers are normally between 30 to 90 seconds in length our teaser trailer being between the average length. A normal film trailer can range from 2.30 to 4 minutes which then gives a lot of the film plot away which is what we didn't want to do. Our teaser trailer follows the conventions this is so that the teaser trailer doesn't give too much away and so that the audience still want to watch the film after seeing the trailer. The teaser trailer is complied from sections of filming from the making of the film which is another normal convention this helps to give the audience a incite into the film without giving too much away.

In both full length and  teaser trailers there is normally a soundtrack running over the film which relates to the film and can create more tension or create sympathy with the actors, we chose a soundtrack that fits the mood of our teaser trailer and it also creates more emotion in the teaser trailer, as the words of the song relate to what is happening in the trailer.

Our teaser trailer uses some of the normal conventions of a romance film such as having a love interest with the main character which helps to draw our target audience in to watch the film, we have also developed the conventions by having a love triangle which we used to help keep the audience interested  in the film and helps to entice the audience to watch the film. By developing the love interest we hoped to interest the audience in the film so that the teaser trailer will create questions in the audiences mind.

Our teaser trailer ends on a cliff hanger which develops the conventions of a teaser trailer as in normal teaser trailers they do not allow the audience to know what happens in the end of the film as this would destroy the purpose of the teaser trailer. We chose to develop this convention by leaving the ending on a cliffhanger as this makes the audience want to find out  what happens in the film but also gives away more than most teaser trailers we chose to do this so that the audience have a clear understanding of the trailer but are also left wanting to see more.

Through looking at romance films we found that they tend to use a range of different camera shots we studied these and tried to incorporate them into our teaser trailer so that it gave it a more professional finish which would help to make the teaser trailer look like large budget film. Due to limited technology we couldn't use all of the camera shots such as a crane shot to create a establishing shot for health and safety reasons we had to develop the normal conventions that high budget films can use to be able to fit with what our group could use.
Normal teaser trailers edits are similar to a teaser trailer as they both have quick edits as it builds tension in the film, but a full length trailer has the chance to put a range of different edits. Our teaser trailer follows the conventions by having fast edits that build up to the main disruption in the teaser trailer.  

In Love Drug we also challenge many conventions of a romance film, usually in a romance film and according to Todorov’st theory there is also some disruption within the film before the reconciliation. The disruption is doesn't normally play a large part in the film as the emphasis is on romance side as this is what the target audience would like, throughout our teaser trailer we didn't shown much of the romance and love side this is because we wanted to make our teaser trailer stand out from the other romance films. We focused on the disruption in the teaser trailer as we believe that it gave the teaser trailer an edge of other of the same genre. It also helped to draw the audience into the trailer and made them ask questions in their head we found this from our audience feedback when people stated that they wanted to know how the film ended and that they would want to watch the film after seeing the teaser trailer.

We challenged the convention of a romance film as currently on the market most romance films and mainly hybrids now of romance and comedy, which we looked into but we decided as a group that we didn't feel we would have been able to create as RomCom with the skills that we have so instead we created a pure romance film which there are only a few created which made conducting market research harder. We chose to create a pure romance film as we felt that this is where our strengths would be and that we could get the best result for our product.

We are challenging the conventions of normal teaser trailers as by not having a voice over on our teaser trailer goes against nearly all of the teaser trailers we have looked at, we haven't used any speech in the teaser trailer as we felt that the music we use which does go with the normal conventions of a teaser trailer helped to tell the story and if we put a voice over the music it may have ruined the effect of the music. We tried having at the end scene the music stopping and have the two boys answer the phone but after more audience feedback our target audience said that they thought the teaser trailer was better with the music playing throughout.

The protagonist is represented in many different ways throughout the trailer, in the scene when the main protagonist is walking through with wood with her boyfriend and they are holding hands and laughing through the use of a long shot we tried to represent the girl as a typical teenage girl and that nothing is wrong but then when we come back to this scene from a different angle from behind we then show the girl being left by the boy showing her vunrability we decided to change the shot as it shows that you are looking at the girl from a different perspective.
I took some market research into the typical conventions of a website and i created a navigation map for my website which helped me to make my website look like a professional one. I have for my first page a enter page which is simple and has the trailer on the front page so that people can watch the trailer before entering the site which all websites have.
I developed the conventions of a normal website as i used a powerful background with most websites have just a plain background as this then doesn't draw attention away from the characters on the main page. I chose to develop this and I used a background of white paint flaking off which links in with how Chloe's life is slowly pealing away and she has no control over it. I also used the zips to show how Chloe's life if coming undone which instead of being a plain background my background suggest that something in Chloe's life is not right. My navigation bar develops the normal conventions that i have looked at as my navigation bar is on the left hand side of my website as i felt that it allowed the audience to be draw to by navigation bar as people read from left to right so they would notice what the website has to offer. Also for easy use of my website i used the convention of being able to access any of the pages at anytime no matter what page you are on this is so that people don't have to go back to the homepage after ever use.

My teaser trailer follows the normal conventions of a website by having some of the same pages such as a page for the trailer,gallery, meet the cast which i decided to put these in because it allows the audience to get to know the characters more and to understand the film. This also fits in with the audience expectations of a teaser trailer. I developed the conventions by adding in extra pages such as having a page just for the synopsis so that people can read the synopsis and then understand the film more. I also gave a separate page for the soundtracks of the film this is so that when people are watching the film and they don't know the song they can look on the website and listen to the songs

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

The combination of the main product and my ancillary tasks I feel has been successful with themes running throughout all three products this helped to create a link between all of the products, this is so the audience will be able to recognise that all of the products link together this will help to create a strong brand identity.

To make sure all of my products linked together I ensured that they had clear links between them such as the production logo Rose and Thorn being in all of my production pieces this helps to show that all the production pieces were created by the same production company. It appears at the begging of our teaser trailer to show that it was made by the production company.

I made sure that the title of my film is on all of my products so that people will know what the film is called and that it will stick in the audience's head and they will then link all of the products together so when they see the poster they will remember the teaser trailer therefore then they will hopefully go see the film and the cinema.
I used the same font throughout all of my products as then the name and the brand will be recognised, also buy doing this is helps to create a link between all of the products. If the name of the film becomes well known then when people see the font they will be drawn to look at the product. We used a scripted writing as we thought that this went with genre of the film and it gave the teaser trailer a more personal feel to it so the audience can feel as if they can relate to the film.

The colour scheme has been kept the same throughout, I used  red, black and white as my main colours in my media products scheme as the red conotates love and is a strong colour which links in with the powerful feelings that Chloe is going through to be able to think about committing suicide. I used the white as it is a pure colour which will contrast the red and make it seem more powerful but also helps to show how vulnerable Chloe is throughout the film. They black is used to contrast the colours to show the dark side to the teaser trailer because of being a romance film I wanted to get across that in our teaser trailer that not everything is ok and that there is a large distribution throughout the trailer. There are other colours used in teaser trailer such as the natural surroundings. I tried to keep the main colours black, white and red as this will help to link all of my products together to link them as being part of one campaign.

On my poster and also on our teaser trailer we have the URL of my website so that it can be recognised easily by the audience. So that they will use the website as in our market research we found out that most of our target audience didn’t know that film’s had a website to go along with the film so by advertising our website it will make the audience go onto the website for more information. I have also included the poster of my film on my website so that people will link all of my advertising package together, it also creates repetition so that it becomes memorable.

My website uses the same fonts and colour schemes as the trailer and my poster as this helps to create a strong brand identity throughout all of my products which looking at many advertising packages this is following the conventions as in all of the packages i have studied the colour scheme has been the same i chose to do this so that the audience would recognise that the products are linked.

On my website i have put my trailer on because it means that people can watch it again which will link both of the products together, and the audience will become more familiar with the trailer which will mean that they will subconsciously think of the trailer. Also the soundtrack appears on both the teaser trailer and on my website i did this to get across the emotion of the soundtrack on both my website and our teaser trailer this makes the audience feel involed in the trailer.

The protagonist in the teaser trailer is presented as a vunrable girl, using high angle shots in the bathroom scenes makes the protagonist even more vunrable as the audience have a high vantagepoint so they feel bigger than the protagonist. On my website i have shown tried to show that not everything is well and that it isn't a normal romance film and that the distrubtion plays a large part in our film. To link in the vunrability on my website i have the background unzipping as this links in with her life coming undone and having no control over it.




I feel that by main product and ancillary tasks link well together with the use of colour schemes and all of the linking elements helps to create a effective advertising package which is a vital element when promoting a film, I believe that my package offers everything needed for my product to be successful

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

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

In the process of creating my products I used many different types of technologies, without this technology I wouldn’t have been able to create our teaser trailer and my website and poster.

In my research and development stage the internet played a large part in how I collected my research I used a range of search engines such as Google and Ask to collect my primary research about films and websites as this enabled me to look through a range of websites and then to evaluate them and find out the typical conventions of romance films.

I used YouTube to watch romance teaser trailers to find out about the normal conventions and the differences between teaser trailers. Also you can see the audience feedback on YouTube as people can comment on the videos so you can see what parts people like and what they don’t like I took this feedback and then put them into consideration when creating our teaser trailer.

While constructing our teaser trailer we used a JVC camera as we felt that this was the technology that would record the greatest results, it is also easy to use and we had access to it. We also used a tripod to hold all of our shots steady this enabled us to get the best shots possible. This helped to give our trailer a professional finish. 

When we got to the editing process we decided to try use Imovie but due to not being able to save things we couldn’t use the Mac. Also because none of us had any experience on the Mac it could have made editing more difficult.  This meant that we had to use Windows Movie Maker which wasn’t our first choice because the editing software is limiting and only has a few edits that look suitable for our film. We used Windows Movie Maker to shorten all of clips to the correct length which was you can do by dragging the clips shorter so Movie Maker makes it easy to complete this task as the clips are laid out on a timeline. The timeline also allowed us to put the clips in order and rearrange them which was useful after we had taken our udience feedback as we had to make changes to our teaser trailer. When we were adding our music for our teaser trailer we had to mute the music that was already on the clips so that it didn’t interfere with the music fortunately Movie Maker already had a mute tool that you can mute the clips with, when we first added on our soundtrack it didn’t fade in or out so it ended abruptly, on Movie Maker there is a sound editor which meant that we could fade in and out the sound which gave our teaser trailer a more professional finish. After the creation of our first draft of our teaser trailer our audience said that it wasn’t clear what parts were the flash backs so using the editing programme we changed the flash backs to black and white so that there is a clear difference between the normal scenes and the flash backs. Due to not being able to use the Mac I feel that the editing quality is not as good as I would have liked as with the limited use of tools on the Movie Maker where as the Mac would have given us more tools to edit our teaser trailer as you can change the contrast and such thing on the Mac.

We used Photoshop to create our production logo as this enabled us to bend the roses round and to give the effect that we wanted. We had to manipulate the rose to get them to bend to the shape that we wanted this took longer than anticipated as we couldn’t at first get the roses to bend to the shape we wanted but after using a different tool we overcame this problem. We then had to manipulate the font as the font has to be curved on the logo so that it looked more professional. We chose to use this because we all had prior knowledge of the technology so it made it easier to use we made a few mock ups until we finally decided on our final design.

For the final shot in our teaser trailer we used paint to create the last shot of the production name and our website we chose paint because we had to copy so many components onto one page and with so many components it would have got very complicated using another programme and because you can print screen picture into paint it also meant that we could arrange the picture how we wanted to look like a professional credit sequence. We had to create a picture as we couldn’t  get all of the information onto a video slide so we thought creating a picture would be the best way to get on the information that we needed. We chose Paint because it was the best programme to put the final picture together as we had to add in a lot of different texts so it was easier to create a picture and upload it to our teaser trailer as you can change the format of the picture.

To record all of my work from the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages I used a blog site called Blogger where you can record all of the work I have completed. http://supplen.blogspot.com/ This is my blog address where all my work can be found.  I chose blogging because it is an interesting way for people to follow the work that I am doing, I feel that I can also reflect my personality through my blog and people will be able to feel as if they know me as a person. It also gives me the chance to be creative with all the different ways that you can display information. By using blogger I could  go on at anytime and post a blog entry which allowed me to put my work on at anytime which meant that as soon as I completed work I could upload it. I already had knowledge of blogger from my As coursework which meant that it was easy to use and I knew all of the tools.

To create my website I used a programme called Wix which allows you to create a website for free they have layouts that you can chose from background or you can chose to create the website own your own. It also allowed me to upload pictures which made my website link with my teaser trailer, all of the feature on the website let me create pages that looked realistic and professional finish. The site was useful because it had a tutorial to show how to create everything. You can then add personal touches to the website which then helps to make the audience remember the teaser trailer. I wanted to display my picture on my website and there is a tool on Wix that I used which allowed me to pick a photo stacker that allowed my audience to look through the photos. I also used one of the tools to change the background from the skin that I had chosen because I wanted to link the background into the teaser trailer, I also used the behaviours on Wix to make some of my icons move which I personally think it gave my website a more professional finish. I also Wix allows you upload videos from YouTube and since I created a YouTube account which I then uploaded our teaser trailer to and then through Wix I  uploaded our teaser trailer so that people can watch it. I think through using Wix saved me a lot of time as it is not complicated to use as websites such as Dreamweaver. As Wix let you chosen a skin that had been created it then allows you to change the skin to make the website relate to my movie. I am really happy with how my website came out with never using any technical programmes before I think my website is easy to navigate around my website and all of the page look professional.

I also used fireworks to edit my pictures for my posters and my websites I had to get rid of the background of the picture so I could have a white background, Using fireworks you can use the rubber tool and get in close to the edge of the main picture that you want which was really useful as it allowed me to create my poster. I used fireworks to change the contrast on some of my pictures because the lighting needed correcting. I used fireworks last year so I already had a good understanding of the programme which made it easier for me to use fireworks and to edit my images.

Evaluation Question 1 : What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

We collected our target audience  using Questionnaires, Focus Groups, Emails,  also through informal talks with people from the target audience. We used questionnaires because we could ask the target audience the feedback that we needed without them going off of the point. We chose to use focus groups as this enabled us to get more detailed audience feedback and allowed the audience to give their opinions in detail.

The audience feedback that we have used for our teaser trailer is questionnaires, Focus Groups and Informal talks we found that these were the best ways to gather feedback as we could get the information need in the detail that we needed.

From conducting audience feedback i have learnt that it is important to always gain as much customer feedback as possible as this helps with the improvement of our teaser trailer, by having the feedback collected from our target audience it helped to allow us to make sure the trailer met the expectations of our target audience. Our group chose to conduct as much feedback as possible as it helped us with the creation of our teaser trailer, As a group we decided that we would collect initial audience feedback as a Questionnaire as this gave us the amount of detail we needed on what genre of film our target audience. Our target audience came out as females aged 15 - 25 which is a wider age range than we initially thought,This was a positive though as it means that our teaser trailer has  larger audience and if it was going to be made into film it would bring in more money. This could have brought problems to the creation of our teaser trailer as having such a wide audience means that throughout the creation we have had to created feedback from a range of different ages and it is hard to please everyone in our target audience. As different ages will be interested in different things such as teenage girls will be interested in the love triangle within the film but the older target audience may not be as interested in the love triangle. Through the questionnaire we also learnt that the audience didn't mind if it was a large production company or a independent company that produced the film. Which has helped us to come to the decision that we would want a  independent company to produce the film as if gave us a chance to widen are opportunities while filming as films produced by large companies follow a stereo typical conventions. Also the genre of film means that we don't have to have a large budget which would mean that an independent company would be able to afford it as there are no special effects are needed and that it doesn't matter if there are not as well known actors because the audience concentrate on the story line instead of the actors.


"Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable."
We were careful while filming that we did not show any packets of drugs so that we are not promoting the use of drugs, we had feedback from a focus group on how to conduct the drug scenes and from the feedback we learnt to try new camera angles to try get across how the main character was feeling and to try get the distress across.  

We conducted our second Questionnaire on the rough draft of our teaser trailer to see how we could improve our trailer and see what parts of our trailer need improving, The focus group consisted of 10 people from our target audience as this would help us know what we need to improve to make sure that our trailer appeals to our target audience. We allowed our focus group to watch LoveDrug three times and then asked them some questions about the teaser trailer such as what parts we could improve on some of the feedback that we got were such things as putting the production logo could be put at the front of the teaser trailer which helped to make our teaser trailer look more professional.
After conducting the questionnaire we found out the positive feedback from our teaser trailer and that our audience could identify what genre of film our teaser trailer is. As our teaser trailer doesn't have the normal conventions of a teaser trailer as it has the drug scenes in so we had to collect in-depth feedback on this to make sure we had enough of the romance genre shown throughout the film. We also asked if the people would like to watch the teaser trailer which 8 out of 10 people said they would which is a good result as if we didn't have a audience for our product then the creation would have been pointless.

We then conducted more primary research within our class as they were able to offer us improvements we asked them to be critical of our teaser trailer so that we could make the changes that they made. We asked them to watch our teaser trailer and then write down what they thought about the trailer. We took into account everything that they said and then through the feedback that they made we learnt that we would have to edit of teaser trailer in more depth so that the teaser trailer would be able to run smoother. Some of  the feedback that we were given was in the grave yard scene they advised that it would be a good idea to show the name of the person on the grave stone, but after a group meeting and some further research we came to the decision that due to ethical issues in filming the grave stone we have chose not to go forward with these changes.
I have conducted many focus groups on my ancillary tasks as i went along always asking for feedback on how i can improve and i learnt that my target audience like for all of my products to have a clear brand identity to be created throughout so that no matter what product the audience are looking at they will know that it is part of Love Drug. Also I learnt that when using products such as my website they wanted the website to be easy to navigate round so that they can use it quickly and not waste time on the website.

I undertook secondary research looking into the codes and conventions of teaser trailer from our chosen genre of film, Our genre was romance using knowledge that we already had and then researching more in depth, this gave our group direction for the film. From what most people expect from romance films throughout this research as a group we decided that we did not want to follow all the conventions of a romance film as then our film wouldn't stand out from other romance films. We tried to make a unique product that challenged some of the conventions of normal of a romance teaser trailer.

Getting customer feedback has been beneficial in the creation of our teaser trailer as it helped to make sure that our teaser trailer had the correct content to appeal to our target audience. This can be called the spiral effect which is when you create a text then gather customer feedback and then make the changes recommend and then start the process again. This helps to make sure that the text appeals to the target audience as they have had a part in the production of the making of the text.

Poster :D

This is the second draft of my poster and i do not like this poster as i feel is doesn't show enough use of technology and the pictures so not merge well together. I do like the font used for the main title and for the credits i will take these but redo my poster taking a new picture.

This is my final poster i changed the picture and i am happy with this picture i used the heart to represent the love genre in the poster but then i used the black and white to show that the film is not a typical romance film. I used the names of the actors at the top so as this is a typical convention for a poster i am really happy with my poster as i feel it meets all of the typical conventions of a romance genre film. 

Website Changes

Through the process of creating my website i had to change many things as i went along such as when i first chose the template for my background it had a different boarder and it didn't fit with the genre of our teaser trailer so i changed the background to have zips as this is meant to link with the main protagonists life coming undone like a zip.                                                                                                    

When i first created my soundtrack page i had the media player on the page so people could listen to the music i had the title at the top of the page but this left a lot of white space which wouldn't interest the audience so i added the list of the soundtracks which meant that there was less white space. This also means that the audience know what they are listening too.

When creating my front page i decided to use a black background as i want people to enter the main site. At the start i didn't have our teaser trailer on my front of my website but i added it in as there was space on the front of my website and it will help to create strong brand identity.

I used a black and white picture as this made the homepage dramatic i wanted to create this because although the genre of our teaser trailer in romance it is not a typical romance. I wanted to show this through the picture so i took a picture that you could only see the outline of the girl i chose this as it shows that the girl has no identity and with the red love heart being highlighted links in with the genre of the film.

I have completed my website you can find it on this link www.wix.com/supplen/wellie 

YouTube ....

Today i created a YouTube account so that i can upload our teaser trailer to YouTube which means that we can get feedback from people to see if they would change anything also this means that i can upload our teaser trailer to our website and that our audience can access our teaser trailer.

We decided to use YouTube because it is the most popular video sharing site which means that more people will access the teaser trailer to give us feedback. The disadvantages of YouTube are that there are sometimes occasional server problems which means that people wouldn't be able to access the teaser trailer but the problems don't happen often.