Sunday 24 April 2011

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

Saturday 23 April 2011

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from audience feedback? your feedback?

Audience feedback has really helped me adapt my ideas, especially in the final stages of production, as I needed to tweak a few of the areas in my products to perfection. I have also been able to design my products depending on how my target audience (males - 17-30) would react to it, and adjust it accordingly to suit their needs. Audience feedback has also been vital during early stages of production, including the filming for my trailer and the layouts and fonts for my ancillary tasks. After gaining all of my film clips I presented the shots and relied to audience feedback to suggest some ideas which they would like to see. Some suggested using inter titles as the plot and story was slightly hard to follow, so having been suggested the ideas i went about making the film perfect. After my First draft for my film, it was presented to the class. I took all feedback and worked on satisfying the audience. One of the main concerns was the sounds, however after the audience had suggested some ideas I set to work and immediately improved my film. Also the audience picked up on a few errors within my work that I had missed. So therefore, having constant feedback (another pair of eyes) has allowed me to adjust my work accordingly, and always improving my work.
The audience feedback also came in very help full with the production of my ancillary products, particularly within the production of my film poster as I had never made one before. I began by asking my parents, whom are both graphic designers. They made many good precise points which I acted upon ensuring that the poster was off a professional standard before showing my class mates and target audience. The feedback I received from the second draft of poster was positive however there were a few suggestions put forward. Such as the quality of my background image. I adapted to this buy taking another image and editing that in photo shop and in fact using that which seemed to please the members asked after showing them. Again if I had not received the feedback from my target audience my final piece would not be such as good standard as it is now.
Finally when editing my Horror film Magazine I relied on audience feedback as well as my parents feedback (although they weren't specified in my target audience). I set up a poll in Facebook where my friends could check my products and comment. I used all the feedback and edited as much as I could. After editing I would re post my product and repeat the cycle. Over all the feedback has been very useful as it has acted like a second pair of eyes, constantly improving my work and finding any mistakes I perhaps hadn't found. I feel the reasons why I'm so happy with the way my products is due to the feedback of my target audience. For this reason I have learnt that feedback is and listening to others will improve your work.

Thursday 21 April 2011

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



Over all I think all of my products are all very effective. They all follow very similar styles, from sticking to the same fonts, colour schemes and the theme. I feel that together all three of the products quite successfully advertise and sell my film as they are all very interesting, they hold all the relevant information and they are each have a very large impact on the viewer as they are simple but effective.

As I have stuck very close to the codes and conventions and tried not to break too many which may result confusing the audience, I feel I have produced very modern products which each sell and persuade the audience.

Saturday 16 April 2011

Final Film Teaser Trailer and Products


resolved, edited green layer slightly, added REC screen to clip. reduced the speed of inter titles.
Here are my final two ancillary products.

Here is a quick audience feedback example I asked using Facebook. If you can see I have edited my final piece so that it full fills the feedback.

Click to zoom.

Friday 15 April 2011

Filming

The filming of my trailer was a great success, I managed to film all the necessary scenes with in only three days of shooting. I shot the film on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FH20 (black).


Day One, I managed to film the majority of the shots involving both the swat team and the zombies as all the actors were available. I followed closely to my shot log and story board. Unfortunately the lighting was very low with the outside shots, which made it hard to see the swat team as they moved into the building.

Day Two, I self filmed the scientist shots as I had planned to be involved in the filming as a characture. I set the camera up using a tripod and borrowed a scientists lab coat from school and wore my own shirt and tie to symblosie authority and power. I shot these scenes against a white wall to give the impression of a lab. I also focused on making the shots here extremely bright and white which had a huge contrast with the rest of the shots as they are dark, which I hoped would create a heaven/hell theme.


Day Three, I finalised the filming prosess with a few clips of the actors who could make it. My brother included played a big part as he was the main zombie and a friend who played one of the two swat team members who was also featured alot in the filming.


Although I shot very early in the year, which may have raised a few possible problems, I managed to capture everything I needed and exactly how I wished it had turned out.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Final cut and logic film edditing

Here you can see the editing process I under took. Although this was not the first time I had used the programme, I did learn many new features.
 Firstly you will need to open final cut express. If you already have film clips or images you can simply find the files and drag them into the canvas. Here you can edit the clips and place them onto the time line.
 Here you can see I have dragged some clips onto the time line. The first black screen will only show the selected file. Here you can edit the length, speed, colour and with the effects bar you can add hundreds of effects to the clip. You will need to render the file each time you edit it by pressing cmd>r. You can also drag the clip to where you want. There are many layers so you can also have two clips running at the same time.
To disable sound press CTL and click just the audio to select it and then delete.

 Here you can also see I have included a Live Type clip I made. After rendering the text on Live Type I simply dragged the file to the time line. Fro here you can choose how log you want it.

 Here you can see some editing I under took for a film clip. I wanted to add a filter to the clip which I chose on the basis of other horror trailers. I chose a REC style clip which should show the audience that the clip was taken using a camera and it should remind them that t it was made on a handheld camera.

Here you can see Logic. Logic is a sound editing programme. This is where I added all of my sound to the film. Logic is home to thousands of small sounds which were perfect for my film. I used sounds such as horror drones and crashes. I also used bear roars for the zombies.

To add a sound simple create a new file and search for a clip. The clips are all placed under subtitles. I chose the title FXs. Here you will fine many effect sounds. I chose the sound Airlock which I will use when the zombies jump out.

 Simply find the file and drag it to the time line. You can change many of the features such as the length, the decibels. You can add many effects such as reverberation and pitch change.

To save the file so that you can use it in final cut you need to click on file>bounce. This will bounce the file to your documents.

 Next just click on Bounce to confirm.

 Here you can see final cut and my documents file. All you have to do it click and drag the file onto the time line. You an again edit the pitch the decibels and the length and live always there are many layers so you can play many sounds at one time.

Here you can see the sound which has been added to the time line.

When you have finished your filming and editing, you can export the film so that you can upload it to youtube. To do this you have to click, file>export>quicktime. This will same the file as a quick time move.

Sunday 10 April 2011

Poster production

Here you can see the production of my Poster.
I used Photoshop to produce this and the skill I obtained in year 12 to help me.
I aimed to create a very dark poster which followed the genre and style of y film (horror) I wanted the audience to instantly realise that the film was a horror or thriller just by looking at the poster. I followed strict colour schemes such as the all white font, and I used only 2 fonts, DEFUSED for the logo (lockdown) and mydrid pro for the other text. I did make the slogan above the logo bold so emphasise its importants, and I also eddited some of the type, to make it differ. Like the size, and the width.

Saturday 9 April 2011

Producing my Mag cover

Here you can see the step by step production of my media magazine.I stuck to a very strick color scheme (Red, Black and White) which were all colours which either featured in existing horror or film mags, and that they all symbolised horror in their own ways. I also stuck to a strick font scheme. Tosca Zero for the mast head, Defused to the LOCKDOWN anchorage text and Mydrid Pro for the other infomation.

Thursday 7 April 2011

Poster

A portrait version of my Film Poster, I have made the theme of this version red as it symbolises blood, violence and death which relates to my film. I have included the title 'Lockdown' and set the font size to 190 and the font type to 'Requiem'. I put the poster image together in photoshop, but added the text in indesign. I have also added the names of the cast and actors involved in the making of the film along the top of the poster. I have used an image from my photoshoot with my brother Louis, I have edited his face using photoshop. I looked at a a couple of videos on YouTube, to give me tips on how to successfully edit and manipulate a face in photo shop to create a zombie effect. If you follow the link bellow you can find an exapmle of the videos I used to help create the zombie effect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUgyezb7Mqw This is similar to the first version of this poster, however I have based the colour theme around green as this makes the poster give a sicky, ill feel to it. The clips I have used in my film also have a green tint to them, which relates the poster.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Friday 1 April 2011

Here are the final 5 fonts I selected, I chose these as they look similar to a typewriter/stencil font which is what I have chosen to use in my film. They also look quite grungy which related to the horror genre. I asked my family and posted the image on line to get some audience feedback. Over all, I had 13 responses including my family. 5 chose the first font, (TOSCA ZERO), 0 chose the second font (heita), the third font (defused) got 3 votes. The fourth font (28 DAYS LATER) got 2 votes and finally the last font (UNSTABLE) got 3 votes. I will choose to use the first font (TOSCA ZERO) as this is the font I prefer and it received the most votes.