Saturday, 11 December 2010

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How do you products compare to the industry? Teaser Trailer

- The genre my group chose to create a promotional package for was Horror. The normal features within a horror film is for it to be unsettling and to cause emotions such as fear disgust and horror, they often do this in the movies by dealing with people's nightmares and fears, even using the terror of the unknown or using startling images. This links in with our trailer idea of having quick flashing images to make people jump and the fact you only ever see one person in the trailer, so the audience become frightened as they can't see who's causing the terror. This also overlaps in to Thriller something i thought about, making our genre more Horror Thriller, but with a greater emphasis on the horror, i thought this would work better when creating my first storyboard, as i didn't like the idea of just having blood and guts, i wanted a deeper story line, so i felt thriller would work well to build suspence. Features for thriller films are the building of suspense and tension, there are lots of sub genres within thriller; mystery, crime and psychological. i felt my first storyboard fitted well in to the psychological thriller side. thriller usually doesn't use monster like horror, but society as the monster and the corruption within to use as their monster, i like this idea. So this is what i felt our genre should be about, the others had aslo came up with similar ideas, as it was the genre that excitted our group the most and so it was settled and we knew what we all wanted as an out come.



- Plot and character

When coming up with a plot, the group had a meeting to come up with a loose idea of what could happen so our storybaords weren't drastically different, but that we could come up with our own ideas. We agreed that there be a big build to something, which fitted in with the genre, we also agreed it should feature a young person of sorts and then we went off and made our own individual storyboards. I felt thatit should start off very settled like a normal day, like most trailers do, to settle people and draws them in to watching it. i felt it should start off as a girl leaving her house to do something, providing action for the trailer, i wanted things to be played over the top of her walking down the road, like flashes of pictures like memorys, to give it a creepy edge, but not giving away straight away that something bad was going to happen. Alot of the group also had storybaords that started like this, it was only when it came to the idea of things getting darker and showing the trailers true intentions that people's stroyboards changed. i introduce the idea of someone following her with a camera, so it would have the camera view finder lines on it, whilst it was still a happy looking scene, but it would alert the audience that something is clearly wrong and i thought we could use the idea of pictures and a way we could use transitions like flashes, which links in with later on in my trailer, as it gets darker. I also thought it would help with the idea of a thriller not being able to see the thing that is doing the harming, adding to the tension.

My idea for the dark horror end part of the trailer was to build up, i wouldn't spend to long on the street scene, but the first horror related scene, would be of a flash of a bloody hand but so fast that it was hard to take on, which is a scene we have in the final trailer, but then it would go slow again with Kate being followed and someone appearing slowly in the dark, something i liked out of horror films, but in the end we decided that once the fast takes started they would stay fast, as it works in a movie as you have hours, but we needed to get a lot across in a minute and a half and we need to build up a momentum, instead of slow tension. But that idea fitted in well the rest of my storyboard for the ending, as i liked the idea of having very sudden fast cuts, of nothing very specific, but of her face in panic with quick running through the woods, a lot of people in the group also had this idea and as we all had it and felt that type of action would work it features in our final trailer. On my original storyboard ended with a shrine of photos linking in with a previous idea on the storyboard, i liked it alot and put it to the group about keeping it for our final storyboard and they agreed it worked well, as it reveals a little more towards the end about the film we'd make.

With our final storyboard we only had one character, in our trailer, this was Kate. She played and innocent young girl, taking a stroll in the woods. We thought it would be best if we concentrated on the innocent young girl rather than the thing that is following her, as the audience would be able to empathise and feel emotional connected to her. We preferred that idea over just scare tactics, as we could slowly build it up, like the Thriller part in our genre, with elements of horror. The plot was very simple that a girl is just walking through the woods, the location was very horror like, as alot of traditional horror films take place in dark woods, or empty areas of land. She is walking through when someone starts to follow her, she doesn't notice at first, instead just hears things, but then she comes across a shrine, the main idea with in our trailer was the use of photos. So the person that is following her has a camera.

- Shot types

We had thought about the shots we wanted in our first individual storyboard transcript drafts long before shooting so had a good idea of what it was going to look like on my story board i had alot of wide or long shots at the very start, to establish the environment Kate was in, which turned in to close ups and extreme close ups, as the trailer got darker and more twisted, so only to reveal a little bit of what was going on. After having meetings and sharing all are ideas together and we made a final storyboard, putting all our ideas together and picking the best things to go in. But Hannah was our camera woman and so had to perform them and be able to create the camera shots we wanted and Laura the director had the final say on what they looked like on the day of shooting.

Within the opening of the trailer we used alot of pan shots and fuller length shots at the very start of the trailer to establish the trailer, also to welcome people in so they are ready to watch, much like the other trailers i have seen of the same genre and similar genre, in this way we didn't challenge conventions. instead i think we fitted in well, as a lot of trailers like to lull people in to a false sense of safety, meaning that they either can get the relevant information or don't think it's going to be scary so when the horror kicks in it gets to people and has a better effect. Also i felt though our pan shots were of pretty woodlands and streets, i still felt they were eerie as the streets would be empty and in the woods the pan showed the sun was setting, this is something Horror and thriller also do, they give normal situations a slightly eerie creepy edge to build tension. So i feel the pan and wide shots worked really well with our intention and fitting in with other products in the same market area as ours. Something that may have gone against convention was our use of wide shots of Kate running through the woods half way through the trailer, as they are long takes and are wide enough to see all of her, usually they would be quick takes and hard to see, to create tension, but i think these shots worked well as the woods are completely empty and it emphasises that she is all alone.

Then after building up this eerie tension, the group had come up with the idea in our first storyboard meeting to have at the end short takes, all fast paced close ups. This was the complete opposite of how the trailer started, but i feel this fits with other trailers of the same genre, they slowly build, then towards the end there is a sudden burst. The effect created by the short takes was panic and confusion, fitting in with our genre perfectly. Within the short takes there were some shots that are traditionally found in horror films and iconic of the genre such as, the shot Aimee thought of the close up of the eye, which creates the effect of fear, as you can only see her eye, yet you know the emotion see is feeling and you can't see what is happening. The feet running in different directions helps to disorientate he audience and is used alot in films. One of the shots that i thought would look good and are used in a lot of horror films, was the idea of the hand held point of view shot, so it looked like someone was watching Kate, this meant our camera woman Hannah had to stad behind trees and hold the camera instead of use a tripod to create the right creepy effect. This is idea of someone watching is something i had included in an early storyboard and thought it worked really well this way.


- Editing

Our editor was Aimee Hill, so had the most control when it came to editing and use Final Cut pro the most out of all of the group. During editing i had a role of finding templates to hold the text and production logos on final cut pro, which i found in effects, master templates. To try and fit in with our theme i thought that the use of the light template to put our production logo in would look really good, as it looks like a flash, i liked the idea of using this on all of our text shots, but it wasn't up for long enough for people to be able to read the tagline or important information. As we had asigned Aimee the job as editor from the start she had the main role of importing and placing the shots on the time line and cutting them to the right length for the quick shots, but the hole group got a say on what went in to the trailer. Though we filmed to our storyboard, some shots just didn't work on the day, or didn't flow well enough, so we had to cut them and find something to replace them or find away to make them work. I feel that the editing fitted in well with how trailers look on the final cut, it fitted the genre and the conventions. Aimee changing the shots lighting and contrast so that they were all of similar lighting and that the lighting didn't look sunny and ruin the horror feel we wanted, so that it didn't break conventions.

- Transitions

At the start it would of been to harsh to have straight cuts, especially when going in to the production logo shots, so we had fades in. This also helped with giving the start a slight eerie feeling with the nice woodland shots at the start, as straight cuts would reflect normal reality, but fade in's and ut's create a slight hazy dreamy feel. But then when we reached the short takes it only made sense to have straight cuts, as it meant they were harsh and fast, the audience didn't have time to reflect at what was happening, they were just given all the information, helping to create the horror thriller genre we wanted for our trailer. i feel that this fitted in well with the conventions and other products similar to it.

- Sound

I was in charge of sound, a job that we decided in one of our first meetings. I thought that filming without sound was the best idea. I thought this as, we hadn't really transcripted in any sound like talking and also the places where we were filming were close to roads and so shots would of been ruined every time a car went throw. The only sound we had that we could record while on location was the gate closing. I chose to record the gate that i did, as it was a very harsh dramatic sound, you couldn't not notice it, we recorded it using just my hand held camera. The rest of it of the sound effects were found in the audio on the macs, which i then put together in protools, where i could edit them to the right length and volume. I also recorded some soundtrack for the opening, using a guitar and jack lead straight on to protools, which i edited by adding a record player static sound. I did this as it helped to fit the music in a little better with the opening, as it had to be pretty and soft, like the opening shots, to lull people in to a fake hope. But much like the shots we used, it had to have an eerie edge. I had to consult the rest of my group on some of the decisions, either because Laura had the final say as the director or i was unsure on which sound to use to create the best effect. The sound was partly recorded and found. I really think i made the right choice to not record anything on location and not to include speech as i felt it would break up the cohesion of the trailer, instead i just wanted to build up the tension, by being very minimal. My ideas for the sound changed a bit whilst we edited the trailer, as i originally wanted a very rock orientated feel towards the end, but then i felt it didn't fit and work with the genre and trailer, so instead i kept the opening guitar, then used more sound effects building tension, which i felt worked better and fitted weel with conventions and other trailers.

- Text

The text used was plain and simple, as it had to be easy to read in a quick paced trailer, whilst not distracing the viewers from the action of the trailer, yet put acorss relevent information is an easy form for people to read and understand. With the title though we had to make it stand out, agianst the rest of the normal text, so

- Representation of character - Title Magazine With the magazine each person in the group worked on there own ideas. We had a meeting to see what worked best and what didn't and combined to make a final overall magazine. - Image With my orignal individual images, i thought that having a full length shot would be good, as it would capture the whole of Kate's body and actions, using a very action and interesting shot, that would help express the movie. I can to this conclusion after looking at lots of examples of front covers for film magazines, they were all mainly action shots, not just someone standing their looking pretty, the image had to reflect the movie, unlike music magazine front covers, i felt a full length image worked best for our film, as most film magazines used a variety of lengths depending on the film, but i felt that to express the film well enough and to catch peoples eye that i would have to use a full length image. The image i chose was one of Kate walking off, but with her head turned, i thought this fitted conventions and our genre well, as it shows she is unsure and something isn't right, the expression on her face is one of panic. The image showed Kate doing something to do with the film and looked like it was a still just taken out of the film, something that i thought was important when looking at film magazines. I also decided to use a background, unlike most music or other magazines which will have plain background film magazines have interesting backgrounds that fit in with the image and movie, i really liked a wolverine cover, which put the image first, as that's what is most important in getting the point across and will draw people as they wont want to buy a rubbish looking film magazine as they will think the film is rubbish. So with this in mind the background was a tree, representing the woods, where the action takes place, linking in with my genre and meeting the conventions of magazine covers, to give a little insite in to the film. The Tree was to harsh at first and distracted from Kate, so i edited it to make it blurred and eerie, i felt this worked really well to represent the genre and story line. With the final magazine cover, we went with one of Aimee's images. It was one she had taken in the media studio with the professional lighting just on Kate's face, casting the rest in to darkness, she had to photoshop parts of it to gain the right contrast with te lighting and get rid of the greenscreen in the background. It wasn't Aimee's final image originally, but the group really liked it, it was mid-length just of a spot light on Kate, making it very clear who the film was about. It didn't have a background and was just black, but i felt this worked well. it was simple but effective as the singel light on Kate's head and shoulders made her seem very isolated, reflecting the storyline of a girl alone in the woulds, Kate is also posing well in the picture, to reflect her character. The colours within it were also very inserting and eye catching, with the text being able to fit perfectly round Kate's figure. - Colours I decided to keep the colour scheme simple and complementary of the dark images and representative of the film genre. The trouble that i found with trying to keep with the genre and the story of the film, completely on your front cover, was that it made your whole magazine look like it is about that genre, when film magazines rarely are, so i tried to keep it general. I chose red for the masthead, as i wanted it to stand out against the images and other texts on the page. Red was also a running theme through out the magazine, as it worked well against the background images to stand out, but it was a slightly darker or lighter versions, due to effects i used on the text, when i used the emboss it made the colour darker but more prominent and i used highlighting on some to give them a shine and a lighter look. This meant the Masthead still stood out well as individual, but still looked cohesive. Yellow was another main colour i used, this, this was to fit in with the film title i used, which i decided to keep the same as my own poster, as it linked the promotional package well. The yellow stood out against the the dark cover and like how i did with the red, i used different effects to create a different look. I didn't feel my colour scheme worked that well and i felt that i was missing something in my own work. On the final magazine the background was very dark and black, with just Kate's luminous figure in the middle, making the image eye catching due to the colour, as Kate seems to stand out. Due to the dark background most text on the cover, had to be brighter to stand out well enough, So the colour mostly used was white. This glowed against the black making it easy to read. We also used red, to link in with the idea of a horror special and it worked well against the dark background. Also all the text being white and red, fitted in well with the Masthead, that Aimee had made for her own magazine, but the group felt it was the best out of everyone's, this meant everything looked very cohesive on the poster. - Font I tried to use a variety of fonts, to give the magazine and interesting look and to try and make sure it didn't all look like horror, as though that was my genre for the film, the rest of the magazine was just a normal film magazine. The main thing i tried to do was replicate iconic symbols, for movie like SAW 3D, i felt this would give my magazine an edge and make it fit with the other film magazines. I feel i managed the duplication well, using a lot of effects to get the right feel, it worked so well that the group used it on the final poster. Any other text i wanted to be clear and easy to read, so used alot of Ariel for minor information, that wasn't there to draw the eye. The Masthead i used stencil, as i wanted it to look like it had been drawn on to the side of a box, in some film studio, i thought this would make it stand out and interesting, it didn't really fit conventions as, they are usually simple and bold. On the group poster the font wasn't fancy so it was easy to read, but we used effects to help make them stand out. - Cover Lines The cover lines had to be relevant to the magazine, so had to fit in with films, i tired to mix the genre of the cover lines up, as film magazines cover a wide scale of films, so i have cover lines for Saw, Harry Potter and the oscars. They had to be interesting and eye catching, this is something i feel i achieved using a variety of effects and fonts. One of my cover lines were used on our final magazine cover, it was for SAW 3D, the group liked it because of the effects used on it and it fitted in well with the other cover liens used in the end on our final magazine. We made the magazine a horror special to fit in with our own genre, so most tag lines on the final magazine were linked in with this genre. Film Poster With the film poster we all worked on our own individual poster, meaning we could develop our own ideas and style. We then held a meeting to decide who's worked best. In the end we combined parts of everyone's. - Image The images themselves that i used on the poster were very conventional of horror, with a use of close ups and dark locations. Even the manipulations i used on the poster fitted in with how other posters images have been changed to create a Horror feel, making them darker and distorted. But the way i decided the images were presented on the poster in a heart shape was not conventional of a horror/thriller poster, it is more like a romantic genre poster, but the with the pictures fitting the conventions of horror it worked well, especially when at the heart of our plot was the idea a man was following Kate taking pictures of her then made a shrine, the heart was my idea and when we had a meeting the group thought the heart looked like a creepy shrine and wanted it for the final peice, also the pictures overlap and the edges of the heart aren't perfect, making it look more like a creepy shrine that a romantic heart. On the final poster these images were used, just replacing my middle main image with the image off Laura's poster, as the group liked the idea of the heart a lot and Laura's image as it really stuck out, so we combined them together. - Colour The colour scheme we used on our poster was very simple, we used black to fit in with the horror genre, originally on my own poster i had used light blues, but this didn't work as it looked to romantic comedy, not fitting our genre and not harsh like the group wanted. Changing the colour to black meant the heart images didn't look to romantic, also it meant we could use white for the text, which seemed to shine out in contrast to the black. We used red for the tag line, to draw attention to it on it's own. i had also used black and red on my own poster, but the blue hadn't let them stand out well enough, so with the new colour of black i think it really worked, to fit in with the conventions of a horror/thriller colour scheme. i used a bright yellow for my title, but i tried to keep in with the horror genre i use the paint brush tools to make it look dirty and faded, i used the same technique each time on everything i made, to try and keep the colours in with the genre. In the end when making the final poster we used a white for the title to contrast with a black background, instead of blue. keeping everything else's colour the same. - Text I used a lot of Arial font on my poster, as i wanted the text to b clear. but for the tag line i used chiller, as i wanted it to have the edge of horror which i think the font chiller has. For the title i wanted a big impact so i used blackoak, i wanted it to stand out and look different to the rest of the text and so i felt blackoak would, but on alot of film poster they go for simple text and just edit it slightly to make it stand out and interesting. We as a group went for a simple text scheme for extra information, like the release date, we put this in Ariel as we didn't want it to distract from the rest of the poster. Also it need to be clear for people to read. Laura's title was used on our final draft, and she had used times new roman to create her title and then just liquified it, this worked really well, as it look like other film titles of the same genre. - Billing block The first couple of billing blocks i made on my own really didn't fit conventions as i just used Arial and was unsure of what to put within a billing block, but then i found a template to build a billing block upon. This meant i could add a professional feel to the posters that they had slightly lacked before. on the final poster we used the template i had found and shaped so that it fitted our group, putting in the right peoples names by each job and coming up with a production companies name, to really make it look real. - Tag line To start off with at the beginning of planning we all tried to make our own tag line. Mine was linked to the idea of photos, photos aka shots and also shot could refer to a romantic chance .I felt this would work really well as it linked with my favorite idea of the storyline, a stalker taking "Shots" of Kate because he wants a "shot" with her. The tagline revealed and linked enough to the storyline, but at the same time held a lot back, for the audience to decided, keeping with the conventions of thriller and horror genre. On our final poster we used Aimee's tag line "It lies beneath the trees" I felt this also worked, as it referenced the location where the action takes place and as you never see who is following Kate in the trailer it helps add to the mystery of it, it reminds me a bit of the hills have eyes, in the idea that people don't know what it is. We used this tagline on all parts of the promotional package. 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? How have you created links across all there products? - House style To keep all the products linked and the house style the same, we tried to always used the same style for the film title on any of the products. This idea was what i also used within my own individual products when we were drafting our own ideas on there own, other members of the group also had simliar ideas. i felt this was one of the best ways to make it distinct and recognisable from other film posters, like SAWs logo has become very iconic and the Bond logos, i wanted our magazine to have a recognisable icon, which was easiest if it was it's name. We all came up with our own names and ways of presenting them and choose the best, which would be used on all aspects of the promotional package to tie them together. I felt this worked really well, the only thing that let this idea down, was the fact that two different versions of the Title Click were made separately, they were made using the same techniques and the same intention but came out differently, this conflicts the idea of having a iconic title to keep house style, but they are still recognisable as the same title, so still have the same effect. - Colours Due to the genre of our trailer the colours had to fit in with horror and thriller, so we couldn't use bright colours. We stuck with using the same colour for the title through out, a bright white, which contrasted against the black backgrounds we often used on our final products, these colours traditionally reflect our chosen genre. Unlike the original colours i used, though they linked through out all the products i mad on my own, they weren't traditionally horror or thriller colours so took away from my products, even though i did try using different techniques to keep in genre. Using the same colours also helped to unite all our products as they worked together and didn't conflict due to odd colours, instead they worked with each other. - Characters/actors We only had one character in our storyline and so it was easy to keep all the products linked through the use of character, as there was only one person we could put up on poster and magazines or use in our trailer. To make sure our actor always looked like the same actor in each picture or shot, we kept the costume the same and tried to keep the continuity the same through out, so small things like the way her hair was or what cardigan she was wearing, was really important as she couldn't change outfit half way throw filming, as it would mess up the flow of the whole package. Also i felt the character should also become an iconic image, something people recognised straight away, so keeping her outfit as a summer dress made her stand out i felt. - Tag lines As we came up with our own tag lines to start with on our own planning, i decided to use it on the poster but didn't on my magazine cover, as i felt that it didn't need it as i had already put the iconic Picture Perfect title on and recognisable image, so people would know what film it was. I also thought the magazine would give more information on it anyway. But when making the final magazine we used Aimee's tagline and we decided to use on both the magazines and posters, we didn't set them out in the same fonts both times, as we already had the same title and people would recognise the tagline, as it stood out well and stuck in your head well. We also used it on the trailer, this is very conventional, as most movie trailers do this. This meant every part of our promotional package was linked by the tagline. - Relevance to trailer? I made the poster round the idea from our storyline about images and stalking. i had planned for the idea of a shrine in the trailer, so i worked from this idea. I felt this would really help link the trailer and poster together so people would understand what the film would be about attracting the right audience. My main image for my poster was used on the final poster, as the group felt it really reflected the content of the film and looked like a shrine, i originally had a blood stain, but it didn't look real enough and the group felt it took away from the poster a bit, so i took it off and just used the heart shrine of images. The title of the film thought up by Laura also fitted well as that was a big part of the storyline and we also used camera click sound effects through out the trailer really helping to link it all together. The magazine front cover did have relevance, but because magazines have to fit to every genre and other movies, even when they are horror specials, so it had to be flexible for a magazine front cover but fit with the rest of the package, which i feel we pulled off well, using the same title and actress and the genre of horror and thriller. 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? What do your audience think about the final products? - Ask people to comment by looking at your work on your blog - Positives? I feel we managed to reflect the storyline and genre well, as a lot of people when asked thought our genre was either thriller or horror, meaning we met the purpose well. - Things that you would improve? Some people said the text was to dark in places, so we could have used an effect to create a glow around it to make it a little clearer. Also the title "Click" looks slightly different on the magazine and poster, which breaks house style a bit, so i would re-do the title so it was the same on both to tie them together better. 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research , planning and evaluation stages? - Adobe photoshop I used Photoshop to help me create my front cover and film poster. I felt this was the most effective place to create such items within my promotional package over other technologies, due to the vast options and effects available to create something really interesting. Also we needed to use a lot of effects on our poster due to the genre chose horror, as horror poster we researched had images on them that had been manipulated to create the right atmosphere and Photoshop i felt was the only software that could help me to create my own horror/thriller poster, not just any other poster. The tools used to create my horror poster were liquefy, the many paint brushes available, contrast adjustments and the camera raw option. This all meant it was possible to create an affective and interesting promotional pack. Another brilliant thing on photoshop is the amount of different layers you can have, so you can build up your poster bit by bit and if you don't like something just delete the layer. You can also use the layers to create interesting effects. - Cameras We used two different cameras for filming, both camera were operated by our Camera woman Hannah Walton. One from school, which is of much higher quality and my own hand held camera, which wasn't as high quality. The quality wasn't an issue as they were both high quality cameras, the only problem was that one camera filmed images wider than the other. This meant we had to work with our editor Aimee Hill, to cut and resize some of our shots. Also i used a compact camera outside of school with the group to take some of our first individual shots, for our posters and magazines, the quality wasn't brilliant on this camera as it was just a cheap camera from my house. This meant that when we had planned using the images we had got outside of school we could go in to the schools media studio and use the professional lights, green screen and camera to get the perfect shots to really help improve of drafts and planning, we all took individual photos of Kate in turn, so we could get what we wanted. - Apple Macs I made all of the sound track using the apple macs and the rest of the group also did there own work on the macs, Aimee Hill used the macs to edit as it supports many different programs and is easy to use when editing. Apple Macs offered a lot of sound resources for me to use for the sound track and it also supported the program Protools, which was an important part of my work within the group, as it was my responsibility to record and thanks to the ease of use the apple macs mad it a lot easier. We could also use the shared area on the macs meaning if someone needed something instead of putting it on a memory stick, we could easily place it in the shared area. - Final cut Though Aimee used final cut pro the most as she was the editor, i did have a chance to work wit the sound on this program, if the levels of sound still weren't right even after changing them in Protools, i could still change the levels in Final Cut, i also worked placing the sound track on to Final Cuts timeline, to go in time to the trailer, which had to be in synch perfectly or it wouldn't build the tension we needed. Aimee used Final Cut Pro to help fix and re size our shots, as we had filmed them on to different quality cameras so some shots were smaller and as we didn't want to take away from the story line Aimee resized them. She also changed the colour of shots, changing light or turning them black and white. Also some shots the group felt were to slow so Aimee learnt how to make them quicken up. I also worked with Final Cut Pro to find templates for texts and logos within our trailer, to really give the professional feel. - Idvd i used this to burn off the final trailer, i created a menu for it displaying the main image on our film poster and a link that played the trailer. This gave the final promotional package a real professional feel. To do this Aimee had to export it to MP3 file, so we could upload it on to Idvd. i burnt it on to a disc which only took minutes. - Protools I used protools to help me create the soundtrack for our trailer. I could record in to protools using a guitar and then work on it using sound effects i found on the apple macs audio library. i then could export it and place in it on the trailer timeline on final cut pro. To record on to Protools i had to have digidata box plugged in, to even get protools to open, I also needed a jack lead and a guitar to record the opening trailer section. I got a short introduction from Marcus Cameron on how to record and export projects i had made. The benefits of protools was it came with a lot of effects, such as many different drums and drum effects, which i had wanted for the final part of the trailer, to create a heart effect. But instead i imported sound effects on to Protools such as heart beats, which worked better and i could edit them to make them as long as i needed and the level i needed them also. Protools helped me plan as well, as it was easy to move the clips and delete them if needed, so i could get a clear picture of what the final track would sound like. I used protools to help me create the soundtrack for our trailer. I could record in to protools using a guitar and then work on it using sound effects i found on the apple macs audio libary. i then could export it and place in it on the trailer timeline.

Friday, 10 December 2010

Burning the Disc

Today we burnt our final trailer to disc using idvd. Idvd meant we could create a menu selection, giving our promotional package a really professional finish. Aimee put the trailer in to the shared area so that we could all upload it on to our own individual menu templates, i chose centre stage. i picked centre stage because it was simple and not fussy, which i liked as it didn't distract from what the main focus that was our trailer, i also felt that it worked with our genre well as it was dark, fitting in with Horror and the simplicity of it fitted with Thriller. I also liked the arrangement of the menu, which offered a place to have a picture, i chose to have the heart that i used on our film poster, so it fits with house style and also links with the storyline of the film. I used cracked for the title of the film, as i couldn't use the really template of the title, so this was the closest i could find and i still felt it worked with our genre. Then i burnt this all on to a dvd disc.

Questionnaires On Click's Movie Poster

This is the feed back we got for our poster using the same thing we did for the magazine cover

Positive points:

"Good image"
"I really like the collage"
"Good tagline"
"I prefer this better to the magazine cover, less going on so you can really focus on it"
"Easy to read"
"Good colour scheme"
"Fab image"
"Great font styles"
"I like the correllation of image, title and the font that has been used"

Negative points:

"Lacks some conventions, production companies' logo"
"The red font is not easy to read on the black background"
"I like the title"

Questionnaires On Click's Magazine Cover

We didn't do conventional questionnaires for our magazine cover and film poster, as hannah felt it would be easier to ask group's of people to give negatives and positives, with a mark out of ten, this would make it quicker and more helpful, as last time with the trailer people weren't very critical or willing enough to give a wide feedback. So we handed out the poster and front cover to a class of year 11's that had already seen the trailer and so knew how they were suposed to fit and what genre it was meant to be, we also handed it out to some adults, to see how different demographics reacted. This helped us to get a clear view and evaluation of our work.

The positive points:

"The image is very effective for a horror genre"
"Fab fonts"
"Fab image"
"Love it"
"Attractive"
"Easy to read"
"Good use of Photoshop"
"All information there and good colour sheme"
"I really like the lighting on the image"
"Good tag line"

The negative points:

"A bit too dark"
"Could use a larger image to fill the page"
"Too much going on"

With the marks out of ten we never got anything below a seven, which was good and got marks varying from 7 to 10. The biggest percentage of marks was eight or nine. This was good as it meant our audience was responding well to our promotional package and we had fitted the brief.

Tuesday, 7 December 2010

Questionnaires On Click's Teaser Trailer

To help our group with its evaluation we made some questionnaires so we could accurately asses how successful our trailer was and peoples opinions towards it. questionnaires meant we could cover a large group of people quickly. The group we questioned went from the ages of 15-18 our target audience as we felt this demographic would be more in to horrors and thrillers and the tough audience.

The questions we used were -

1. What most stuck in your head from the trailer?
2. What did you most like about the trailer?
3. What did you dislike about the trailer?
4. What was your first impression?
5. What genre do you think the trailer fits into?
6. How do you think the trailer expresses the story line?
7. Do you think the sound and effects interlinked well with the trailer?
8. Your overall opinion?

With the answers they gave it would help us get a final evaluation of our final trailer and how successful it has been.























Friday, 3 December 2010

Trailer Print Screens

























Editing Six - 3/12/2010

We had finished our editing and music pretty much last lesson, we just watched over it to make sure there wasn't anything we had to change drastically. Aimee felt that the sound effect on the black and white eyes could be turned up, as it wasn't creating the right effect, which was to shock people and stand out against the soft guitar playing. So to fix this we changed the level, on final cut pro. I also liked the idea of adding something on to the last shot, like a transition effect or making it look more professional with a little more information, like in some trailers. But the rest of the group felt it was fine, as it added calm to the end of the trailer and let the audience know it was the end, apart from i wanted more of a shock, but thinks it looks good just the way it is. With all of the miner tweaks out of the way our teaser trailer is now completed.
We saved it and Aimee exported the trailer, with a little help off a teacher, once we did this we had our final trailer as we couldn't change anything after it is exported. We uploaded this up on to my Vimeo account so we could put it on our blogs, so that we could evaluate it and show people it and get some questionnaires out to them.

Final Group Teaser Trailer

Final Teaser Trailer from Sally McCormack on Vimeo.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Editing Five - 30/11/2010

Today we were concentrating on getting the trailers sound completely finished and any final touch ups. the sound was pretty straight forward, as i had already uploaded all the possible sounds on to protools and new what i would use for each section, it was just a matter of fitting the sound in with the right timing and making sure the rest of the group were ok with what i had chosen.

After the gate closes, which was the only sound we recorded on location, i placed the hear beat sound the group had wanted from the start, to build up some tension, i felt this worked well. then when we get a piont of view shot from behind kate over the top of the heart beat we placed heavy breathing. i felt it was to sharp and sudden, and over powered the heart beat, so turned the level down in final cut pro.

When the eyes appeared suddenly in our trailer, i felt that electirc flutter 2 would ork really well, the group also liked reverse boom but i thought that it would work better later on in the trailer. So we placed the sound effect on the timeline, it was longer than the eye scene, which made me worry that it wouldn't work well enough, but it faded out well. It was maybe a little two loud, so the levels were turned down, so it would still shock people, but not take away from what we already had. We have this sound effect twice within the trailer, when both eyes flash up in black and white.

we noticed that the gate sound seemed to be slightly off, as i think it got displaced when we placed other sound in. To fix this, we moved it on the time line so it would fit better and turned the sound levels down, but keeping it loud enough to be effective.

After the heart beat and heavy breathing i was unsure of what sound to have next, i thought we could have volcano erupting, Fm stero tunning or star drive. I showed the group, the volcano sounded to much like a volcano, so didn't fit and the Fm Stero just didn't fit with everythign else we had. So we went with the star drive and it was perfect, it sounds a bit like white noise or unclear audio, i think it really works as it fits in with the genre of horror thriller.

After this i thought the reverse boom would fit perfectly for the short clips as it sudden and has a beat to it. But the rest of the group were unsure, but they did like it. The problems were that it was slightly to long for some of the shots, and so they didn't change on the beat well enough, which made me worry that the shots would lose impact. I suggested a record static, but this lost impact and was to quiet, so instead aimee edited the cliups down to shorten them a bit, meaning we could fit the timings in a bit better.

I then remember that very early on in the storyboarding process we wanted a camera click noise i had found a perfect one that would work well each time a text screen would come up. We used camera click 2, it sound old and creepy, and fitted well witht eh trailer.

At the ending scene of Kate in the woods in the shrine, me and Hannah thought that going back to the beggining music would be a good idea to round everything off, and keep it creepy, but it just didn't fit in after the reverse boom sound effect and the feel of the scene, but i didn't want anything to heavy, so we went back to using the star drive music. this gave the ending a really eerie effect. We added a final camera click as Kate tunrs to look at camera, as if someone has caught her and it fits well when it goes in to the last text screen witht he release date.

I think this is the final editting we will do as i feel it's finished.

Monday, 29 November 2010

Editing Four - 26/11/2010

I was working completely on protools today, putting together all the ideas i have had for the soundtrack, after realising that my orignal idea may not work to full effect. I have found used sound effects along with a recorded guitar part section that i recorded on to protools myself.
The opening section for the music was 30 seconds long, i kept this section very similar to my original idea of having soft guitar music playing in the background, amazingly a first draft of the finger picking fitted the opening half of the trailer perfectly. I felt it was to plain though and didn't build up enough tension, so i added a sound effect of a record player static, i though this made the music seem old and creepy, adding the right atmosphere. At first the static was to loud against the music, so i turned the static down and brought the decibels of the guitar piece up using the gain tool on protools, this ment i could get it perfect.
This music stops as the gate closes, i thought this was a god stopping place, as it is sudden and juxtaposes against the light music. after this comes a heart beat to build tension, along with a mans breathing, to make it seem like some one is watching Kate. These are all be from found sound effects.
At the start of the trailer it shows a lovely street scene, which is suddenly interrupted by and eye for about two seconds, this was to make people jump and build tension, i felt it needed a bit more though to help, so i am adding sound effects when the eye appears, either like a record player scratch or an electric flutter 2, i think the electric flutter 2 works best as it is more obvious and dramatic adding to the genre of Thriller and Horror.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Editing Three - 23/11/2010

We only had an hour today and as i was still waiting on parts of the trailer to become finished to understand the timings for the soundtrack i decided to carry on looking for soundeffects, after my slight change in plan for the end part of the sound track, i found some really great ones in ilife and apple loops for soundtrack pro. I was mainly looking for follio noises like breathing or ambient noises like radios crackling, things that can be layered over the top of the drums to create really eerie off putting noises, adding to the tension i want to create. I think what i have found will be really great and i found over 30 sound effects that i can use and play with next lesson when the trailer is finished so i have timings.

Monday, 22 November 2010

Soundtrack ideas Two

After working on the sound track in lesson time, i realised that going down my orignal route of having the guitar carrying on after the start of the trailer, but becoming electric and heavy, i'm unsure of if this will really fit, i liked the idea of it keeping in time with the short takes, but the heart beat or drums can do that, but i'd prefer the drums to keep in time with the short takes and trying to put the guitars and drums together i felt was to much. Though most trailers music is very specific, like the harry potter trailers which have a string section, i didn't feel it fitted in after the start of the soundtrack, which the group and i really liked. Also the genre of the trailer didn't quite go with my original idea, though it works for thriller fantasies like harry potter, i didn't think it would really work for thriller horrors, like our trailer, the sound track are still epic and building, but much simpler focussing on one sound, like the drums in inception, something i felt was really effective, this means i am going to focus on getting the drums and heart beats recorded for the trailer, along with spooky sound effects i found last lesson, to give a added distorted effect, something i felt worked really well within the strangers trailer, when the music seems to get stuck on repeat and cracks and breaks up. i think it helps to build tension as the audience become unsure of what is going on, much like with the short takes they are so short people don't get the full picture, teaming these to ideas together i think we will create a perfect feeling for our trailer, fitting well with the genre of thriller horror.

Friday, 19 November 2010

Editing Two - 19/11/2010

Today it we carried on with the editting and final touches to our film trailer, it's Aimee's job to edit our trailer together on final cut pro, with the rest of the group giving help or a little input when Aimee needed. We watched over what we had so far and i felt it looked really great and that Aimee was defaintly editing it in the right direction. There were only a few things that needed to be changed that Aimee was planning on working on this lesson anyway, such as some shots were to long, or with Kate closing the door shot, she made a slight face as the shot ended, which didn't look right and so we all suggested ways of cutting it or changing it slightly so it didn't look odd, Also so shots were to slow or to bright, so Aimee used fianl cut pro to edit the shots, to make them fit better with the genre.
The first thing i went to do was to get a guitar to carry on recording bits for the trailer and trial my ideas to the group. At first i couldn't record the sound track straight away as i was unsure of how long the trailer would be, as Aimee hadn't cut to down shots yet, so i decided to wait till we had a rough idea of trailer length to start properlly recording, whilst waiting i just showed people what i had already, the light guitar finger picking at the start and how it builds up towards the end and spoke about my ideas, for other sound effects.
As Aimee got on with editing, with the rest of the group chipping in when she needed help. she was changing the contrast of some shots. With one of the shots of Kate running was very bright even when editted, the rest of the group were a little worried about this as they didn't think it would fit in with the genre and the rest of the trailer which was dark, but i told them that trailers are rarely in chrological order, so it didn't matter if it was a little sunny, but it still looked creepy. Aimee also had an idea about the beginning of the trailer to prevent it from looking to normal, as it starts off lovely and happy, to put people at a false state of relax, but it was looking a little boring, so Aimee said she had seen a trailer for a film called "A Stranger Calls" where it starts off ok, but uses a flash of a short take of an eye. the group really liked this suggestion and so agreed to test it out, we liked it so decided to have it in our fianl trailer even though it wasn't on our story board.
I got on with the sound track, by recording a demo of my orignal guitar idea on protools, this was only a rough cut so that i could see how long each part of the sound track could roughly be and start testing out drums and other sound effects. The start part of the soft guitar finger picking, which would be played over the top of the happy street shots could roughly go to about 30 seconds, which i felt was long enough. The build up guitar section that would go over the fast cuts could be stretched and made longer if needed and i would also add a drum beat as i have siad before and the group has also disscussed, but i needed to know how long each short take would be so i could fit the beat of the strumming and the beat in time, give the most impact to the shots, i estimated 3 seconds for each shot. I spoke to Aimee about this, as the trailer was nearly finished, she tried to change the shots to be in time, but some just couldn't be cut down any shorter than Aimee already had, as then they weren't effective. This ment that not all the short cuts were the same length, this ment that i couldn't time a gutiar beat to them well enough, as it just looked a little messy when i tried and there was no way Aimee couldn't edit the trailer to make them all the same length as some didn't look right short and others couldn't be made longer due to having to have certian things cut out. this also ment that i may not be able to time a drum beat to it well enough aswell, but i carried on trying to work on the right kind of drum beat effect in protools, using the boom kit, which i thought the most effective part of this was the kick tool when on the urban 1 setting, i thought that even though i couldn't fit the guitar in time with the shots well enough, i may be able to build up a good enough drum beat, that may not have to keep in time, just be there in the background and biuld tension. I had origanlly worked on it to go along with a guitar, which luara helped me with, as she is director i asked for her opion and what sounded better, but felt like i could adapt my ideas easily, i was also using the sound effect of a bass out of the garage band apllication, the best bass to go alongside the drums and guitar was the subsythn bass, as it sounded really deep, similar to the drums i already had and reminded me a bit of the sound effects used on the inception trailer. Even if we can't use the guitar parts i wrote for the second half of the trailer i think we will still use the drums idea the group had really liked.
The group also had disscussed earlyer certain sound effects for the trailer, such as heavy breathing and heart beats for the tension. We already had the sound effect recoreded of a gate closing which we did using my camera on location. To find these sound effects that the group wanted i looked i went in to the audio section and looked in sound track pro, i then went in to apple loops and the ilife section for sound effects. i found heart beat effect which i felt would work really well, either on it's own in a section of the trailer that we had prevously disscussed to be silent with just heart beats or heavy breathing, to help build tnesion before the big build up, but now that i am considering not using the guitars we may uses it in other areas, to help add atmosphere. i then foung to further sounds effects that could be used within the trailer, star drive, radio tunning and volcaneo. i thought all of these sound effects would help with building tension and atmosphere
I have been thinking about the opening to keep the same pretty tune i orignally planned to keep, but every time the eye that Aimee placed in flashes up the music will become distorted a bit like in the strangers trailer when they get attacked it becomes distorted. For the end i defiantly think it needs a beat to keep in time with the shots like a heart beat, but we may not be able to cut the shots down, so i will keep on working on this. i also think i will add the sound effects i have found in to the music, as after doing some research some trailers don't have an traditional soundtrack and instead have a collection of atmosphereic sound effects to build tension. i think a white noise might work really well.

Thursday, 18 November 2010

Logo Ideas

These are the logo ideas that Laura and Hannah came up with, whilst Aimee was editing. We felt that it had to be simple and Aimee suggested it be a camera silhouette as it represents film and when looking at some examples, it seemed a popular design idea. I also felt it would look classic and professional, if we didn't over complicate things.

IDEA ONE
this was the first design they came up with, it isn't of the right type of camera, and looks to small and simple, as if we didn't put any thought in to it. Though the red text does contrast well against the black and white, it dosen't stand out enough, which a producer logo needs to do, as they want to show people that they were involved and make money off it. This wasn't my favorite, but it was only their first go.


IDEA TWO

I felt this was a step in the right direction, it is of an actually filming camera and the colours are really great choices, as they are neutral, yet not boring so people would notice the symbol. I also like the choice of text, but am unsure on wether it fits in with our movie or wether a producer would actually have this type of logo. But what does look professional is the light reflecting off the top it really makes it look real and classic.


IDEA THREE

this was the best of all the logos i felt, as it looked just like the logos you see when watching a film, the shadow of a person with a camera looks like a professional shot and that it was made for us or at least to put in to a logo, i like the text used as it is very formal and professional. The use of black and white is very simple and classic, not over fussed, something which producer logos aren't, they need to catch peoples eye, but at the same time not distract from what they are about to see. So that is why i voted for this image, but the rest of the group felt idea two was the better, which i did also like.



Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Editing - 16/11/2010

Today we decided to dedicate completely to editing our trailer together for the final piece. As we couldn't all edit and it's Aimee's job within the team to edit, something we decided on in our first we all took on our own roles so we could maximise our efficacy.
Before we got with any of our tasks, we sat and watched the film we had captured over the weekend and the re-shoots of close ups on Kate and discussed what we like and didn't like, i was really surprised at how well the filming from the weekend came out, even though it was only film on my Camcorder which isn't as powerful as the schools own cameras. We noticed a few mistakes within some shots, such as being able to see my hand in a shot that we thought we'd managed not get me in, it was the gate shot, but Aimee can crop this out when putting the trailer together. All the film was put on to the Mac's on Aimee's area so she could edit easily. the film on my camera couldn't be uploaded straight to fianl cut pro straight away, so Aimee uploaded it to Imovie, then transfering it to final cut pro.
We are using Final Cut Pro to edit everything together, as we find it the easiest to use, we all had a short introduction on how to use it, then we left Aimee to get on with editing the film according to our storyboard. I got on looking for a templates that we could place our producer logo on to, along with any text within the trailer, such as tag lines, it had to be something dark and eerie, with a good transition i looked in the effects section, where there is a big selection, for end titles and openings, but we just needed one that could easily slot in to our trailer. I looked in a folder named Light, i really like the templates in this folder, as it looked a bit like a camera flash, something we as a group had wanted in our trailer to link in with the storyline. I told Hannah and Laura about it and showed them, as they were making the producer logo, that would slot in to this template, they really liked it, and so we chose to use it.
Laura and Hannah carried on there research on logos, while Aimee edited and i got a guitar to record the soundtrack. I discussed with the music teacher about creating a drum beat in the background and said it was best to do it on the computer in some programs like garage band, so i will look further in to that.
After Laura and Hannah had finished making the logos in photoshop they put it to a vote, i liked the man and the camera the most, as i thought it look classic and simple, like most producer logos, but the rest of the group preferred the camera in a circle, which looks more futuristic and personal, so we went with that choice.
Once we had all finished our own jobs, or couldn't progress any further with them, like recording the soundtrack as i wasn't allowed to make noise as filming was going on next door, we went over to help Aimee and see what she had done so far, she had completed the first half of the trailer of all the happy street scenes and was just trying to place together the quickening shots, with the right bits of film. It's looking really good so far.
As i couldn't really record any music in this lesson, due to not being able to make noise as someone was recording next door, i instead looked in to how to use such programs as pro tools and garage band, i found some really usefull tools and effects, which i will use in further detail next lesson.