Brief

My name is Jack Cox and I am currently in my second year of studying A-Level Media Studies at Rooks Heath College. Our coursework this year was to create a range of media products to promote a horror film; a trailer, a poster and a feature on a magazine front cover. The first stage of our project consisted of researching our target audience and horror/slasher films as a whole. We did this through many different platforms, including online questionnaire, QuestionPro and a focus group. We distributed our online questionnaire via social media as it would reach a high number of other people on the particular media platform, ensuring that we had a high number of respondents. The questionnaire and focus group however was only a small portion of our pre-production research stage, as we had to analyse existing horror film trailers, posters and magazines. As well as this, our research included a history on the genre, which included film movements such as Film Noir and German Expressionism, as well as analysing narrative patterns that reoccur within films in the same genre. 

When our research was completed, the planning stage of our ancillary tasks took place. This included creating storyboards for our trailer, the casting of our actors, location scouting and creating a synopsis. 

When we were fully planned, we were ready to create our trailer, and go out on set to film. As well as this being a stressful period, I am pleased to say I had a lot of fun in the creation of my slasher film. Once the editing was done, and all the little bits were knitted together, we seeked feedback from our target audience.

As a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed my A2 Media coursework.