Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Evaluation

Evaluation

Monday, 25 April 2011

Audience feedback

Once I had completed the film trailer, I thought it would be good to see what people thought about it, so I showed various friends and family and also posted it on YouTube. I felt that this was the best option as I could easily reach my target audience and they would give me feedback based on their thoughts and opinions.

Most of the people that watched the trailer liked it and gave positive feedback saying that they liked the amount of shots used and that they liked the smooth editing of it. The majority of the people who watched the trailer fell in to my target audience category and most of them said that they would go and watch the film at the cinema if it were to be released which was a major confidence boost as I had created something that people wanted to watch. Some people said that the storyline that they picked up from the trailer really excited them which was good as it showed to me that it is a really gripping action/thriller film.

The majority of people who watched my trailer liked it but some people didn't and they gave me constructive feedback, some of the feedback that I got was that I used a shot too many times and that I could have changed them around a bit to make the trailer a bit exciting. After receiving this feedback I looked back over my trailer and changed a few shots to accommodate for their feedback as I could see what they were saying.

My final film trailer

This is my final A2 media film trailer, I have created this through extensive planning and research, which is all on my blog. I have looked at real life media products to help me get ideas on what to create and I have taken ideas from real life media products and adapted ideas from them and put them in to my own work to give the sense that my products are professional and of a real life media product quality. I obtained feedback on my final trailer and the majority of the people were positive about it saying they really like it and that the music goes well to match the drama and action of the trailer which is good as it shows to me that all of the aspects are working together.

My final film magazine

Here is my final film magazine cover. I have decided to use many different conventions that are evident in real life media products. After I had finished my magazine I showed my target audience it and I obtained very positive feedback from them all, although there were a small minority that had some problems with it but not enough for me to change my magazine. People commented on the conventions that I had used and they said that they are ones that they have seen from real life media products which is good as it shows to me that people are making the connection of my magazine to real media magazines which was one of my aims. Some people had said that the conventions such as the pug and banner could have been better but I found this side difficult as I was fairly new to using the software called Photoshop, so I felt that I had done a good job based on my skills. I obtained positive feedback based on the layout of my magazine and certain people mentioned that the colour scheme worked well with the film and the majority all said that they would buy the magazine to read about the film as the colour and layout all cached their attention which is primarily the magazines biggest aim.

My final film poster

This is my final film poster that I have created, I created this poster based on feedback that I received from my target audience and as I created based on feedback it should catch the eyes of my audience as they are the ones that have told me what colours and aspects to use. once i had created the film poster I showed it to my target audience again and i obtained positive feedback from them all, the colour of the poster was touched on saying that they all worked well together and the layout was commented on saying that it was good and well spaced out allowing the conventions to work well by having there own space. The conventions i've used within the poster were mentioned saying that they reminded them of other film posters that they have seen, so this is good as they are making links to other real life media products. The audience spoke about the pictures as well saying that they could make the recognition from the film trailer which was good as they r were making links to the characters already and also the images used can tell some of the story too.

Editing of Magazine

Editing of Magazine

Editing of the film poster

Editing Process of Poster

Magazine and Poster schedule

Poster and Magazine Schedule

Initial designs

From the research I have done on real life media products it has allowed me to experiment with my own ideas for my magazine in order to attract my target audience. Each idea has conventions of real life media products but all of them have different usp's because they are all different. me and my group came up with 3 primary ideas for our magazine but we decided to not use any of them as we couldn't fit our main picture on to them without missing out key concepts of our magazine so we came up with another idea that we would use.

Layouts:
Above are our initial 3 ideas on magazine designs which we showed to people that fell into our target audience to see what ones they preferred and when we tallied the results up the majority liked design 3 and when we asked for their reasons why they liked that design again the majority all said because the masthead stood out clearly at the top of the magazine and they also like the the bottom of it as we planned to have two images and headings showing other stories. they also gave us feedback on the headline being effective in the middle of the page too, their reasons for this was because it stands out and would catch the audiences eye.

Fonts: for the text on our magazine we showed our target audience the different fonts that we had in mind for our initial designs, out of the fonts we gave them to choose form the majority like font number one and their reasons for this font was because it fitted in with the genre of my film (action/thriller), they also commented on the colour of the text that we was deciding on and we gave them the choice of red, black, blue or grey and the majority of the votes went to red because it symbolises danger and action and because my film is based around the genre of action/thriller, red is well known within this genre and also they said that red would go with any background and would stand out and catch the attention of the audience, which is what we are subsequently aiming for.

My film trailer's Unique selling point

The Unique Selling Point is a marketing perception that was first proposed as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns. It shows that campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced them to switch brands and use them or in my case to come and watch my film over another film that is out at the same time.

Some examples of usp’s:

Domino's Pizza: "You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less or it's free."

FedEx: "When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight"

M&M's: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand"

Wonder Bread: "Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways"

For my own film trailer I will need a unique selling point that will attract my target audience and one that will stick with them.

My film trailer has a blatant meaning to it and the meaning is betrayal and not trusting someone so I thought it would be good to base my USP around this statement.

My target audience would be aimed at the ages of 15 and above so they may have already experienced the feel of being betrayed or not trusted so they will be able to make a connection to the characters within my trailer which is good as they may make a bond with them which will engage them further into my film. Me and my group all decided that our UPS should be “Trust no one”, and many people will be able to make the link to this quote again making a connection to my film because of their personal life experiences. Our USP is short so people will be able to remember it easily and it also has a massive connection to the film its self so were are giving it a USP as well as advertising it in a way which is good for the film as it is getting promoted through its self.

For my film trailer, we know that the USP is betrayal and “Trust no one” and this will be placed underneath the film title which is Deception, this has the meaning of mistreating somebody’s trust in something or someone which effectively sums up the storyline of the film. The main image on the poster shows this point further as you can see two people running in the background with the protagonist in the middle showing his evil side by posing with knives and looking evil.


Re-shooting and re-editing

After obtaining feedback from various people after they had seen my film trailer, they gave me ideas on what shots to change and constructively told me what bits worked well and what bits didn’t so I could then go away and change them in order to make my trailer a lot better. Towards the end of filming our trailer, we looked over footage and realised that we had filmed in front of a bright green wall. When we spoke about this as a group, we decided that we should re-shoot this shot because people might think the green wall symbolises something and become confused and also it didn’t look very professional so we changed the shot. This proved difficult as we had to re-book a camera for the day and told the actors that we needed to film this scene again in advance so we made sure that everyone was available. We made sure they were available and were wearing the same clothes as they were when we originally filmed this part of the trailer in order to have the essence of continuity.

Another shot we re-filmed was the phone call, originally the phone number came up as 'the boss' although we were told to stick to the genre of action/thriller this was unrealistic as in this genre of film numbers would be left unknown, therefore for re-filming we ensured the number came up as unknown.

Re-editing: we had to re-edit our film trailer as originally we over run the amount of time a film trailer would normally be, ours was over 2 minutes and we was told to cut it down to at least a minute and a half, so this meant that we would have to remove shots or cut shots down in order to reach out target time. This process was long and stressful because we removed some shots and it totally ruined the continuity of the trailer so we had to play around with the trailer even more but after a lot of hard work and moving shots around the trailer became clear and had a clear storyline again. Also as we had to remove shots and cut down the length of different shots to the music and flow of the trailer was messed up as well so we had to change the music start points and cut the amount of time the music was playing for too and this again was a long process as we had to cut and move different parts of the song in order for it to flow smoothly again but when we mastered the cuts the whole trailer came together nicely.

Re-shoots

re shoot

Editing of my film trailer

Editing of my film trailer

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Font styles for trailer

For my film trailer me and my group have to ensure that the font is recognisable, so that when people see it they will know what film it is associated with. For example Spider man and James Bond. They all have a specific font and when we see this font we know automatically that it is relating to the relevant film. Here are some ideas of fonts for my film trailer title.

This font is called Defused, I feel that it goes well with my trailer because the font has an effect where it looks like it has been shattered by something and me and my group could relate to this font by saying that it has been shattered by a gunshot as our trailer features a gun and also it sticks to the genre of our film to which is good. The bold lettering also makes the title stand out and easy to read, giving it more of a dramatic effect which could attract our audience easier.

This font is called Soul mission, this font would be appropriate for the genre of my film, but it is not easy to read from a distance due to certain letters of the tile being wiped out in certain areas so therefore this may make it harder for my audience to read so they may not be interested as much when compared to a font that they can read but with the same impact.

This font is called the trashed font, it appears to playful for a film title of the genre action/thriller so therefore I feel that it is not suitable to my film trailer as it doesn’t send of the right vibes to my audience.

In the end me and my group decided to go for the 'defused' font (top one and below) as it is the easiest to read and we felt that it portrayed the relevant film genre well. It has the serious and creative edge I want for my film trailer as it has the effect of being shot, it is bold and eye catching. During the process of choosing my font for my trailer I used the website called www.dafont.com where you can download free fonts of all styles and we found this one and decided to use it.

Magazine analysis- Empire Sin City

The next film magazine which I am going to be analysing is an issue of the magazine Empire. Empire focuses on new films which have just been released or new titles which the magazine thinks will get their audiences attention.

The main image is pulled into focus and is considered a higher priority than the title to the reader as the main image of the film sin city serves to block out part of the title for the magazine, it makes good use of the image which it has obtained by blowing it up to make it stand out and not allowing it to be dwarfed even by its own title.

It uses big bold text in order to grab the reader’s attention and puts it in white to make it stand out from the rest of the magazine and the background. The title however is in the signature red of Empire which is an eye grabbing colour on almost any background, this is a good move especially on colours such as dark blue, black or white because the colour really stands out and tells the audience about what is being advertised e.g. as shown here it is a dark blue with the red title suggests a film which is quite action packed and possibly thriller in some parts, as does with a white background it would suggest something calming and possibly funny.

Another point I like about Empire is that it does not just devote an entire front page just to one film, it does split the page, albeit a little unfairly but it wants the main focus on the main article so this is why they do it this way, but it uses a comical film reel to place images of other films and stories to use later on the magazine, this is a feature which I could possibly use on my magazine as it would allow for more films to be advertised on the front page of my magazine cover and also it would show that I have considered the conventions of normal real life media products which is good as it shows I have an understanding of the production side as well as the informative side to the magazine.

Magazine analysis- Empire

This front cover was taken from an issue of "Empire" magazine, and features the action film "Sherlock Holmes" which was released on December 26th 2009.

The masthead of the magazine is presented in large, red capital lettered font, which makes it eye-catching against the pale blue and black background. The feature photograph on the front cover is also covering up some letters of the masthead, suggesting that the publishers are confident that the magazine's popularity will overcome this.

The headline for the main article within the magazine is situated over the top of the feature photograph and in the centre of the page where it will be most likely to capture the audience's
attention. The title of the featured film "Sherlock Holmes" has been done in capital letters, again making it more eye-catching. The name of the actor playing this starring role (Robert Downey Jr) is located above this main headline. If the audience are fans of this particular actor, this line plus the feature photograph will persuade them to buy the magazine.

Another conventional feature of this magazine front cover is the use of plugs to give the audience an insight into what other articles can be found within the magazine. These snippets will persuade the audience to buy the magazine to find out more about these other articles. The plugs are also laid out conventionally around the edge of the page so they do not
obstruct the feature photograph.

The sub-headings accompanying these plugs have been backed onto a plain white background so that they deliver maximum impact against the darker background.

The magazines strap line "Best Preview Issue Ever!" has been placed just above the magazines masthead. The fact that this sentence is exclamatory will create excitement amongst the audience and convince them that they should buy this magazine because it is 'the best'.

The font of the strap line is also eye-catching as it is in pale silver, making it stand out against the dark background. However it also does not draw too much attention away from the bright red masthead situated below.

The colours used within the front cover are also iconic of the feature films action genre. The dark blacks and blues create a sense of suspense and mystery. The bright red connotes action and blood, whilst the metallic silvers can be linked to weaponry. Therefore this issue will be particularly attractive to audience's who enjoy films of this genre.

Primary ideas for my film trailer

My primary ideas for the characters within my trailer was to have the use of two protagonists, one being the ‘hero’/’good guy’ and the other being the ‘bad guy’. I chose this because i looked at traditional conventions for the genre of action/thriller and decoded to follow the theme of the genre. With my trailer as well there will also be a boss who will generate extra drama through his decisions and also there will be an extra man who will be assisting the victim to try and escape. I have chosen the above to use within my trailer because i thought by following traditional conventions of the genre it would help my trailer to become powerful and effective.

The outfit for the villain will be a black suit, this is because you will often see villains in action/thriller films wearing smart black suits so again this is another convention I decided to follow. The suit will also represent power so this will portray to the audience that the character is very powerful and they may feel intimidated by him. During the trailer the villain will be equipped with a gun and a knife so again the audience will see this character as a very powerful one.

The boss and the other man who assists the victim will also be dressed in black suits and again this is because of the above points. The suits will show that both of the men are very powerful and can achieve pretty much anything.

Finally, the victim will be wearing normal clothes to show that she has been targeted totally out of the blue so it is very much unexpected. She will look distressed throughout certain parts of my trailer and this will allow me to generate extreme tension especially on close-ups when filming her and throughout my trailer there are a few close ups of the victim.