EVALUATION - Question 4

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

CONSTRUCTION:

Panasonic HD Video Camera

This is the camera I used to film all the scenes which would eventually be edited into the teaser trailer. Most of the scenes were storyboarded so I had a clear idea what to do, however I did improvise for some of the shots and for that I had to be out there, on location, carrying this camera and some other filming equipment. This is a vital piece of technology when it comes to creating a media product of the video nature.

Tripod


There is a lot of shaky cam (hand-held) in the trailer, for example, in the opening shot. However, to give the film a more controlled aesthetic, and seem more traditional to cinema, I needed to include some stable shots; still or panning. This tripod was essential to these steady shots. It has adjustable legs and can vary from between about 2.5ft and 7ft, allowing for both low and high angle shots. The low angle shot was particularly useful in the final shot of the trailer, with the figure emerging through the smoke.

Heavy Duty Torch

I required some effective, controlled lighting in some scenes. This heavy duty torch was what allowed me to get the effective final shot, for it was this that illuminated all the smoke, creating the light shafts where the figure appeared. I also used this lighting effect to fade out onto the title board "Requiem", from the light spot the "Q" would appear, with the rest of the text on either side. This glowing effect would be one which I incorporate into the official logo for the film, and so it is replicated on the Magazine Cover and in the posters. This blue lighting with dark shadows would be a key feature of the films colour palette.

Bamboo Graphics Tablet

 

The graphic tablet was a piece of technology which I own. It has a pen-tool which is hand-held and basically you use hand-eye coordination to 'draw' on the graphics tablet, with the markings appearing on the computer screen. For anybody with artistic abilities, like drawing or painting, this can be a really effective piece of kit. I used it to create the films teaser poster, in my attempt to make a 'digital painting' seem as photo-realistic as possible.

Microsoft Paint

 I used Microsoft Paint to type on most of the text which was put on the magazine and poster. The main fonts being 'Candara', 'Calibri' and 'Corbel', all fonts with a similar, rounded sort of simple form. I also used paint to create the original guidelines in the poster, from there I used the Graphics Tablet and the programme called 'Serif Photo Plus 0.9'. Lastly, I used paint to create a lot of the magazine material, not only the text; the Logo for 'Film Echo' was entirely created on 'Paint', as well as the hexagonal background pattern, the blue border, and the red circle feature with text inside, prompting further information on films 'concept art' inside.

Adobe Premier

Adobe Premier is the editing programme I used to sequence in all the selected 'best' footage and order it into a one minute video with an effective chain of continuity. Because of the nature of film teaser trailers, order turned out to not the most important rule - trailers, after all, are usually made up from a series of unrelated, spiced up, snap-shots, which provide insight into the film, and the further from release, the vaguer the content in the trailer will be. In adobe premier I matched up the soundtrack with the video and added in text-boards with phrases such as "From Director Angus Bentham". The text displaying the cast and crew was also written with this software. Adobe Premier is an effective piece of editing software because it has multiple tracks for both sound and video, as well as option banks for scene transitions and effects. The level of control it offered was great.

FOR MORE DETAIL ON THE EDITING PROCESS, SEE THIS EARLIER BLOG POST:
http://t1086.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/editing-completion.html

Adobe After Effects

I spent a couple of hours getting familiar with the software in After Effects, I started by following a tutorial on YouTube about how to create a rotating earth. As I was following the instructions, I started to feel like I had more control, I began to diverge from the path which was being taken in the tutorial and create my own POV of the earth rotation. This was a really good way to get me familiar with the functions of Adobe After Effects and I was able to create the lightning and meteor effects with ease. The scenes with these effects in are what make the trailer seem more professional, and make my attempt to delve into a difficult genre more successful.

FOR MORE DETAIL ON THE AFTER EFFECTS ELEMENTS, SEE THIS EARLIER BLOG POST:
http://t1086.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/globe-effect-adobe-after-effects.html

Adobe Photoshop

This programme is so similar to 'Serif Photo Plus 0.9' which I used with the graphics tablet that I might as well hit two birds with one stone here; they're picture editing programmes which are used for touching up photographs, creating images from scratch or else altering small details in image layouts. The tools let me rotate certain areas of text in the magazine, where it seemed most effective, and I could also decrease the colour saturation and increase the contrast, to give the images that dark 'Requiem' feel which I wanted to create, so the products seemed linked.

This software was essential in creating the Poster and the Magazine.



RESEARCH

YouTube.com

I used YouTube to upload my videos on, including the 'Begin Production' and 'Final Note' Logs. Most importantly it was the website which I uploaded the final, completed teaser trailer to; in hope of getting peoples opinions of it in the comments section.

Wikipedia.com

It might be worth mentioning that I visited 'Wikipedia' a few times just to touch up on some definitions over the course of this production. Essentially it's THE INTERNET as a whole which has been a really important piece of technology in this Media Project.











Blogger.com

'Blogger' seemed the best place to log down all this information because it is a site I am familiar with. The progression from Research to this Evaluation has been ongoing and is visible in the 'timeline' section of the main page.





PLANNING

Microsoft Paint - Storyboard Layout

For the storyboard, I had to create an outline, and within this I could draw the scene as I envision it and jot down information on the camera movements or sound specifics. I could reference back to these the editing process.

HERE IS ONE OF THE BLANK STORY-BOARD TEMPLATES I DESIGNED:

Microsoft Word - Scripting

This goes without saying; I wrote down a small paragraph of text which would be read into a microphone in the sound recording studio. I only wrote down about a paragraphs worth and this was enough to make the trailer progress smoothly. I did not need to write any screenplay because the nature of trailers is so different, there was no conversation or alternation between scenes as there would be in a film.



EVALUATION TECHNOLOGIES I USED

Digital Camera
I used a digital camera to photograph all the equipment which is featured in this post. I also used it to photograph many of the props and costumes I had used in the trailer.

Slideshow
I used the website 'Slideshow' to upload one of my 'power-point presentations' to the internet, (Question 1) This was to add some variation to my evaluation  in contrast with this one and the other 2 questions.

EVALUATION - Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Here is a video where I ask two members within my target audience to  give feedback on what they think of the teaser trailer:


I had some more audience feedback from people online, after featuring it in a post on 'Facebook'; they commented their opinions, here is a screenshot of what they had to say:

GOOD POINTS: (I spoke with some people about what they thought and noted down some of the positive feedback which included):

-"It's Mysterious - definitely a teaser"
-"Good Aesthetics"
-"Effective Music"
-"Interesting Dialogue/voice-over"
-"Good Attention to detail"
-"Effective Editing with dissolves"
-"Well shot scenes"

BAD POINTS: (Some people also had negative feedback to offer, which I also noted down, they criticized certain aspects of it such as:
-"No sense of story"
-"No human faces included"
-"Was expecting something a little more fast-paced"
-"Couldn't understand the dialogue in places"

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED:
Overall I've learned that most people really seem to like the trailer. They think it's effective and enigmatic, with an atmosphere which makes the genre easily identifiable, there's no question that it's set in some kind of post-apocalyptic, (Partly Sci-Fi_ world).
However, I need to mainly focus on the criticisms of the work. People have said they think it's too mysterious, with not enough story-line explained, also that there are no faces to inform them of who (star names) is acting in it. If I was to change the trailer I'd definitely focus these issues - I do have a clear story-line in mind, it's just that with the limited resources available, and by working alone, I couldn't take the idea as far as possible. I had no definite actors to work with here unfortunately, so it became more than anything an exercise of cinematography, special effects and editing.

From this feedback I started story-boarding a NEW trailer - THEATRICAL VERSION (Seen Below). This was to show what the trailer would be like if it was more revealing, and therefore it shows things which I could never film without a professional team (Riots/Chaos in City, Shards arrival coming through clouds at night, helicopters taking off, main character climbing up one of the shards to find a source of alien energy which changes him - This storyboard is UNFINISHED, but worthy of being seen anyway:

EVALUATION - Question 2

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

The three products, trailer, magazine and poster, all had to seem as though they were related. I had to create an essential synergy between them by using a related colour palette; in this case very dark colours, almost shadowed. Using Adobe Premier I was able to open up a colour correction interface, from there I desaturated the colour by 50% and then increased the overall contrast by about 30%. This created an unsettling, muted, metallic look to the film, which I also used in the Poster and Magazine.

THIS IMAGE BELOW, HIGHLIGHTS ALL THE SYNERGY BETWEEN THE PRODUCTS:
-Desaturated, High Contrast Image
-Spaced out Title Logo with glowing blue 'Q'
-Brand Name (Angus Bentham)
-Tagline
-Release Date

MATCHING TAGLINES: "It is the Autumn of Mankind"
This tagline is featured on the front of the magazine, on the poster, below the title and as text boards within the teaser trailer it-self. This would become a line which is attached to the film during it's marketing campaign and people would know that these words are tagged to the upcoming release of 'Requiem', in Summer 2013.

SAME TITLE LOGO (Slight differences):
I used a matching font for all the places the title 'Requiem' appears, that font being CORBEL. I chose this one because of it's simplicity, and it looks better when spaced out, like the title logo for 'Prometheus'. I also made sure that in all the logos the 'Q' would be glowing blue as part of the visual theme - this makes up another relating link between the three products. There are however some minor differences with the glow specifically. In the trailer it's done through REAL effects, with a torch. And in the magazine and poster it's done through photo-shop.

USES DIRECTORS NAME AS BRAND:
Upon watching the trailer for 'Prometheus', I saw how effective it was with the first text-board flashing on, which says 'From Director Ridley Scott'. I used this technique in my own trailer but instead put my own name in the trailer, this is my own trailer production after all, and I'm working alone, so crediting my-self with the title of 'Director' was not a problem. I also experimented with using my own name as a Brand, so the poster and magazine both say 'Angus Bentham's Requiem'. This would only usually be done if the Director was very well known to the public and had done great films in the past.

LOGOS - (MIDNIGHT PICTURES):
I spent a while creating the logo for Midnight Pictures which was featured at the start of the trailer. This is the emblem for my personal Production Company. It is seen on my Primary Poster as part of the ancillary texts, in a simplified, glowing blue form. It is also simplified and shown again at the end of the trailer, beneath the cast and crew names, along with the Twentieth Century Fox logo. People should see this link and see that Midnight Pictures' current production is 'Requiem', slated for a Summer 2013 release.

EACH HAS SOMETHING UNIQUE TO OFFER ABOUT THE FILM:
The purpose of a marketing scheme is to get people interested in the film, to make them start anticipating more; first with the release of extra related material in the near future, which should shed more light on the story, but ultimately to see the final product; the film it-self. I'd want those who are interested to look for the extra material by checking out other Media (i.e, the magazine and the poster). Each show something unique, the trailer shows 'footage' from the film, the Poster reveals WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE WORLD, a crucial part of the films story, and lastly, the Magazine shows a 'face', something which the trailer was critisised for not showing. Put all three products together and now you start getting a clear picture of the film, which makes all three of the products a lot more effective.

EVALUATION - Question 1