Evaluation Question 3 - What did you learn from your audience feedback

Our teaser trailer was aimed at a young age group of teenagers to young adults, so 18-24, both genders. We targeted this audience, as we knew from previous research that our type of production would appeal to this audience. Before our production process, to gain apsects into what our audience were interested in, we used Survey Monkey, an online site that allows users to create their own survey for others to access and complete via a weblink. The questions are shown below and their responses are displayed in the form of a bar chart, giving my group and I, visual feedback. By posting links to our survey on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, we were able to gain a large number of responses, giving us a good insight into what would appeal to our audience. 

Most of our audience wanted our film title to be called "Knock Knock". Our film name ideas were "Knock Knock", "The Unexpected" and "Who's There?". 11 people (55%) voted for "Knock Knock", 8 (40%) voted for "The Unexpected" and 1 person (5%) voted for "Who's There?". From my research into film names, I found that film titles from slasher films tend to be short and sharp. This makes them catchy and identifiable for the audience. We used "who's there?" as our slogan as this fits in well with the film name "Knock Knock", forming the commonly known joke of "knock knock who's there?". People would be familiar with the phrase "knock knock" and so using this for our film title would establish our film's name.



When we asked what characters the central focus should be on, 13 (65%) voted for a group of teenagers, 5 (25%) voted for a family unit and 2 (10%) voted for a single character. Having a group of teenagers is a common convention in the slasher genre which we conformed to. Below are images which reflects this: 








When we asked what weapon our killer should use (a classic convention of the slasher genre), 12 people (60%) voted for a knife which was the most popular item as opposed to an axe, a chainsaw and a rope. This was helpful was for us, as a knife was easily accessible and also allowed us to mirror styles set in renowned films such as "Scream".

After my group and I had filmed some footage, to gain more feedback, we conducted a focus group. Through this focus group, one thing we found out was that our lighting needed to be improved on. After carrying out some deconstructions on lighting used in slasher films, this is what we found out:

• Slashers tend to use warm colours such as yellows which is evident in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" which could be used to visually signify the hostility the characters live in.  

• Slasher films also use lighting to often reflect the narrative. Below is an image from "A Nightmare On Elm Street". The red tint may have connotations related to the narrative (Freddy Krueger is burnt alive by the parents of the children, so the red lighting can represent flames).

From our research, it appeared that slashers use lighting to either reflect a theme or a narrative. So, my group and I made use of different lighting in our teaser trailer. Below are images which denote different types of lighting.

We used high key lighting at the beginnings a means of establishing an equilibrium. High key lighting connotes positivity which conforms to stage one of Todorov's theory of narrative, a state of equilibrium at the outset.

This image shows a slight warm tint in lighting ,which reflects the climax of the scene after there is a disruption of the equilibrium.

In this shot we used under lighting which gave our killer a sinister look.
  

Through our focus group, we also discovered that a more diverse range of shots needed to included to keep our audience visually stimulated.

 

This is a head on shot of the killer grabbing the girl.

This is a close up shot of one of the victims. The close up effectively denotes her facial expressions. The audience can see the that the victim is terrified. If you look closely, we have also integrated a two shot, as the killer is behind her.

This low angle denotes the killer. The low angle makes him appear dominant, thus signifying his dominance over the victims.

What did I learn?

• Audiences like short, sharp film names for a slasher.
• Teenagers tend to be the preference of the ideal victims. This could be due to the change in how nowadays adults are not often used in slasher films.
• Lighting can have a significant impact in the way one can interpret a film's meaning.
• Having a range of shots and angles keep an audience visually stimulated, as they are invited to watch footage from various points.

Evaluation Question- 2

Typography 

The typography we chose to use is called 'Scream Again.' We felt that the sharp, distorted edges of the lettering linked well with the twisted nature of the slasher genre. We distorted the letters further, so not all of them were straight or same size, adding to the chaotic feel of the genre.

The website and poster for our trailer features the same scream again typography, we decided to add bloodied smears and splatters, giving a strong link to slasher violence and gore.  

The typography used on the poster is slightly yellow, this is in order to keep with colour scheme of the poster. Across all components the typography is kept light light against the dark background. 

The typography used for the 'Who's there?' tagline on the website is the same typography used for the credits etc. throughout the trailer, as well as across the website. 

The typography is capitalised, bold and easy to read. The sharp pointed serifs give it a gothic effect, which is typical of typography within the horror genre. 

Colour scheme

The main colours constantly used across all media components (trailer, website and poster) are shades of red, white, black and grey. The black and grey makes it look slightly dull yet sinister, which is typical of the horror genre. The red incorporated in the form of blood splatters across the title typography etc gives a strong link to violence and gore, the key features of the slasher genre. The strong link to violence e.g blood splatters is un-nerving for the audience. The red is not incorporated into our trailer in order to keep typography and colour more simplistic and minimal to allow more audience focus on what is happening. 


Tagline 

Our tagline follows our chosen 'Knock Knock' title. The 'Who's There?' tagline is a play on the classic 'knock knock who's there' joke. The fact that this is meant to be fun innocent game, mainly for children and is now linked to something much more sinister is disturbing for the audience.

Within the horror genre there are often links to childlike innocence, such as the use of dolls etc as it is more distressing for the audience, something we have incorporated into our slasher genre film as it is a useful component in building both tension and terror, key features of slasher films.

We have also used 'Knock Knock' as a social media hashtag, allowing the audience to get involved on twitter, a global platform. The use of a constant hashtag also provided a recognisable link to the film, in the same way that a tag line does, also incorporating the use of social media as a way to get things trending and shared worldwide.

Layout

The poster includes a main image, which is the key image of mask, a representational link of the film for the audience. The killers mask is a classic convention of the slasher genre, with the villain becoming a famous figure within the franchise. It also include the film name with the repeated use of scream again typography, ultimately acting as a logo. Within the poster the typography is distorted by the addition of blood smears and splatters as a link to the violence within the genre. The tag line, 'Who's There?' again follows the same typography throughout. 

There are links to social media, a way of targeting and reaching a global audience. This includes the creation of the 'Knock Knock' hashtag as a way of getting the audience involved, for example sharing their opinions. There is the inclusion of social media logos (Facebook, Twitter and Google+) which are universal. 
The credits, names of producer etc placed at the bottom of the poster follow the same typography as tag line etc. We have placed the names at the bottom in order to allow complete attention to be given to the key image of the killer which is central to the poster, engaging the audience.

After researching other slasher genre film websites, we were able to ensure that our website included many key features. The first of these is an integrated trailer. The trailer plays as soon as you go onto website, so the viewer instantly watches it. 
The navigation buttons follow the same typography used for the tag line. They are clear and user friendly, making it easy to navigate around the site for anyone.

There are again many links to social media, providing a global platform. The 'Knock Knock' hashtag and universal media logos (Facebook, Twitter and Google+) again allow more ways for the audience to participate, therefor allowing for promotion of the film. 
The use of ratings by well known and trusted companies such as 'The Guardian' provides sincerity as well as a reliable source of information for the audience. 

The real time 'tweets' are there to encourage the audience to get involved, as well as displaying feedback about the film to other audience members. It is a moving feature that makes our website look technologically more advanced and professional.

Key Image 

The poster features the central image of the killer through the key hole, providing a link to the scene in the trailer where a long shot shows the girl opening the door after the knock is heard to see who is there. 
The knife, which is the killers weapon of choice is pointing forwards towards the key hole, making it feel unnerving and threatening to audience. The mask is easily visible in contrast to dark surroundings using low key lighting, which is important for projecting the audiences full attention on the killer.

The mask is a classic convention of the slasher genre e.g 'Halloween' and 'Scream,' both examples of films where the masked killer has created a franchise as audiences form a recognisable 'bond' with the killer. The mask becomes iconic for slasher films, therefore creating a strong image. The fact that it is an image as well makes it universal, not for one language etc. 

The mask is seen as a main feature in both the poster and throughout trailer, as well as on the webpage through trailer,  linking all the components together.

The typography has also carried through the same features that are easily recognisable, for example the scream again 'Knock Knock' title becomes a logo, again that the audience can link back to the trailer.

Combination


The killers mask is used within the trailer, poster and website, becoming the key image associated with this trailer.  The masked villains often become famous from many slasher genre films, for example 'Scream' with the ghostly mask and 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' with the disfigured face and clawed hand. The title has also become recognisable having been included within all components. The tag line is simple and easy to understand, again giving a twist on something child like as is common within the horror genre. We had learnt this through various research and deconstructions.

Our strong links to social media provide a world wide platform in order to promote the film through the poster, website and trailer through the participation of the audience through features such as the live streaming of tweets on the webisite and the 
#KnockKnock.

Evaluation Questions - 4

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

Research and Planning

Primarily, we used the internet for our research and planning as this was our most accessible source of a wide range of ideas, conventions and resources. For example. websites such as horror.wikia.com came in useful when looking up conventions for our genre. Other websites we used included wikipedia and www.horrorfilmhistory.com when researching our genre.

We did a lot of blog posts on blogger in our research and planning, for example deconstructions of genre and practical tasks looking at locations, researching where would be a good place to film.  Another way we did research was by using the online survey website survey monkey to conduct a survey into initial ideas that we had for our film. We collected results from various questions to help us plan our actual piece. 

We also used online sources such as YouTube a great deal, as there are lots of helpful previous a2 pieces available, tutorials and sound clips, as well as other online resources such as Incompetech, Dafont and Freesfx, for sound a font downloads. 

Construction
To film our piece we used a standard video camera that one of us had at home and used a tripod from school. It was a basic video camera and so there was no difficulty in getting to grips with it's controls. 

Editing

During editing, we used Final Cut Pro, which is a software used on the Macs. Originally, we began editing using iMovie and it's basic editing possibilities but due to it's slow speed and temperamental nature we chose to explore other options and were led to using Final Cut Pro. As an editing software, Final Cut allowed us to use pre-existing effects such as 'Bad TV' in order to create a fuzzy, white noise effect on our footage. We had a wide range of effects and transitions at our disposal within the construction phase of our teaser trailer. 

Another part to editing is the use of typography, which we worked quite hard on. We used a font downloaded from dafont.com called 'Scream Again', which we manipulated on photoshop later. We also added effects and transitions on the text to make it seem more conventional. 

Sound
For our sound we used a variety of sources, mentioned earlier. We also played around with the sound editing a lot, layering sounds, changing volumes etc. We found sound from real films e.g. the scream at the end, as well as freesfx for sounds such as heavy breathing. We also used incompetech, which is a library of free music that you can download and use in your own projects. Using our genre research and knowledge about sound, we decided on several soundtracks which we could then layer in various ways, to create eerie, tension building sounds, as seen below. 

Photoshop
We used Photoshop to create our poster as well as design a lot of the typography used throughout the whole media package e.g. the 'knock knock' logo. When designing the poster and website I used Photoshop to manipulate the text further, using blood smears/splatters and my newly developed Photoshop skills to make the typography look even more professional. I found that this was more effective than just using the font on a plain background as it conformed more to the genre and gave the audience an idea of the narrative. 

We also used Photoshop to create the background for our website, instead of using separate images, as we felt like this might be a simpler way to design the website. We used the same typography and fonts as previously used, to make sure that all our ancillary items matched, and made sure we included all the necessary items on our website e.g. reviews, a hashtag, the menu etc.

Wix

Wix is a cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create websites and mobile sites, through the use of their online drag and drop tools. This was a very helpful tool as we had some basic HTML knowledge, but certainly not enough to actually create a whole website from scratch. The drag and drop options were useful in that way, as the code was already written for us. Whilst designing the website, we did use some code though that was written by us, learned using online tutorials. We combined our Photoshop skills, HTML skills and our trailer to create an interesting website using media technologies. One feature of the website is the menu, which we wrote the code for. We had to use code to make the text the font 'Big Caslon', as that was what we were using throughout our promotional package. We also wanted the hovering colour to change to red, so we had to use our HTML skills learned to create the proper code, leading to results like this:

Evaluation
We mainly used social media to get our trailer out into the public eye, as we are aware that this is what gets people talking. We also used a hashtag, #KnockKnock as part of our promotional package, as we felt this was quite a current and trendy way to spread the word. We used YouTube to upload and share the trailer. We also made use of Facebook and Twitter to share our media piece, and added share buttons on our website, as well as icons on our poster. People posted comments as part of the evaluation so we could gain some feedback and criticism as to what went well, and what could be improved.