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

To ensure that I could produce the best media products possible, I had to take advantage of all the available media technology possible. I used a variety of media technologies throughout the process from planning to evaluating.

In the research stage of my media production I mainly used the internet to find out as much as possible about my chosen genre of horror. I also went to my target audience to see what sorts of things I should include in my trailer. I used websites such as YouTube, apple trailers, the film education webpage, Wikipedia, and Google.(Please enable the 'fullscreen' option to see the text and images):

reseach

In the planning stage of my media production I probably used the most limited amount of technologies; these consisted of Google images, Photo shop to test my ideas, I used a pencil and paper to draw my ideas and mock up my poster and front cover; I also used a Samsung digital camera to get shots of the location. I also used my target audience to double check the planning of the products.
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Planning

In the construction stage of my media production I probably used the most amount of technologies; these consisted of a Sony DV handy camcorder, Photo shop, an Apple Mac computer, final cut express, live, garageband, YouTube, feedback from my target audience, a digital camera, and finally Photoshop.
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Construction


In the construction stage of my media I used a Sony DV handy camcorder, due to the lack of equipment my school had to offer the video camera was not the best quality. However I didn’t have a camera of my own so I had no choice but to use one of the schools provided video cameras. Due to the fact that the Sony DV Handy cam camcorder was a tape camera rather than digital; I did have a few complications when trying to upload my video clips onto final cut express; however once I had learnt how to do this it wasn’t such a large problem.


For the construction area of the main task, Final cut express was definitely the most crucial programme I had to use, because without this I could hot have created the concise editing and professional effects that I incorporated within the trailer. Final cut express is a programme used in the real world to edit and cut existing trailers, and whole films.

In final cut express I was able to add clips, and very simply drag them over from the brower to the preview screen; there I would edit the length of the clips using the ‘in’ and ‘out’ button and to do this all I had to press was ‘I’ and ‘O’ to edit my clip precisely how I wanted it.


I then had to drag it onto the timeline and could easily move it around so it was exactly where I wanted it to be. What is very good within final cut express, is that the time line is not linear, so I could build the layers up if I needed to. I could move the ‘scrubber’ to certain places by double clicking on the timeline which made it quick and simple to find a certain clip or area I wanted to edit.


As final cut express have a highly flexible tab system, I could flick between any other project I wanted; this element was particuarly helpful as it meant I could get to the effects and back to my clips quickly.


Due to the fact that I could only film during the day time, I had the problem that the clips looked too warm, and did not fit the conventions of a horror trailer, therefore in final cut express it was made possible for me to colour correct all of my clips. Unlike some editing programmes final cut express offered a two-way colour corrector which was extremely helpful, when adjusting the sats, blacks and mids. Not only this when making the image less warm and more cold the two way colour correction was particularly helpful with a range of colours.


There were all sorts of effects that final cut abled me to use within my trailer, and it was shown where I had used them in the preview screen; here I could also edit when I wanted an effect or tranision to start and where I wanted it to end.

There were many tools I could use on final cut express to ensure that my clips came in after another at the right time, this was also very handy when beginnning to speed up my clips nearer the end of the trailer.


Another piece of techology that I found particuarly important was photoshop, I created both pieces of the ancillary tasks, the magazine front cover and poster using this programme. It was not only used for these but the flashing effects that I created within the trailer was also done using photoshop too (Please enable fullscreen mode to read the text):
Editing on Photoshop

Photshop was a programme I used to manipulate images to ensure they were just as I wanted them I used the spot healing tool, the healing tool and patch tool to do this. Again photoshop is a recognised programme used within the real world, when creating exisiting poster and magazine front covers. I am lucky enough to own photoshop so this allowed me to work on the ancillary tasks outside of school aswell. This allowed my poster and magazine front cover the best they could possibly be.
When editing my poster, and front cover I used a variety of different tools such as the burn tool, along with the dodge tool, to ensure that that the ancillary tasks were proffessional looking and could be seen in the real world. Luckily when creating our film magazine front cover we were able to switch the pictures easily and did not have to change any of the surrounding text.
Below there is a slideshow, showing how I changed the image:

The music that accompanied the trailer was required to be non copyright, so therefore I had to create this. I decided to use garageband to make the bulk of the music, as it was simple to use and had many copyright free tracks which I could fit together to create an appropriate tune to go with the trailer. I used the ‘loops’ option on garageband which has many copyright free tracks which I used. I layered up the tracks to create the main up beat music, and moved them around to fit the different parts of the trailer; i found an eerie track which I used for the ‘killers’ music, and referred to the timeline on final cut express and garageband to get it in the correct place. It was simple to add it onto my trailer, I just had to send it to iTunes as an mp3 file and import it onto my trailer.


Not only did I use garage band for the music, I also used soundtrack pro. I used sound track pro to create the heartbeat at the beginning and the static noises at the end, again this was simple to transfer onto final cut express, all I needed to do was save it and import it onto the programme.


The other piece of technology that I used was Livetype which helped me create moving texts in the trailer. When using this programme I was able to create animated text, to ensure the trailer looked and felt authentic. There were lots of different effects that I was able to put on the text; and after scrolling through them all I came to a final conclusion with the text I chose. Finally the programme allowed me to manipulate the font, tracking, height, angle, size, and colour of the text.


Finally in the evaluation stage of my media production I used a varied amount of media technologies; these consisted of YouTube, a flip camera, I used the internet website scribd; I used final cut express to show my audience feedback, and finally I used windows movie maker to display the recorded video for once of my evaluation questions.
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Evaluation

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Getting feedback from our target audience is extremely important, as it helps us improve our tasks, and ensure they are at the standard to appeal to our target audience. There are three rather important areas that target audience feedback helps us to improve. These being to help us improve our trailer and ancillary tasks, to ensure our product is the best it can be and finally audience feedback helps us to identify what elements of our products need improving to fit to the target audience.

Throughout the making of our media products we ensured that we always referred back to our target audience to make sure we were going in the right direction with our pieces.
We firstly created a questionnaire to help us decide what to call our film, and to see if the chosen location was appropriate. Therefore we knew these were successful, so when creating our magazine front cover and film poster we showed our target audience, and we used two questionnaires each time; one for the film poster and one for the front cover both asking our target audience how they felt we could improve our products(Please enable the fullscreen mode to read the text):
Questionnaire
From these questionnaires we found that the original magazine front cover was not appropriate, the image did not fit either the theme of horror, or the conventions of totalfilm.

It is clear from looking at this front cover that none of the conventions are right or follow any forms from existing magazine front covers; however if it was not for our audience feedback then this would not have been brought to our attention.

We wanted our audience to tell us if they thought we could improve our products as we wanted to receive some non biased constructive criticism to see where we were going wrong. Mostly the main element we had to improve on was either the main picture of the product, or the text and layout. It is clear to see the development of our ancillary tasks; mainly this development can be seen in the film poster:

The magazine front cover however was only changed and developed once, and after the first change we had very positive feedback:



For our trailer we showed it to our target audience, and we had four people who offered to help us improve our final trailer. These four people very kindly allowed us to record their views, and answer our questions; after gathering this information we began to consider all of their opinions. We took all of their improvements and began to re-evaluate our trailer. Here is a short film I created to show you what our target audience felt straight after watching our trailer.


Here is a written document showing some charts, and improvements I made after recieving audience feedback(Please enable the 'Fullscreen' mode to read the text):
Written Feedback

This is the trailer that we showed our target audience:


After making the improvements, we created this trailer:

Still after this trailer some of our target audience was still unsure about the colour consistency, so therefore we decided to turn our trailer to grey scale. This was successful with our target audience and that is how we came to create our final trailer:

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

For the main task we decided to create a film teaser trailer; along with this we decided that for our ancillary tasks we would create a poster which links to our trailer, and also a magazine front cover, in which our film would be the main feature.

When creating the three products, it had to be taken into consideration which of the products were released first, second and third; how promotional this would be, and grabbing the attention of the target audience.
I decided that I would release the teaser trailer first, this is because it is conventional to release a teaser trailer at least a year before a film is released anyway; therefore this would tempt the audience to keep up to date with the films development.
The next element that I would release to promote the film would be the poster, this would be a deliberately obvious choice as it would be the most promotional component of the three and would be displayed on the walls of cinemas, and on the streets.
Then finally as the full length trailer is released, and it was a few weeks from the actual cinematic release date, would I release the magazine front cover. This would be because by this point, the target audience will have seen all of the promotional products prior, and would be more inclined to buy the magazine. If I released the front cover just before the actual release date, this would also promote the film to other types of people who read the magazine but are not necessarily a part of my target audience and encourage them to see the film.

We realised that our trailer, poster and film magazine front cover, would have to have some form of correlation between them. It is obvious that using imagery would be the easiest and most effective way to connect all three of our tasks together; and we would have to find a theme that not only links these three tasks together but something that is a convention in existing horror trailers, posters and front covers.

It was clear that after looking in detail at existing trailers that we were beginning to take influence from, for example; ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’, ‘Sorority Row’, and ‘Friday the 13th’. We then looked at the film posters that went with these films, and we began to find the conventions of posters, and the sorts of things that linked the trailer with the poster. So we began to build on our poster with the knowledge that it was usually the images displayed on the poster, or the text displayed on the poster that was the same, or linked with the trailer. However when moving on to find these conventions in the magazine front cover, we struggled to find any for the trailers we had looked at; and most horror films were scarce to find on magazine front covers.

For the main product we created a teaser trailer, for a made up film we named ‘Game Over’. After we had looked at other trailers, with the genre of horror; we also looked at all of the conventions and forms. Not only was it this that we were looking for, but the way each shot was set, the lighting, the clothing and overall mise-en-scene. This enabled us to begin to plan and film our trailer, and making sure that it looks authentic, and realistic. After deciding all of this we had to then link our front cover and poster and interlink it all together. We knew we wanted to make our trailer to be bold, and to show snippets of a killer. We wanted to use the convention of introducing the characters to the audience, but then suggest them all being faced with a question: “would you kill to save yourself?” Finally the last thing we want to ensure is that they audience is left in suspense and wants to know what will be going next, and how it will pan out in the end. However the main component we wanted to be the brand identity across all three products was the typography of the ‘X’ is the papyrus front; and tag lines all linking to the title of the film. (Game Over).

The next thing we needed to do was to achieve these same conventions within our magazine front cover. We wanted to show an image that could easily be connected with the visuals of our trailer in both the poster and front cover. However we initially decided on the wrong style of photograph and so the imagery did not fit with either the trailer or the film poster and this was due to lack of planning and sensibility. So we began again with new photos, these of a girl from the trailer, we made her look quite sinister, by lowering the sats of the picture. We also ensured that her eye make-up was black and her eyes staring into the camera. We felt that by using these pictures it allowed all three of our tasks to correlate well together. We decided that we wanted to use ‘total film’ as our magazine, so we looked into finding out some of the conventions of this particular magazine. We found that the colour schemes were always simplistic, and the font styles not to exceed two or three different types. Therefore we decided that there should not be lots of different fonts and to use a simplistic colour scheme would be the best, and that is how we came to the decision of red, white and black. We thought that this too was appealing for our target audience, using a black and white image and then using a crimson red to grab the attention from our audience. We feel that the use of text and phrasing entices the audience to see the film; not only does the text entice the audience but helps to link the three together. To create the idea of keeping the typography of the ‘X’, and the linking tag lines, we decided to create a pun connecting with the Game Over.

The final thing we needed to do was find a way to convey all of these conventions in our poster, and we knew that from looking at existing film posters and trailers that the main feature of the poster had to be the imagery and the text used. We began by using an image of one of our actors tied up and gagged; however after beginning to edit it all together, we felt that the image didn’t fit the trailer at all. Therefore we re-evaluated the pictures, and this time planned the new pictures to fit the trailer. So we decided to take some photos using the same clothing, make up and compositions as our front cover, this helped to make the poster fit both the trailer and front cover. By using these photographs we felt it links well to the question in the trailer, as it suggests that this particular girl has gone slightly mad possibly, or that she has been captured. We want the audience to still be guessing what is going to happen. This helps to keep the element of suspense within the film and poster. It also helps to keep all the themes we show in the trailer and conforms to the conventions of a horror film poster.


For both of the ancillary tasks it seemed obvious to go back and look into the research that I had done into magazine front covers and posters, due to the fact that both of the images for the two tasks are very similar I wanted to check to see the correlation between covers and posters to see if using similar pictures is at all a common feature.(please enable the fullscreen option to view the text):
How the images used in my front cover and Poster link to an existing front cover and poster.

Finally we knew we had to link all three with a brand identity that ran through and linked together all the products. The visual effect of the three products has a big impact when linking them together, and that is one of the reasons that both the still images are black and white along with the trailer as well. We had already decided we wanted to link them all through the film name, with the typography of the ‘X’ in the papyrus font separating the two words ‘Game Over’. All three also have a tag line that links with the film name: ‘When the game is over, who will be left standing?’, ‘The game begins’, and finally ‘Can you find the pieces to fix the puzzle’.
Below you can see all three of these tag lines:

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

Below is a short film of me explaining how I have used real life trailers as an influence when creating my own trailer, and how I have taken conventions from real trailer and incorporated them into my own. Unfortunately I did not have the progammes to embbed my own trailer in this short film however it can be found in my blog:


Below I have created two story boards to show how my trailer follows the conventions of real trailers (Please enable the "fullscreen" option to read the text):
Written Document of Trailers

Final Film Trailer

After looking at all the audience feedback about the trailer, we adapted all the elements that our target audience suggested. I felt that even after colour correcting the clips that they still didnt look consistent, so i lowered the sats even more to therefore turn the trailer to grey. The overall look of the trailer is black and white, however the more dominant colours still stick out but are made duller than before.
Here is the final cut of our trailer, I am happy with the outcome and feel that it is sucessful and the audience feedback was positive after seeing the final cut.

Final Film Poster

We have slightly adapted the film poster to make sure it looks as authentic as possible.Here is a copy of our final poster for the film, we think it achieves the genre of horror, and is eye catching. There is not too much information given away and we feel that it fits with the other posters from current horror film. The following image shows our final poster:

Colour Correcting Our Trailer

When watching the film, I noticed that the colouring of each clip was inconsistent. Therefore I had to find a way to adapt the trailer to ensure all the colours were the same. I asked one of our teachers who had studies in detail final cut express to help correct the colours, so that all the clips were colour consistent.

I managed to learn how to use the colour correction tool and adapt the colour of each of the clips so that they are closer in colour that the originals.

The image below shows how I came to find the colour correction tool:

Here is the original image, you can see that the sats are very high therefore making the image look warm and this doesn't really fit the theme of horror:

Therefore I lowered the sats and blacks to ensure that this warmth in the image was rid of, also I moved the colour chart towards blue to give the clip an eerie suggestion. Then I raised the mids to ensure the detail was still captured in the clip, and it wasn't too white.

Here is the overall look of the trailer after I have colour corrected it:

Updated Poster

We took into consideration all of the feedback that we received from our target audience.

It is clear to see that we have made the title of the film larger, and coming across the whole width of the page; we hope now it is more clear that this is the name of the film.

We made sure our fonts were consistent and not random, therefore we have used no more than 2 fonts to make our poster look more authentic.

It was also suggested that the names of the actors should not be scattered around the page therefore we decided just to position the names to one side of the face, and not scatter them across the page.
Finally it recommended that the actor names looked very basic and not very professional therefore we have added strokes and drop shadows to ensure that they look professional and eye catching

Final Magazine Front Cover

We have fitted all of the text properly around the image, and the magazine front cover is finally finished. We showed our target audience and they all felt that the magazine front cover fitted the theme of the poster, and our rough cut trailer.
Here is the image of our final front cover:

First Draft of Poster

This image shows our film poster; Emily and I thought it would be best before declaring it finished; to go to our target audience to see what their opinions were on the poster, to see how they thought we could improve our poster.
We received some helpful ways in which we could improve our poster, some of the comments we received included:
The title of the film needs to be larger, and possibly coming across the whole width of the page, also it was suggested to do this to make it more obvious that this is the title of the film.
Another person we asked suggested that there were too many fonts used across the poster and we should maybe just use 2 to 3 fonts and no more.

It was also suggested that the names of the actors should not be scattered around the page it makes it look very unprofessional and that the names should be lined up across the side of the page the opposite side of the face so that they don't cover up the facial features.

Finally it recommended that the actor names look very basic and not very professional to look at, and they could also have an effect added to them, to help them stand out from the background of the poster.

Emily and I will look into improving all of these points to make the poster look more authentic and fit the theme of horror; we also want to ensure that our poster is appropriate for our target audience.

Poster Problems

When going to create our final poster Emily and myself found that the original images we had were not appropriate, and did not tie in with our trailer. Therefore we went away and studied our trailer so we could begin to plan in what form we needed our photos to look.

The pictures still fit the plan for the photos that we original wanted, however they now fit with the trailer and look authentic. We can also still use the drawn example of how we want our poster to look, however just adapt it to fit the images we now have.

Problems encountered when creating the magazine front cover

When creating our front cover we have experienced some problems with the authenticity of the photographs, and we have decided that we are going to still use the layout of the magazine front cover that we have created but change the picture.
To ensure that this is the right thing to do, we asked our target audience what they thought.
We showed them the magazine front cover that had the first photograph on, however then showed them the other magazine front cover with the new picture on it. We then presented them with the two covers together.
Out of the 12 people we asked only 3 people liked the first cover, and the remaining 9 said they felt the new magazine front cover really stood out, and highlighted the genre of the film. We also found that these people thought the cover looked more proffessional and authentic.
Emily and myself also thought it fitted best with the teaser trailer, poster and theme of 'total film' the magazine we are using. When the new picture has been fitted properly and the text fits well around the image I will then post the final poster image.

Beginning to add music

We have finished the final editing of our trailer, and we have begun to mildly colour correct the clips. Also we have added some music, finally we want to adapt the sequencing of the music to create a more eerie effect when the killer is on screen.
Here is the second draft of our film teaser trailer:

Analysing and finding the conventions for current magazine front covers

I have been looking at some current magazine front covers; I am doing this to ensure that when creating my own front cover I can make it look as authentic as I possibly can. Below you can see a magazine front cover which I have analysed and annotated to find the conventions(To view the text enable the "fullscreen" option):
Magazine front cover analysis

Here I have looked in detail at a film magazine called "FilmStar" to see what codes and conventions the magazine uses; and how it is successful:
FilmStar magazine Analysis

Problems encountered when trying to add our music track

We have finally finished editing all of our clips, and now looking into adding our music. After creating our music in garage band, we transfered it into itunes to then put it into final cut express. However when we transferred the track it did not initially fit with our trailer, and some musical effects we added into our track did not fit in the correct places; therefore we will have to go back into garage band and re arrange our music clips to ensure that they fit perfectly with our trailer.

Another element we have stumbled upon with the music, is that we want to have a certain tone or small clip of music to play every time the suspected "killer" is shown. Therefore we went into garage band and found a clip called "evolving atmosphere" and cut the clip so that it would play in time when the "killer" is shown in the trailer. Finally we wanted an eerie sound to end the trailer, therefore we have allowed the music to get very loud and fast nearer the end, we have then suddenly cut the music at the climax, and replaced it with a very slow melodic tune called "escape", this shows an immediate juxtaposition between the two pieces of music. To end the trailer we have added an effect on the last piece of text to look as though a television screen is being switched off, accompanied with this we have added a static sound to suggest that the television has been turned off. I personally think that this looks very effective and ends the trailer leaving the audience wanting more.

Photographs for Front Cover

I have taken some photographs for the magazine front cover, the one I have chosen is the image of a girl chained to a pipe. unfortunately I could not get the photographs I wanted for the other magazine front cover due to lack of props and authenticity. I could not find an appropriate scene to shoot the photos without them looking tacky and unprofessional. Therefore I found an appropriate scene to get the photos for the other front cover, and think that they have turned out very well and I am very pleased with them I will be using the first picture for my front cover as this is the one that fits my plan the best.

Developing our magazine front cover

I am also beginning to plan my film Magazine front cover. I have come up with two mock ups of how I want my front cover to look. After learning from the previous task of the poster I have began this ancillary with two plans just in case the first did not turn out as successful as I had hoped.

Having to assess my film poster

After looking at other film posters I have found that the current design for my poster looks tacky, and does not fit at all with the trailer in any respect-as you can see below. There for I have decided to re-evaluate my options to see what will fit best with my trailer. I have re drawn a mock up of a poster in which I feel is most appropriate, and taken the photographs already.