Friday, 16 April 2010
Final Film!
Here it is! We were really pleased with our final piece. Well done boys, its been a good two years.....
Evaluation
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In our A2 project we filmed using a Sony high definition camera. This created a clean and crisp picture and gave us a greater colour range. It also allowed us to film in low light situations without additional lighting. This was important, as it allowed us to show the dark and threatening atmosphere in which the action was set. Overall, it portrays professional feel to the film. However the HD camera did cause a few problems. For example, on Final Cut Express, the NLE that we used to edit, before digitising the film you have to change system settings so that it is compatible with the needs of the HD camera. One issue we hadn’t considered was the fact that HD footage takes up far more space on the hard drive than normal DV. We were using one gigabyte for every minute digitised, so we had to be careful to import only those shots that were the best.
We downloaded the song for our trailer from Tunes. This is because we wanted an mp4 file so we could cut and edit it. We transferred it from ITunes to Final Cut, we only needed the first 40 seconds of the song. We tried to edit the beat of the song in accord to our film, for example, when the character hits the punch bag I tried to get the drum beat in time to that. I did this using the Marker tool in Final Cut Express, which meant I could sync up the visuals to the beat. When the narrator speaks I lowered the volume of the song so that the voice of the narrator is clearer. I did this by working on the audio timeline, adding key frames as required and then reducing the music track volume accordingly. We were able to use the commercial song because Max emailed the artist through MySpace. We explained that we were media studies students and that we desired to use the song for our project. He responded and was happy for us to use his work.
On the shots of the character training I used a 20% yellow filter on all of those shots. This is because I wanted to show an edgy and abnormal approach to fighting. The dull yellow wash gave a threatening air to the mise-en-scene. It added to the harsh lights in the warehouse that we used for filming. The filter isn’t noticeable which is what I desired, as I didn’t want the viewer to be conscious of the additional SFX. The effect I wanted to create was a contrast between the introductory scenes of the character and the fighting shots that follow. This gives the character a ‘dual identity’, that is clearly shown by the filter and non filter shots. The filter shots are powerful, mighty and brutal, whereas the non filter shots are calm and less energetic. The yellow filter can also be related to Guy Richie’s films, where he uses understated colours to powerful effect. His films are in the same genre as ours, so we felt it would be a good marketing technique, because people associate that aesthetic look and to his work.
We wanted to produce a gripping end shot, which would create a striking title shot for the film. This technique is often used by film makers so that the title of the film sticks in the audience’s mind. I constructed the title page in Photoshop CS4. I downloaded a font from a website called www.dafont.com, the font fits perfectly into the genre of our film. Then I downloaded some special brushes for Photoshop so I could edit the picture in a specific way. These brushes were of a site called www.brusheezy.com. The brushes were of smoke and flames which gave an interesting effect to the titles. My skills on Photoshop have developed since AS due to practise from using it in Photography (one of my other A levels). Then we used an effect on the text which gives the impression that it is on fire. This shows a fierce nature to the film, it suggests that it is not for the ‘faint hearted’ and that the film is ‘smoking hot’. That was the connotation we wished to create.
Before creating our ancillary tasks I did some research on magazine front covers and film posters. I performed this on Google images, looking for film websites that gave me more insight in how to make an effective poster. I also used Google and another search engine to locate other film trailers. This is because on most film websites there are teaser trailers that are designed to influence the audience to go and watch the film. I used Microsoft Word to make notes on the important elements of each trailer, and then used Facebook to share ideas with the rest of my group.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We carried out two forms of audience research, informal and formal. I carried out the informal research in my school common room to see what people might like to see in the trailer. I discovered that most of the boys were more interested in the idea than the girls, but if most girls weren’t interested it doesn’t represent all girls in the world. We could try and market the idea of the film differently to girls. For example, market our main character as a ‘ladies man’. We also filmed audience reactions on a small video camera called a ‘Flip ’. This was useful because it was informal and chatty. This technique allowed us to look back on our audience comments, our audience weren’t so pressurised to fill out a formal questionnaire, they could say what they really felt about different ideas.
Our formal research was questionnaires, we handed these out to 15 boys and 15 girls this is to try and gain an even sample. The age range was between 16-28 years old. From our questionnaire results, we uncovered that 73% of people suggest that a trailer is the driving force in motivating people to watch a film. This encouraged us in making an enticing trailer which would tease the audience into watching the film. We also found that 80% of people thought our idea was good, these encouraged us to pursue our idea.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two ancillary tasks were to create a magazine front cover promoting our film and to make a poster advertising our film. I was pleased how the magazine front cover turned out. You can see clear connections with ‘Empire’ magazine, I tried to adapt it to look as believable as possible. ‘Empire Magazine’ is a successful film magazine, it has a large circulation and readership. With this in mind it would allow us as young film directors to implant our names into the film market. We tried to make our front cover as realistic as possible to ‘Empire.’ To do this we used similar layout, colour schemes, texts and even the price. We placed ‘Mickey’, the main character, on the front page to allow the public to familiarise and become associated to him. I felt the red brick backround of the image was particularly effective in the way that it portrays a rough warehouse feel. The trailer only shows one character therefore I thought it was fitting that on the magazine front cover we used the only character that starred in the trailer. This is a marketing technique, when an audience sees either the trailer or the magazine cover first they can instantly put the two together. We used this technique with our film poster as well. I wanted the poster to have an ‘eye-catching’ effect, the graffiti in the backround makes it streetwise and gangster .Like in the posters that we researched, they all have a tag line. ‘Some dreams are worth the fight’ (Fighting) and ‘Win or lose... everyone has their fight’ (Never Back Down). Ours is ‘When you have nothing, what is there to lose?’ .The quote ends in a rhetorical question which makes the audience think about the circumstances that the character may be in. It is a bold statement which reflects the main characters view on life. We dressed the main character in stereotypical street fighter clothes, black vest and dark jeans, here we followed conventions of other fighting films. On the magazine front cover the character has his fists up, showing a ready to fight stance. Whereas on the poster he is seated alone, this shows a different side to the character. He is desolate and isolated, this leaves the audience wondering why, and what can he do to stop it?
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We followed many conventions of real media, one of those being the choice of actor. Our actor is a stereotypical thug or hard man. He has muscular features, smokes and shows little emotion. We didn’t want to challenge this stereotype in any way because we felt audiences could relate to him easier. Another convention that we followed was using a car. Most action/ fighting films use car scenes in them, especially in the trailer, as it connotes action and speed. Alex Lay, who is a part of MaxAl, the name for our A Level production company, owns an old style Mini Cooper. It is in racing green and we felt was perfect to use in our trailer; not least because we thought our target audience would make the connection between our film and the classic movie, The Italian Job. The trailer doesn’t actually show a chase scene but it shows a few close ups of the car, as well as the car accelerating out of shot. The aim was for this to provide the audience with an additional perspective on what the film involved.
When we were planning our film we researched and textually analysed a range of relevant films. A few examples of this were, ‘Never Back Down’, ‘Fighting’ and ‘Fight Club’. We looked at the different techniques that the directors of these films used in their trailers. A few points that we picked out were that, fade in and fade outs are often used. We discovered that they don’t give too much of the story away, however they leave just enough action in them so your left wanting more. We took conventions from these films and used them in ours. For example, in Never Back Down the main character has fighting lessons in a warehouse. In our film the main character trains in an abounded warehouse, it’s not exactly the same but follows similar ideas.
We chose to make a trailer for an action/fighting film because as a group it is our favourite genre. As a group we believed that by making this genre of film we could target what we would enjoy seeing in a film. We wanted to produce a trailer that would entice us and others our age to go and watch the film. We believed that we could work within the context of this genre as well as the technical restrictions of a student production. By using this approach we were able to gather ideas that we thought would be effective in an action/fighting trailer.
In our A2 project we filmed using a Sony high definition camera. This created a clean and crisp picture and gave us a greater colour range. It also allowed us to film in low light situations without additional lighting. This was important, as it allowed us to show the dark and threatening atmosphere in which the action was set. Overall, it portrays professional feel to the film. However the HD camera did cause a few problems. For example, on Final Cut Express, the NLE that we used to edit, before digitising the film you have to change system settings so that it is compatible with the needs of the HD camera. One issue we hadn’t considered was the fact that HD footage takes up far more space on the hard drive than normal DV. We were using one gigabyte for every minute digitised, so we had to be careful to import only those shots that were the best.
We downloaded the song for our trailer from Tunes. This is because we wanted an mp4 file so we could cut and edit it. We transferred it from ITunes to Final Cut, we only needed the first 40 seconds of the song. We tried to edit the beat of the song in accord to our film, for example, when the character hits the punch bag I tried to get the drum beat in time to that. I did this using the Marker tool in Final Cut Express, which meant I could sync up the visuals to the beat. When the narrator speaks I lowered the volume of the song so that the voice of the narrator is clearer. I did this by working on the audio timeline, adding key frames as required and then reducing the music track volume accordingly. We were able to use the commercial song because Max emailed the artist through MySpace. We explained that we were media studies students and that we desired to use the song for our project. He responded and was happy for us to use his work.
On the shots of the character training I used a 20% yellow filter on all of those shots. This is because I wanted to show an edgy and abnormal approach to fighting. The dull yellow wash gave a threatening air to the mise-en-scene. It added to the harsh lights in the warehouse that we used for filming. The filter isn’t noticeable which is what I desired, as I didn’t want the viewer to be conscious of the additional SFX. The effect I wanted to create was a contrast between the introductory scenes of the character and the fighting shots that follow. This gives the character a ‘dual identity’, that is clearly shown by the filter and non filter shots. The filter shots are powerful, mighty and brutal, whereas the non filter shots are calm and less energetic. The yellow filter can also be related to Guy Richie’s films, where he uses understated colours to powerful effect. His films are in the same genre as ours, so we felt it would be a good marketing technique, because people associate that aesthetic look and to his work.
We wanted to produce a gripping end shot, which would create a striking title shot for the film. This technique is often used by film makers so that the title of the film sticks in the audience’s mind. I constructed the title page in Photoshop CS4. I downloaded a font from a website called www.dafont.com, the font fits perfectly into the genre of our film. Then I downloaded some special brushes for Photoshop so I could edit the picture in a specific way. These brushes were of a site called www.brusheezy.com. The brushes were of smoke and flames which gave an interesting effect to the titles. My skills on Photoshop have developed since AS due to practise from using it in Photography (one of my other A levels). Then we used an effect on the text which gives the impression that it is on fire. This shows a fierce nature to the film, it suggests that it is not for the ‘faint hearted’ and that the film is ‘smoking hot’. That was the connotation we wished to create.
Before creating our ancillary tasks I did some research on magazine front covers and film posters. I performed this on Google images, looking for film websites that gave me more insight in how to make an effective poster. I also used Google and another search engine to locate other film trailers. This is because on most film websites there are teaser trailers that are designed to influence the audience to go and watch the film. I used Microsoft Word to make notes on the important elements of each trailer, and then used Facebook to share ideas with the rest of my group.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We carried out two forms of audience research, informal and formal. I carried out the informal research in my school common room to see what people might like to see in the trailer. I discovered that most of the boys were more interested in the idea than the girls, but if most girls weren’t interested it doesn’t represent all girls in the world. We could try and market the idea of the film differently to girls. For example, market our main character as a ‘ladies man’. We also filmed audience reactions on a small video camera called a ‘Flip ’. This was useful because it was informal and chatty. This technique allowed us to look back on our audience comments, our audience weren’t so pressurised to fill out a formal questionnaire, they could say what they really felt about different ideas.
Our formal research was questionnaires, we handed these out to 15 boys and 15 girls this is to try and gain an even sample. The age range was between 16-28 years old. From our questionnaire results, we uncovered that 73% of people suggest that a trailer is the driving force in motivating people to watch a film. This encouraged us in making an enticing trailer which would tease the audience into watching the film. We also found that 80% of people thought our idea was good, these encouraged us to pursue our idea.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two ancillary tasks were to create a magazine front cover promoting our film and to make a poster advertising our film. I was pleased how the magazine front cover turned out. You can see clear connections with ‘Empire’ magazine, I tried to adapt it to look as believable as possible. ‘Empire Magazine’ is a successful film magazine, it has a large circulation and readership. With this in mind it would allow us as young film directors to implant our names into the film market. We tried to make our front cover as realistic as possible to ‘Empire.’ To do this we used similar layout, colour schemes, texts and even the price. We placed ‘Mickey’, the main character, on the front page to allow the public to familiarise and become associated to him. I felt the red brick backround of the image was particularly effective in the way that it portrays a rough warehouse feel. The trailer only shows one character therefore I thought it was fitting that on the magazine front cover we used the only character that starred in the trailer. This is a marketing technique, when an audience sees either the trailer or the magazine cover first they can instantly put the two together. We used this technique with our film poster as well. I wanted the poster to have an ‘eye-catching’ effect, the graffiti in the backround makes it streetwise and gangster .Like in the posters that we researched, they all have a tag line. ‘Some dreams are worth the fight’ (Fighting) and ‘Win or lose... everyone has their fight’ (Never Back Down). Ours is ‘When you have nothing, what is there to lose?’ .The quote ends in a rhetorical question which makes the audience think about the circumstances that the character may be in. It is a bold statement which reflects the main characters view on life. We dressed the main character in stereotypical street fighter clothes, black vest and dark jeans, here we followed conventions of other fighting films. On the magazine front cover the character has his fists up, showing a ready to fight stance. Whereas on the poster he is seated alone, this shows a different side to the character. He is desolate and isolated, this leaves the audience wondering why, and what can he do to stop it?
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We followed many conventions of real media, one of those being the choice of actor. Our actor is a stereotypical thug or hard man. He has muscular features, smokes and shows little emotion. We didn’t want to challenge this stereotype in any way because we felt audiences could relate to him easier. Another convention that we followed was using a car. Most action/ fighting films use car scenes in them, especially in the trailer, as it connotes action and speed. Alex Lay, who is a part of MaxAl, the name for our A Level production company, owns an old style Mini Cooper. It is in racing green and we felt was perfect to use in our trailer; not least because we thought our target audience would make the connection between our film and the classic movie, The Italian Job. The trailer doesn’t actually show a chase scene but it shows a few close ups of the car, as well as the car accelerating out of shot. The aim was for this to provide the audience with an additional perspective on what the film involved.
When we were planning our film we researched and textually analysed a range of relevant films. A few examples of this were, ‘Never Back Down’, ‘Fighting’ and ‘Fight Club’. We looked at the different techniques that the directors of these films used in their trailers. A few points that we picked out were that, fade in and fade outs are often used. We discovered that they don’t give too much of the story away, however they leave just enough action in them so your left wanting more. We took conventions from these films and used them in ours. For example, in Never Back Down the main character has fighting lessons in a warehouse. In our film the main character trains in an abounded warehouse, it’s not exactly the same but follows similar ideas.
We chose to make a trailer for an action/fighting film because as a group it is our favourite genre. As a group we believed that by making this genre of film we could target what we would enjoy seeing in a film. We wanted to produce a trailer that would entice us and others our age to go and watch the film. We believed that we could work within the context of this genre as well as the technical restrictions of a student production. By using this approach we were able to gather ideas that we thought would be effective in an action/fighting trailer.
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