Tuesday 25 January 2011

Evaluation Question 4

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

Pre Production
First of all we had to create Blogs using Blogger. Here we had to post all of our research and planning as well as our products. I found blogger easy to use considering I had used it last year. Blogger was useful as I could easily import pictures and videos. Aswell as this I did not need to know how to use html therefore it was quick and simple to post on my blog and I could access Blogger on any computher which had the internet which meant I could edit and publish post without any inconvience.





When planning my trailer and gathering my research and looking at conventions I used a number of different sites
To find my product research I used Youtube. Youtube was useful as it allowed me to embed videos onto my blog , so I would easily refer back to them without having to go on youtube every time I wanted to look at conventions. Youtube helped me look at conventions of film trailers so I could use them or challenge them in my trailer. Without youtube I would not have been able to look at so many film trailers. However one disadvantage of using youtube was that it was hard to find certain teaser trailers as it only had the official full length trailer. Even though it was useful as I could see the difference in offical full trailers compared to teaser trailers, I was unable to look at conventions of certain teaser trailers.


I had to gather audience research to understand what audience I was appealing to. I created a questionnaire for people to hand out. I decided to handout my question on popular websites such as facebook and hotmail. I found this useful as it was accessible to many people and they are increasingly popular which meant I could gather my feedback quickly and conveniently then getting replies from paper. Webb 2.0 has alllowed audiences to interact with the publisher meaning meaning that feeback was easily accessible through these sites.




Production

While filming my trailer I had to use a digital camera. I had practice using this camera during my AS project which meant I was more confident when it came to filming and using a variation of different shots. To take the photos for my Poster and Magazine I used a DSLR. This meant my picture came out at a better quality , it was also easy to import on the computer for editing. However I believe that I do not believe that I used the DLSR to its full advantage as I did not use many of the tools it featured.




Post Production
After I had filmed my footage and taken my photos I used programmes to edit them. To edit my film trailer I used Imovie maker on the mac computers. To edit the photos I had taken I used photoshop.
I feel I use these promblems effectively as on Photoshop I was able to the tools which were not offered by other programms. I was able to crop and add special effects to my images in order to make them look like a real media product.Photoshop was useful to use as they have layers which make it easier for me as I could add text over my images.This came in usefully to me when I had to decide what fonts styles and colours I had to use. Especailly with the cartoon effect I gave to the image on my Poster, photoshop came in very useful.  However I do believe I could have used photoshop to its full advantage considering I could have used many of the tools to make my magazine cover and film poster reflect a real media product.
On imovie maker I was able to edit the footage I had filmed. I found this very effective as it allowed me to cut scenes as well as adding music and effects. I could use many other tools such as adding images and title scenes. I believe I used this well as I use many title sequences and transitions which are conventions of film trailers.  Imovie allowed me to use two different music soundtracks at different parts of my trailer.
In order to access non copyright music I look on non copy right music sites. I could easily download these songs onto itunes which could be easily uploaded into Imovie player.

After I had produced my trailer, magazine cover and poster I had to post them on my blog. I had updated my blog with all my planning before my final products were finished. By doing this I was able to see the development I had made and could look back as the post I had already made which featured videos and images instead of having to go on different websites to look at them. I was able to website called " prezzie presentations" which allowed me creates to online presentation which inculded images, videos and text. The fact that I could easily embedd my presentation on my blog without having to download it was very useful.

Evaluation Question 3


Evaluation Question 2

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


In order for my three text to work together I featured my actors in both the Poster and Trailer.I believed this was important as It establishes my characters and creates an character idenity.However I only featured my female actress In my magazine cover. I believe if I had featured my main male actor this would have worked better with trailer and poster considering it establishes that he is the main character.I still think it worked well considering the girl is featured on both the magazine and poster so the audience are aware that she is in the film.
On my film poster I made the main image of my male lead and the brick a cartoon look. I did not decide to feature this effect on my magazine cover as I used it to relfect the characters personality and he is not featured on the magazine. I did not inculde it in my teaser trailer as I believed it to hard to do and considering it is the teaser trailer and not the full length trailer I believed it did not need to be featured.
In my Poster and Magazine Cover I have used the same mis en scene of the brick wall. I believe that this is effective as the mis en scene is essential is establishing the setting of my film and be recongnised by my audience. However I do believe that I could of established it better if I had featured it in the  teaser trailer.Considering it was only the teaser trailer and not the full length trailer meant that it did not have to feature alot of the film, therefore featuring the same misen scene was not that vital.



On the Magazine cover the name of the film is featured on the Magazine. I used to establish that this issue of the magazine was going to based around my film. Instead of using the same font and colour for the film name I decided to keep it the same as the font of the other text on the magazine cover. I decided to do this as I believe that my audience wouldn't have to read the name of the film due to the image of my main actress on the front cover. From the start of my trailer I featured my charatcers aswell.I believe this was a good way of enforcing star persona. I believed it would appeal to my deomgraphic of teenagers as the film is based around teenagers so I believed creating a character/star person was vital is appelaing to my audience. I did decide to have the same type of font on my Poster and in the trailer.





The name of my magazine is cinema central meaning that it was a mainstream film magazinie which featured many mainstream films.
I decided to put the release date on my magazine cover as a summer date as this is a usual time period to be released. The stories I inculded on my magazine cover were of those of mainstream films.I have also featured the release date in my film trailer.



I decided to make my film mainstream.I established this by the genre and storyline. apply ed more conventions In my trailer I featured my institution. I featured my my film on a mainstream magazine. However I believe I could of use more conventions of mainstream magazine covers such as placing the magazine title behind the main image. This is convention of mainstream magazine considering the audience are aware are aware of the brand identity.
At the start of the trailer I featured my institution. This was a way of establishing it was mainstream.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Evaluation Question 1

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

Teaser Trailers is used to create excitment and suspense of the upcoming film coming. I believe in my Film Trailer I have used many conventions.
The opening to my Trailer starts off with my main character talking to my the audience. I thought that this would be an affective way of introducing my character persona which is central to the plot.



The storyline of my trailer is my two main characters taking the day of school and spending it together. To establish it the main story line of the film i added in a scene which explains this. This was a convention of teaser trailers as it establishes the story as most teaser trailers do.This is also a genric convention as in teen romances the film is usually based around two charatcers who share an experience that starts their reletionship.



As well as this I included a number of scenes from the film to give hint of the clips very fast as a way of intriguing the audience as they are only given short snappy clips from the films. This is a very common convention of teaser trailers as it doesn't portray a lot of scenes. I took this technique from the 500 days of summer trailer which features scenes of the two characters to show that film is central to these characters. The change of quick shots during the trailer is a convention of film trailers as it creates sudden anticipation and excitement to see the film.
The use of quick shots is convention of teaser trailers as it is quicker compared to the full length trailer. It is away of giving the audience a sense of the plot with giving away too much of the storyline.

Another convention I used was the shot that introduces Nancy. The scene is of when Josh first sees her at school. This not only establishes her character but also establishes that the film will be based around her.I took this technique from the 500 days of summer trailer which features the scene where Tom first sees Summer. However when filming this shot I do believe that I have made this scene longer aswell as making it a close up shot, so the audience really establish the charatcer.






However I believe I could of made this scene more effective by inculding a close up shot of Nancy and Josh. This way I believe the characters would have been established straight away from the start of the teaser trailer.



Instead of having a voiceover I decided to have title sequences in my trailer. I thought this would an effective way of explaining the plot of the film. I thought that this would give my teaser a " story effect". This is typical convention of teaser trailers as it makes it easier for the audience to follow along the storyline.






Through my film trailer I do not believe that I challenged many conventions. I decided not to do this as my film was mainstream I believe it was based to keep the usual conventions to statisfy my audience. Considering I was doing teen romance it believed it would be too differcult to challenge the conventions.


I researched Music I thought would be suitable to my genre.I thought the music I choose would be suitable as it worked well with the scenes I used. I decided to have two soundtracks to my trailer. By changing the soundtrack half way through the trailer it keeps the audience interested and excited.

In my poster and magazine I have used many different conventions.



Audience Feedback

In order to gather feed back on my Trailer , Poster and Magazine Cover, I asked people to tell me what was effective about my trailer and what needed improvement.

I gave them a set of questions to help them evaluate it.



1) What do you think is effective about the Trailer, Poster and Magazine? How do they work together?

2) What genre do you think the film is? Do you think the storyline is portrayed well?

3) How could you improve the Trailer?

4) How you improve the Poster?

5) How would improve the Magazine?

6) Any other comments?

Friday 21 January 2011

Trailer Second Roughcut

Once I had filmed all my footage I editing it. I added the music i had choosen aswell as putting title screens.




Once i had done his I was able to look and see what parts needed to be changed. I saw that I needed to refilm the scenes of them running.

First Roughcut

From the scenes i first filmed i was able to make a rough cut. When looking at this rough cut i was able to see the scenes did not work and which scenes that i needed to re film.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Editing Trailer

Once i had filmed my footage, i edited it using Imovie maker on a Mac computher.



With Movie Maker i was able to put the scenes in the order i wanted.I could cut the scene to the length I wanted.This was very effective and easy to use.



Aswell as this I was able to add in music of my choice to go along with my scenes.I could cut the music aswell as overlapping music with other music.



To link my scenes to other I could add in a transition. Aswell as this i could add in a title sequence inbetween my scenes.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Synoptic Day

We had a Synoptic day where we were able to film and edit a major part of our trailer.
In order to prepare for this day i made a schedule of how i planned the day to go

Period 1 Upload footage that i have already film and edit
2
3

4 Filming new scenes
Lunch Filming

5 Editing
6



After synoptic day hopefully i would have a first rough out of my trailer. I could then see what scenes i needed to refilm aswell as filming any new scenes,