Final Products

The trailer...

My magazine front cover...

My film poster...

Evaluation Question 4: How did you used media techonologies in the construction & research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction & research, planning and evaluation stages?

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Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from audience feedback? your feedback?

Audience feedback has played a huge part within the production stages of my project, as through this I have been able to see how an audience would react to it, and adjust it accordingly along the way.

Audience feedback has probably been the most vital during early stages of filming the footage for my trailer. Originally my trailer was going to be of the Mystery thriller genre, and the storyline was about someone who'd had their identity stolen. After filming my initial practise footage, I was extremely unhappy with how it had turned out. After showing to some people I considered as my target audience, I was able to use their feedback in order to move on. Some suggested that using similar shots to those I already had, but changing the genre and storyline. So from there I changed the genre from Mystery Thriller to Social Realism/Drama, and I developed the storyline to fit the new genre. The new storyline became about a boy living in a modern society, which has let him down and he has lost his way, becoming alone with no-one to help him.

Throughout production of the trailer, audience feedback has been helpful. Due to working on the trailer, I may have missed out errors within my work. So therefore, having my target audience give me feedback along the way, I have been able to adjust my work accordingly, getting the best result.

Similarly, with the production of my ancillary products, feedback has been important as it ensures that the target audience will be pleased with the final products. Particularly within the production of my film poster, the feedback I received from the first poster I produced was positive however a few suggestions were made. These suggestions, made by my target audience, led to me producing a second poster which ended up being the final product as it was the preferred poster. If I hadn't have received this particular feedback, I wouldn't have gotten such positive feedback from my final products.

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Click on the images, this will take you to flickr where the images have been annotated.

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms & conventions of real media products?

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

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Here is a presentation I recently did looking at the exam work, however it focuses of different conventions and elements featured within my trailer, such as representation, so it will help to awnser this question.

My trailer and...

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Feedback

My main source of feedback has been verbal throughout the production stages of this product, however so that I could see what my target audience thought of my final products I have set up a facebook (social networking site) group so that people can see and comment on the final trailer, poster and front cover. I added people to the group who I believe to be my target audience, and although those who I know will give me constructive criticism.

Generally, the feedback I received was brillliant which I was extremely happy with. Those who left feedback generally left detailed comments of what they thought, and seemed to be honest, which I greatly appreciated!

Here are some of the comments in more detail...

Trailer feedback:

Interpreting feedback: I was extremely happy with the feedback I got for my trailer. Generally, it was said that the transitions were smooth, the shots were well thought out, and the trailer is emotional due to the expressions of the main character. It was said that it gave a vague idea of the storyline, however didn't give much away creating suspense. General criticisms made were that some of the beginning shots were a little shakey, and that the music didn't come in too smoothly at one point. However, overall really good feedback.

Poster feedback:

Interpreting the feedback: Again, generally awesome feedback! Good points that have been picked up on have been the use of the blur effect used on the image, how professional it looks, and how they can be linked to the other products. Things picked up on for improvement are how some of the text bleeds into the background colour and the use of the stars at the top of the poster.

Magazine feedback:

Interpreting the feedback: Yet again, brilliant feedback. Good things that have been picked up are the impact of the image and how it fits in with the Little White Lies theme, however there was more things that were said to need improvement. One thing that was picked up on was that it seemed a little empty and that the logo seems a bit "lost", which could've been helped with a background image or colour.

Overall, I am really please with the feedback recieved on my final products!

Finished Products!

And here are the final products...

The trailer (Please watch the trailer in HD)

The magazine front cover...

The film poster...

Which film poster?

Music

Once I had roughly put my trailer together, I needed to add a soundtrack to go along with. I knew before I started work on the soundtrack, the kind of sound I was aiming for, which is slow moving, minimal piano track. Soundtrack pro is the programme I used to compose my soundtrack, as it has over 5000 loyalty free loops and sound effects

available.

Here is the browser featured in Soundtrack Pro, which is used to find loops. Because I already knew what kind of music I wanted, I used the search tabs of the browser and simply typed in piano. It came up with hundreds of loops, and i worked my way through until I found some that I like.

Once I have found some that I like I click and dragged them across to the main window of the programme. Instead of editing them together in Soundtrack Pro, I saved each loop as an individual file and dropped them into Final Cut Express which is the programme I used to edit the film together.

Once placed into Final Cut, I was able to fade the loops in and out using the basic keyframing tool.

Film poster 2

After receiving feedback on my film poster, I've had some suggestions on alterations. A general comment made was that there is too much white on the page, and some have suggested trying to recreate the poster with the picture in the entirety of the background. I took this feedback into consideration and made a second poster....

Construction of film poster

This was the first stage of my poster where I'd edited the image with a blur and a black and white filter, then erased part of the image to create the white stripes along the top and bottom of the image. Then I used the chosen font Cicle to place the film name onto the poster. I'm generally happy with this and the placing of the title.

Here is the second draft where I have added some extra text at the top of the poster, featuring the production house which is seen in a lot of film posters. I have also added in an "award" the film has won. I am unsure of the placing of this two new features.

I decided against including the production house as the poster seem a little bottom heavy. I have added some text around the title of the film, however it is grey so the title still stands out against it.This is the final version of the poster. I decided to move the award to the top of the poster to balance it out, and included reviews either side to maintain a balance. I also added a credit block to the bottom as this is featured in a lot of film posters.

Composing the magazine Front Cover

Once I had chosen the particular effect to use of my chosen image in photoshop, I positioned it how I thought it would look best, however the decision wasn't final.

I then went about getting the Little White Lies logo into photoshop and onto the image. I did this buy importing a previous issue of Little White Lies into photoshop and used the select tool to cut the logo out and transferred it to my own work.

Once I had done this, I needed to add in my anchorage text. I wanted there to be a link between the products, which I originally planned to be a black and white theme. However, the final edited image featured colour. Therefore I used the same font featured on the inter titles in my trailer for my anchorage text.

After placing the anchorage text onto the image, I felt it was a bit too empty. In some of the earlier issues of Little White Lies, the front page consisted of a Featured section. I have decided to place one on my front cover so that the front page doesn't seem too plain.

And here is the final thing!

Intertitles development

Here is a video of the inter titles with the first font I had chosen, which I went on to decide I was unhappy with the font I'd chosen.

I'd used LiveType to create the inter title, and added a "fade in" and "fade out" effect. I decided this effect wasn't quite what I was looking for, however wasn't sure how to create the effect I desired.

Here is the second intertile I made. It was with the same font as the first, however it had no added effect to it. I created this as I was experimenting with the positioning of the text.

Again, I was unhappy with the font I'd used. So I went on a hunt for another font that I was more happy with...

This is the final inter title, and one that will be used within my trailer. This inter title features the final font I chose, which I am very happy with.

As you can see from the clip, there are no effects added to the original inter title file which means it looks blank. However, once placing it in Final Cut Express, I was able to use a tool within that programme to create the effect I desired.

Here is a screen shot of what I did to the intertitle to create the effect I wanted, of the writing dissolving in and out of the shot. I used the "keyframing" tool, which adjusts the opacity of the clip which resulted in exactly what I was aiming for.

Film Magazine - Possible edits for images

After experimenting with different effects within Photoshop, I have printscreened a few that I think give the image an artisitc flair, seen in magazines like Little White Lies. Here is a slideshow of the different edits that I think work well...

Create your own slideshow

Film Magazine Images

I took several pictures during a photoshoot with my main character for my film magazine front cover. Here are some of the best images...

Once I had decided what picture I wanted to used, I edited it slightly with the blemish remover in photoshop and adjusted the levels...

Now the image was ready to edit further...

Film Magazine Planning

After looking at a few front covers of my chosen magazine, Little White Lies, I have come up with a roughly sketched plan for my front cover.

Film Magazine Research

When looking into what movie magazine to use to feature my own film in my ancillary products, I tried to steer away from mainstream film magazines such as Total Film magazine, and Empire magazine. I wanted to find a magazine which featured more independent films. I came across Sight and Sound magazine which focuses a lot of the directors of films, however it wasn't what I was looking for. Then I came across the magazine Little White Lies. Little White Lies is an independent film magazine, that also features illustration, and photography that is related to cinema. As the footage featured in my film is quite artistically thought about, I thought that this magazine would be suitable to use within my ancillary products.

Generally the layout of the front cover is generally the same, the only thing that changes with each new issue is the image and the text and font featured. The image featured on the front cover is possibly the most important part of the page. This image is always an illustration of the main character of the feature film, and this image portrays to possible readers what type of magazine Little White Lies is.

Here is a close look at the front cover of the This Is England edition of Little White Lies. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Here is a powerpoint presentation looking at another of Little White Lies magazine front covers.

Little White Lies Front Cover Analysis

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STEEL TONGS!!

I have come across the font called "steel tongs" which is used within film posters for the credit blocks. I have downloaded and I am considering using it within my own film poster which is currently being produced.

Making a start on my film poster...

Whilst filming, there was a particular shot that inspired my plans for my poster, so I took a photo of this to remind me. This turned out to be quite a good quality shot so I drew up a rough plan of what I wanted my film poster to look like.

I started editing it today, and after finding a font I like and that I think is suitable for my particular genre, I have been able to add a bit of text also.

Here is my first go...

I cropped the image so that there is a white strip along the top and the bottom, giving a bit of individuality compared to other film posters. I then added a black and white layer, tampered with brightness and contrast, and then added a blur. I then removed the blur slightly around the silhouette of the main character so that your focus is drawn to that part of the image. I then added the title of my film to the part of the image I want to put it, to see how it looks.

I am very happy with how this is looking so far as I have achieved the look I was aiming for.

Change in font

After producing a few titles in the font I chose, (see earlier post) I have decided to look for another font to use and I'm not completely happy with it. I found that the font I was using, Ubahn, was overly simple. I still want to use a simple font, but I would like it to be recognisable to those watching the trailer.

I have a found a few more fonts, including;

This font called "Fragment Core" is still simple, but has more of a recognisable edge to it. However it is still not the kind of font I'm looking for...

I then finally came across a font called 'Cicle'...

I have chosen this font as the one I will use for my intertitles and most probably my ancillary products as well so that I have a running similarity through out all of the products.

I like this font as it is simple, however has a certain individual edge to it. Another reason why I chose this font, is that there are three

different types creating a variety within the font...

NEW target audience

Now that the genre of my film change has taken a drastic turn from originally planned, the audience demographic has changed alongside it.

Due to the storyline being about the youth of today, it may attract a younger urban audience, particular teenagers. This is due to the fact that the film deals with issues that are found amongst the younger generation of modern times.

However, I believe the main will not be of a typical age. It will attract people that go to see films for the producer, rather than going to watch action packed hollywood films.

Editing has begun

I have started editing my footage together using Final Cut Express, which I haven't had much experience with in the past. Progress is slowly but surely coming, and I have managed to edited some of my main footage for the trailer with filters and different transitions.

Font for titles

The process for choosing the font for my titles used in the trailer has been relatively easy. I used the ever useful
website DaFont which is an archive of fonts free to download. I knew I wanted to use a simply sans serif font as that fits the typical conventions of a trailer for a film of the social realism genre. After looking through the Sans Serif category, I came across a few that I had to choose from. They were;

I finally decided on using the font called UBahn, as I think this is the most simplistic and straightforward of the three I chose. The other two seemed over "fancy" for the gritty social realism film trailer I want to put together.