Evaluation 1

Frame 1 - Props

One of the props we used throughout the trailer was a fake shotgun, this connotes that the protagonist is dangerous and unstable as not many people have guns. In our trailer there is a shot where the protagonist is almost a silhouette showing the gun, this is also used in the trailer for elephant, a thriller about a school shooting. The comparison is shown below above in the two pictures.

Frame 2 - Setting

A lot of the settings relate to a lower to middle class which is the target audience, a few examples of this are the small alleys, the graffiti walls and the train tracks and power lines which all point to a more industrial area. We got some of the inspiration for the industrial setting from split which is set in an underground hideout that looks very industrial, the picture on the left shows this. The picture on the right is from our trailer and also shows the industrial location due to the large pylons, both of these also give a sense of claustrephobia as they close in around the camera, both could also be viewed as POV shots.

Frame 3 - Storyline/Plot

The story line of out media product came from a few different thriller movies, the aspect of the age and school shooting comes from the film elephant which has primarily teenage characters which is also included in our trailer, it also takes the lead up to a school shooting which is something which is hinted at during our plot. It also takes the mental health aspect from shutter island with the main character having mental health problems like paranoid schizophrenia which is shown in the film too, paranoia is a major part of both our film and shutter island too as in both films the main character doesn't know what to believe is true. The final film we took aspects from was requiem for a dream which is heavily drug orientated which is something our film explores. The screenshot below shows the paranoia throughout as he is getting scared of people being behind him.

Frame 4 - Title

The reason for using the knife in our logo is that it links heavily to the story line due to the suicidal themes throughout as well as the title itself being edge which could connote the edge of a knife. The slashes in the word edge again link back to the suicidal thoughts and self harm as it suggests the cutting that having a mental illness leads some people to do. Even the black background connotes death and again links back to these suicidal thoughts that the main character is having. The ideas for this came from other thrillers such as split which also had a white writing and black background logo. The font also links to the title as the letters have cuts through them which split them apart.

Frame 5 - Special Effects

One of the effects I used throughout was the night effect on sony vegas pro this meant that we could keep the whole trailer low key lighting rather than having to record at night, we did this because it is stereotypical of thriller films to be low key lighting as it make the audience feel more uneasy. This is shown in the screenshot below. Other thriller films like shutter island were also majorly lowkey lighting which we tried to get the same effect as



Frame 6 - Introducing Characters

The first shot of our trailer shows the main character surrounded by alcohol bottles that are empty this instantly shows that he has problems with addiction. Another film that included alcohol was the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Frame 7 - Camera shots

One of the camera shots we took inspiration from was from requiem for a dream where it is a Birdseye shot of the protagonist laying on the floor. the high angle shows that he is vulnerable and weak as he looks smaller. It also shows that he has a drinking problem due to the many bottles around him and the bottle in his hand.

Evaluation 3 - Audience Feedback Changes

Magazine - 

 The magazine on the left was the first draft of the magazine, the feedback I received from teachers and peers was that the top of the magazine was fine how it was and didn't need to be changed so I left it the same on the finished product. The first bit of criticism I changed was the placement of the title of the film and the other small headline, I moved them down so the main image could be seen better, this was feedback I got from one of my teachers. I was also told that changing the three bars at the bottom left was a good idea which i acted upon by changing the middle one to look like it had been blood splattered which links into the genre of the film the magazine is about as it is a thriller. It also makes it look a bit more professional. The final bit of feedback I acted upon was to increase the size of the red circle and to reduce the size of the barcode. This is to draw the audiences attention to the  important red circle advertisement rather than the barcode

Poster -

Some of the changes that I made to the poster due to audience feedback was that I enlarged the centre image so that the main character was easier to see due to it already being quite low key lighting, I also had the knife and motto higher up the page but moving that down after getting feedback from my teacher allowed the centre imagine to be more open. I also got told to make the block of writing smaller which I also did to allow more space for the title etc.

Trailer -

The main criticism was the pace of the trailer, due to this we sped up the pace to make it seem more like a thriller trailer. we did this by chopping up several shots and adding more into the gaps to make it seem more sped up. Another criticism we recieved was about the final title not having a coming soon so we decided to add this afterwards.