This week I interiviewed people; asking them questions about my ancillary tasks.
I asked them following:
What were your first impressions when you saw this magazine/ poster?
Have you seen my trailer?
Do you think this magazine/ poster goes well with the trailer?
If you haven't seen the trailer, would this poster/ magazine make you want to check it out?
How well do you think I have done in trying to appeal to my target audience?
In this case I recorded each participant's answer, so I could get a clear voice opinion of my projects.
Friday 6 May 2011
Wednesday 4 May 2011
EVALUATION
1. The examiners are especially interested in your application of media technologies to carry out planning and research tasks, construction, post-production, presentation and in evaluation. This means analysing the range and kind of tasks that you are able to carry out and identifying the software you use to do them.
To begin with, I conducted my research using the internet and TV. I decided to use these particular media technologies, because they were the most suitable for my main project; which is teaser trailer. On the internet I would repeatedly watch different trailers on www.youtbe.com. After close analysis of trailers which fit into either the same, or a similar genre, I picked out key features I believed I could incorporate into my own main task. For example when looking at the tormented trailer, I noticed the way the formation of the clips in the trailer were in chronological order, this was something I tried to incorporate into my own trailer. However this didn't really happen as during my post-production I tended to ignore some of the features I originally planned to incorporate into my trailer, so in the end I decided to arrange the clips in a mixed up sort of order; where it appears to be in order, however I punctuated the trailer with random clips from my potential film which occur at later points but appear randomly during the trailer. During research I picked up on this feature from other trailers such as ..... I was particularly interested in this feature as when I personally watched trailers which beared this feature, I felt shocked when they appeared, and they made me want to watch the trailer again, to try and understand why them scenes were put there. So I believed if a trailer has this sort of effect on the viewer, it must be efficiently effective in trying to attract an audience in watching the trailer, which could ultimately end in the audience watching the actual film when it's released. Doing research for my teaser trailer, I decided to create a survey online, using www.surveymonkey.com. All in all I had only 5 questions revolving around my main ideas for my movie trailer. In my survey I asked how old the participant taking the survey was, this was for my target audience purposes. I asked them why they watched horror films; the answers could of been any of the following: for a thrill, because they're your favourite type of film, or if its because they're bored, or they don't watch horror films. This question was to help me understand why my /target audience (young people) watched horror films, as all of those who completed the survey werey between the ages of 15 - 18 this helped me make my trailer accordingly to their preference. Where 85.7% of those who completed the survey said they watched horror films for the thrill, I felt I would have to make it as scary but at the same time teasing, this was to interest my target audience as much as possible. With the question about how many main characters/ protagonists there should be, 57.1% thought there should 3 main characters, whereas 42.9% thought there should be 4 main characters. Due to the fact me and partner had a fall out, I started working on the project alone, so the original 4 main characters we had initially were hard to obtain. I decided to go with 4 central characters, however 2 of those have more signficance over the other 2 but this only appears in the trailer. Arguably this is because of the amount of scenes the male actors have over the female characters.They would seem more important just by this trailer, however as most films usually have more than one trailer leading up to the release of the trailer; saying this if I was to have anoth-*er trailer I would show a more balanced view in regards to the main characters. In the survey I also asked the question whether or not the audience would like to see the ghosts or not, in regards to a paranormal horror? In this case there were more votes for the ghosts not to be seen in the film. To be exact the statistics stand 42.9% to see the ghosts and 57.1% for the ghosts not to be seen. Listening to those who completed my custom survey I decided to not show any sort of ghosts in the trailer, instead I decided to show the effects of the ghosts of the students from the Class of '86. I decided to make my final question on the survey an open ended one so that I could gain different personal beliefs. I asked the participants what are their personal thoughts on having Giggs featuring B.o.B - Don't go there as part of the soundtrack for a horror trailer? (Bear in mind that the plot is about going to a forbidden area). I asked this as when planning this project back when me and my partner were working together, we had a dispute on whether or not we should incorporate this song into the film trailer. I personally believed that this song was suitable as it relates to the young people of this time as it was made from someone who lives in south london, and I believe this relates because the trailer is set in south london. Also as the trailer is about these inquisitive teens who go somewhere where they know is prohibited for them, the actual lyrics relate to their adventure: in which the lyrics in the chorus are "Well people gon be people aint nobody gon change, But we can keep it peaceful if we leave it the same, If you don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t go there, no, don’t go there.." I was planning to use this song to enforce a sense of dramatic irony into the trailer. At the time my partner thought otherwise. He thought using this song would make the trailer "childish" and "not suitable for our genre type", to an extent I agree with him but I thought this would be a different approach to the trailer, breaking generic conventions of a horror trailer. When I say this I initially wanted to go against the stereotypical "scary music" used for soundtracks for horror films, however during production I found it hard to incorporate the Giggs featuring B.o.B song into my trailer. Analysing the results from the survey, one person said "It would be different for a horror movie, but i think it would be quite unique and will make the horror movie seem less predictable because no one would have expected that genre of music to be in a horror film. Also the chorus will g+o well with a horror." Another person said "Good idea but try think of a back up song". Reviewing the other comments, none of the people who took part in the survey said no or they it wouldn't be a good idea. From this I listened to one comment where they said I should have a back up song, in which I found the soundtrack for saw 2.
2. Part of your research into your advanced portfolio projects is to identify the ideology of representations such as gender and, say, the generic use of narrative. So how do the representations and narrative of your music video compare to professional products? How does your newspaper layout relate to actual newspapers? How does your trailer demonstrate the conventions of its genre and how do you account for your choice of main protagonists. It is really important you make comparisons with professional products.
My trailer is unique in itself as it is a formation of a number shots in which, they don't reveal too much. In comparison to some horror trailers, my trailer is working from the point in which, it doesn't reveal too much about the film. By doing so I'm taking a gamble as this can prove to be a bad move, or a clever approach. By doing so I want to build up the hype of my film, I tried to instinctively make the hype of my film build over my 3 projects (the trailer, film magazine cover feature and film poster). As this is the 1st film of a possible series, and we were assigned the task of making a teaser trailer, I had to make sure my trailer lived up to its name by acting as a tease to the target audience. I believe the best way in doing so is by not revealing too much in the actual trailer, this will make the audience anticipate the release of the film. As some trailers reveal too much through their fim trailer, once a consumer comes round to watching the actual film they may be disappointed, because some of the most exciting scenes may have been in the trailer, leaving great moments in the film dull, taking away the full effect as the consumers would have seen this scene already most probably on various occasions. I decided to avoid this approach by using at 1 or 2 action filled scenes in my trailer, this way I don't reveal too much about the film. This also doesn't give the audience enough to feed on as it's only a teaser trailer. So they don't have the chance to make full judgements on the film until the film comes out. I decided to go for a slow paced trailer, meaning there isn't rapid cuts of loads of shots, there's just a few shots which are exaggerated, and punctuated my title graphics and which go along with my sound effects. By doing so I decided to go against the stereotypical versions of horror film trailers. For example looking at the 'Scream 4' trailer, the trailer starts off slow, them picks up its temp in regards to cuts and then eventually slows down again. My trailer may have a similar structure but not exactly the same. I initially had the idea to incorporate the layout of the 'Tormented', in which the trailer is laid out in a choronologically. I wanted to make the clips of my trailer occur in order, not in an unstructured manner , but after completing more research I noticed, some trailers which go in order are sometimes punctuated with random clips, which do not look like they're appear at later stages in the film. My trailer represents its genre, by the way I repeatedly used darkness whilst filming. I tried to film as many of my shots in the night to signify the theme of darkness. As the night or the darkness connotes themes such as danger, ghosts, taboo occasions and so on, this enforces the theme of horror in my trailer. My trailer bears that sort of vibe where the protagonists are never safe, giving the audience that 'edge of their seats' feeling. In which main popular films have the audience anticipating the film's release because of the way the trailer, had us (the audience) wanting more, which would result in them watching the trailer over and over again. For instance when I first watched the 'X-Men: First Class' trailer, it had me as a fan of the series wanting more, nevertheless, whether or not I was a fan of the series the film would of most probably of had the same effect on me. This lead me on to watch the trailer over and over again hoping to uncover more about the film. I want my film to have the same sort of effect on people, this is what lead me to take on the approach of not revealing too much via teaser trailer; in contrast a everyone else in my class who done a teaser trailer, they all decided to put together a montage various of clips using rapid cuts. Compared to some I probably have half the amount of shots, but through the use of Adobe After Effects combined with Adobe Premiere Pro I was abled to make my trailer just as effective as those who used a lot of shops.
3. It is essential that you include a description of your strategies of modification and re-drafting in response to the audience feedback you recieve from students and tutor. This is in turn needs to be informed by an awareness of how to appeal to your target audience. Identifying (and perhaps photographing an example of) your target audience is absolutely crucial and is often one of the weaknesses in student submissions, so take care here. It is the starting point of any design strategy.
When re-drafting my main tasks I decided to inorporate most points my target audience brought forward about my main task the teaser trailer. One member of the class said "I don't like the way your shots are organised", in which other members of the class agreed with him. To overcome this issue I changed the juxtaposition of the shots, to help my trailer make more sense. I also removed some scenes and replaced them with new ones, this caused a massive problem to my project as, the original scenes I had deleted featured different shots in which had 1 main character in it, and due to unforseen circumstances I wasn't abled to use the same actor, and by this time in the coursework I was handing in the final film magazine feature. So it was too late to change the coverstars, as now 1 of the 2 coverstars' face isn't seen in the trailer, but to try and deal with this I decided to make a stunt double as such appear in the trailer. By this I got Marlon (the guy who's face isn't seen in the trailer) to be played by someone else, in doing so I didn't ever show this person's face. Whilst re-drafting my projects I made it a priority to incorporate any thoughts or opinions they had on my project as their demographics fit my target audience (students aged 15 - 25).
When i first done my film magazine cover feature I didn't have an original photograph to represent my film, instead I used a poster of Ironman, just to understand how I could use the canvas for my magazine design. Audience feedback was inevitable as they told me I need to get an original photograph, this was obvious, ont the other hand they agreed my masthead and layout was good, and believed it had potential to be a good magazine cover with more work done to it. Re-drafting my second ancillary task merged 2 original photographs I took specifically for my magazine, I got more coverlines, competitions and magazine features - to make my magazine more realistic. I tried to make the theme of the magazine link to my film as that is what most magazines tend to do, doing this would show my target audience the professionalism of my magazine, which could ultimately end up in people buying my magazine. Re-drafting my poster was much easier as my 1st draft was good, I mainly edited the picture in my poster and made few minor adjustments. My target audience were happy with my decisions.
4. How are your main and ancillary projects linked through their design strategies to sustain an appeal to the target audience? Is there any attempt over the three products to make additional appeals to audiences on the fringe of the main target?
Well as the film is about a class in the 1980s who all died horribly in a fire, I decided to incorporate the theme of fire in my film trailer and film poster. In my film trailer I filmed a clip where there's a picture of a class students ( which is meant to represent the class who died in 1986 ) burning. I decided to use the burning photo as a representation of the class who went up in flames. I did something similar with my film poster. In which I got text, using a formal font (Trajan Pro) I wrote 'Class of', then using a different font (Impact) I wrote '86'. I made the 'Class' appear as if it was literally on fire using Photoshop. I decided to link these 2 projects this way, as if someone was to see the trailer then see the poster after they should immediately understand the reference I tried to make. However if someone was to see the poster first they may not understand why it looks like that, on the other, it shouldn't be hard to draw a basic an assumption from the poster (that its about a class linked to a fire). Watching the trailer second would help the audience understand why the text is on fire on my poster. Nevertheless I believe both of these projects are effective in getting the point of my film across. Looking at my magazine, I separated myself from the theme of fire when designing my magazine. This is because I couldn't think of a suitable way to incorporate this trait on to my magazine. Whilst researching film magazine cover features, I noticed nearly every film which had a feature on a film magazine tended to put the main character(s) on the front. So I decided to put the 2 main characters in my trailer on my magazine cover. Dressed in costume similar to what they wear in the film, this is to ensure familiarity among the texts. I made a sort of grungy effect for the picture of the two main characters, this was a useful effect as it can represent youths in a way which portrays they get down and dirty. I put a board behind the characters which reads 'I will not disturb the dead' repeatedly. I wrote this in a way which looks like they had to write this out repeatedly for a punishment. This enforces the theme of school. I put bloody hand prints on the board to symbolose the youths trying to embrace and accept their wrong doing. I believe this gives my magazine cover a spooky feel and links well to the magazine, as it can relate to the clip of the class burning as the theme of school is constant. This links to my trailer as there are unseen scenes (in which i mean scenes, wheres there nothing on screen but screaming going on), of the my characters screaming, this symbolises the torture they're going through. As this is a trailer which will be shown on TV, I didn't want to put in any scenes in that would not be able to be shown on TV, so I basically censored my trailer.
To begin with, I conducted my research using the internet and TV. I decided to use these particular media technologies, because they were the most suitable for my main project; which is teaser trailer. On the internet I would repeatedly watch different trailers on www.youtbe.com. After close analysis of trailers which fit into either the same, or a similar genre, I picked out key features I believed I could incorporate into my own main task. For example when looking at the tormented trailer, I noticed the way the formation of the clips in the trailer were in chronological order, this was something I tried to incorporate into my own trailer. However this didn't really happen as during my post-production I tended to ignore some of the features I originally planned to incorporate into my trailer, so in the end I decided to arrange the clips in a mixed up sort of order; where it appears to be in order, however I punctuated the trailer with random clips from my potential film which occur at later points but appear randomly during the trailer. During research I picked up on this feature from other trailers such as ..... I was particularly interested in this feature as when I personally watched trailers which beared this feature, I felt shocked when they appeared, and they made me want to watch the trailer again, to try and understand why them scenes were put there. So I believed if a trailer has this sort of effect on the viewer, it must be efficiently effective in trying to attract an audience in watching the trailer, which could ultimately end in the audience watching the actual film when it's released. Doing research for my teaser trailer, I decided to create a survey online, using www.surveymonkey.com. All in all I had only 5 questions revolving around my main ideas for my movie trailer. In my survey I asked how old the participant taking the survey was, this was for my target audience purposes. I asked them why they watched horror films; the answers could of been any of the following: for a thrill, because they're your favourite type of film, or if its because they're bored, or they don't watch horror films. This question was to help me understand why my /target audience (young people) watched horror films, as all of those who completed the survey werey between the ages of 15 - 18 this helped me make my trailer accordingly to their preference. Where 85.7% of those who completed the survey said they watched horror films for the thrill, I felt I would have to make it as scary but at the same time teasing, this was to interest my target audience as much as possible. With the question about how many main characters/ protagonists there should be, 57.1% thought there should 3 main characters, whereas 42.9% thought there should be 4 main characters. Due to the fact me and partner had a fall out, I started working on the project alone, so the original 4 main characters we had initially were hard to obtain. I decided to go with 4 central characters, however 2 of those have more signficance over the other 2 but this only appears in the trailer. Arguably this is because of the amount of scenes the male actors have over the female characters.They would seem more important just by this trailer, however as most films usually have more than one trailer leading up to the release of the trailer; saying this if I was to have anoth-*er trailer I would show a more balanced view in regards to the main characters. In the survey I also asked the question whether or not the audience would like to see the ghosts or not, in regards to a paranormal horror? In this case there were more votes for the ghosts not to be seen in the film. To be exact the statistics stand 42.9% to see the ghosts and 57.1% for the ghosts not to be seen. Listening to those who completed my custom survey I decided to not show any sort of ghosts in the trailer, instead I decided to show the effects of the ghosts of the students from the Class of '86. I decided to make my final question on the survey an open ended one so that I could gain different personal beliefs. I asked the participants what are their personal thoughts on having Giggs featuring B.o.B - Don't go there as part of the soundtrack for a horror trailer? (Bear in mind that the plot is about going to a forbidden area). I asked this as when planning this project back when me and my partner were working together, we had a dispute on whether or not we should incorporate this song into the film trailer. I personally believed that this song was suitable as it relates to the young people of this time as it was made from someone who lives in south london, and I believe this relates because the trailer is set in south london. Also as the trailer is about these inquisitive teens who go somewhere where they know is prohibited for them, the actual lyrics relate to their adventure: in which the lyrics in the chorus are "Well people gon be people aint nobody gon change, But we can keep it peaceful if we leave it the same, If you don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t go there, no, don’t go there.." I was planning to use this song to enforce a sense of dramatic irony into the trailer. At the time my partner thought otherwise. He thought using this song would make the trailer "childish" and "not suitable for our genre type", to an extent I agree with him but I thought this would be a different approach to the trailer, breaking generic conventions of a horror trailer. When I say this I initially wanted to go against the stereotypical "scary music" used for soundtracks for horror films, however during production I found it hard to incorporate the Giggs featuring B.o.B song into my trailer. Analysing the results from the survey, one person said "It would be different for a horror movie, but i think it would be quite unique and will make the horror movie seem less predictable because no one would have expected that genre of music to be in a horror film. Also the chorus will g+o well with a horror." Another person said "Good idea but try think of a back up song". Reviewing the other comments, none of the people who took part in the survey said no or they it wouldn't be a good idea. From this I listened to one comment where they said I should have a back up song, in which I found the soundtrack for saw 2.
2. Part of your research into your advanced portfolio projects is to identify the ideology of representations such as gender and, say, the generic use of narrative. So how do the representations and narrative of your music video compare to professional products? How does your newspaper layout relate to actual newspapers? How does your trailer demonstrate the conventions of its genre and how do you account for your choice of main protagonists. It is really important you make comparisons with professional products.
My trailer is unique in itself as it is a formation of a number shots in which, they don't reveal too much. In comparison to some horror trailers, my trailer is working from the point in which, it doesn't reveal too much about the film. By doing so I'm taking a gamble as this can prove to be a bad move, or a clever approach. By doing so I want to build up the hype of my film, I tried to instinctively make the hype of my film build over my 3 projects (the trailer, film magazine cover feature and film poster). As this is the 1st film of a possible series, and we were assigned the task of making a teaser trailer, I had to make sure my trailer lived up to its name by acting as a tease to the target audience. I believe the best way in doing so is by not revealing too much in the actual trailer, this will make the audience anticipate the release of the film. As some trailers reveal too much through their fim trailer, once a consumer comes round to watching the actual film they may be disappointed, because some of the most exciting scenes may have been in the trailer, leaving great moments in the film dull, taking away the full effect as the consumers would have seen this scene already most probably on various occasions. I decided to avoid this approach by using at 1 or 2 action filled scenes in my trailer, this way I don't reveal too much about the film. This also doesn't give the audience enough to feed on as it's only a teaser trailer. So they don't have the chance to make full judgements on the film until the film comes out. I decided to go for a slow paced trailer, meaning there isn't rapid cuts of loads of shots, there's just a few shots which are exaggerated, and punctuated my title graphics and which go along with my sound effects. By doing so I decided to go against the stereotypical versions of horror film trailers. For example looking at the 'Scream 4' trailer, the trailer starts off slow, them picks up its temp in regards to cuts and then eventually slows down again. My trailer may have a similar structure but not exactly the same. I initially had the idea to incorporate the layout of the 'Tormented', in which the trailer is laid out in a choronologically. I wanted to make the clips of my trailer occur in order, not in an unstructured manner , but after completing more research I noticed, some trailers which go in order are sometimes punctuated with random clips, which do not look like they're appear at later stages in the film. My trailer represents its genre, by the way I repeatedly used darkness whilst filming. I tried to film as many of my shots in the night to signify the theme of darkness. As the night or the darkness connotes themes such as danger, ghosts, taboo occasions and so on, this enforces the theme of horror in my trailer. My trailer bears that sort of vibe where the protagonists are never safe, giving the audience that 'edge of their seats' feeling. In which main popular films have the audience anticipating the film's release because of the way the trailer, had us (the audience) wanting more, which would result in them watching the trailer over and over again. For instance when I first watched the 'X-Men: First Class' trailer, it had me as a fan of the series wanting more, nevertheless, whether or not I was a fan of the series the film would of most probably of had the same effect on me. This lead me on to watch the trailer over and over again hoping to uncover more about the film. I want my film to have the same sort of effect on people, this is what lead me to take on the approach of not revealing too much via teaser trailer; in contrast a everyone else in my class who done a teaser trailer, they all decided to put together a montage various of clips using rapid cuts. Compared to some I probably have half the amount of shots, but through the use of Adobe After Effects combined with Adobe Premiere Pro I was abled to make my trailer just as effective as those who used a lot of shops.
3. It is essential that you include a description of your strategies of modification and re-drafting in response to the audience feedback you recieve from students and tutor. This is in turn needs to be informed by an awareness of how to appeal to your target audience. Identifying (and perhaps photographing an example of) your target audience is absolutely crucial and is often one of the weaknesses in student submissions, so take care here. It is the starting point of any design strategy.
When re-drafting my main tasks I decided to inorporate most points my target audience brought forward about my main task the teaser trailer. One member of the class said "I don't like the way your shots are organised", in which other members of the class agreed with him. To overcome this issue I changed the juxtaposition of the shots, to help my trailer make more sense. I also removed some scenes and replaced them with new ones, this caused a massive problem to my project as, the original scenes I had deleted featured different shots in which had 1 main character in it, and due to unforseen circumstances I wasn't abled to use the same actor, and by this time in the coursework I was handing in the final film magazine feature. So it was too late to change the coverstars, as now 1 of the 2 coverstars' face isn't seen in the trailer, but to try and deal with this I decided to make a stunt double as such appear in the trailer. By this I got Marlon (the guy who's face isn't seen in the trailer) to be played by someone else, in doing so I didn't ever show this person's face. Whilst re-drafting my projects I made it a priority to incorporate any thoughts or opinions they had on my project as their demographics fit my target audience (students aged 15 - 25).
 |
| Picture of my target audience |
4. How are your main and ancillary projects linked through their design strategies to sustain an appeal to the target audience? Is there any attempt over the three products to make additional appeals to audiences on the fringe of the main target?
Well as the film is about a class in the 1980s who all died horribly in a fire, I decided to incorporate the theme of fire in my film trailer and film poster. In my film trailer I filmed a clip where there's a picture of a class students ( which is meant to represent the class who died in 1986 ) burning. I decided to use the burning photo as a representation of the class who went up in flames. I did something similar with my film poster. In which I got text, using a formal font (Trajan Pro) I wrote 'Class of', then using a different font (Impact) I wrote '86'. I made the 'Class' appear as if it was literally on fire using Photoshop. I decided to link these 2 projects this way, as if someone was to see the trailer then see the poster after they should immediately understand the reference I tried to make. However if someone was to see the poster first they may not understand why it looks like that, on the other, it shouldn't be hard to draw a basic an assumption from the poster (that its about a class linked to a fire). Watching the trailer second would help the audience understand why the text is on fire on my poster. Nevertheless I believe both of these projects are effective in getting the point of my film across. Looking at my magazine, I separated myself from the theme of fire when designing my magazine. This is because I couldn't think of a suitable way to incorporate this trait on to my magazine. Whilst researching film magazine cover features, I noticed nearly every film which had a feature on a film magazine tended to put the main character(s) on the front. So I decided to put the 2 main characters in my trailer on my magazine cover. Dressed in costume similar to what they wear in the film, this is to ensure familiarity among the texts. I made a sort of grungy effect for the picture of the two main characters, this was a useful effect as it can represent youths in a way which portrays they get down and dirty. I put a board behind the characters which reads 'I will not disturb the dead' repeatedly. I wrote this in a way which looks like they had to write this out repeatedly for a punishment. This enforces the theme of school. I put bloody hand prints on the board to symbolose the youths trying to embrace and accept their wrong doing. I believe this gives my magazine cover a spooky feel and links well to the magazine, as it can relate to the clip of the class burning as the theme of school is constant. This links to my trailer as there are unseen scenes (in which i mean scenes, wheres there nothing on screen but screaming going on), of the my characters screaming, this symbolises the torture they're going through. As this is a trailer which will be shown on TV, I didn't want to put in any scenes in that would not be able to be shown on TV, so I basically censored my trailer.
Wednesday 20 April 2011
WEEK 22
This week I added my title graphics to my video. A generic convention of film trailers, I done this to help the trailer make sense.
Doing some work outside college hours, I downloaded Adobe After Effects 10 an upgraded version to the one we have at college. From this I learnt a few basic tricks when using Adobe After Effects. Things such as blur, and making the text come out from the black either from left to right or right to left. This was enough for me as I was advised by my tutor and also looking at other horror trailers to keep the title graphics simple.
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| This is one of the title graphics I used in my trailer. |
Tuesday 12 April 2011
WEEK 21
Here I recorded a scene of a phone in which a text message is being sent to the main characters. This is how the plans of 'going to the burnt down school' get to the boys. I decided to get the message across via text message, as this is a stereotypical view of the way teenagers communicate. Also the phone which was being used to send the text message is a Blackberry. Nowadays a lot of young people tend to own Blackberries so incorporating this trend into my trailer relates to my target audience.
In this additional scene I recorded my protagonist Calvin on the phone. Appearing to be in distress, I made it look as if Calvin was really worried. The call he received was about his friend Marlon, who went to the burnt down school alone and no one has heard from him since. I used a medium close up to capture his facial expressions whilst speaking to whoever's on the line.
Here's an image of my production company. I done this to reinforce the professionalism of my teaser trailer. I created this in Adobe Photoshop.
I also got my final choice for my soundtrack; in which I used 'Horror Soundtrack - Charlie Clouser - Saw 2 - Don't Forget The Rules' found on youtube.com
This week I went out got some last minute footage to replace some of my original footage. This image is a new scene I got in which I'm using it to replace a clip of a group of friends briefly discussing ghosts and the burnt down school. In this clip I had 2 girls talking about bunking college, and going to the site of the burnt down school. This explains what made the students go there. Even though my 2 main characters do not feature in this clip, I used these 2 girls as the ones who get the boys involved in this adventure. In regards to Todorov's narrative theory these 2 girls can be considered the dispatchers as even though they're meant to go with the guys, they're the ones who send the "heroes" on their "mission".
Here I recorded a scene of a phone in which a text message is being sent to the main characters. This is how the plans of 'going to the burnt down school' get to the boys. I decided to get the message across via text message, as this is a stereotypical view of the way teenagers communicate. Also the phone which was being used to send the text message is a Blackberry. Nowadays a lot of young people tend to own Blackberries so incorporating this trend into my trailer relates to my target audience.
In this additional scene I recorded my protagonist Calvin on the phone. Appearing to be in distress, I made it look as if Calvin was really worried. The call he received was about his friend Marlon, who went to the burnt down school alone and no one has heard from him since. I used a medium close up to capture his facial expressions whilst speaking to whoever's on the line.
I also got my final choice for my soundtrack; in which I used 'Horror Soundtrack - Charlie Clouser - Saw 2 - Don't Forget The Rules' found on youtube.com
I particuarly like this soundtrack because of the shift in sound during the music and it had an eary feel which made my horror trailer more realistic and spooky, conveying generic conventions of my genre
Tuesday 5 April 2011
WEEK 20
This week I designed my proper magazine cover.
The pictures of the two boys are 2 main characters in my film. I tried to go for a stereotypical look of a student when taking the pictures. By stereotypical look, I mean someone in casual clothing with like a bag over their shoulder – a school bag, also the headphones around his neck go with the image. With the image on the right (Calvin Demba) I played around with the tools in Photoshop including the smudge tool, to give him a more troubled look on his face, this was done to increase the tension. With the image on the left (Marlon Sr. Douglin) I decided to cut out the majority of his body on the right side as I positioned him to appear behind Calvin on the actual magazine cover. I decided to make Marlon look to the side when taking the photo, as he looks like a ‘lookout’ for his friend Calvin and as these 2 along with others get in trouble they need all the help they can get.
The pictures of the two boys are 2 main characters in my film. I tried to go for a stereotypical look of a student when taking the pictures. By stereotypical look, I mean someone in casual clothing with like a bag over their shoulder – a school bag, also the headphones around his neck go with the image. With the image on the right (Calvin Demba) I played around with the tools in Photoshop including the smudge tool, to give him a more troubled look on his face, this was done to increase the tension. With the image on the left (Marlon Sr. Douglin) I decided to cut out the majority of his body on the right side as I positioned him to appear behind Calvin on the actual magazine cover. I decided to make Marlon look to the side when taking the photo, as he looks like a ‘lookout’ for his friend Calvin and as these 2 along with others get in trouble they need all the help they can get.
For the background I used a blackboard with "I will not disturb the dead" written on it. This was made by simply getting a picture of a blackboard, finding a font that looks like chalk and then writing the text onto it. I made the text look as if someone had to write lines. I came to this decision as sometimes in schools when someone gets in trouble one way of punishing them is by making them write lines. They’d have to repeatedly write out something they should not do, in this case the lines read ‘I will not disturb the dead’, reflecting the plot of the story; in which, the protagonists go somewhere where they shouldn’t go to a certain place as it’s a site of where a class of students died in 1986 (hence the name), this causes the ghosts of the dead to react. I also added little images of bloody hand prints across the board. This represents the students trying to break away from the ghosts as they’re being “tortured”. The hand prints on the board show the students regret “disturbing the dead”.For the grungy, dirty looking effect on the main image and background I found a picture of a piece of old paper and placed it over the image, and then set the blending mode to 'Multiply'. I done this to make the image seem more dark and dirty, as the genre is horror these are generic conventions. Giving the whole image this sort of grungy dirty effect it takes away this sense of innocence, their innocence of youth is jeopardised when they break the rules, however this may be a simple mistake they make whilst young, something they can learn from if they do conquer this paranormal encounter.
There is also a subtle light source coming from the left side of the image which was created by using a soft white brush, and then using Gaussian blur to spread the light around.
To get the worn out effect on the title of the film "Class Of '86" I first typed it out normally, rasterized the type, then started rubbing out areas of it to make it look old.There is also a subtle light source coming from the left side of the image which was created by using a soft white brush, and then using Gaussian blur to spread the light around.
The "magazine of the year" stamp near the top right corner was made by me, using shapes and text.
I got the picture of a barcode off the internet and added it to my magazine for realism.
The rest of the graphics on the magazine are all shapes, text and screenshots of movies, found on the internet.
For the masthead I used a font known as ‘Devil Breeze’. I liked this font as it seemed modern and can appeal to fans of films of all genres. As it does not look like a font for a specific film type, it can be seen as a broad-spectrum font. It also appeared perfect for me to use as a masthead the way it looks across the top of the magazine.
Here are a list of the fonts I used
Devil Breeze - Masthead
Arial
Arial Black
Arial Narrow
Calibri
Trajan Pro
Impact
Garamond
WEEK 19
As you can see I got rid of the Iron Man text on the image and the majority of the left side so the main image could go on my front cover. I then flipped the image horizontally as it looks better. For the masthead I used a font known as ‘Devil Breeze’. I liked this font as it seemed modern and can appeal to fans of films of all genres. As it does not look like a font for a specific film type, it can be seen as a broad-spectrum font. It also appeared perfect for me to use as a masthead the way it looks across the top of the magazine. I added a coverline regarding a new film coming out. I also put a list of films due to be released, telling the consumers ‘New movies you need to know about’. As this is a common feature on film magazines I decided to put this there. This seemed to be a good feature, as if the customers weren’t interested in the main cover image (main film), the list of other films may persuade them to buy it – as there may be a film in that least they’re interested in.
I decided to advertise a ‘free giant Iron Man poster inside’ as my draft magazine’s main feature is Iron Man, however when I do come round to incorporating my own images on to the cover I’ll leave the advertisement.
I added a barcode to the magazine, along with the issue number, the date, and an official website for the magazine for realism.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
WEEK 18
Whilst doing research for my second ancillary project, I came across the movie magazine 'EMPIRE'. Look at some of their front covers I noticed a key detail. When advertising a film on the front of their magazine they tend to have a theme that goes with the film. For example, looking st this 'TRON LEGACY' feature on the magazine, you notice that the magazine's theme, i.e. the text, subheadings, masthead and so forth look as if they're part of the movie. Giving the film more significance, as the magazine is revolving around its feature. I wish to incorporate something similar on to my magazine. As my poster and trailer have aspects of fire in it, I want to make fire, or the colours orange, black and or gold predominant on my magazine cover. Just like the 'TRON LEGACY' cover, I would like my magazine to only have one picture; a picture representing my film. This will give it more significance and make it the main attraction. For cover lines it would be wise of me to mainly focus on films as its a film magazine. I can talk about upcoming films, film reviews, interviews with stars or upcoming events to do with . I noticed that some pictures appear in front of the masthead whereas others appear behind it. This could be due to the significance of the film or popularity. As my film magazine will not be an established franchise I'll make my film appear behind the masthead, so that the masthead is clear enough for the audience to read. Some magazines like EMPIRE can have the masthead behind the main subject because it is a well known established magazine.
Here are some other posters I looked at
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