Final Film Trailer, Film Poster and Film Magazine Cover

Evaluation: Q4- How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

I have used Blogger to document all of my work and progression throughout the Research and Planning in preparation for producing my Film Trailer, Film Poster and Film Magazine Cover. I have published my progression of making these products onto Blogger also, including Social Network Feedback alongside this. I am also using Blogger to upload my Evaluation answers.


I have used Prezi create a Presentation regarding my Research and Planning for my Film Magazine Cover. It was a clear and precise route into deciding on the name, the price, the target audience, the colour scheme, the features etc. Prezi helped me brief out the main topics for my magazine which is what I linked back to in making my Film Magazine Cover.


I have used Word It Out in my Research and Planning to board all of my groups thoughts and ideas of Film Distribution and Production Company names. It also helped for us to link words for a tagline and also gave us help for the Film Title.

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I have used PowerPoint at the early stage of the year when making the Pitch for our film plots, and then used SlideShare to upload to my Blogger. The Pitch consisted of Plot Lines, Sounds, Locations etc. I have also used PowerPoint and SlideShare to upload my Q1: USE, DEVELOP, CHALLENGE in the evaluation stage.


iMovie was used multiple times throughout the year: To create the chase scene, to upload our audience research and also to make the actual Trailer. Although I had briefly used iMovie in AS Film Studies, I became more familiar and skilled with the software when using it doing A2 Media Studies. I learnt how to add text, how to reverse a clip, how to add effects, how to edit, how to change colour etc. so it would suit the Horror/Thriller genre. I was also the editor of the group, so my skills have increased from doing a lot of tasks in my research and planning (the chase, audience feedback, auditions).


GarageBand was used to help with the creation of the sound for our Trailer. We played around with the software and used it to record glasses filled with water to create an eerie sound which was used in our Trailer.


I have used iShowU to produce prodcasts to show my progression I have made through segments of the A2 year and new skills that I have learnt. I have also used iShowU in my Evaluation to have a more personal show-tell than answering in essay form.


We have used the SLR camera again in A2 year, using it to take the images for my Film Magazine Cover and Film Poster. Because we were familiar and had experience with the SLR cameras from AS year, we were able to choose suitable settings and were more creative with the angles and locations suitable for the Horror/Thriller genre. This made the images look more professional, more focussed and more creative.


I used Photoshop mainly to create my Film Poster and Film Magazine Cover. In A2 year, I was more familiar with the software so I was able to be more experimental due to me having more knowledge from using it in AS year. Both products, the Film Poster and the Film Magazine Cover, were made in half the time I spent making my Music Magazine in AS. I have also learnt more skills, like using the blending options, putting a spotlight on the photo, colour levels etc.


In Research and Planning for the title of our Film, we used Solvr to jot down Film Name ideas and then put the pros and cons of these in. This helped us lead to calling our film 'DISCONNECTED'.

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I have used the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook for Audience Feedback on my work. Examples of this are my actual products (Poster/Magazine Cover), the Production and Distribution Company names, the font for the Magazine masthead etc.


We used a Video Camera to film our groups Trailer. I had a fair bit of knowledge of using the Video Camera from previous work I did in AS Film Studies and my other group members had also used the Video Camera for work they have done. We had the option to use a tripod for filming, however we felt Hand-Held was more appropriate for the Horror/Thriller genre.

Evaluation: Q3- What have you learnt from your Audience Feedback?

Audience Feedback has been a massive input in my development for the products I've made. It has been something we have done since all the way back to pitching the storyline in Research and Planning and the start of the year. Here are the cases where I have used Audience Feedback:

Audience Interviews
Doing the Audience Interviews really helped us to give a definite for what an audience would expect in a Film Trailer. Although at this point in the development we had a different genre we were researching which was changed later in the process, it still helped up develop an idea for what would a person of the target audience's age group would find appealing and what they wouldn't find appealing. These interviews included what sounds they would expect and like to hear, what the pace they would expect, what colours would be used etc.

Questionnaires
We created a questionnaire to hand out across College to gain knowledge of more specific codes and conventions we could use in our trailer. This included whether to use a voice over or not, what locations could be useful and what editing would be expected. Again, this was when the genre of our trailer was going to be Fantasy/Horror which later changed to Horror/Thriller; however it still helped us because codes and conventions from the Horror played major impact into the answers from the audience feedback.

Feedback from the Media Class
After pitching our two ideas to our College Tutor, our 1st pitch which (we were going to be doing) being the Fantasy/Horror and the 2nd being the Thriller/Fantasy, she told us she thought we could be more experimental and use more locations/codes and conventions in doing our back up pitch. To reinforce this, we  asked the class (which were the ages of our target audience) which sounded like the better pitch and the majority vote went with pitch number 2. This obviously helped a lot as it impacted everything for our final products.

Social Network Feedback
I often asked people of the target audience age group for feedback on my work on Twitter or Facebook. This helped me with the name of the Distribution and Production Company names, the name of my Magazine, the font for my Magazine, images used etc.

Overall Progress and Work Class Feedback
Often throughout the year, we each shown our Trailer, our Poster and our Magazine Cover to the class to show our progress so the class could make notes on what they liked, how genre was represented and what could be improved which would be collected in afterwards for feedback. These helped immensely as it got to show what was working well and what tweaks we could make whilst we were still all in the procedure of making the products.

Evaluation: Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Representation of Characters
From all of my 3 pieces of work, I tried to make the focus on the blurring of lines to whether Josh is a hero or a villain. A constant theme through all the three products is Josh looking battered, drugged and weak... yet keeping an eerie and underlying mystery surrounding the character. This portrayal remains throughout, by using the same battered and distressed look in each media product yet creating dark shadows and strong poses suggesting otherwise. This remains the same constant mystery around the character in each media piece.

Good vs. Bad
We can see that in the trailer, Abbie (the main female character) is distressed and looking for Josh and is suspicious but is the only one still searching. She is represented as the good character throughout the trailer. The audience don't see who is bad or 'the villain' as the media products create ambiguity around whether Josh is bad or good and there is also other characters present in the trailer such as Amy (other female character) and Luke (the other male character) which is unknown whether they are good or bad.

Colour/Lighting
The colour and lighting is very dark/low key in all 3 pieces. The Film Magazine Cover is slightly lighter, but this is because of the nature of the magazine which is about the film and the actor; but it still remains eerie and dark. Colours used throughout are Green tinges and Red enhancements of all three products (Green is a theme of the footage of Josh in the Trailer, there is a very slight tint of green on the Film Magazine Cover, the blood red is enhanced on the Film Magazine Cover, Red is common throughout the trailer including the title, Red is a main cover on my Film Poster).

Location
The location is frequent in all three pieces, Josh is inside/near a brick building.

Text
The texts are all relevant throughout and remain similar. The text is different on the Film Magazine Cover, however the colours Red, Black and White relate it back to the Film Poster and Film Trailer. The text for 'DISCONNECTED' is always capitalised and bold.

Evaluation: Q1- USE DEVELOP CHALLENGE for FIlm Magazine

Evaluation: Q1- USE DEVELOP CHALLENGE for Film Poster

Evaluation: Q1- USE DEVELOP CHALLENGE for Film Trailer

Use develop challenge from SamArrandale94