Friday, 4 December 2009
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Directors Comment (Mithun Deb)
The media trailer is based around the story of a psychopath who lives next door to a rebellious girl (April) who doesn’t follow rule in according to her flats society and goes against the rules although she already has had previous warnings. The psychopath has had enough of the constant disturbance and takes action of trying to kill the girl, the police record this murder as ‘April Fall’s.
Video Feedback
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Evaluation and Audience Feedback
Here I will evaulate my trailer that I have produced from everystage of the research to the production based in form of four questions.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
First of all I researched both theatrical and teaser trailers in order to have an understanding of the conventions of both types of trailers. We then compared both trailers and understood the difference between both of them in order to find the clear differences.
In order to make sure that our trailer was a teaser trailer, we followed the conventions in order to make the trailer as proficient as possible with all the right inputs in order for the trailer to be processed accurately which will result in the output being successful. These conventions of a teaser trailer included being 30 – 60 seconds long, they tend to not spoil the story and introduce the character, they tend to have footage that isn’t in the film but is used to tease the audience.
My trailer as a slasher horror challenges conventions of the killer as he doesn’t wear a mask. We decided for our killer not to have a mask as he doesn’t usually go out to make kills but in this case only does it because of her neighbour constantly goes against the rules of her buildings society, and constantly has parties, and does drugs.
By wearing a mask makes the villains scarier, it would also make them far less capable killers, for example, Jason Voorhees, his face and eyes are disfigured to begin with, which already makes him scary to see, but in order to hide his identity he must be covered with a mask. It's amazing he can’t see at all; striking his terrified prey in near darkness with amazing deadly accuracy.
Masking makes the killer look more terrifying; this is to do with psychology and the fear of anonymous death. For many people, the idea of being murdered by an unidentifiable stranger for no reason is more terrifying than being killed by someone you do know, and for some good reason, which a mask does as it hide the killer’s identity.
Another convention that was challenged is our killer isn’t carrying a weapon, where usually in slasher horrors all killers carry some sort of weapon, e.g. Jason Voorhees carry’s a machete or chainsaw, Michael Myers carry’s a knife, as so does Chucky. Their intentions are shown through their weapons that they are here to kill. Our killer is shown this through his imagery with his hench body, tall figure. The sling on his hand outlines that he is a rough character.
The development of conventions that my trailer, film poster, and magazine front cover hold is the typography and all production details are in the right areas, for example, the production details are seen in the trailer, the title appears at the beginning on the trailer, the release date is pointed out, whereas on the film poster the development was seen in all fonts in the right places and the objects needed in order to make it follow the conventions as was the magazine cover.
The development and compliments of conventions are that the killer in this case which is the psychopath is male, and he only goes to attack her as she doesn’t follow basic society rules, this relates to killers reasons to kill, as they kill for a reason but there is a reason for why they do from the past, or present.
The development of conventions was in the voiceover, in our trailer we decided not to add a voiceover we came to this decision after watching several different horror teaser trailers, and seeing in most of them a voiceover isn’t included, this is to create a sense of realism as it has an effect of isolation.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Looking at the different promotional tools that we have created I can immediately tell that it will be appealing to my target market which in this case is both M and F of ages of 15 +, as my promotions are through the most successful platforms which are globalised worldwide, and the most effective for my target market.
Viral marketing is the platform that I have decided to draw my audience attention through mainly; as millions of users have access to the internet with over 90% of them having access to social websites, advertising through social sites such as Facebook will have a huge impact it will raise awareness for the film with a little lack of knowledge, imagery, footage, being shown to the audience which creates a sense of enigma and pushes the audience into wanting to know more. Facebook for example is synergy platform as it can be viewed and accessed from a range of different technologies and forms, e.g. it can be accessed through all different internet browsers as a certain JAVA doesn’t need to be installed in certain internet browsers to have access to it, so it can be accessed on PC, phones, PDA’s mobile devices, etc. Facebook as synergised their corporations as they also have an application for iPod/iPhone and blackberry users can have access to by downloading it for easier use.
An example of this can be seen in the release of The Final Destination where the audience was already set through the previous films so the viral market was already set, so audience don’t need introducing as much to the film.
The combination of my main product and ancillary text is effective because they all link together in sense that they my trailer is in the genre of a slasher horror and I have used a font that foreshadows that, which is a bloody style with blood dripping of the edges of each the letters, we changed this font colour to red and added an embossed effect to give it a 3D effect as I am marketing my film as 3D. We used this font throughout the different types of media that we created from the trailer, poster, to the magazine cover.
Another combination link is the colour of our location matches across all of our different media platforms, this is shown as only mainly two shades of colour is used in the trailer and the marketing campaign. For example the location we used was underground of the school called ‘The Void’ which was dark so we could see much colour so we used only two shades of colour on the pictures of our poster and magazine cover. Also in the trailer we had goring red blood so we made our font bloody and red, so it can connect with that convention.
Overall I thing that the whole process of the trailer and marketing campaign has been successful in promoting my movie as it shows all relevant conventions of these media platforms in which is used to get the audience attracted to the movie.
How was media technologies used in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?
Media technologies were used in every stage of the production from researching to filming the trailer. In the research stage we used these technologies to research into current trailers in order to find commonalities between them and how they are constructed and put together detailed research had to be made in order for my trailer to follow these conventions.
In research stage we had to use the apple website to research current and upcoming released trailers, this will help us know what audience expect by researching them. Another form of research was to compare the difference between a trailer and a teaser trailer as we had to create a teaser trailer and in order to do this we had to spot the difference between the two so we include the conventions of a teaser trailer and not a trailer.
Whereas in the planning stage media technologies were used in order to plan the trailer and construct it to then go out and film. The planning was used with the research in order to get all our conventions right from the trailer to the poster. This included all aspects including the typography, imagery, details, in order to make audience aware that it’s a horror movie.
The next stage was the construction stage which was the major section in order to use different media technologies, as we had to construct the trailer and the marketing campaign. Here I and my group used several media technologies from camera to film, digital camera to take pictures, music, image, and video editing software’s, in order to edit and put our whole project together to come up with our final product.
The technologies that we used allowed the completion of our finished product. Other technologies also had to be used in the construction process in order to run the equipment and for it to carry out other tasks, such as a battery to use on the camcorder to film, a charger/power lead to charge the battery and use the camera when battery has ran out, a IEEE-1394 firewire cable to transfer the footage from the camcorder to the editing software, a USB cable to transfer the pictures from the camera to the PC, a DV tape to record our footage on and a memory card to put into the camera to save our images on.
Finally in the evaluation stage we used blogger to type up and upload our research and planning, final products, and our evaluation. Blogging allows somebody to upload their work and publish it into the World Wide Web database so that other people can have access to it in order to view your work, if work isn’t wanted to be shown to a wide span of random people then a privacy setting can be set in order for only certain people to have access to it.
Another feature of blogger is that the page set up to be published can allow photos and videos; etc to upload onto a single platform, so everything is in one page. Other features include the page being customised to meet the publishers and end users needs; this includes changing the page style, changing the layout of the page, the colour of the page/font, etc. In my case I went on to do a extra and I went onto finding a background from an external site to use on my blog to meet the genre of the movie and my needs. In order to do this I had to edit the HTML and re-code the page in order to get my background on there.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has allowed me have view from other people about what they think of my trailer, this gives an indication on what I need to change and what is good as when giving feedback on a video audience usually outline what is their favourite part and why they like it, with this information from various audience I can look between them and see if anything needs changing, so this information has allowed me to review the quality of my trailer.
Shot factor, shots, and verisimilitude is important in marketing a film. In the trailer we get a slight glimpse of the protagonist, I decided to do this so the full identity of the killer isn’t revealed and his face isn’t seen on the screen more than one time for a fraction of a second, this creates a sense of enigma as the audience question themselves to who is he? This is one of the USP of my movie as the protagonist’s full profile isn’t released and in order to find out whom he is the audience need to go to watch the movie in the cinemas.
Viral Marketing strategies, in this case Facebook; were used to get audience feedback where I have created a page for my film with promotional material such as poster, magazine cover, trailer, which I have uploaded in order to for users to view and comment on. Various users of Facebook and fans of my movie have viewed the page and left their own comments about the movie with all my feedback so far has been really positive, which shows that my trailer has been a success and most of my target market will go to watch the movie if it were to be released in cinema’s.
Other forms of audience feedback that had been carried out were video feedback where I gathered a small amount of people to get their views. This feedback allowed a 1-to-1 interview about the trailer and what makes audience want to go and see the movie when it is released, the areas that are covered in the feedback cover what’s good about the trailer and what not, areas of improvement, and would it be a movie they would like to go and watch in the cinemas when it’s released.
From the audience feedback that I have gathered, it is clear that we have successfully conceived a film that suites our target audience. This is through the comments that were made through our potential target market.
Without audience feedback I would not know what people think of my trailer which will keep me thinking of how many people will actually go to watch the movie if my movie were to be released, so audience feedback allows me to review of what my target market thought of my trailer which gave me an clear indication that my film would be a success.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Problems that Occurred
Problems that occurred I overcame whilst editing our videos was system crashes that I had experienced with the Macintosh computer’s as most of the times when I uploaded the video footage we had captured it would upload and freeze and in some cases crash the software which meant we had to repeatedly download the footage without the system crashing and our footage flowing right, e.g. no freezes, etc.
Another problem that occurred is the production details and title I created using Photoshop wouldn’t upload to iMovie, in order to try and solve this problem I tried saving the image to several formats and uploading it, but this plan didn’t work, so I while trying to upload it to iMovie it comes on the main screen and I had to screen capture it which made the image more fuzzier but allowed me to add it to my video.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Research & Planning
Here I will upload all my Research and Planning I have done in order to develop my knowledge in order to make my trailer I will spit this into differernt sections with thier title's.
Research & Planning - Trailer Analysis
The Goods
• We see the name of the film at the end of the trailer this is because it shows the clips of the film and leaves the names till last as it usually has the release date with it.
• We are told who is starring in the film as it might decide people to watch the movie or not as some people watch the film because of who stars in it.
• We see the best comedy clips of the film, which highlight to the audience it’s going to be comical movie throughout, this clearly indicate the specific audience that who is going to watch the movie.
• The music in the trailer is symphony orchestra which senses seriousness in the film, shows the characters intentions are serious and not a joke, with the mix of comedy, this could be seen as a convention of comedy movies.
• The voiceover has a deep and serious voice, this could be because of the theme of the movie and the intentions of the characters, which shows the movie is a comedy but the actions that are dealt with are serious.
• The trailer show 5 seconds maximum snippets of the best funny bits of the film with the main characters, this is what attracts the viewers to go and see the movie, this doesn’t give away the story line but it allows viewers to have an slight understanding of what the film is about.
• The information that we are given in the last frame of the trailer is the release date in the middle of the frame in white bold writing this is a clear indication of a convention of a trailer. Also on the bottom of the screen we can see other information that can will relates to the film and publicity campaign, under the release date there is the main website to the movie. Other information included in the last frame is the restrictions to the movie where it points out what type of language and imagery there is to point out what audience are restricted to go and watch the movie.
• Trailer is more effective in me wanting to go and see the movie because it allows moving image to be shown in order to get the intentions across and also allows me to see if it’s a movie I would like to go and see by watching small snippets that are put together from the movie.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/thegoods/
The Final Destination
• We are told the name of the film at the end of the trailer, this is because it points out a trailer’s conventions and it is together with the release date.
• The trailer doesn’t say who is starring in the movie this could be due to the actors are new and there isn’t a star system to point out to the audience the specific actors playing the roles in the movie.
• The actions we see in the film are crashes, burning fire, death, shattered action such as glass breaking, etc.
• The music gives us a clue to this trailer being about life and death, this is with the fast pace of the racing cars zooming past, the sharp sounds and the fast drum beats in the music connotes panic and death.
• The is no voiceover in the trailer this is because there are previous sequels of the movie so the movie doesn’t need introducing once again, the dialogue on the trailer outlines the storyline the film this effect gives us a sense of realism.
• The speed of the trailer is fast snippets of the best bits of the movie; this is to only get viewer attentions. Fast pace clips allows viewers to be stuck to their seats as it shows clips from different scenes of the film, whereas from the film they seem longer clips. The clips on the trailer aren’t the same all the way through the film as shorter clips are part of the film, whereas where in the trailer there is dialogue the clips seem to be longer.
• The name of the film and the release date are given in the end of the trailer as well as the films website for the publicity campaign, and the production company that produced the film.
• Trailer is more effective in making me wanting to go and see the movie because it shows small snippets of the film and the combination of imagery and sound is more effective and grabs my attention more.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/thefinaldestination/
Terminator 4
• We are told the name of the film at the end of the trailer; this is because it points out a trailer’s conventions and it indicates together with the release time but doesn’t give a specific date.
• We are told who is starring in the film after we see each of the actors on the screen for the first time, they have done this to show that these are really popular actors and they are in this movie whereas they haven’t been in the last 3 Terminator movies.
• The action we see from the film in the teaser trailer is machinery’s attacking, explosions, and escapes, the actions is shown through the future and as action as they screen is fuzzy to connote that this isn’t the present time, also the fuzziness could connote the final Terminator movie as its fuzzy which shows that the Terminator is terminated.
• The music in the background are dramatic drums this gives us an indication to that this movie is going to be a action adventure based movie, as the drum are loud and carried on repeatedly near the end of the trailer and fades out the fade could connote the end.
• The voiceover of this trailer is the main character himself telling the audience his journey with the terminator, this creates a sense of his journey and realism as he himself is telling the story.
• The speed of the clips in this case really quick in the trailer as there is a lot of action so the fast clips make this more effective with the action of escapes, explosions, and adventure.
• The information we are given in the very last frame of the film is the release time as a specific date isn’t given, and the marketing campaign website which is the films website.
• Trailer is more effective in me wanting to go and see the movie because it allows moving image to be shown in order to get the story of what the movies is about and it also indicated in this case that this could be the last Terminator movie as near the end it says ‘THE END BEGIN’S’ whereas the poster wouldn’t have pointed that out to me.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/large.html
Here I have learnt something which I didn’t realise before about the difference between a trailer and a teaser trailer, which is that trailers come out when the date of the release is nearby and always has the specific date of when the film is to be released whereas a teaser trailer is released more well before the film is planned to be released sometimes even a year or over. I have also learnt that in teaser trailers the footage that gets released isn’t actually part of the film. An example of this which I have seen is Spiderman 3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-r7qymfa0Q
Research & Planning - Todorov’s Narrative Structure
The conventional narrative structure pointed out by Todorov as a rule has five stages though this can be broken down to three stages; a beginning (state of equilibrium), middle (disruption to the equilibrium) and end (reinstate the equilibrium).
Equilibrium – it’s simply just a state of balance, normality in which the characters find themselves at the beginning.
Below is Todorov conventional narrative structure complete with five stages:
Stage 1
Equilibrium – A state of equilibrium is defined.
Stage 2
Problem introduced – Disruption to the equilibrium by some action or crisis.
Stage 3
Recognition of the problem – The Character(s) recognition that there has been a disruption, setting goals to resolve problem.
Stage 4
Conflict – The Character(s) attempt to repair the disruption, obstacles need to be overcome to restore order.
Stage 5
Resolution – Reinstatement to the equilibrium. Situation is resolved, a conclusion is announced.
Research & Planning - Horror Movie Setting - Focus Group
Here I have asked a few of my friends and relatives what they think about horror movies setting and to highlight one of their favourite scene/setting in a horror film.
Me: I’ve always like a good setting locations films in horror films because it gets the mood right for it along with the music. Here are some of my favourite scene settings:
Friday the 13th (1980) - the scene on the lake towards nightfall when Kevin Bacon and his character girlfriend are sitting by the lake and she is telling him about the nightmare dream she had as a kid and then it shows the lake and the skyline going kind of orange, that scene seemed very effective to me.
Halloween 4 - the opening scenes with titles and it shows barns and scarecrows and pumpkins, etc, this scene really sets the setting and time, as soon as the film starts.
What are some of your favourite setting scenes in horror films?
___________________________________________________
Ami: There’s a lot of different setting once you start thinking about them. One of my favourite is "Jaws" the beginning scene swimming in the ocean at night as it challenges’ the conventions of a horror in some sense that ‘Has anyone really swam in the ocean at night for real?’ The only thing you will usually see at night in the water is the open water, sea life, ships/boats, etc. The thought of swimming in the night in really freaks me out.
Hiren: Friday the 13th: Part 6: In the beginning were it gives you that gothic feeling, where the fog goes through the lake and woods with the full moon and with the wolf on the road.
Jennifer: Freddy vs. Jason: At the end where there’s a scene with big clouds and Jason comes out of the water, this has a kind of heavenly feel to it.
Casey: The fall of the House of Usher: In beginning shows view going through the forest with some fog and has a great gothic feeling to it.
Kris: Vamp: when it gets dark and the business lights light up the night gives a good scene shot.
Lara: Near Dark: where the gang walks up a hill in the night to the bar to test Caleb for his last chance. This is where Caleb and Mae walking down the street in the dark and a truck start circling around them.
Kris: A few additions:
28 Days Later: abandoned London, also the fields and ruins.
Shining: the halls, especially the long shot of the hall, empty, then with live twins, then dead twins.
Suspiria: the big open ground where the blind guy gets blind sighted by his dog.
Halloween (1978): although the film was made in California the looks of the small fictional town of Haddonfield was really cool.
Darren: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre: with the sunset in the background as leatherface is spinning around at the end. That's frameable.
I definitely agree about Halloween 4 at the beginning....it’s fantastic.
Ash: One of my favourite scenes is the innocence of Haddonfield streets in the Fall, with Michael Myers A.K.A the shape looming in the scenes.
Northern Iraq in the opening of the Exorcist: in 1973 this scene delivered a whole new, different and seemingly strange culture to the western world enhancing our fears and the feeling of the unknown.
The focus group has lead me to find out what the audience enjoy in a horror scene, or order for it to be effective for the audience, this information will help me out in order to decide my setting and scenery for my movie that I will choose. This information has lead me to find out dark, and isolated areas are the most effective in a horror movie, this is because darkness and isolation combined together lead to a psychological thought of being stranded in an unknown area. This information has lead me for my main location to be in a dark isolated area.
Research & Planning - Conventions of Trailer
A trailer is seen as a mini narrative as is outline the story in a short sequence of shots in order to grab the audience attention to the film in order for them to go and watch it.
In order to grab the audience’s attention it has to select the best bits of the movie to put together in order to give the audience a glimpse of the movie and what is expected in it.
One liner dialogue is usually in the scenes so too much of the film isn’t given away, especially in horrors as actions are important rather than dialogue, in horror trailers in any there is very little dialogue or none at all.
The mask of the killer is used in some sense to create atmosphere/pace/and tempo as the mask is seen as scary and it being on somebody’s face to cover their identity signifies that they are here to commit a sin, so the mask gives the whole trailer its atmosphere as well as the setting, pace as the clips can’t be too short or too long to create a sense of realism.
Showcasing the stars is an important part of a trailer as it brings audience attention as some people might go to watch a film because their favourite actor/actress is starring in it. This also introduces the stars as some people might have not heard of them before and is the first time they are hearing of them.
Highlighting the release date is the most important aspect of a trailer as it points out when the film is releasing in cinemas as without this information the audience wouldn’t know when the film is releasing and wouldn’t know when to go to watch it.
Dramatic camera angles are used to highlight the action and setting, this is used in different shots to connote each shot, for each example when the killer appears in the scene a low angle can be used to show that danger is appearing this angle connotes that he is in power.
Voiceover is used to tell story if the there isn’t as much speech and also if the storyline isn’t clear through the action.
The credits and text show who has been part of the making of the film this is another important aspect of a trailer as this can be another reason for why people might want to go to watch the film for example, the director might be highlighted this could drive people forward to go and watch as they might have seen a previous film made by that director and want to see their upcoming film/s.
Production details highlighted to show which company is behind the budget of the film and to give an brand identity to the films name.
Research & Planning - Title Research
The title research has lead me to see the commonalities in typography of a few well known movies, in this research I have found out that the films which refer to a certain day in the calendar where some sort of bad luck could occur, the font either red or has some sort of shade of red in the font, this could represent in the bad luck and blood, due to our film being on a specific day which is 1st April, we will make our font colour red to follow this commonality. An example of this is shown on Halloween, and Friday the 13th.
Research & Planning - Commonalities of Killers in Slasher Horror
Killers have a lot in common, with their characteristics, looks and archetypal. This is shown through their actions, clothing, and movements. The main characteristic of a killer that is seen in every trailer is they are dirty, a killer is never shown that they are clean, as their clothes are scruffy, and image is demented and unclean in general. Another popular commonalities they have is that the all wear masks in order to hide their identity and make their looks terrifying giving warning that they are about to create a sin. The killers are all seen to have some sort of weapon on them to use to make their kills; popular weapons are seen as guns, knives, machetes, and chainsaws. These killers are seen as they have risen from the dead and seem careless, and have no denial of their own actions.
I have researched into the commonalities that the killers hold in slasher horrors and have learnt several important points that I will highlight out into bullet points to help me with my trailer.
· Personality are masked and hidden this keeping humanity unseen in the killers mind or victim
· Lack or disorientation of human qualities
· Choice of weapons suggest sadistic nature of killer
· Costume codes show lack of awareness of image and convey isolation from society
· Body language suggests overriding resilience and strength
Researching and discovering the points above have helped me to know more about the image that I will need my killer to be in order to match them commonalities.
Research & Planning - Film Publicity
A publicity stunt is another form of advertising a film/star, etc, in order for the public to have notice about the film being publicized. Publicity stunt is another form of advertising rather than the usual posters, interviews, etc. Example of this could be an Inflatable Arnold Schwarzenegger in Leister Square.
The location where publicity stunt will appear are in general places where there are huge volumes of the public, such as busy locations, on general media, where an expected visit is being made by star of related film, e.g. If Arnold Schwarzenegger came to watch the release of his film Terminator in cinema a publicity stunt will be found. A typical stunt is typical ways of advertising a movie in order to get publicity such as posters, celebrity interviews, which persuade you to go and watch a film at your nearest cinema. Publicity stunts are hyped up as they are different forms of publicizing a movie in order to persuade audiences to go and watch it rather than typical stunts.
Merchandising allows to create an identification with the theme of the film or the key marketing directions. They are known as ‘nifty bribes’ that companies use for competition to promote the latest blockbuster. They use this method to make the brand identity to stand out as much as possible.
A blockbuster movie denotes a very popular and successful production. An example of a blockbuster movie is Batman: The Dark Knight this is the biggest blockbuster of 2008 with it being one of the biggest selling movies on cinemas. Film companies will benefit from the success of a blockbuster as the director and stars will have more recognition, so next film a consumer watches could be because of the success of the directors/stars last film. But the biggest benefit is from the profits they make from blockbusters could exceed more than 50% at what other films can make from profits.
Taglines are very important in selling a movie as they outline the genre of the movie and its outlines what the movie is about in a very short line in the form of a tag. For example the movie ‘Halloween’ has the tagline ‘The trick is to stay alive’ this tagline indicates to us that it’s a horror, and there will be a lot of blood and gore. The tagline is a driven point to audiences going to watch a movie.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Storyboarding
Here is the storyboarding we did as a group to decide the shot that we needed in our trailer, you will find that we have slightly changed some the frames around, this was done during the editing process as some shots went well together with others so we changed them around a bit.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Stages of Production
The first stage of the process of making our horror trailer I am my group had to sit down and decide what we are going to do for our trailer, in order to do this we had to find out the decide the basis of our story and according to that we had to write up a synopsis to describe what the film is about in a short structure to get the audience attracted to the movie by reading the synopsis, this has to be descriptive and give a brief outline to the movie in order to attract audience.
In order to decide what our story is going to be about me and my group gathered several ideas and chose the best one to go along with, according to this we then had to draw up a storyboard for the trailer according to the shots we are going to shoot for the trailer. This storyboard highlights what props we will need for each shot, the setting/location, which characters are in what shot, and the editing sequence. With the storyboard highlighting this information this makes it easier for the filming and editing process afterwards as the information is already there for us to follow. Storyboarding made our filming process more easier as we didn’t have to made decisions while filming but our storyboard acted as a guide to show us what to do from beforehand planning which made it much more easier than if we didn’t, for example: it would of been like going somewhere where you don’t know, whereas if you have planned it out before you would have a checked on a map how to get there.
The stage after storyboarding was to go out and film the trailer; here we had to shoot all of our video footage several time so that we can get several shots of the same footage encase there is something wrong with any of the other footage and also so we can select the best footage to go in the trailer. For the setting of our trailer we found a dark place under the school also known as ‘The Void’ that we decided to shoot our trailer. In order to shoot there we had to give a advance notice to the staff and a date and a time to when we want to shoot as we needed to be supervised for health and safety reasons.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
During the filming process there was a few downs, this was due to filming in ‘The Void’ there was a lot of rubbish including old planks of woods, electrical, boxes, PC monitors, etc, down there so we had to be careful of what and where we were going as it was very big with loads of different rooms. Our filming was difficult to process as the floor wasn’t all lined and was made of mud gone hard so it was all lumpy. Because of the amount of rubbish it made some of our shot more difficult to film (e.g. escaping shots) than it already was as it would get in the way and made the room darker, so the lighting would make the room darker than it already was, as we only had the limited lighting that was already down there.
After filming the trailer we had to upload the footage straight onto the editing software (iMovie) that we needed to use to edit the video. Here after we uploaded the footage we had to go through it and check if we were satisfied with it and if there were any problems with footage such as pixilation. In some cases these problems occurred and in order to fix them we had to go out and film those shots again until the problem was resolved.
After uploading all of our footage we had to find the shots we need for the trailer and delete all the unwanted shots that we don’t need, this will eliminate all the unwanted shots so it was easier to know what I was working with. I then had to start arranging the shots in order of the storyboard and trimming them down to size so each shot was quick in order to keep the audience interested and engaged.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
These shots will have to be able to flow as a short story by putting the shots in order and cutting them down with the best bits of each shot to keep the audiences interest still intact with the trailer being within 30 – 60 seconds frame.
After cutting down the footage for the first time I was engaged to the process of and managed to cut down 6 minutes of footage down to 1:20 minutes which was a huge step as it was hard to choose which clips to keep and which not to, as to film it took careful consideration and planning and to cut it down seemed hard as we have filmed it several times to get the footage right. Getting the footage down to 1:20 minutes was a good start but as it’s a teaser trailer we are filming for it had to be between 30 – 60 seconds in order to flow with the convention a teaser trailer.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Marketing Campaign - Magazine Cover
Using Adobe Photoshop, me and my group members uploaded the image that we have taken for our magazine and started to adjust the brightness in order to make it darker as it was quiet bright when we took the picture, adjusting the brightness to a lower level gave us a more darker scenery to create a scary and mysterious setting.
We then went onto editing the actual image; here we added blurs to blur out some of the background as it gives the feeling of enigma and the feeling of a horror theme as you don’t know what’s going on the background, this connects to our trailer as the psychopath follows the girl without her knowing in order to get his revenge.
We then adjusted the hue/saturation to adjust the colour we decided to do this and make the image into one main colour and a brighter colour to show the image and to create realism. The two colour tone image we have gone for also connects to our trailer as our main setting is in ‘The Void’ and there aren’t many things there which means there is hardly any colour, its mainly dark so there is a main shade (in this case black of the darkness) then a lighter colour to highlight the other props in the room.
Later on after we have finished editing the image we added all the features and information needed for the magazine this included all the titles of what’s included in the magazine, the release date, issue number, and a barcode, to highlight the conventions of a magazine.
After we had finished designing and implementing the magazine we had to make an initial decision on how much the magazine should be priced according to other film magazines, after careful consideration we decided to price the magazine with a competitive and physiological pricing strategy at £2.59, as this the prices would compete with other similar magazines.
- Magazine Cover -
- Flat Plan -
Marketing Campaign - Poster
Another part of our trailer we were told to create a film poster for our marketing campaign in order to market our movie and raise awareness for our upcoming movie. In order to create the poster we had to go through the same stages of what how we created the magazine cover, first of all we had flat plan our idea, this flat plan includes information such as the picture that we were going to use, the information that we are going to include on it (in this case the stars that are starring in the movie and production company).
Using Adobe Photoshop, me and my group uploaded the picture that we wanted to use and started editing it according to what we decided in the flat plan. First of all just like on the magazine cover we got the image and adjusted the brightness to a low level to give the picture less light, and give the picture a dark scenery which will give the basic look of a horror poster with the dark shades of colours. We then immediately started editing the image, just like on the magazine we adjusted the hue/saturation to give the picture two colours as it reflects to our actual trailer which has only a few colours in the setting as it’s in an isolated area. We also added a blur to some the background of the poster as it has an effect of that what’s going on around you isn’t always noticeable, this relates to a main theme of our movie as April doesn’t know that a psychopath lives next door to her and that he is out there to get his revenge.
We then created our title to go on the poster, to do this we didn’t use Adobe Photoshop as there aren’t many selections of fonts so instead we used a external site to create our font as they have a huge database full of different types of fonts which can be downloaded and used with Photoshop to create the title wanted with the selected downloaded font and then edited.
After doing the font we repeated the same stage for all the rest of the information on the page such as release date, production details, stars information, and the tagline.
This poster will allow the film to be marketed to the public by raising awareness of the film is to come, to market the movie to as many people as possible.
- Flat Plan -
Here above you can see the origional flat plan we did for our poster, we changed the poster completely as we decided of a better image framing which will be more effective to our movie.
Marketing Campaign - Facbook Page
I have created a Facebook page for my film ‘April Fall’s’ in order to raise awareness in order to get people noticing through a popular viral marketing method. Viral marketing is now the leader in advertising in order to raise awareness, with technology growing fast nowadays and people having more online interactions with own accounts to several socialising sites, e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.
I have chosen to create a page on Facebook for my film as it’s one of the most famous socialising sites in the world with over 300 million registered users, with users spending more than 8 million minutes that are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide).
http://www.facebook.com/pages/April-Falls/181290319711?ref=ts
Soundtrack
- music I created with the sound editing software was changed -The music production took place using Adobe Photoshop 3.0, records the music and adds layered effects, mix, and compile and edit the soundtrack. The music was recorded through a keyboard which connected to an output port on my PC which fed through the sound in order for it to interact with the software and record the sound.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Other Skills that I Developed
Other skill that I learnt were remembering and re-learning how to use shortcuts on the Mac computer, as I already knew how to use shortcuts but as I didn’t use them for a long period of time forgot. In my case I needed to re-learn these shortcuts as I tend to use a lot of shortcuts instead of using the cursor. I have stated below some of the basic shortcuts that I have learnt how to use on a Mac:
Description Keyboard shortcut
Empty Trash Shift-Command-Delete
Open Command - O
Save Command - S
Print Command - P
Undo Command - Z
Cut Command - X
Copy Command - C
Paste Command - V
Overall I am happy with my trailer that I have created as it required a lot of hard work with planning being the aspect of success, me and my group did have a few problems through the process of filming the trailer but by being well planned and organised we got through ok in the end as we knew what we were doing.
