EVALUATION: QUESTION 1

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

My brief for my A2 media product was for me to create the following: 

               

"A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the film;
• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film or 
• a poster for the film." 

So, how have I used, developed or challenged forms and conventions of real media products? 

Plotline
I decided that I was going to be creating a horror trailer with elements of a thriller trailer in, based on the Christian belief of The Rapture. I didn't know a lot about the Rapture so I did a lot of research into what it is believed to be, what will happen, who believes in it etc. 

It is believed by Christians that the Rapture is an 'end of time event' where all true believers in God who are still alive before the end of the world, they will be taken by God into heaven. It is said that this will happen very suddenly and without warning, people will just 'disappear'. According to christianity.about.com, it is said that "true followers of Jesus Christ will be transformed into their spiritual bodies in the Rapture and taken from the Earth to be in Heaven with God. Non-believers will be left behind to face severe tribulation as the antichrist prepares to take his place as the Beast." 

As far as my research has shown me, none of the massive media conglomerates have created a film based upon the Rapture. I found two or three indie film trailers online of films based on the Rapture so I watched the following ones: 

All of these film trailers have very similar plot lines; people disappearing all of a sudden, no one knowing what is going on, one person explaining that 'the Rapture is here', mainly focussing on the people left behind, no inkling as to what the Devil or the Beast looks like or what Heaven looks like or Hell etc.

I decided to take a completely different spin on my trailer. I wanted the trailer to focus specifically on the Devil himself, with a voice-over on the top of the trailer of him speaking directly to the audience. My reasoning for this is because as powerful of an idea the Rapture is for a film trailer, none of the above trailers are particularly gripping. In my opinion, the last trailer for Nicholas Cage's film is the most gripping of them all as it has been well shot, an amazing soundtrack and has a lot more drama and action compared to the other one; it shows a lot of destruction and violence, loss and grief. This trailer does not specifically reference the Rapture but there is a line in the trailer where a girl says "The God my mother talked about wouldn't let this happen", implying that the Rapture has begun. However like I said, I thought it would be an interesting spin and take on the belief in the Rapture to have the trailer based from the Devil's point of view. This could potentially be a good marketing technique as it is very directly aimed at the audience, with the voice over using words such as "you, me, your". If promoted the proper way, the film trailer could be shown in a very dramatic way, for example having what seems to be a normal shopping advertisement before hand before cutting to television interference and then playing the trailer with the Devil on the screen and the voiceover. In no way is this similar and a horrible example to make but it is like the 2012 Aurora shootings. Audiences were in the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises before James Eagan Holmes entered the building, appearing to be wearing a Joker costume and starting firing his gun. Some members of the audience thought this to be a marketing stunt or a prank played by the producers of Batman but unfortunately it was real life and sadly 12 people died. If people were watching TV and the trailer came on, they may think it was real life and be more interested into what's going on.


Female lead character being unmasked
One way I have challenged the general conventions of a horror film is by using a female lead character in my trailer as one of the main antagonists and also making her unmasked. In a lot of horror films, such as Scream, Donnie Darko, Saw and Smiley, all of the antagonists wear masks and are male. I decided to challenge that because there are hardly any films where the antagonist is female for a start; if there is a female who is going around killing people it is usually because she has been possessed by the Devil or something along those lines. The lack of mask makes the audience realise that she is just a normal, innocent girl and it gives her a personality and identity. Masks take away a persons identity. Here are some examples of popular masks used in horror films:

First person voice-over
My film trailer uses a first person voice-over which isn't that common in the world of film trailers. Here we have the film trailer for Kiss The Girls:



The voiceover used in this is in third person. The narrator is chronologically telling the plot of the story without giving too much away. I personally feel this makes the trailer less dramatic, unrealistic and I feel it makes it look very forced. The audience instantly loses any sense of realism in the film and knows that it is a movie. What I mean by this, is that it becomes very much like a story and the audience can't relate to it very well.

The next trailer I found is more of the voice-over type I was looking for but not completely. This is the trailer for Along Came A Spider, the sequel to Kiss The Girls:



Now, Along Came A Spider uses the same type of voice-over throughout most of the trailer, with it being in third person. However, near the end around 1:35, a different and more warped voice starts talking in first person directly at the audience saying:

"This is between me and you. I want you to see that I am living proof that a mind...a mind is a terrible thing"

We can immediately assume that the person talking is the antagonist and they are talking directly to the audience, making it seem more personal and true to life. This is the type of thing I wanted to use in my media trailer as I like it when I can watch a trailer and feel instantly connected with the film and feel involved. It makes me want to know more and figure out who the antagonist is. This is why I decided that my main antagonist would be speaking in first person, directly to the audience.



Montage sequence
I used a very short montage sequence near the end of my film trailer to add the suspense and excitement to my film trailer. This is very typical of horror film trailers and thriller film trailers as like I said, it builds a lot of excitement and suspense and leaves the audience "on the edge of their seat". From around 2:27, there is a montage sequence in the trailer for Fast & Furious 6. This film is an action, crime and thriller film. The montage sequence provides a lot of action, drama, loud crashes and bangs and definitely makes the audience feel tense whilst watching it and sends their adrenaline levels rising.





Not using actors names in the trailer
Another convention of a horror film that my film trailer uses is the fact that I didn't put any of my actors names in the trailer, specifically pointing them out. Many horror films don't use actors names in the trailer as it completely takes away the realism of the trailer and takes the horror and the thrill away from the trailer. The trailer for It Follows does exactly this, only featuring the names of the director, actors etc at the end in very small font, in the director's billing. Not using actors names make the film seem more real, makes the characters seem more real and it does make the trailer more personal to the audience as they feel more engrossed and involved with the characters lives without constantly thinking that this is a huge blockbuster movie with some of the leading actors in Hollywood. Again, I mentioned in a previous post that if I were to make my film into a real life film I would use some less well known actors instead of huge blockbuster actors like Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Tom Hanks. Personally, if I am watching a film with very famous actors in, I do not feel as invested in the film as I know they are actors and it becomes less real to me than if I was watching a low-budget horror film with actors that I have never heard of before.




Colouring and font 
One convention of a horror film that I stuck with in my film trailer was the colouring and font of my titles. In typical horror films, the main colours featured in text are USUALLY red, black and occasionally white. I decided to use red and white colouring for my text. There are a few reasons as to why I chose these colours. My first reason is because of the traditional connotations of the colours. If I asked you to associate Heaven with any colour, what colour would you choose? Most people would choose the colour white. This is because the main connotations that come with the colour white are purity, wholeness and innocence, it also can be seen as a "blank slate' meaning new beginnings etc. Now, if I asked you to associate Hell with any colour, what would you choose? Again, most people would choose the colour red. This would be because a lot of people associate the colour red with sin, danger, destruction, blood, rage etc but also because of the Media's constant portrayal of Hell being red in cartoons. Many horror films have kept to this connotation such as the three below:

These three film titles have used the colours red and white as their main colour themes with a black background. Black backgrounds are almost always used for horror film trailers as black relates to the hidden, the secretive, has a lot of mystery and unknown associated with it and black is often associated with fear. I decided to stick to these connotations in terms of colour because if I had used bright, soft colours like pinks, purples and yellows, my trailer wouldn't have seemed like a horror film and maybe the audience wouldn't have been able to tell what genre the trailer was. 

I also used a font called SF GUSHING MEDOW SC. This is a font that I found online from a free font downloading website. Here is a letter grid of the font: 

As you can see, the font looks as if there is blood dripping from the letters. I decided to use this for my main film trailer title because it matched up to the theme of a horror film, being gory and violent. If my trailer was, for example, a social realism film, I wouldn't use this type of font as social realism is based on more gritty, true to life drama. The dripping of the blood lets the audience know that this film is gory, reinforcing the genre of the film even more. 

Soundtrack

My soundtrack was composed by Greg Dombrowski and it's called 'The Martyred'. The definition of a martyr is 'a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs'. Both the combination of the actual sound of the soundtrack and the name lead me to choose this as my soundtrack as obviously people in my film are being killed because they either believe in another religion or don't believe in a God at all. 

I think my trailer has definitely challenged the general conventions of a horror film trailer soundtrack. Most horror film trailers use a lot of sound effects and very little actual melodies in their trailer. This is to create suspense and give the audience more 'jump scares'. An example of what I'm talking about would be the following: 

I've looked all over for a horror film trailer with a soundtrack with as much timbre, texture and impact as mine has and I haven't been able to find one. I think by me using this powerful soundtrack it adds a different type of suspense to the trailer, not the suspense that you get when you're waiting for a jump scare but more of a suspense where there's a load of action on the screen and you're tense as you don't know what is going to happen next.

In my audience feedback, one or two people mentioned how they thought my trailer was an action film. Looking back, I can definitely see how this is! The soundtrack is (in terms of texture, timbre and instrumentation) very similar to the soundtrack of the Inception trailer. You can listen here:



Inception is predominately an action film, linked in with sci-fi (which one person also mentioned in my audience feedback) and mystery. This soundtrack is one of the most famous soundtracks in the film industry right now. 'Mind Heist' composed by Zak Hemsey is full of stringed instruments which add a lot of suspense, a lot of bass and powerful crashes of the drums as well as synthesised sounds which add to the impact and the sheer powerfulness of this piece. It is personally one of my favourite pieces of music composed for film ever as it represents just how much action and drama is going on in the  trailer as well as the film. My soundtrack is very similar to this as it is full of texture, synthesised sounds, loud crashes of bass-y instruments and is just a powerful piece of music.

EVALUATION: QUESTION 2

How effective is the combination of your main product (film trailer) and ancillary texts (poster and magazine cover)? 

Linked below is a SlideShare presentation explaining how effective I think the combination of my main product and my ancillary tasks are.

Here are my two ancillary tasks:

EVALUATION: QUESTION 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

For my audience feedback, I put together a questionnaire which featured questions about my film trailer, film magazine cover and film poster. I then presented my trailer and ancillary tasks to a number of people and asked them to fill in the questionnaire as honestly as possible. The feedback I got was very varied and has made me think a lot more about what I could have made clearer, done better and what I did well. Below is a video created by Kasia Miller, an 18 year old female from Wiltshire who watched my film trailer and answered the questions regarding the film trailer: 

 Here is an overall summery of the feedback I received for each question: 

1) WHAT GENRE OF FILM DO YOU THINK THIS FILM TRAILER IS REPRESENTING AND WHY?  

I was quite surprised reading the feedback to this question. Most people either said that the trailer was a thriller or a horror or both but there were a few other genres that people were thinking my trailer was. One of these genres that appeared a lot in my feedback was action. For example, one of the answers to this question was "Action/ Thriller because it was very fast paced and had your heart on edge all the time throughout". Another answer was "Action because of the use of weaponry and tension/mystery". Looking back at the trailer, I can definitely see that my trailer has a lot of the conventions of an action film, included the fast paced cuts, weaponry, the whole plot of the Devil having a mission that needs to be completed, death etc.

Two people also said that the film could possibly be a sci-fi/horror film due to the "robot voice and tense music". This answer surprised me a lot as I never had thought that my film trailer could possibly be perceived as a science fiction film. This is something I should have definitely taken into consideration when editing my voice-over; the original intention was to make my voice-over very low pitched but I ended up making it sound quite metallic due to my voice actor's already very low voice making it inaudible when I lowered the pitch on GarageBand. I am beginning to think I should have left the voice-over unedited to stop the confusion of people thinking that the trailer is a science-fiction film, however considering as only two people out of the thirty people who answered the questionnaire thought it was a sci-fi horror, maybe it wasn't a bad decision to edit the voice.

For the people who thought the trailer was for a thriller, their comments were very representative of the conventions of a thriller I was looking to meet and satisfy. Examples of this would be the fact that "the trailer represents a thriller genre as it is not too revealing". This was something I was adamant I was going to achieve. The worst thing about watching a film trailer is watching it, being able to guess the end of the film because it's too predictable and showing all of the main action, leaving hardly anything for the audience to look forward to. So, i've learnt my trailer definitely satisfied the convention (in a thriller) of not giving too much away in the trailer which I'm very happy about. Another comment made by somebody who thought my trailer was a thriller was that it "built up suspense and tension throughout". I mentioned in a previous post how I wanted my trailer to start off slow and pick up pace though out, which is what I went for. I think this along with my choice of music helped meet the "suspense" and "tension" conventions of the thriller genre.

In reference to the people who thought my trailer was for a horror film, the conventions of thriller films and horror films are very similar. Their comments followed along the lines of "it was full of suspense", "kept you on the edge of your seat", "left your heart racing" and "it had a lot of atmosphere". The general conventions of a horror films are things such as the use of dark colours, weaponry, isolated locations, alienation, vulnerability etc. These are all features I have used in my trailer, such as using a massive isolated field for my main female character to walk through, the idea that everyone is fighting to keep themselves alive so they may feel very alienated from everyone as they don't know who they can trust, everyone is vulnerable as you could die at any given moment and I have used weaponry with the gun. Thriller films use the same kind of ideas with their films also, which is why a horror/thriller cross-over happen very frequently!

From this question, I've learnt that I managed to present my two film genres across quite successfully. If I was to recreate this trailer, I would probably use darker colours and maybe create gory scenes to push the horror conventions across to the audience a bit more but overall, I think this has been quite successful in terms of making sure the audience knows what genre the film is.


2) DO YOU THINK THAT THE VOICE-OVER WAS EFFECTIVE? WHY/WHY NOT? 

I am so happy with the feedback I received for this specific question. Not one person gave negative feedback about the voice-over. A lot of the comments referenced how it added to the tense atmosphere of the trailer and added a lot of suspense which is one of the reasons I chose to have a first-person voice over in the first place. Additional comments such as "the voice over was really creative and gripping, the fact he had a box on his head made you want to know who was wearing it". This comment, again is one of the reasons I chose to use a voice-over to explain the plot along with the "box man". Instead of using titles to explain my trailer, which I find only ever gives a very broad explanation of the plot, I chose the first-person voice over as its quite different for a horror/thriller film to use a first-person voice-over and I wanted it to feel as personal as possible, as well as making the audience want to know who this 'box man' is and why he specifically has been chosen to handle this situation.

Another comment received was that "I thought the voice over was extremely effective as without it, there could have been danger of getting lost/confused - it sets the plot!" This is a very interested comment as whilst I was creating my trailer, I was very worried that the plot would be too confusing and I had made it very difficult for myself. I wrote out many versions of the voice-over, trying to make sure I had put in enough information for the audiences to be able to understand the plot of the film but tried to make it very simple and make sure there wasn't too much information in there. To know that it helped the audience get a good idea of what was going on, even with it being such a complicated and intricate plot has taught me that taking the risk of using a first-person voice over for a horror/thriller trailer without making it sound corny or cheesy has paid off.

Other comments received were things such as "the fact the voice-over wasn't a normal voice added a lot of mystery to who he actually is" which again as I've said before, was one of the aims of using the box-man in the trailer; to add suspense and mystery. It was also described as "the key element to the success of the trailer" which is very positive.

From this, I have learnt that my voice-over was a great success! I do believe voice-overs should be used more often to create high levels of tension, suspense and mystery to trailers, providing they are used in the correct way and have a very well written monologue.


3) DO YOU THINK THAT THE BACKING TRACK WAS EFFECTIVE? WHY/WHY NOT? 

The feedback from this question was extremely positive! I had many comments such as;

"Yes, because the strings and the dynamics built tension"
"It was because it created suspense"
"Yes - it was quiet when there the voice-over was talking and louder when there was no voice over"
"It made the shots more intense and intriguing to watch"
"I think it was effective because it built up throughout the trailer, making it tense" 

All of these comments are representative of the exact reasons I chose the soundtrack that I used. The very faint choral singing in the background  provides the track with a lot of mystery and tension. The choir is what I think the first comment is relating to because if you weren't listening hard enough (which most people aren't going to be because they are watching what is on the screen and concentrating on the voice-over, the backing track is simply to add tension without the audience realising it) you could mistake it as a violin or a viola. There are synthetic strings used in the piece but they are very low pitched notes.

The drums in the background definitely helped create suspense in my trailer as one of the conventions of thriller films and certainly action films is that the soundtracks often are fast paced with heavy percussion. The harshness and the sudden crashes of the drums often replicate the action that is happening on screen.


4) WAS THE PLOT OF THE FILM CLEARLY POINTED OUT/ DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FILM IS ABOUT? 

This question was a yes/no answer question and every single person who answered my questionnaire answered yes. I think this is mainly down to my voice-over explaining the plot of the film very well, but overall this shows that I've been very successful in creating a complex trailer where the audience can still understand the plot!


6) IF YOU COULD SUGGEST ONE IMPROVEMENT FOR THE FILM TRAILER, WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST? 

One improvement that was suggested several times was that my main female actress who holds the gun in the field should "hold the gun properly". This actually was something that I told my actress to do. Her whole role synopsis is that she is one of the unfortunate 'non-believers' that have been left on the Earth, she is not a sinner and under the commands of the Devil, as it says in the voice-over, everyone must "kill each other or I will kill you". This character is a young, naïve female who simply did not believe in God, she had not sinned. Out of fear and in an attempt to stay alive, she has been almost forced into this world where she has to kill to stay alive, she is not a trained sniper who has been using guns all her life, she is just a young girl who has picked up any weapon she can find. It would be unrealistic if I had a young female character who had never used a gun before just pick up a gun and hold it correctly. Her holding the gun incorrectly shows how naïve, young and untrained she is and how the Rapture is making people who wouldn't normally kill, kill to defend themselves and 'impress' the Devil.

Another improvement suggested was that the trailer did not feature the 'Box Man' at all. The justification behind this suggestion was that it would "add more mystery to the trailer". This is something I did take into consideration whilst planning my trailer, I wasn't sure at all whether I wanted to a) have the 'box man' in the trailer at all, b) have the 'box man' in the trailer but cover his heads he looses his identity or c) have the 'box man' in the trailer without having his identity covered and the audience would know who he is straight off. I think both having the 'box man's' identity covered up AND not having the 'box man' in the trailer definitely add to the mystery and suspense in my trailer but I think having the 'box man' in the trailer was my best option. I think this because the audience are immediately trying to work out who this person is and the answer is staring them right in the face; except he has a box on his head so they still don't really know who he is so it would make the audience want to go watch the film to find out who he is and why he has the box on his head.

It was also suggested that I change the title font in my trailer as people "weren't sure the font fitted with the tone of the film". However, the people who had said this were the people who thought that my film was a science fiction film so this is just suggesting to me that maybe I should have made my conventions of the thriller and horror genre more obvious and apparent to the audience. I feel like my font was appropriate with the dripping of the blood and the colour red as blood and gore are associated with horror films and I personally wouldn't have used a different font.


7) WHAT ARE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FEATURES OF THE FILM MAGAZINE COVER? 

One of the most successful film magazine cover features was the photo, according to quite a few of my questionnaire respondents. People used the words "professional" and "interesting" to describe it and a lot of people liked the fact that Hannah wasn't in costume as it "showed how well respected the film is". By this, I think they mean that my film magazine cover is implying that Hannah is a very famous actress already and just by using her face, I am promoting my film. This is what I was going for. A lot of people liked how "simplistic" my magazine cover looked, saying it looked "sophisticated and classy" as well as having "a well respected reputation". 

However, a lot of people said that it was too simplistic and that Hannah should have been in costume to create an even more direct link between the film and the magazine cover. I do agree with this and see how this could be the case but my personal opinion is that my film magazine cover works. I have never been a fan of overly bright and packed magazine covers as to me, they come across as tacky and unprofessional.

One comment which I can see where the confusion has arisen was; "The use of red (colour) - doesn't fit the genre". Here, the colour red I chose simply as a colour which looked good over the black and white photo. It was not meant to have any connotations on it but I think this person has taken the red as having connotations of love and passion which wasn't what I was going for at all. This means I should have taken more consideration when choosing the colours of my titles, maybe choosing a purple colour or a deep blue colour as both of those colours have connotations of royalty and importance.


8) WHAT ARE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FEATURES OF THE FILM POSTER? 

The feedback I received for this question was overall quite positive. There are however some improvements that ave been suggested in order to make my film poster even more successful than it already is. One of my main successes with the film poster was the tag line. People have commented saying that it was "moving", "chilling", "deep" and "personal". This was exactly what I was going for. I wanted the audience to feel that the poster was specifically speaking to them and make the audience think "am I actually a sinner?". I think this has worked, making it as personal as possible makes the audience feel special and it makes the poster relatable.

A lot of people also liked how the poster was a shot from the film. I think this is successful because it helps link the poster to the trailer. Also, using Hannah as the star of my film poster was a crucial part of the film poster as it makes the audience realise that she is a key character in the film. I was going to use the 'Box Man' but I wanted to make sure he had as much mystery as possible surrounding him.

The font was a hit and miss for the people who gave me feedback. Some people liked it because of the "blood-like font" and some people liked it because "it represents the horror genre really well". These are the exact reasons I chose the font which is very positive to see that my thoughts behind the connotations of blood and gore and pushing them into the font of the film title are showing through. However some people thought that this font "did not suit the genre" and recommend that I use a different font. When looking back at these peoples previous answers, these people were the ones who thought my film genre was an action film or a science fiction film so somewhere along the line, the connotations of my film genre have been misconstrued and misunderstood. This suggests to me that I should use more connotations of horror films and thriller films in my film poster, film trailer and my film magazine cover to ensure that this confusion doesn't happen again.


9) AFTER WATCHING THE FILM TRAILER, IF IT WERE TO BE MADE INTO A FEATURE-LENGTH FILM, WOULD YOU BE CONVINCED TO GO AND WATCH IT? WHY/WHY NOT? 

To this question, every answer was yes and there were varying reasons as to why people would watch it. Some people said they would because "horror/thriller genres are my favourite", some people said that "the plot seemed different and interesting" and other people wanted to "find out who the box-man was". One of the reasons I created the character 'Box Man' was to draw the audience in and make them want to watch the film to work out who he is and what his role in the film was so this shows how successful the 'Box Man' actually was.

I am glad there weren't any 'no' answers to this question because now I feel like I was very successful in my product and it has done everything it set out to do; GET AN AUDIENCE.

EVALUATION: QUESTION 4

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

According to https://sites.google.com/site/multimediadreamwiki/1--introduction, the definition of "media technology" is defined as technology and methods that support human communication over distances in time and space. 

Throughout the process of creating my media trailer and ancillary tasks to accompany it, I have learnt to use many different technologies as well as developed my skills in areas of technology that I already had experience in using.

The planning and research stage

Blogger - Blogger has been the one of the most essential tools for my planning stage. It has allowed me to keep track of everything that I am doing, making it easy for me to log on, check what I need to be doing for that day in particular, remind myself of any information regarding character, costume, plot etc and go and do it straight away. Blogger is easy to use and accessible from any smart phone so even when I was out filming, I was able to use my data plan on my phone to use the internet and get on Blogger to check I was doing everything correctly and that I was on schedule. It has been so much easier using Blogger than if I had created a paper portfolio as it may have been easy to get very organised with my paper, easily lose things and it would take up a lot of valuable time that I could of been using doing more research to better my project.

YouTube - YouTube has allowed me to look at other film trailers and take ideas from them to use in my own trailer. For example I've been able to view other horror films based on religion and note what features are used repetitively throughout them and which trailers were successful and why and more importantly, which trailers were not successful and why. I have also been able to look at other A2 Media students trailers and see what trailers got the highest marks and make sure I have met all of the criteria they did in order for me to get the highest marks possible for my trailer. I have also been able to look up royalty free soundtracks to use for my trailer and download them as well as work out which soundtracks work best for what genres of film.

Google - This may seem like an obvious one but without Google, I wouldn't have been able to find as much information about Christianity as I did. I would have had to go to a library and take out a few books on Christianity and flick through each one and hope that there is something mentioned about the Rapture in there somewhere. But, with Google, I can simply type in what I'm looking for and in the click of a button I have exactly the answers I am looking for. Google Images also allowed me to look up lots of information, such as masks used in horror films, magazine covers, film posters etc. Google has been a massive necessity for me as it has allowed me to do so much of my research which has been necessary for creating my film trailer and the ancillary tasks.

 Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp - Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp played crucial roles in the planning of my film trailer, poster and magazine cover. These two apps allowed me to get hold of any actors who I was using in my project, let them know what times and dates I needed them and allowed me to keep in constant contact with them. This allowed me to stay organised at all times and gave me the opportunity to be alb to rearrange my plans with good time if an actor was unable to make a shoot.

Google Maps - As basic as this may be, this is definitely a new media technology which helped me massively in the research and planning. By using Google Maps, I was able to find my way to places like The Grand Avenue and I was able to find new locations to film. Ten years ago, I would have had to use a paper map to find my way around and find new locations to film at so with the new development of interactive maps and specifically Google Maps, this has made the planning and research stages of my project so much easier. Google Maps also acts as a SatNav meaning as I was driving, Google Maps on my phone was telling me exactly where to go, speaking the instructions out at me. Not only is this easier than using a paper map whilst driving, it is also so much safer because I can keep my eyes on the road the whole time and I am not being distracted by the paper map.



The creation of the film trailer

Camera - To start of with the obvious, the camera was maybe one of the most necessary and crucial parts of creating my film trailer. Originally, I was going to use my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 which is a DSLR camera. However, it was made to be a photography camera and not a video camera. The HD video feature does work on the camera but it is very temperamental so I decided not to take the the risk and use the school's purpose-built video camera. At first, I wasn't sure how to use it. As small and compact as it was, it took me a while to get used to how to turn it on, delete footage, record, change the view screen around etc. Once I had got to grips with it, I was able to shoot all of the footage I needed with it! For shots where I needed the camera to be looking down on my actors, I was able to hold the camera up as high as I could and flip the view-screen down so I could see exactly what I was shooting and make sure I had the right angle which was very useful! Another beneficial feature of this camera was the fact it is so small and compact. If I had used my DSLR for my trailer, I would have been carrying around a massive camera with a camera bag and additional lenses that I probably wouldn't have used. This video-camera could fit in the palm of my hand and it meant I had a lot less weight to carry around.

Tripod - Throughout the filming of my trailer, it would be fair to admit I hardly used a tripod. I used a tripod for all of my footage that I shot with the Devil and the girl with the gun in the field because I wanted these shots to be slick, sharp and professional-looking. However, I decided that for many of the other shots, I wanted them to feel more hand held, even though they weren't at all. Gary Ross did this when he directed the first of the four The Hunger Games films. A lot of the camera shots in the film were subtly shaky which made the film seem that little bit more real and I personally find this technique to work in a lot of films. To use the tripod to film the girl with the gun in the field, I struggled a lot to get the tripod to stop sinking into the ground (it had rained a lot the night before so it was very muddy) so I went and found 3 hardback books in my house and placed them on the ground and used them as small stands for my tripod to be placed on. If I hadn't of done this, then my shots would have been a little bit wonky and like I said, for these shots I didn't want that to happen. The slicker and cleaner these shots, to me, it represents how powerful these two characters are. This is a VERY subtle connection but that was my way of thinking it through.

iMovie - Whilst creating my AS Media Film Opening, I was using an old version of iMovie. I was very well adapted to it, knew all of the ins and outs and little tricks to make my media products stand out from the crowd. However, when it came down to editing my A2 Film Trailer, after uploading all of my footage to my Mac and opened up iMovie, I realised that whilst updating my laptop a few days before, this had also updated iMovie to the latest version. So, essentially I had to start all over again learning how to use it. I spent an hour or two watching YouTube tutorials on how to edit clips, add soundtracks, merge clips, speed up clips, slow down clips, add in text etc. This helped me get to grips with this new version of iMovie very quickly so I could get down to editing as quickly as possible. Using iMovie, I was able to edit my film trailer fluidly and make sure all of my timings were correct. The soundtrack was added in and I was able to edit my film trailer even more to make sure it rhythmically matched the trailer in terms of clip changes and blackouts. This took a lot of time as one of my massive pet hates is when there are shot changes out of time with the music. I think it looks a lot more professional when the shots change on the beat of the music. I figured out also that you could add filters over the top of shots to change the colour of them, for example, making a shot black and white etc. I used this feature by adding an 'X-Ray' effect over the top of a shot of a girl on a bed "freaking out" as well as speeding up the clip to make it seem like she really was going mad.

Garage Band - Garage Band was my main software I used to record and edit my voice-over for the trailer. To create my voice-over, I asked Carli Green to learn a monologue which he would then recite whilst being recorded by my laptop's internal microphone as I was not able to get hold of an external microphone. The reason I chose Carli is because he naturally has a very deep voice and once recorded, I was going to edit the sound recording to make it sound like his voice had been warped or disguised - in short, I wanted it to sound very edited and un-human. However, whilst I was going through the different filters on Garage Band, the filters that would make Carli's voice sound lower were making his voice sound way too low, almost to the point where you couldn't understand what he was saying. So, instead of making his already low voice even lower, I decided to take a more robotic approach to editing the voice. I used what is called the "Colorful Bass" filter to give Carli's voice a metallic sound and it made him sound a bit like a robot but not so much that you would instantly assume he was a robot, more that he'd simply altered his voice to cover his identity. This was essential as it adds to the mystery of who he is!


The creation of the ancillary tasks

Camera - For my ancillary tasks, I used my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 to take my photos. For my film poster, I took this photo at the same time as I was filming Hannah. It almost looks like a still from the first shot that we see of Hannah with her back to the camera holding the gun which is effective because the audience can link that shot with the shot in the trailer. My film magazine cover photo was taken on a bright day in my garden. The lighting had to be perfect to make sure I had a very clear, professional looking photo and I think it came out perfectly.

Tripod - Using a tripod whilst taking my ancillary task pictures was crucial. I was desperate to have a clean, defined shot which was correctly balanced so using my tripod was a necessity for my ancillary tasks. For my film poster, I used the same technique as I did when filming Hannah in the field by using the 3 hard-back books to put on the muddy field to make sure my tripod didn't sink into the ground. For my film magazine cover photo, this was a lot easier to do as I simply put the tripod onto concrete and didn't have to worry about a sinking tripod.

Picasa - I lowered all of the levels in my film poster photo to make the photo look really dingy and undefined, but I tried to make sure it wasn't too dark as I wanted it to be a daylight picture. I was going for a 'foggy and misty' type of look. I then added a very light sepia affect over the top of this and blurred the edges around the photo before adding in the text in the same font (SF GUSHING MEADOW) as I used for the film title in the trailer to keep continuity. I used the colours red and black for two reasons; 1) to ensure that the genre of the film was still being pushed across to the audience and 2) to match up with the connotations of Hell (which I have wrote about in my evaluation question 1). My film magazine cover didn't need a lot of editing done to it as it was a clear photo in the first place. I changed the photo to black and white to give it a more professional look and then made the shadows on the picture a bit darker to make her face seem more brighter.


The evaluation stage

PowerPoint - Using PowerPoint was a way of using different technologies on my blog instead of just having walls and walls of text, making it hard for readers and it makes my blog look more appealing, PowerPoint allows people to easily create professional looking presentations. It has a very basic, simple format and makes it easy for anyone to use. By using it in my evaluation, it has helped me expand my presentation abilities and has allowed me to showcase my evaluation in a sophisticated, professional way.

Blogger - By doing my evaluation using Blogger, I have again been able to keep on track of my work and stay organised and on target. It also allows be to edit all of my work easily, spell check repetitively and means I can get more work done as I am not hand writing everything. I have been able to embed YouTube videos onto my blog to make it easier for examiners to know what I am talking about when referring to film trailers without them having to search for the trailer themselves. I have also been able to add additional information where needed without making my work messy, If I had hand-written my evaluation and then thought of an additional idea which should be half way through a question, it would be difficult for me to add the additional information.

YouTube - YouTube allowed me to find examples of trailers with features I had been discussing in a certain question. For example, if I was to talk about how my film trailer used a very powerful soundtrack with lots of instrumentation and I wanted to show an example of another trailer which did the same, I could search up the trailer for Inception and post the link and this easily shows the examiner what I am talking about.