Evaluation 4 : How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The Internet paid a massive part in the planning and researchstages of my work. It allowed me to search the web from very initial ideas to the research of other trailers to see what else was out there. It allowed me to look at images for inspiration, listen and watch other people talk about their work, and also look at proper film trailers and also other work that people had created from across the web. It also helped with research into posters and magazines as I was able to view images and examples of both online. The Internet is a really useful tool for research.
Here is a list of websites that I used for research;

http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/
http://www.empireonline.com/
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

I used this website as a resource to give me a definition of what a teaser trailer is and used this website to let me look back at the history of film, and for me to understand the different classifications of film to make sure I gave my film the right certificate.

I used Youtube as the main tool to look at other videos, clips and read peoples opinions.

And I also used apple trailers to look at the most recent trailers and also to define the difference between a teaser trailer and a theatrical trailer.








Blogger was a excellent tool to keep all of my work recorded and keep it managable. Blogger allows for me to make posts, put up my images and videos and let people comment on them. I feel blogger was a excellent way to post and show my work.

 This is the camcorder I used to capture all my footage. I had no problems atal with this camcorder, and it was excellent in letting me take quick shots, zooming and close ups came out brilliant. It offered brilliant quality whilst filming and the end footage came out to a good standard. Using this camera really allowed for me to get the look and feel I wanted for my teaser trailer. It also recorded the clips separately so when i put all the clips into Final Cut, it allowed to me move the clips around and slot them in where I wanted to.

The Apple Mac is where all of my production work took place. The Apple Mac was excellent in assisting my work and offered me great packages such as Final cut, Photoshop, InDesign and Soundtrack Pro to create my work. I had no problems with this software and it allowed me to save my work at all times.

Soundtrack Pro was a great piece of software that allowed me to create the soundtrack for my teaser trailer. At first I did find it difficult to use, however I feel that was because I had never created a piece of music like this before. However, I spent some time playing around on it, listening to different tracks and then I had a good understanding of how to use it. It allows you to create loops for your music, and then you can pick different instruments, genres and sounds to add in to make your soundtrack. It is time consuming, however it was alot easier for me than going out and recording my own piece of soundtrack.

 Photoshop allowed for the manipulation of my images. Here I could import my images and then Crop, Contrast, Brighten etc my images to how I wanted them. I then imported then into InDesign for the Production of my Film poster and Magazine front cover.

InDesign was the desktop publishing software that I used for the creation of my magazine front cover and film poster.  Using InDesign enabled me to edit both my poster and magazine front cover very rapidly and to the best quality. I was able to change the images to how I wanted, add text and change the sizes of things to make two finished very professional looking products.

Final Cut Express was the editing equipment i used to create my teaser trailer. I started by putting in my memory card and importing all the clips into a file called CONSCIENCE FILM TRAILER. I then could start editing my trailer. For me, I had never used this equipment before, so it was a case of me moving things around and finding out for myself how to use the software. However i did soon get the hang of it and things came into place. I created a timeline of all my clips, then added the music underneath after creating that to make sure it all worked together well.  It also allowed me to use a range of editing techniques and to add transitions and intertitles in as well.

 I also used a flip camera to record audience feedback, and throughout production and filming of my teaser trailer I kept my own personal camera to take pictures.

Here are 2 screen shots of me uploading my teaser trailer to Youtube. I created myself a account so then I could upload my videos.

Evaluation 3 :What have you learned from your Auidence feedback?

My first part of audience feedback came fro my class of Media Students. In class, we all showed our trailers at various points and reviewed them at stages, Everyone was able to offer constructive criticism and how to improve. This was extremely help full at the production part making our trailers as it helped the process, and also worked as research as I was showing people and getting responses from people within my target audience age range.

I also created a short survey for a selection of people to fill out, to see what there thoughts were on my 3 products.

1. How effective is the teaser trailer at achieving it's purpose and maintaing it's thriller genre?

2. How well do the three texts (the poster, front cover and teaser trailer) work together to form a promotional package and marketing campaign for a film?

3. What do you like about the teaser trailer?

4. What could be done to improve any of the final texts?

I have also recored some videos of people talking about my 3 final products. <br>

Evaluation task 2: how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I really wanted to ensure that all of my media products worked well as a promotional and marketing campaign for my film. I wanted to ensure they had a continued genre and theme throughout and the pattern of fonts, images and colours linked throughout. I wanted to create a brand identity for CONSCIENCE to make sure it would reach out to my chosen target audience.

Throughout my 3 products, the teaser trailer, magazine front cover and film poster, i wanted to sure that i used the same theme, made sure the chosen genre continued throughout and there was no diversity between the products. One way in which they worked well as a combination was i used a really story striking image as the focal point for all my products. At the beginning and end of the trailer i used a close up for the female protagonists face, on the film poster i used a medium close up of the female but in her scary form, to grab the audiences attention and notice that the picture is scary and straight away show the genre of the film, and i did the same for the magazine front cover, as I want the front cover to stand out on the shelf next to other magazines. I think the image chosen is hugely important to the marketing campaign as its what the audience will remember about the film before it has even been released. The tilting of the head used in every image is iconography for the film.

I also used the same tag line throughout all 3 of my media products, which was " Don't keep the Dirty secret, it will get you". This Line is used as a intertitle in my trailer, used across the main image on my film poster, and also used as text on the front cover of my magazine. This is used as a pull for the audience and this line will stand out to them, using it as a advertising and marketing technique.

I have used the same range of colours, and text and font throughout keeping it a similar theme, so there is no variation and it continues through all of the media products.

The name of my film, CONSCIENCE again works as a pull for the audience, not only does it stand out but it needs thought from the audience makes them want to know what is on the female conscience and what they have done.

The inter titles persuades the audience to want to watch film as gives story and also leaves them a cliff hanger at the end so they will be intrigued to see what is on her conscience and what she has done.

All of my shots and images are close ups or media close ups, to keep the audience close to the story, keep them engaged in the characters emotions, and using her face as a main marketing pull, because the audience will remember her face as a striking image.

On my film poster I have also mentioned a website which will be my use of viral marketing, to communicate with the online community and generate hype.

In my marketing campaign I would like the ancillary products to come after the film poster, as large amounts of audience are more likely to see the trailer online or TV, then the print media can come after the first amount of hype has began.

The distributor would be responsible for marketing the film and physically distributing the film. With relation to the question, there are three main roles of the distributor. Theses consist of advertising of the film, promoting the film and publicising the film. Part of these three roles is the combination of my film poster, film magazine front cover and our teaser trailer.I wanted to do a thriller as they are really booming right now, with Paranormal activity, Buried and The Crazies being huge hits at the box offices this year. The release date of my film would be vital to ensure that i create profit, however as can be seen at the end of my trailer i have put coming soon, which makes the audience wait and create a hype and buzz about the film. However it can be seen on my film poster, i have put, 'comming soon, October 2011', which allows the audience a little more information. AS its a thriller, I feel that October is a great month to release as its around Halloween, and also, its near enough to award season so that is can be remember and hopefully nominated for awards.

As my potential audience is15-22 year old, I feel that a huge part of my promotional package and marketing success will come from viral marketing, because a lot of this contribute to the online community. Therefore, as it can be seen at the bottom of my film poster, I have created a website where information bout the film will be released through a online marketing campaign, similar to the Dark Knight's viral campaign " why so serious" which created unprecedented hype about the film, making millions in its first weekend at the box office.  It will be a website where people came right in, send of links and the more and more followers more information would be released about the film. Using the Internet I can advertise the film through Facebook also, which would hit my target audience exactly. Here is a example of Facebook advertising.

I would want to distribute the film digitally as well as using 35mm film reels. This is because it is less expensive (around 10% of the cost of 35mm film reels) and it has better quality.

Advertising, promotions and publictity all come within a marketing campaign, and i believe that i have created this within my 3 ancillary tasks. I want to grab the audience and generate a huge hype about the film.

Evaluation Task 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop, challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

(SCREEN SHOTS)

In order to create a really effective teaser trailer, magazine front cover and film poster, i originally did loads of research into what the codes and conventions of these media products would be. I wanted to follow the rules, in order to create a real successful range of Media products that would reach out to the target audience I had chosen. i researched into different ranges of film trailers across all genres, and after choosing to create a thriller genre i researched in more detail into popular thriller films. I also had a look at film posters that went with these trailers, to see how a pattern followed throughout their media campaigens, and i had a look at a wide range of film magazines, to see how they could differ in style, yet still being effective in promoting the films.

1. One convention that i followed for my teaser trailer was using a female protagonist in the trailer. This is because, after my research i could see that it was common to use a female as the main character, as the female is portrayed as being weak and vulnerable. I choose to use a female also, and although my film was a pyschological thriller i wanted to show her weak side and how she could show this through being shown on her own in shots.

2. One way in which i challenged the conventions of a Thriller is by only showing the one character in the trailer. Usually in trailers you get to a see a hint of another character, or a clue to the story, however throughout my whole trailer i only showed the one girl. i also used a split screen technique when editing to show a contrast between the female character in her two states and personalities.

3. Another convention of a thriller is dim lighting. However i choose to challenge this convention as i filmed outside in daylight. However on the other hand i did choose to film on a day were the weather was dim and there was grey overcloud, to create a dark feel to my footage. I am also here challenging the stereotype also as normally thrillers are often shot in locations like a house, and all my footage was featured outside.

4. I also followed the forms and conventions by developing a narrative in the trailer by having the story around the same person but from 2 different views.

5.  I followed the conventions by using a wide range of shots that would be followed in a thriller trailer. I used hand held shots, panning, close ups, zooming out and in, rapid pace of editing and quick cuts.

6. I used a wide range of inter titles to grab the audience attention and gives some clues into the story.

7. I created a sound track on soundtrack pro to create suspense and a sense of danger throughout my trailer.

8. For my film poster i followed the conventions for keeping it simple yet being very effective. I used a striking image to grab the target audiences attention, and also used a headline which would be a theme across all of my media products. I kept the image in the middle of my poster, which on the other hand could challenge the conventions of a film poster as in many cases the main images covers the whole of the poster and the texts goes across it. I used the same font across my poster, so it was easy to read. It follows the theme and genre of my products.

9. My magazine cover, also i followed the conventions well. I used a image which followed in pattern with my film poster. I used a range of colours that fitted well with the image, but also carried on the dark theme that was being carried across all media products. I used the normal aspects of a magazine cover such as magazine name, headline, barcode, date, striking image and other features in the magazine.

10. My trailer fits the forms of a typical trailer, as it is between 30 seconds and a minute long.

Final Film Trailer

Final Magazine front cover

Final Film Poster

Media powerpoint

In class, for section 1b of the exam we have to talk about genre and narative. For a class assesemtn we were asked to create a powepoint talking about genre and narrative. So i thought it would be a good idea to upload this to my blog so it will help to show my research and development into genre.

Media powerpoint

View more presentations from lucygrace4.

Screen shots of editing and adding intertitles

Here are some screen shots of me entering my intertitles in. I used a program called Livetype to put them in. I selected the shot for where I wanted the intertitle to go, choose a suitable font and then typed the text I wanted. They then became part of the shots on the timeline and part of my final teaser trailer.

MUSIC and SOUNDTRACK

Here are a few screen shots of how i created my soundtrack. I had never used this software package before so I played around with it first. I then thought of a idea of how I would like my soundtrack to sound, and listened to a few clips and started creating loops of bits of music.

This was the first clip I selected which i added onto the soundtrack timeline

Here is a sample of my clips on the timeline.

Rough Cut

Clip of rough cut

Auidnece feeback on magazine front cover

Auidence feedback on Film poster

Here is the final and completed Film poster for my teaser trailer. I feel that it fits together all the conventions of a Film poster, and would work excellent in a marketing campaign advertising the film. It fit's my genre very well, and the image it striking gripping in the audience.

Sketches of magazine front cover

After sketching out my origonal idea, here are some images i choose for the front cover.

Editing

Screen shots

This was the first aspect of editing my footage. I had to import all of my clips and they then opened in a window on the side of final cut so I could just drag them in onto my timeline when needed.


Here is a screen shot of my footage on the timeline. Here I put them onto different layers so that I could then move them around or edit them when i wanted to.

Here are 3 screen shots of footage I have taken then added transitions in. I used editing tools to speed up clips like this first one to show panic and a quick pace of editing amongst my footage.

For this shot I used the slplit screen tool to put two clips together, one on top of the other. I then faded out the image on the left to create a ghostly and weird feeling.

Here in this shot I used a transition called cross disolve to create this look.

Sketches of Film poster

Here is the origonal sketches of my film poster and how I would like it to look. from the pictures I took on the day of filming, i have narrowed it down to a few that I think would be effective. I will edit them to ensure i have the right compisition through contrast and brightness to ensure they fit the conventions of a film poster.

Sketch of what I would like it to look like

Images to choose from

Inter- titles

In motion pictures, an inter title is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to the action.

For my teaser trailer, I wanted to ensure that i used inter titles that would fit the genre, create suspense and also fit in with the shots from the trailer. Here i have choose to have 6 Inter titles, however this may change with editing.

• Ever done something you regret?
• And didn't know what to do?
• Would you run away?
• Or Hide?
• Either way, it will get you..
• CONSCIENCE

I am going to use Livetype to insert these Inter titles into my trailer. When it came to choosing the correct font I used http://www.dafont.com/ to find one which would fit the psychological thriller genre but also would be easy to read on the screen. I went to the section of Horror and choose a font called ' I still know'.

Still images for ancillary tasks

Here are some Pictures i took after filming for my ancilary prodcuts. I thought that this would be the best time to take them as my actor was in costume and make up and i had the right look that i wanted to create.

Day of the Filming

On the day of filming, I decided to film around 5ish in the evening, so that it was starting to get dark and I also chose a day where the weather was dark, grey and very cloudy. I began by setting up my tripod and camera, and by shooting a few practice shots of Liz to make sure I had the correct angle on the tripod and it was zoomed in enough. Firstly i shot all the shots of Liz playing the normal character in the teaser trailer. I took shots of around 30 seconds each time so ensure I had enough Footage when it came to editing. I used a range of shots of Liz playing the girl in her usual state. I used long shots, close ups and many more to ensure that i had created the right effect i wanted for my psychological thriller. i then changed Liz's costume and filled all the footage of her in the ghostly state but towards the left side of the shot. This was extremely hard as i had to ensure that i did not at all move the camera, as when it comes to editing and using the split screen tool, the clips had to match up so i could then make it one clip. The whole of my filming took around one hour, as I wanted to ensure that i had enough footage so that when it came to editing I would be able to mix it around and to ensure that it fitted the conventions and lasted from 30 seconds to one minute in length. I made sure i sticked to the ideas of my storyboard very closely, although when filming i also took additional shots just in case when i came to editing certain things didn't work very well or i wanted to change certain aspects.

Day before the Shoot

They day before I decided to make sure that i knew how to use all of my equipment correctly so that i didn't have any problems on the day.

This is the camera i used to film my trailer. The day before i just wanted to make sure that i knew how to use it effectively so i had a go at filming a few things.

I used a tripod to put my camera on during use. I made sure i properly knew how to use this and how to securely fasten my camera to the tripod to ensure it was secure and did not move during filming.

I used a flip camera just to take some quick videos to make sure it looked OK on the screen.

Film magazine front Cover

Before i started filming my film trailer again, i wanted to ensure that i had all ideas covered so i did some research into Film magazine front covers. Front covers are also a huge part of a marketing campaign for a film. A image from a upcoming film being on the front cover is a huge selling point and pull for people to go and see a film. Again, front covers for film magazines all follow the same conventions, these are ;

• Magazine name is clearly displayed
• Cover has to be noticeable to the audience
• famous actors / images are usually used as the focal point
• images target a certain audience
• Graphics and colours and used to create a mood and feel to the magazine
• font size, shape and colour are used to show different creative sides
• Price and barcode clearly displayed
• Tag line clearly displayed for the film

I believe that having a good research into Film magazines in the industry will be vital for me to create a good front cover. So therefore i did some initial research into Empire Magazine.

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain, consistently outselling its nearest market rival Total Film and is also published in Australia, Turkey and Russia. Empire organises the annual Empire Awards which were sponsored by Sony Ericsson, and from 2009 sponsored by Jameson.The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine. In common with most British film magazines, Empire is populist in both approach and coverage unlike less irreverent and more 'serious' magazines such as Sight & Sound. It reviews both mainstream films and art films, but feature articles concentrate on the former.
As well as film news, previews and reviews, Empire has some unique regular features. Each issue features a Classic Scene, a transcript from a notable film scene. The regular Top 10 feature lists Empire's choice of the top ten examples of something film-related.  Readers are encouraged to write in if they disagree with the choices made.

I also wanted to do some research into Sight and Sound magazine.
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today. Sight & Sound was published quarterly for most of its history until the early 1990s, apart from a brief run as a monthly publication in the early 1950s, but in 1991 it merged with another BFI publication, the Monthly Film Bulletin and started to appear monthly. Sight & Sound has a more highbrow reputation than other film magazines.It says it reviews all film releases each month, including those with a narrow art house release, as opposed to the more mainstream focus of its competitors. Sight and Sound also currently features a full cast and crew credit list for each reviewed film.


And I also did some research into Total Film magazine.
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year (every four weeks) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features. Guest editors have included Peter Jackson, Kevin Smith, and Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
Each month, TF provides a range of features, from full-length interviews and photo shoots with established and up-and-coming actors and directors, to major film previews and retrospective pieces. All issues contain the Total Film Interview — an in-depth chat with a celebrated actor or director, along with a critique of their body of work; the Abridged Script - a one-page parody of a recent release and Total Film loves..., a one-page celebration of a film, a scene or a performance. Key sections within the magazine are Dialogue, Buzz, Agenda, Screen, Lounge and the Total Film Quiz.