Evaluation Question 4

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

My Response:

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My Response:

Evaluation Question 2

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

My Response:

Evaluation Question 1

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

My Response:

Considering our audience

Reflecting upon our final trailer, it is important to consider our audience and if we met their needs.
We felt that our film would be marketed at a younger audience of around 15-30. We felt that both men and women would engage with our narrative as it is a very real issue for both genders. However, we did feel that our narrative would attract a mainly female audience as the statistics suggest that they are more likely to be victims of domestic violence.
We felt that our trailer met our target audiences' needs because:

• The quick cuts we used would keep a younger audience intrigued
• We withheld a lot of the narrative to entice our audience
• With no scripting, our trailer was assertive and got straight to the point
• Our final shot was unique and action packed- suggesting more than just a slow, emotional film

Certificate rating for our film

We decided to rate 'White Ribbon' as a 15 certificate. We decided this due to the nature of our storyline and the fact that our film would depict scenes of domestic violence and verbal abuse. Therefore we felt this may be disturbing for younger viewers who may not fully understand the intention of the film and find the make up effects graphically disturbing. We used these BBFC guidelines to help inform our decision:

Tzvetan Todorov - Narrative theory

Todorov proposes an interesting narrative theory as summarised below: 

Our media trailer purposely challenges this theory of narrative. Our trailer begins with no equilibrium, as the male character is dominating the female character through his control and violence. This means that the opposing forces aren't in balance and never were. 

Our storyline then fails to be disrupted by an event as the female character fails to speak out about the domestic violence she is experiencing along with the past victims. 

Ultimately, although it is only a short teaser trailer, the audience get the impression that the problem is not resolved either, due to the final shot of the female character being held underwater.

Blumler and Katz - Uses and Gratification Theory

Below is the Uses and Gratification Theory by Blumler and Katz:

When considering why I think an audience may choose to view 'White Ribbon' I felt that there were two main reasons. 

Firstly, I felt that an audience may choose our media text in order to be informed and/or educated. For example, they may know someone suffering from domestic violence, and so they may view 'White Ribbon' in order to find out more information regarding how to help victims and to allow them to further understand their situation. Secondly, I feel that an audience may be inclined to view our media text to achieve Escapism. This seems an unlikely reason for an audience to choose a film based on domestic violence, however, if they themselves are victims then they may find it an escape from reality to see how a fictional character would react in a similar situation to their own. 

Media Theorist - Laura Mulvey

Whilst considering our storyline and the message we are trying to portray through our trailer, it reminded me of a key media theorist - Laura Mulvey. The following slide explores her ideas:

I feel that, in a way, our trailer does comply with this theory, in the respect that it is displaying violence against women and therefore placing women in a subordinate position. This may be viewed as displaying a sexist viewpoint, however, we have been careful to ensure that we display the violence from both the female and male perspective to ensure our trailer in not entirely portrayed 'at a male angle'.For example, we have used frequent shots of our lead female character on her own as well as our lead male character.
Furthermore, we have been mindful not to over sexualize the female characters in our trailer (e.g- through displaying sexual scenes) as this may cause viewers to take the message of domestic violence less seriously and may legitimate the use of women as 'sexual objects' in media text.

Making our final trailer a teaser trailer

We decided to make our final trailer a teaser trailer not a theatrical trailer. This is mainly due to the fact that our trailer lacked speech and could tell the story without the need for it. Therefore, we felt that choosing to do a teaser trailer gave us more opportunity to entice the audience by using our best shots and simple piano music to leave them intrigued and wanting to know more.

Final Trailer

This is our final teaser trailer, 'White Ribbon'. 

Final website

Click here to view our website

Final Poster

We finalised our decision on using this image for our poster. We decided to use a black and white colour scheme as it reflects the mood of the trailer and may be more eye catching to our audience as it is different to the typical conventional colour scheme of many film posters. The black and white also creates focus on the main elements of the picture and their outline, (James, the building and the bird).

Change of music

Originally, we chose Bastilles' Oblivion track for our trailer. We were aware this is copyright limited and so we searched Sound cloud for a copyright free cover of the track. However, there were still copyright issues with using a cover version of the track. Therefore we decided that to comply with copyright laws as required, we needed to find an instrumental piano track of a different composition, free of copyright. After we located one that we felt complemented our trailer best, we replaced the track with this new piece.

Outtakes

This is a brief video comprised of outtakes that we decided not to include in our final teaser trailer. The reasons we decided not to include them vary from them not being totally relevant to the quality of the acting involved.