Real Life Magazine Analysis

Evaluation Part 4

Evaluation Part 4: What Have You Learnt From Audience Feedback?

What praise and criticism did you receive during the focus group screening?

We had a mix of praise and criticism during the screening here were some of the positive feedback:

 “The blood effects work well, especially onto camera.” “Good shots, like the walking scenes of feet”

“Text was good” “Good soundtrack, it is cut at places really well” “Great sound effects”

“Sets narrative well” “Love the text/font” “Nice sound effects” “Good jump shots”

“Good shots – canted angle through mask” “Good location – creepy”

“Nice blood FX” “Good violent scenes” “The gore and the effects” “I like the inter-titles on the background of the mask”

“Jump scare at the end was sick” “Great gore effects” “Good blood effects, good camera angles”

“The end was really effective, and the sound effect went really well with that part” “Spitting on the screen was cool” “Really good pace” “Good camera angles”

“Nice shots” “Good lighting” “Lots of angles” “Good blood shots” “Good gore effects, jumpy, good titles & text” “Gore & close ups”

And here is some of the negative feedback:

“The audio of speech isn’t very clear and is hard to understand” “Music was louder than speaking sometimes” “Shots could be darker” “Almost exposes too much of storyline – we see all the characters get killed”

 “Hard to hear talking” “Soundtrack wasn’t horror enough” “Very action oriented” “The lighting and the music, music did not go with the dialogue”

“Narrative isn’t too clear” “Music was a bit too loud at the start” “The music didn’t make me feel scared, and it could be more mysterious”

“Not very eerie because the lighting is very high key” “Can’t hear some of the dialogue” “Couldn’t hear the voices – sound too loud”

“Soundtrack didn’t really fit the horror” “Didn’t like the music, was too loud fort speech” “Picture was a bit bright, just didn’t seem scary”

 “Speech wasn’t clear”

Here are my comments on this after talking to my group:

We agreed with the speech being hard to hear so we decided to change it so the voices where louder than before. We also used the ‘pen’ tool to make the soundtrack quieter at certain points, especially when Aaron and me discuss whether the story of the killings are true.

We also changed the lighting of the trailer so it  wasnot so high key. By using the contrast/brightness filter on Premier we made it a lot darker and more eerie.

However we disagreed with the music not being suitable because we thought it suited the action horror style we were going for and reminded of soundtracks that were similar in horror films like ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (2004).

In addition we also disagreed with it exposing too much storyline because we don’t show the order of the deaths as they may be in the full film. It’s clear that two of the teenagers have survived and this would encourage the viewers to watch the film to see what they are like.

What last minute changes did you make because of the focus group screening?

We changed the order of events in the trailer to keep the deaths until further in. This meant we could build the tension more.  We also changed so the shot were low key and lot darker, which also made it more dramatic and similar to the ‘visual mix’ of real horror films and trailers.

We also added a few additional shots after a reshoot. These were mostly of Ryan with the mask on, as we wanted to make him the main selling point of the film just like in ‘Halloween’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ where the creepy killer appeals to audiences.

We also took out shots we felt slowed down the narrative in the trailer and finally added the YOU WILL BE REAPED TEXT which was similar to the text used at the end of the MARTYRS trailer.

Are you have happy with the final trailer?

I am really pleased with the trailer for I feel it is a strong interesting and horror trailer because it has interesting shots, an almost sympathetic but also evil villain, good gore effects, and a good soundtrack with works well with trailer. These pack together to give an eerie but exciting atmosphere with the characters and the stereotypes being set up so the audience can easily understand all the different characters quickly.

I definitely think ‘Harvest on Crepsley Hill’ appeals to our main target audience and our audience research in class showed this idea would appeal to our target audience of teenage action horror fans. It has a good pace and has interesting villain that hasn’t been done as much as other student films. Also it has really great sound track that befits the trailer and the genre and finally the main cast are about the same age as the target audience and so people can relate.

Evaulation Part 3

Evaluation Part 3: How did you use media technology in your construction, research, planning and evaluation?

How did you use media technology for your research and planning?

In the initial research we used many technologies such as YouTube.com for trailers and clips from example for the past and modern examples. Three of the trailers we watched were ‘Evil Dead’ (2013), ‘The Toxic Avenger’ (1984), ‘Cloverfield’ (2008) as well as many more. Also we used DVD/Blu-Ray for the full screening of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1979), ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (2004) and ‘Psycho’ (1960) as well as special features from other DVD to help us understand the horror genre. An excellent example of this were the documentaries ‘Document of the Dead’ and ‘The Dead Will Walk’ on the ‘Dawn of the Dead: Ultimate Collection’ (which really helped us understand horror effects) as well as the documentary ‘The American Nightmare’ on the old ‘Hills Have Eyes’ 2-disc set.

Furthermore with our research we also used IMDB for getting dates, directors and stars. It also helped me find out about more horror films that would be helpful to watch, especially ones made by auteurs I liked such as George Romero and Zak Snyder.

For the planning we used general text editing software such as Microsoft Word and Publisher for our shot list, Prop list, Health and Safety. Finally for our mood board we used the internet to get the images for our mood board and then used Photoshop to arrange the images in a tidy way.

How did you use media technology for your construction phase?

To start my ‘ancillary products’ the internet and Photoshop were very important. In Photoshop I used a couple of techniques such as using layer so I could put certain parts above the other like in my poster with the moon texture on top of the yellow circle. I also hid the text slightly behind the killer’s head to give a professional feel. I also used a text texture through the ‘fx’ button to have the text seem more horror like with the grey/blue colour. Finally I also used personalised paint brushes downloaded copyright free from the internet so I could have an effective spatter on the poster.

The images below are the Photoshop files for my ancillary products. As you can see in the images, there was a total of 18 layers for my poster and 29 layers for my magazine cover. This shows the amount of complex hard work that went into them.

In our construction phase, we mainly used Premiere Pro. We uploaded our shots from the HD camera and then edited them using in and out points (with the “I” and “o” buttons on the keyboard). We also made the contrast higher using the contrast/brightness filter to give a darker look. Then we used ‘After Effects’ and the ‘emerge’ filter to make it seem like the text was growing from the background. Against the textured background like the killer’s mask, it gave a rough but professional feel.

 

To help finish off the trailer we used many different technologies including websites like soundbible.com, freesound.org and Dafont.com for our sounds and text and we made sure they are all copyright free In addition we also used a Digital Still Camera in assisting with ancillary products as well as a HD cam recorder for the actual trailer.

How did you use media technologies on the evaluation?

We used a Camera recorder to record the reactions to both the rough cut, and this led us to change a lot of a product. We added in more text at the end (YOU WILL BE REAPED) and also cut a lot of shots such as the girl and boy being pulled into the woods. Our final trailer was much shorter and more exciting because of this, so filming the reaction to the rough cut (‘focus group’) was very useful.

We also used Blogger to upload our evaluation and this meant we could not lose anything. It was annoying when I didn’t have access to the website when there were internet problems but generally it was very useful.

Focus Group Screening

Trailer (Final Cut)