Finished

"Ahh, It feels good to have finished this blog..." :)

Evaluation Question 1

The Media Product what I have created uses typical trailer forms to make it more realistic and believable as a film trailer. I have used forms from typical trailers, and challenged some to create the best trailer I can. In a typical Teaser Trailer. A lot of them match the soundtrack with the moving image, for example, every time the soundtrack would make a louder noise, such as a kick drum, something would happen in the moving image, like a change of scene etc. I have used this form and also challenged it at the same time. For example at the beginning of the trailer, there are 6 loud bangs which occur at recurring times, I used this to my advantage to make the moving image change each time the soundtrack made the bang. I used this because I felt that it gave the trailer a more realistic side to it, as opposed to a few moving images and a bit of music. I feel that it gave the trailer more depth. This went on for all 6 of the bangs, and after those the soundtrack made a graduating rise in pitch until it peaked and came down again, I used this noise in the soundtrack to advantage to open the vault to. I took advantage of this rise in pitch to give the trailer a lot more suspense, as the bank vault was revealed. I think this was a very effective feature to add to the trailer and that it really fits in well to the genre. It was very successful among views as a lot of the feedback was all positive especially about the soundtrack and moving image combination. This is expanded and challenged from typical forms of trailers, as a lot of them don’t utilise this feature, and those that do, don’t do it for so long, which is why I carefully chose the soundtrack to my film, to add more suspense.

The camera shots of this particular scene are constantly changing, since the camera doesn’t move but the character does, the trailer gets a variety of different shot types. Mainly starting from extreme close up to a long shot. The characters back starts basically attached to the camera and moving away from it, this was to make the audience feel close to the character but then he grew distant, which in the story of my trailer is what happened to the character. He was once known by people but then turns to wrong and does terrible things. This is not actually shown in the trailer but the audience did say they felt close but then distant to the character. This is what I believe makes the scene very successful with the audience and defiantly developed on known relations in trailers.

My Trailer also challenges the use of transitions typically used in trailers. The normal kind of transition would just be a straight cut to a different scene. Where I have used these in my trailer, I have mainly utilised the use of fades to slow the speed of the trailer down, I did this on purpose as I didn’t want the trailer to seem fully action packed, where as if this was a full film it would be, I didn’t want to give that away in the trailer. The fades slow this down but with the attributes of the Trailer, (The Gun, The hidden identities etc.), give the feeling that the full trailer would have action involved. This defiantly challenges typical trailers as most of the action film trailers are action packed. I think this was a very successful idea to utilise in my trailer as it really did give off the slower side to the action genre, more of a build up than anything, to get the audience excited for the actually full film where, because of the trailer, people would expect action.

The way I keep all the identities of the characters a secret was also a convention used in my trailer, however it is not normally common to see this in actual film trailers, I feel that my work defiantly challenges this and changes it by not giving absolutely anything away until the news scene. Then the audience discovers that the character at the beginning of the trailer is the psychopath and that he has escaped. I think that, to keep the audience guessing, not telling them the identity sooner was a good move, it was very successful to me, and to the people I showed it to as they were all puzzled as to who the characters were and the feedback from them was discussions about who it could be, what he has done, why he has done it, etc. The vigilantes identity himself is also kept secret, but you do see that he is quite built up, owns a gun and is white, Caucasian. The way that the gun is shown kept my audiences guessing, wondering how he still owns a gun, but at the same time they were aware that he was the vigilante. I feel then, that the effectiveness of keeping identities sealed is a great choice as it gets all of your audience guessing and discussing about your trailer. I feel that this was a good move to challenge, it was risky to make, however I think it did work out.

The news scene is a very different approach to common film trailers, yes they are sometimes used to tell the audience what is happening in the film, but not greatly common. The way I used the news scene to tell the audience was shown by the vigilante watching it on his TV, I think this was a great way to get the information across to the audience, it was a deliberate move to make one of the characters watch the same thing as the audience of the trailer as it showed that the vigilante was also unaware of what was happening and that he found out at the exact same time as the audience. I did the news scene to tell the audience that the first character was a psychopath and to explain the situation of what was going off in the trailer. I think it was a very effective move to make so that the audience wasn’t in total confusion about the film. It was successful as a version of the trailer without the news scene was extremely confusing to the audience and nobody knew what was happening, and the version which does have the news scene (the finished version) people were aware of what was happening. This scene also actually takes advantage of a real media product, this being Green Screen. The whole news scene was filmed in front of a green screen to give the effect of the reader being in a actual news studio instead of just sitting at a desk at a local venue, this gave the effect to people that I actually went to a news studio to film the scene, people did find it very believable and that scene was especially praised. Overall I feel that this scene was a complete success and defiantly both used real media products but also challenged it to a degree with the character also watching the scene.

The revealing of the bank vault screen was a small green screen project to see how effective portable/ self-made green screens were. To create the scene I used a double door in my school and put up huge sheets of bright green paper, stuck the to the door way and there it was, a green screen. I wanted to use this, as I couldn’t get to use a real bank vault, however the feedback from it was great. People really liked the idea of using this and many people including myself were pleased with it. I feel that it was very effective to the trailer; if the scene weren’t there the trailer would make no sense what so ever apart from a psycho escaping. I made the character look like he was about to rob the vault, hence the slow reveal of the vault, I slowed down the clip so the audience could gather as much information from the scene at the time it was shown. I think that this uses the form of green screen to a good standard, and slightly develops it since that all green screen work doesn’t have to be faked and that a lot of the scene can be real. Overall this short scene was very successful in the trailer as it made the trailer what it is and showed the audience what was happening.

In the news scene its self there were shots of the vigilant while the reporter was still talking. This defiantly uses forms from real trailers as to have one person talking while another thing is happening is very common. I feel that basically making the audience multi-task whist watching my trailer was a good move, since they had to listen to the reporter and what she was saying whist also watching the vigilante prepare himself. I did this because I felt that it would keep the audience defiantly hooked onto the trailer and not let their minds wander off whist it was playing. I feel that it was very a successful convention to use in my trailer, because while people watched my trailer I noted in my head their reactions to certain scenes, and at the news scene the audience were very much concentrating to grasp what was happening since there were two things at once. This is something what happens in a lot of real media products as they always have a lot of information to share with the audience, so they take the form of making the audience multi-task, this is why I feel that it was a successful more to make.

The scene in which the Vigilante is loading the gun is a very stretched out scene with a disruption of the actors name half way through it. The scene in which we meet the vigilante is the news scene, where we see his hand clenching a fist; this defiantly showed that the character was mad at the news and what had happened. This was intentional to show this as it gave off the effect to audiences who watched it that he was certain he was to do something about it. Continuing on the scene, the trailer shows extreme close ups of the character preparing his gun. This was a convention which is used in a lot of real media trailers, it is to show what the character is preparing to do and gives the idea off to the audience the he wont be doing his duty kindly. The audience does receive the message that he is going out to do something that the real law cannot, paired with the scene of the vigilante clenching his fist and showing anger, gives off the effect of him annoyed at the law for not already stopping the psychopath. This was very successful with the audience as discussions told that they could tell the vigilante knew what he was doing, and wanted to get the laws job done as soon as possible.

The following scene to the gun loading, which is also apart of the vigilante preparing for his duty, is the very short scene of him putting a jacket on and concealing the gun in the inside pocket. This scene is shot from medium distance but low enough to not reveal whom the vigilante is. The short scene was shot a few times each with different jackets, which had been carefully selected just for the one shot. The different jacket scenes defiantly challenged the conventions of real trailers, however the final choice, which is seen by the audience, was the leather jacket. This was chosen to fit in and use typical forms of vigilante/ buff characters in films and the jacket gave that effect of more of a scary character. This went down successfully with the audiences who were shown the trailer as they felt more intimidated by the character in a leather jacket as compared to some of the others. They saw the character more ‘Bad-ass’ in the leather jacket and that they knew that he knew what he was doing and preparing himself for. The choice for the leather jacket was easily chosen above the others as it fit in more with the genre of the trailer.

The final image shown in the trailer defiantly, Uses, Challenges and Develops how the ending of trailers are portrayed by still, by the end of the trailer not giving any more information about the film. Apart from the date. That is the only information given after trailer is shown. This is the same as my website, which also doesn’t give any information about the film. I did this intentionally so that the audiences could discuss what they think the film is about and what the story to it is. This again, ties in with the poster for the film which I made; the poster is very simple and uses forms of other film posters and slightly challenges them, as most film trailer posters usually have such as a tag line to it, so people can discuss from it, however with mine, there is nothing but the name, the date and the small text at the bottom. This is a very minimalistic poster for a film, and as a package, barley anything is revealed. The website I also created matches the forms of other websites as it is very minimalistic and it pairs with my trailer and poster, being very minimalist and not revealing any other information other than that what is in the trailer.

My website overall is very effective on the audiences who have been on the site. Feedback was very good as it was seen as a very real media product on its own and ever better in the media package. The site is simple but effective. It works as a site with my trailer in the middle and uses typical conventions of trailer websites with small text at the bottom, name of the movie and notifications to other sites, in my case, the movie has a page on the social networking site of ‘people-book’ this was also taken very well with the media package from the audiences. The movie poster I created also received good feedback but however it develops on the typical poster formats as it doesn’t have any catch lines or anything which could give any more information out about the film which wasn’t already in the trailer. It does however have a date on it which is the film’s final release date. I did this to keep the audiences who see the package of trailer, website and Poster guessing at all times, and create discussions with each other to really hype up the movie before its final release date. This was overall very successful and I think it works greatly.

Evaluation Question 2

My full Media Project as a whole is a very effective combination of all, Trailer, Poster and Website; I have received great feedback from audiences which did help to improve the project as a whole. Some of the main reasons that my project is affective as a whole is that it all has the same theme to it, this being; dark and unrevealing.

I think that this works as a package as it keeps the genre to its name. Keeping the projects secrets to myself, the creator I think was a great choice to make as when I hear the feedback from what people have to say about it, it really makes me think that I have been successful with my project as many people who I showed my project as a whole to were discussing their views and ideas for quite some time to trade information with each other and to hear each other’s opinions.

I think that the effectiveness of my Main product paired with the ancillary texts is very effective as the trailer is rather much of a dark trailer and doesn’t reveal much information as to what is going on, this is similar to the website as the website has no links to other pages, no information about story and the only text on there is that of the small text at the bottom of the page. This was intentional to keep to the guidelines I set myself which was to not reveal absolutely anything about my project other than what was stated in my film trailer. The reason for not having links to any other pages was that I could really add anything else to the site without breaking my rule of no revealing, I could of added behind the scenes photos however if I did this the identities of the characters would have been revealed thus breaking the rule which I set.

I feel that if I did add extras to my site it would of broken how people saw the trailer and ruined it for the audience, such as if the audience saw the faces of the actors themselves in the ‘behind the scenes’ section of the website, I feel that this would of ruined the experience for them, hence why I didn’t add the said feature.

I also think the same for the Poster, I was advised that adding the face of one of either the Vigilante or the psychopath to the front of the poster would have been a good idea, however I disagreed because I thought that this would ruin the effectiveness of suspense, same as the website, I thought this would ruin the experience for the viewers, which, from some of the audience, they agreed. Overall I think that my project as a whole was very successful, and that it fit the target audience greatly. Keeping the entire project secretive, this kept the genre of a mystery action true to the film.

To improve next time, I would do a number of things, including, spend more time on the project to make it as good as possible, I would Add more special effects to the trailer, I would listen even more to audience feedback, and, Create a more in-depth website.

Evaluation Question 3

From all of my overall audience’s feedback, I have received a great amount which really helped to shape my trailer, website and poster. With showing my idea and describing my idea to potential audiences I used the feedback which was given to really create the film trailer. I had in mind the Encoding and decoding theory but I challenged it and used it to my advantage, to do this, I basically changed sections of my film trailer before it was created so that people could better understand it. For example, originally I didn’t have the idea to show that the vigilante had a gun, but from audience feedback this was put into the film trailer. This was because the feedback I received showed that not a great amount of people understood who the character was when he was just originally clenching his fist and standing to put a jacket on. Still with the edit to show the character owning a gun and loading it, I did receive some feedback saying that they though he was the psycho as well, but the mass majority of people did understand the trailer. I think that using audience feedback to shape the product which I have created is an excellent idea to take into mind for any projects as it really does help.

Since I used the Encoding and decoding theory to shape the trailer to the audience’s knowledge on vigilantism, it was also used on the reveal of the bank scene. Originally the scene was going to cut off at the doors being closed so that the audience couldn’t see what was behind the doors. This was going to be used to create massive suspense and leave the audience on a cliff hanger. However with audience feedback it was decided to have it so that the trailer did show the bank vault. I think this is a very effective way of learning from audience feedback, I feel that it is defiantly something to use and I have learned a lot from audiences views.

Overall I have learned to always gather audiences views and opinions on projects before actually starting them, since so many scenes from the original draft have been changed, it showed me that listening to other peoples feedback is a major thing in the creating of something like my media package. After all I was creating something for targeted audiences so I feel that it is better to make something what suits their own needs and understandings rather than to my own. Learning about the encoding and decoding theory of media really did take toll on a big part of my trailer as it was used to gather feedback and edit the package to their own liking.

However I have also learned from audience feedback that it is not always the best way to edit your projects as I was told in some feedback that the poster should reveal more about the film, give an insight on to who the psycho is and the vigilante, however I did not go along with this as I wanted to still keep it all to the original idea which was to make the trailer as unknowing as possible and keep everything hidden from the audience to create definite suspense.

Evaluation Question 4

I used Media Technologies in the construction and research stages of my media project in many ways, to create my actual media project, I started with the research mainly, and this was done with the internet to start, and knowledge from my previous Media School Lessons. The internet was used in many ways, from using different websites to gather information and reading blogs which was about different theories and how to succeed in trailer and project creation. The technology I used was a Dual Core iMac and a Dell Vostro 200s for the internet research, at one point I also used my iPhone to get information from sites which were blocked at school. I did this as the website, I knew had information what I could use towards my project and that it would help me, so I had to get access to the site.

I think that the internet was a great success to helping me with my research task, I got really far with it and it helped me greatly.

Next were the Construction and production stages, for this I used different technologies, however some the same, this being the Dual core iMac, to produce my film I used the Final Cut express video editing software. This was very successful in editing my trailer as it had every feature I needed to use and was very easy to navigate. I think that the iMac was a very successful approach to editing my trailer as it was the easiest and most efficient way to get my project finished on time and to a highest standard on which it works. The iMac is also a very great way to edit moving images as they are dual core, this made the editing and rendering stages very fast to complete. I used this in such a way that I wouldn’t fall behind in my work and that it would be done to such a standard that it met the criteria of the project and the likability of the target audience who watched it.

Other things used in the construction and production stages of the filming also includes a Tripod which was used to elevate the camera to a suitable height what gave the audience the best view to see what is going on in scenes. I think that the tripod was a very successful way to get the best moving image from the camera from the correct heights and angles. Another useful thing what I used was the camera itself. This was a Canon HV30 HDV Digital camcorder. This is one of the best cameras what my school has to offer so I chose this since it was very simple to use and gave good standard quality video. I feel that this was a great choice of camera to use for my filming as the overall finished product which it gave was a very good quality and worked with the audiences to a great standard. This camera was also taken out on test runs before the actually footage was to be shot, this was to see how the camera performed in cases of, volume and lighting. The footage from the test runs were never included in the trailer but they were never going to be hence why they are test runs.

What I used to create my ancillary tasks were such things as Adobe Design Premium CS5, which software what I used included Photoshop CS5 (For my Poster) and Dreamweaver CS5 (For my website).

I have used both Dreamweaver and Photoshop in the past and I feel that they were great choices to use again for this project. I feel that they were very successful choice as they got the project finished and with easy enough navigation to create the products of which I created. To get the picture for my poster I also used a Nikon SLR D3100. This was placed on a tripod right next to the camcorder which was filming the scene at the time, making my poster image a live image. This is because it was taken whilst the character was filming. I also feel that this camera was an excellent choice which was made as it is a very high quality still image camera and I feel that it was very successful in the creation.

Finally, to create the planning such as story boards I have used standard paper and pencils; this was the most obvious choice to draw out drafts. And for this very evaluation, I wrote it out on a Dell Vostro 220s and half of it on one of the Media departments Dual Core iMacs. Using Microsoft Word Processor to create it. This was a very successful choice to make as it is pretty much the standard processor in which word Documents are created.

Final Vigilante Poster & Website Screenshots.

Out of the 3 Posters in the previous post, the first one in that post was decided as the final version and will be the one used in my Media Project.

The one what will be used is that one below:

Also the website for my Media Project has also been finished, The webstite features no links, just the standard home page with the trailer included. The reasons for this are explained why in my Evaluation. Images of the site are below:

Vigilante Posters

The 3 posters I created for my Trailer are as follows:

1.

2.

3.

The 3 posters which I created for my Media Project are all, simular in desging but still have different features, such as the movment of the date and the actor names.

Character Break Down

The Actors I chose for my Media Product are the ones who are staring in the trailer its self.

There were only 3 actors in the entire Trailer, however this would be different in the final film.

The character who plays the role of the Psychopath is a guy called: Arran Cryer.

Arran Cryer. Psychopath

I chose Arran for the role of the Psychopath for a few reasons, these being:

• He was always available to act.


• His face wasn't needed for the trailer so he didn't need any acting experience.


• His build was just right for they Psychopath i had thought up, this being his height etc.

He was the perfect actor for the role and he was a successful choice.

Why did I dress the actor the way I did? The clothing from the beginning for the psychopath was always a simple choice, this being, a complete black outfit with a hood. This completely concealed the identity of the character as the audience are not supposed to know who it is. James Gleadall. Vigilante

I chose James for the role for the vigilante again, for many reasons, the actor choice for the vigilante was a bit more demanding than the Psychopath as parts of his identity was shown, this being that he is:

• White Caucasian


• Well Built


• Tall


• His Availability to act.

James appears to be a great actor in my trailer, he fit the role perfectly and acted brilliantly.

Why did I dress the Actor the way I did? I dressed the Actor James in such a way that he appeared visually intimidating. The choice of the leather jacket which he wore was a decision which involved the scene of him putting the jacket on to be filmed multiple times. The leather one was decided as the final choice to give a more 'Bad-Ass' feel to the character and to make him seem like somebody no to be messed with. Fran Walker. News Reader

I chose Fran for the role of News reader, again for multiple reasons, these being:

• Her ability to naturally talk to the camera as if it were a real situation


• Her availability to act


• Her appearance as looking the part of a news reader.

Fran was an Excellent choice to cast for the role as the News Reader and she was overall a great choice.

Why did i dress the Actor the way I did? The outfit chose for Fran was an easy choice, consisting of a blouse and trousers. This really fit the part of a news reader and I feel that the scene in which she acted was an overall great success. She looked professional in the scene and also acted greatly. :)

Notes of ideas

Notes which will be incorporated into the final trailer.

• Vigilante? Ex-Cop?
• Fly over New York Skyline.
• Drive Past Medowhall at Night.
• Green screen a vault door, use Media store room doors.
• Lift door closing, use Schools Lift.
• Passenger side of car, loading a handgun. 1st Person view. Once loaded, Driver: "You cant keep doing this" Vigilante: "This city needs me, I cant stop now..."
• Walking through car-park, silhouette.
• News Broadcast, Panic strikes the city as a highly intelligent psychopath escapes the asylum.
• Use some big windows to green screen a new york image. Silhouette looking out.

:)