Evaluation

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

As I chose to do the film opening for my AS coursework, none of the technology used for the construction of my trailer was new to me. However, though I was familiar enough with the technology to teach the other members of my group how to use them, I still learnt from working with the technology, as I learnt to use the technology in a more advanced way, particularly Final Cut Pro and Photoshop. Similarly, in the planning and evaluation stages, I was already familiar with the technology I used, such as Prezi and Slideshare to present my research, SurveyMonkey to conduct audience feedback, various Internet sites to conduct research and the use of a camera to both conduct market research and film our group evaluation.
Ultimately, I was able to expand my skills in filming, editing and sound to a higher level, which although was not new to me, was effectively a learning experience.

Evaluation

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

I believe that the combination of our film trailer and my film poster and magazine cover is effective because the link between the 3 products is clear; I included elements of the trailer in my 2 ancillary texts to create this. For example, the image for my poster was taken in Kiplin Hall and the mise en scene of the image shows identifiable period features, such as the costume and elaborate dresser. I positioned Frances and Peter, with Frances holding the letter and Peter looking over her shoulder. The letter is a key symbol that appears in the trailer and which I also placed in my magazine cover, with the same image of Frances holding the letter behind Sarah, who is holding the letter whilst dressed in the same clothes as she was in the trailer. Frances' expression is one of sadness as shown in the trailer, whilst Sarah's betrays no emotion towards finding the letter; an image which is shown in the trailer, which never reveals Sarah's feelings towards her finding alongside the questions "What would you do....".
Therefore, I think the combination of our main product and my ancillary texts is effective because of the clear connection between all 3.

Evaluation- question 1

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

The trailer we have made uses, develops and challenges the forms and conventions of real media products through the synopsis of the story it advertises, the editing, the sound, the mise en scene and the actors. The story combines a modern day setting with a Victorian one, which is indicated in the trailer. The concept of a flashback is used in many real media products, such as Atonement, which we researched in order to be knowledgeable in how to create a successful blend of modern and old, even if just for a trailer. Our chosen actor, Sarah, is incredibly modern looking; she has bright blue hair, various facial and ear piercings and wears bright clothing, combined with the period, Victorian aspect, the idea is unusual and different to the flashback idea in Atonement because of this. However, we believe that combining the contemporary and the period drama together, works well; we picked Sarah exactly for the reason she is so modern looking, to create such a contrast. Despite being set primarily in modern times, the editing and music we used conforms to an entirely period drama type trailer, as the editing is slow and consists of mainly fade effects and the music I made is a piano piece, as would be expected in a period drama trailer. We also believes this challenges the norm, by having entirely old fashioned music and slow editing all the way through, even with the modern aspects.

Trailer feedback and evaluation question 3

Audience feedback for trailer on Prezi

Final trailer

Unfortunately, I, like Emily and Charlotte, have been unable to improve the quality and clarity of the footage on YouTube, despite the best efforts of ourselves and our college's technicians.

Final Poster

These are some of the comments I received. The people I got feedback off were all in agreement that there has been a great improvement; so this will be the final version I will stick with."The lack of text boxes make it appear more conventional, as in typical magazines text tends to stand alone rather than be surrounded by a box.""It follows the conventions of other film magazines, as the text does not generally have a border and it is not usually written in a box either. A definite improvement!"
I have also added a 15 certificate rating, so that the poster looks more professional.

Magazine and poster feedback

Poster and Magazine audience feedback on Prezi

Group evaluation link

Because we had to upload the video to dailymotion, I'm not able to embed the video, however here is the link to the video:
http://touch.dailymotion.com/#/video/xqb67i_youtube-group-evaluation_school

Draft trailer no 2

Draft magazine cover and poster

I also made some slight changes to my final poster:

Voiceovers to text screens

After initially saying we were going to add voice overs, we have changed our minds and decided to use text screens instead.
This is because we learnt from my A2 English Language investigation coursework; which is studying the language of film trailers, that in modern trailers, voice overs are becoming redundant and replaced by text. After finding this out, we decided to try both even so and discovered that text screens fitted better with the tone of the trailer than voice overs did, and so decided to keep the text screens.
The text screens are not parts of the letter as that would be too long to convey in text, so are instead questions and short outlines of the story.

New magazine image

After combining images of Sarah and Frances together, I have made this as my new magazine image. I lightened Sarah slightly and darkened Frances to create a shadow effect, as though Frances is a shadow of the past and of Sarah. This combined image also creates a link between the magazine and the poster.

Magazine work-continued

With my current magazine image, I was advised to create more of a link between the image used and the one in the poster, as at the time the link between the two was hard to distinguish. So I decided to combine the current image of Sarah holding the letter, with another of Frances holding the letter, having Frances slightly behind Sarah like a shadow and shaded. I also added another celebrity film reel picture, after following advice from my media teacher on improving my magazine. I used a picture of Jennifer Lawrence.

Locations emails

Emails for locations on Prezi

Final poster

I used this poster for inspiration for the layout of my poster:

And this is the final product:

Final magazine product

Magazine features: Celebrity film reel

For the magazine cover, I created a feature for an 'Interview Special' article with well known celebrities. I took images of Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie and merged the images to an image of a hard film reel. This is the finished result:

Storyline update

We have changed the storyline of both the whole film and trailer, with Sarah finding the letters by chance because she decides to investigate her ancestor's past and about a fire which destroyed their home. Now that the house has been restored she decides to go visit the house, finding the letters and revealing the relationship her Great-great grandmother had with a nobleman and a lowly servant and also that the fire possibly wasn't an accident after all, but the result of jealousy from the servant.

Voice overs

After showing our class our trailer so far and receiving feed back, we have decided to add a voice over to aid the understanding of not only what is happening in the trailer but also what will happen in the film.
We have two voice overs, one for Frances and one for Sarah.
Frances' voice over plays during the scenes of her writing a letter and flirting with the two men. Her voice over is supposed to be a section from one of the letters she has written professing how she is "torn" between the two men and of how "duty compels me to accept Richard's (the nobleman) offer of marriage" but admitting she will still love William (the servant).

The second voiceover; Sarah's, consists of her making the decision to research her ancestors and her finding of the letters.

Magazine update

I have decided to call my magazine 'Moving pictures' because I thought it was an interesting name and suggests age and experience of the magazine because of it's link to the colloquial name for film when filming first began and synergy with The Moving Picture Company, (http://www.moving-picture.com/), a company which aims to "deliver world-class post-production and VFX for the film, advertising, digital and television industries. We work out of offices in London’s Soho, Santa Monica in California, Yaletown in Vancouver, Bangalore in India and New York, all centrally located, networked and with a dedicated digital infrastructure." (Taken from the website).
For the text on my magazine cover I used Da font website (http://www.dafont.com/) to select interesting font to use.
For the title I used a font called 'Dimitri' (http://www.dafont.com/dimitri.font)
and coloured it red; which appears to be typical of most entertainment magazines, and created this:

But in red with the black outline.
For the feature text I used a font called JD Eugenia (http://www.dafont.com/jd-eugenia.font)

Final Storyboard

Final Storyboard 1. Institutional information 2. Shot of computer screen showing findmypast 3. Text 4. Computer screen with mouse on “get started” 5. Sarah on the phone 6. Close-up of the newspaper clippings 7. Sarah walking through the trees 8. Sarah walking down the path 9. Sarah at the bottom of the path 10. Sarah opening main door 11. Sarah going into the first room 12. Sarah walking along the corridor 13. Text 14. Sarah stroking piano 15. Walking over to table 16. Lifting lid of box 17. Text/ picking up letter 18. Text 19. Over the shoulder shot of her reading the letter 20. Text 21. Over the shoulder shot of Frances writing the letter 22. Shot of Frances from the front writing the letter- tilt up to her face shows that she’s crying/text on screen 23. Text 24. Frances praying/ text 25. Frances walking down the staircase 26. Frances looking out over the balcony 27. Text 28. Peter walking up the steps 29. Peter walking over to Frances/ text on screen 30. Confrontation scene between Jon and Peter 31. Jon reaching for Frances- he tilts her head upwards 32. Frances looking through keyhole/ text on screen 33. Jon walking over to Peter- shot shows only their legs so facial expressions cannot be seen 34. Frances drawing back from keyhole in shock 35. Frances in bed- unsettled sleeping shows she is having a nightmare 36. Match being dropped 37. Text 38. Frances running along the corridor 39. Frances running down the steps 40. Frances running along the gravel 41. Frances running down more steps near the lake 42. Match burning paper/ title on screen 43. Frances dancing with Jon/ Release date 44. Frances dancing with Peter/ Release date As there are now over 40 sections to our storyboard we felt it would be easier and clearer if we typed it up rather than drawing it out. This shows how much our ideas have developed since our earlier storyboards were created.