Social Media

 

 

 

This is my media website. this is where people can find updates about my A2 production. It was a good idea to upload a social media website because if this was up more people would be able to view it. Thus meaning it will get more popularity. It also means if there was any problems we were able to get feedback and edit the video. it then means the production was able to get a considerable better. I was considering making another social media platform on Twitter and making a website where people can buy merchandise and interact with puzzles and find out information   

 

Evaluation Task 4 - How Did You Use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages

 

Camera




In my production the most valuable item was the camera. This was new media technology as it was a upgraded camera from my last year. I got this camera from my mate who was already in the film making industry. He leant me his camera for a 2 weeks as he had his own duties to for fill. This gave us a good amount of time to film and if need to make adjustments if needed. By having such a high quality camera it means that when i was filming I was able to film at more of a professional level, thus meaning we are able to have our desired camera shots, movements and angles. This is all down to the camera quality. By having such a high quality camera it allowed us to use different camera techniques such as accurate panning and tracking shots, we also used a shoulder mount for a more steady shot and allowed us to get in better positions than a tripod offered. The shoulder mount allowed our camera man to get in better positions for high and low angles, this so that we can get real detail. This is so that we could show authority dominance with the low angle and in the high shot to show what the girlfriend is vulnerable to our main characters domain.

Photoshop

There was several issues with Photoshop, this was because i was not familiar with the load out and the software. this was an issue to start off with. This meant I had to put some practise in to improve my skills on it. This is because I wanted to make the best film and magazine poster I could. Throughout the making of both poster and cover I asked people for feedback so I could make improvements to get a better cover and poster. In Photoshop it has many tools some I didn’t know what they are but ones that have improved my skills was the magic wand, this is because I needed to cut out the main character so I can place him on my poster and cover. Then I had to create titles for these posts I’ve made and there was a range of titles I had to try and use. To start off it was all trail and error based. The titles I ended up with helped the poster achieve the connotations needed. to make it professional looking I had to use a tool called ‘bevel and emboss’ tool, this allowed me to make the titles look sharp and clean. For example when I made a title that had one on top and one below there would be a big gap by using this tool it allowed me to squeeze the titles together meaning more space on the poster and the titles look good. Finally using Photoshop I was able to change the brightness and the colouring of the poster. this meant I could achieve linking dark colours to match my genre.

IPhone

My iPhone played a significant part in the production. As at different stages I was taking still shots so i could use them for my poster and magazine. For example the iPhones HD camera inside helped to gain the still shots for my poster and cover. It also helped with research on the go it allowed me to view other film trailers to identify key shots that we could use in our trailer. I can always go on the internet and help for inspiration for my magazine cover and poster. My iPhone was a huge part of setting up where to go to film and also gaining actors to join our production. This was all done through Facebook messenger. This meant we could find people that were available and it also meant if there was any problems we could discuss inside that chat.

Premier Pro

This was the software that we used to edit our film trailer. This was a hard step for me as I am not use to the load out or any tools inside. this meant it was a struggle for me to have any input on any editing. This meant I had to take the back seat of the ride. As I didn’t know any technical requirements I was able to advice on when to cut scenes and when to add in fade to blacks in. by using this basic skills it allowed me to be involved with key decisions and also watch my fellow member use tools to make the clip seem even better.

IMovie

As a group we only used iMovie because they had titles that we could use. This meant we can have our production company logo. I used my laptop as I have iMovie installed already thus meaning I was able to play around with the titles to match our production name. I went with a tree with a sunset. That matched our name of twisted tree vines production.





Blogger

This was an easy website to use. it is very simple so that it was easy to move around and found things like creating posts etc. It was very accessible this was because it was a simple format, this meant I was able to find my way around and easily post.

Gmail

I used Gmail many times as its my personal account so it was easy to use and operate. This meant it was easy to communicate with what work that was being shared between us and using it to send across our production logo and the title of the film.

Evaluation 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After finishing my product I knew it wasn’t perfect, this is why after I have published my film trailer and my magazine poster and film poster I asked my fellow peers and teachers what they thought of my product. By this occurring it meant I was able to make changes to improve the overall grade. Most feedback was positive this was brilliant but some were negative but you will always get this on what every you do. What I do is that i see negative feedback as constructive criticism, this is because all feedback is a way to help you improve. This meant I could make adjustments to the mistakes and improve my blogs and then i can help utilise my conventions when it needed it.

Film Trailer

Positive Feedback

The tempo and the overall layout of my trailer

 The audience can see what type of style it is going to be. they was also able to see the fast pace cut scenes who our antagonist is by the fast chopping scenes.

The lighting

The audience that viewed my trailer commented on the trailer by saying the lighting and the use of low key lighting is really good and it corresponds with our aim to have good cinematography. this means to have natural lighting.

Trailer conventions

When showing the audience our trailer they pointed out we used the use of trailer conventions very well. this was described to me as i had the use of titles in my trailer and the eerier sounds portrayed and finally the use of a trigger which were the audiences can identify when something goes wrong thus meaning our trailer has a enigma code ravelled inside.

camera shots

The wide range of camera shots throughout the film trailer. The audience noticed shaky cam whilst kidnapping, they say said it was good to show realism.

The finishing scene of the trailer

They audile expressed their love for when the trailer cuts of it has left them on a cliff hanger. this is because they notice a gun rising and cocking then ended which left them is disarray as they wanted to watch the film at the moment in time.

Negative feedback

Sound

There wasn’t enough sound. for example there wasn’t any non diegetic sound to build suspense up. which meant it lacked atmosphere

Titles

a little difficult to read as the movement speed was to much

Actors age to there role

one scene where the doctor is talking to the the antagonist he doest suit the role of that job which the audience have pointed out

Lack of effects

During the trailer the only effects that occur is fade to blacks and white this means its one dimensional this means its plain and boring in some parts

We made drafts throughout editing this is because we wanted to make everything perfect. this was hard to make everything perfect as we had a deadline so we can only fix certain things. This is because we had to give the camera back so we couldn’t re film certain parts. The main thing that went well during our trailer is the use of lights. When compared to Shutter island in a scene they used red head lights but more of a professional lighting equipment and by having the red head lights it allowed us to have good cinematography like professional films like shutter island. With the feedback about how we executed the trailer conventions was good this is because it helped us emphasise it to the audience se we worked hard on making it with fast pace cuts and jump cuts. When compared to other trailers like zodiac there is fast pace scenes normally only lasted from 2-6 seconds, this meant to emulate it we had to cut our scenes down to that and that is what we done as a negative feedback was that the scene were a little to long so we had to shorten them down to reach our target. With the negative feedback I toom it on board and was able to make some changes not all. for example


Film poster

Positive Feedback

The layout

the layout was really good to the audience this is because the main image left enough room to have other things around it.

colour contrast

the colour scheme was really clean and crisp. the audience believed that the colours matched the genre of our film.

Uses of fonts

the fonts used made it seem like a real poster, this is what the audience have pointed it out.

Negative feedback

to plain

in my first draft of my film poster it was to plain for my peers


The use of an image

The background wasn’t and image that i was allowed so i had to change the image

With my film poster there was several drafts this was because a certain stages i would also my teacher and peers for advice and i would also look at my research poster which was the ‘Shutter island’ poster. This helped me create a good film poster, as i was able to take ideas from it and emulate it in my poster. When creating my poster i had to find my main image that could capture my audience. This was done from locating an image from my trailer and using it. When i done this I had centred to be able to make room for putting the title of the film and also text needed. this was noticed by my peers and it allowed me to create a good film poster. My text was at the top and bottom this was because i took inspiration from Shutter island. it meant i could have my main image fairly large. The main image was my antagonist, this meant by having such a large image it meant people would be drawn to it and will interact with it. The negative feedback also helped me improve my poster for example it was to plain so by adding colour to match the genre it allowed the poster to come ti life. this meant it helped the audience what type of film it is.

Magazine cover

Positive feedback

The uses of space

Background

The layout and fonts

Colour contrast

Negative feedback

The main image doest stand out as much as the masthead

More images relating to films

When i have finished the film poster it was time to create a magazine cover. This was more time consuming, this is because a magazine needed more information. this is because when i looked at a empire magazine cover it had loads of information and i took this for inspiration. When it came to the masthead i had to think of a good title that could fit across the top to allow room for the main image to fit on the page. I had the image at a fairly large size and my peers told me that it would mean that other information would be cramped so i made it smaller to allow for other information to fit the cover. The main font i used was marid pro and throughout my cover I used the same font to make it all the same to make it seem clean and crisp instead of messy. The colour scheme running through it is black, white and red. This is because to make it look professional i had to keep simple colours running through the cover. This is because looking at the empire poster i was able to see they had a colour scheme thus meaning I emulated it into my cover this made it look clean and sharp. If it wasn’t for my research and my peers and teachers comments it would look scrappy and un neat meaning it would looked rushed.

Evaluation 2- how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The main common elements that I have used in my texts is the the use of low key lighting. This was only used in 2 of my 3 texts. This is because in the magazine cover I did not feel it needed to be dual and dark colours, this is so people walk past my magazine and will notice it as it has bright fragrant colours. While my film poster and trailer involve dark colours as the trailer conventions of a thriller have low key lighting so we took that and used it in our trailer. With the film poster I used dark and dimming colours to inform people that that there is the unknown is this film and by having both black and white colours garbs the attention of our audience.



In my magazine and film cover I used a image of our antagonist. This is because when looking at other film and magazine covers I came across Shutter island film poster and the magazine cover was from Empire. This inspired me to use our antagonist as my main image. This is because the audience can address them selves to my poster and cover and begin to see if they can understand him. Our antagonist is suffering from PTSD. this makes him feel like he's in control but can easily lash out at any minute. In both poster and cover he has a terror-stricken. This is was key for me to take this image, because straight away it is leaving an a enigma code for audience to decipher. They might not know what is going on which will make them feel intrigued and will want to watch our trailer then that will entice the audience to watch our film. While his facial expressions is key his clothes he is wearing is also key. This is because it gives key clues to the audience on what the film will consist off. He is wearing a beret this is an indication of who our character has been or who he is. Mise en scene was also key in the use of my 3 texts. On my film and magazine cover the use of dark dual colours on our antagonist represents to the audience that something is wrong with him.


In both of my magazine cover and film poster the image tells the same story of my antagonist being frightened. These images of the magazine cover and film poster share a very important relationship this is because both images indicate in our film trailer where everything takes a spin for the worst. For example in the film poster he is looking shocked or lost in his own mind this could suggest he is having a flash back which can tell the audience something significant has happened at that point in time. By having this strong relationship with with the trailer it allows the audience to see the inside of what the film is going to be about, which is key to draw the audience in.


In the two texts I have created, there is not a lot of narratives used this is because the two print texts that have been used is just simply to grab and draw in the audience attention so that they will ether pick up the magazine and want to read about our film or even the film poster is there just to capture the eye of the audience and want to go home and watch our trailer on some form of device. The only narrative that i have used was the use of words. This is because it describes a battle going on in marry reids mind. this will mean the audience will be enticed in as they can see him in army uniform and by seeing him in a shocked looked it will make the audience think about what is going on and will want to watch the film.



One reason why i attracted the audience is because the involvement of PTSD this offered a realism to the audience, this key factor could attract the audience because people can relate to be dealing with these problems or even seen second hand what its like. It also helped by having low key lighting which when compared to my target audience the use of it suggested to the audience it was a action/thriller which broads out to a mass audience as its a hybrid which offers enjoyment to both spectrums. My main opinion on this is by using PTSD it is interesting to understand what is occurring with someone so by having this as our main vocal point it allows more of an audience to watch and want to understand what is going on.



With the two print texts the conventions were mainly used in the film poster this was because on the magazine it was meant to stand out more than the film poster. For example on the film poster it has the use of low key lighting and the urban. This was emphasised in my film poster because this was the first thing to be released and we wanted to grab the attention of our audience by using the low key lighting and urban area. This is because it sets of indicators for our audiences as some viewers can relate by understanding the lighting situation and this means they will want to come and watch my film. if I was able to go back i would add some more conventions to magazine cover this is because the only one is that my antagonist is in dark colours to symbolise that there is something wrong and that was emphasised on both magazine cover and film poster but by the magazine cover only having one i will add more conventions to entice the audience in more.


In Thriller/action trailers the main effect that they use is by using jump cuts, this creates suspense this will keep the audience on the hook. By doing research and looking at other film trailers for example ‘Zodiac’ trailer there use of jump cuts was used in a fast pace. I took advice of that trailer  and turned that information onto my film trailer. this is because it has such a positive effect on the audience. Secondly we used some fade to whites but as some flashes this is because we had jump cuts with them to symbolise something positive is happening. Also having some fade to blacks helped as it singled end of a scene.


In all 3 of my texts I have included all different types of institutional information. This is by using production company name and logos and the trailers title. In 2 out of the 3 texts i used institutional information, this was because on my film and magazines cover i used the production company and film title. while on the other hand i didn’t use it on my film poster. While I have used it i haven’t used it enough to draw in the audience and for them to remember the product.


To sum this all up i believe that my campaign was very successful this is because of my magazine cover and film poster were sharp and clean which meant it was really appealing to our audience and the trailer was really effective as I promoted it on social media. This is because modern cicity are normally are on there phones this means they can send the trailer to their friends if they like it. thus meaning more people would view my product. Also i had to think hard on the conventions of a thriller/action when creating my 3 texts this is because if i was able to exploit them conventions then my product will be good enough to draw in the audience. With all that considered i believe that it was a successful campaign.

Evulation 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media productus

1.   During my production I knew I had to produce a poster. This meant I was able at the end of the production I was able to experiment with photos and placing backgrounds. This helped me massively to see what I wanted and what worked well. This poster has followed conventions because it has a main image on it and it is the main focus of the poster as it will draw the audiences eye. As it is the main image it emphasises how important that image is to the poster. The significance of the image is that his terror-shocked face will capture the audience and will leave the enigma code. This is demonstrated by a theorist called Stuart Hall. His perception of the enigma code was that the film company would code the film while the audience would be the decoders, this is what excites the audience. By using Stuart Halls theory it meant in the creation of the poster I was able to leave an enigma code to entice the audience in by the main image. Inside my film poster synergy is created this is down to the different connections between the poster and my production. this is due to the colour scheme in my production and the fonts used are similar. this means the audiences can pick up on this and therefore noticing synergy inside my production. When I came to making my poster I had to research what I’m going to need to do on my poster. the poster I used was Shutter island. this helped me understand the fundamentals of what I need. Thus meaning I was able to know colour scheming is really important to draw out your antagonist. The reason why I went with green is to loop in with the army theme as that associated with the army. This means the audience will be able to view the poster and will be able to understand its some type of war film. Secondly positioning of the titles are also key. This is because if it was in a random location it might not catch the audiences eye. By having my title where it is for a reason. The yellow ‘o’ is there because its representing his cap badge.

2. My second frame is my magazine cover. Once again the conventions that have been used is my antagonist have been used on the main cover again. this is because it is key to get across who is the main character in the production. while the main image is the same he font and text and the colour scheme is different. this is because i wanted to focus on a different concept rather than the image. This is because with the magazine the title is key to drawing my audiences eye. With the image taking up most of the page the time accounts for taking up a large amount this is because I wanted it to stand out to the audience. While the main image is large the title INSIDE is bold and large this is because it is to last in the audience mind so that they can remember my brand name and pass on good reports about us. Another thing that has worked well in my favour is putting other film titles on my main cover this is because if the audience isn’t interested in the image then the other film titles offer a different aspect. This is a convention used by nearly every magazine cover because they are wanting to appeal to a mass audience rather than a niece audience. 

3. My next frame is a phone with a timer present which indicates I have used a prop. It is a extreme close up off the phone, this is because it is to show the audience what is going on. What is going on is a countdown on the phone, this is because the time is running out for our antagonist and it is used just before a gun gets pulled on the girlfriend and when the timer hits 0 it cuts of to the title off the film. this was key bit of editing because we wanted to link the timer to the end of the trailer to show the audience time is running out. Even it is not a film but 24 have a countdown on it and it creates tension during the viewing of it. By emulating it into my film trailer it meant that I could create fear and suspense for them that left them on a hook.  



4. My next frame shows someone getting stuffed in the back of a car. We wanted to have a kidnapping scene in because when looking at research most thriller films have kidnapping scenes in them. This is because it gains the viewers eye and draws there attention. This means by applying a kidnapping seen to our trailer it makes our viewers watch the trailer. We done this by using a shaky cam to make the audience feel like they were over the shoulder off the attacker. This was done by research of different film trailers. One that caught my eye was that ‘taken’ this is a thriller that had loads of jump cuts and with the kidnapping scene it was the longest lasting that meant




5.This next scene is a two shot of our antagonist and the doctor. The location is key because it looks like a home which it is and I wanted to have a homely feel to the scene because if we used a actual doctors room it would make our antagonist feel uncomfortable. This is why I went with the home feel to make the antagonist feel safe and secure. The reason I went with a two shot is that I wanted to have both of our characters in is that we wanted to show the audience how afraid our antagonist is when answering the questions from the doctor. We went for a lower shot to show the audience that they are both powerful and a physical factor shown. This is to tell the audience that they are the most powerful characters.

6. This is our our logo. first off I wanted to see a twisted tree because of our name so I wanted to make sure that it was in their to match our name. Secondly I had the idea on adding a swing to it. This is because it gives it a eerie feel and to make it seem more dramatic. having an empty swing will make the audience think who was there and why is it empty.  One prime example of why i went with this decision is that Paranormal activity has a swing in a scene swinging with no one on their which freaked people out. Lastly I went with a sunset background to represent the end. As the sunsets it shows its the end of the day and no light is left and evil will rise at night they say. By having the sunset it means the end is near.

7. The next scene is of the doctor saying some quotes about PTSD. He is in black and white and blurred out. This is because my main focus is that they audience listen instead of watch the doctor. This is because the quotes given by the doctor is important to the audience as it is telling the truth about PTSD and is telling a insight of our antagonist. At first we had a mixed response about this shot but as it went on the audience understood what they had to do. this means is confusing to the audience at first but it grows on them.

8. The next scene is of the girlfriend in bed and a gun being pulled to her. this is shown at the end of the trailer . This was one of the hardest scenes to film because we wanted to get the silhouette spot on. The idea behind this is that we wanted to leave the trailer on a cliff hanger. By just having the silhouette and not seeing who it is leaves a question in the audiences mind and begins the enigma code

9. The last frame is the title of my film. it is soldier unknown. it has a gun overlaid with it this is to show the audience that its going to be a hybrid of action and thriller. we had a running animation off it where the name comes in then the gun follows just to add effect. The colours are plain and simple this is because we didn’t wanted to confuse any audiences. 

Target audience For our Production

By doing research on my target audience I have found out that most thrillers are age 18+ this is because of graphic images that can scar people under that age. For young viewers it may be challenging for them audiences, this may hinder there understanding of the film. This shows why it is normally a age rating of 18+ so more adult audiences.

By getting our age rating of 15 I looked into all aspects that make up a thriller age rating and our aim for target audience. Firstly in a thriller there is horror and a horror's target audience consist of a age group between 17-30 this is because of the aspects of having gore and violence in these. This means by having this inside it means young audience can not view them as it has to many bad things that can upset and unhinge an individual. I have taken aspects out of a horror so that we can use in ours but we haven't made it as glory so we can have a bigger net of a target audience.

Action target audience is different to a horror this is because its all about fast car chases and some shooting that is allowed for a young audience. This is because young audiences can keep up with the fast pace scenes while thee older generation may not. With must action films are normally  aimed towards the male rather than girls. For example 'taken' is aimed at the male audience by having the fast pace scenes which will entice the audience in.

Psychological thrillers are more to the intelligently challenging of all thriller sub-genres. Therefore the main audience it will suit is the older generation. this would be about 25 years onwards. The reason why its aimed at a higher age is because of the confusing irregular turns and the mature content of a psychological thrillers base line might just be too much for the younger viewers to watch.

 

With the information presented above our hybrid genre has a age certificate of 15. This is because of the fast pace motion will have the younger viewers involved with what is going on and while that is occurring the challenging line is keeping up with what occurs in the film. We went for 15 because we wanted to hit more of a mass audience. We also hit male gaze as we had a attractive young women that was a counter type of a stereotype as she noticed something was off and done something about it. This helped us have our USP and by having that in there it offered more to a mass audience to watch our film.

Producction logo

This is my our production logo. With the name twisted tree vines production, we knew we had to put a tree in it to go with a title. While researching other logo production companies we came across that they use dual and darling colours this is to go with the thriller film genre. while ours have bright colours this is because the we wanted to change the narrative. This means by having bright colours people may seem it is a nice film but by having the sunset it allows us to play on the audiences mind. This is because by having a sunset it can interpret to something good is coming to an end. Thus meaning it relates to the thriller genre. 

Equipmeant list

This is the list of all the equipment we used during our production

EOS Rebel T7i EF-S 18-55 IS STM Kit- This is the camera we used during our production the reason why we used it is because its DIGIC 7 image processor. what this means is that it has a high image quality. This was good for a film production has it captured every detail. 

Next we used a shoulder mount for the camera. This is because the shoulder mount will mean that it will hold the camera steady. this helped in many shots for us. For example we were using this on a tracking shot of when the main characters wife was walking to get the pill packet. we thought it would be better than a tripod as we weren’t limited in the shots we could do.

Thirdly I used red head lights to enhance cinematography. for every scene in my film trailer we used the lights this was because we wanted to bring every detail out. the only problem with the lights was we had to wait for them to cool down before scenes so they didn’t over heat but they were good bit of equipment that helped us bring detail out in our film trailer.

Post Changes

From our initial idea it was about someone going crazy and then going world wide. we had good ideas for settings and scenes. For example I was having a location down an allay way that had a lamppost that lit up a certain area where we were going to have someone running and stopping in the light, which then we were going to have an over the shoulder moving shot of the main character walking in and taking her. We changed this scene to the main character saying he had a flat tyre as we wanted to portray to the audience that even if the seem as a average human being, his mind can just change. This was one change that occurred.

Secondly another changed we made was that we were going to go RAF upward which has been abandoned and military equipment has still been left at the sit. What we were going to do is that we were going to have transitions in our trailer back to this area to show that in the back of the main characters mind is the army and what he has seen abroad has haunted him. by using these transitions we would use flashbacks to indicate something significant. This comes along with when the party poppers go off the sound suddenly changes and the mood drops. I was going to use someone playing a shooting game called Call of Duty, and when a bomb was going to go off we were going to have the transitions to go back to the war and to trigger what he has done when returned. I changed it to the party poppers as we throw a welcome home party for him which was a good idea to use the party poppers.

Costumes didn’t change as we had set in stone that we need the main character to wear some form of army uniform to indicate to the audience that he is part of the army. While the other characters we wanted to them to wear normal clothes, this is so that it makes the film trailer as authentic as possible. While the Doctor was in a lab coat this was to indicate his authority to the audience.