Question 4 Evaluation

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

During the research stage at the beginning of the project I used multiple technologies to aid in my creation, storage and brainstorming. The first of which was Blogger, I used this throughout the year to store my work as well as a means to document the progress and successes along the way. It was a great help for me as I could place all my work online and access it anywhere on the Phone app.

When we were given the project brief and began researching to aid us in planning our own production pieces I found myself using information sites such as IMDB and Wikipedia to help collect useful examples of existing marketing campaigns this helped me get more connected with the project as I researched effective campaigns like Avatar and Aliens. I found the data on these site extremely helpful throughout the project as means of reminding me where my project was heading ad what it could become.

As my research focused more onto the main production piece (Film Trailer) I quickly started using Social Media and Web 2.0 to collect examples of trailers, music, film reviews and to look at companies pages to see the newest releases. I feel this was irreplaceable as it gave me project direction and helped me to look forward to the stage where I could start planning my pieces.

My use of YouTube was immensely helpful, I could see the work of pervious students, professional directors as well as amateurs. This is clear throughout the blog as can be seen however what was most useful was the fact I could use it to upload things and get feedback much like we did when we Uploaded the finished production piece. (Trailer)

When the planning started and I needed to get the ideas out of my head I started using Prezzi as a means to brainstorm and idea map my thoughts so I could narrow down the options I had and by reflecting on my research I could narrow down the ideas that could be successful. By getting the ideas down on a easy to view format like Prezzi it gave me the ability to go through and see how difficult each idea would be to complete.

Spreadsheet documents such as Excel also helped us in planning. We used Excel to create our filming schedule which in turn improved our efficiency and even though we change our filming a lot b sticking to what we had, with the actors we did use we avoided possible implications with poor planning.

My largest use of technology was during the construction of my Main and ancillary tasks as it involved a variety of hardware and software for each.

For the construction of the main task, the trailer, we captures the footage using a digital film camera mounted on a tripod with a boom mic for sound quality. Obviously we used the camera to film every shot as that is all we had at our disposal however the tripod and boom mic where objects that we used depending on the situation. During the filming we experimented with a range of new shot types such as the tracking shot that we captured by utilising a car and driving down a street whilst recording and a tricky POV shot reverse shot sequence where it took three people to film it.

After of the film came the editing which presented use many new opportunities to test our skills and technology. During editing we created a production logo using a internet site 1001Fonts which allowed us to create a free text style that became the logo. We used a software called IMovie in the editing and found the array of abilities that became available to use in doing so. During the car tracking scene me muted the volume, added a Greyscale filter and use shot stabilisation to minimise shake and blur while creating a more gritty setting for the scene.

We added blur and darkened the lighting to a shot of the protagonist indoors to create a mysterious and foreboding feel on top of that we also altered the hue and saturation as well as experiment sound effect overlay of glass smashing.

The editing process was a long one however we experimented and tested multiple styles for every scene till we came up with, in our view is, the best possible outcomes. Because of IMovie's simplistic style it was quite simple to use after trial and error and become the most used technology during the editing of our Film Trailer. Once the Trailer was completed we uploaded it to YouTube thus finishing it.

After the Main production piece we started on the ancillary tasks which included a Film Poster and a Film Magazine Cover to advertise our film. To capture the images we had as the base of the ancillary tasks I used a Digital SLR Camera (Cannon EOS 1100D), I chose this because of its easy use, simplistic style and high resolution sensor that can take great images in all lighting, which came in handy as we wanted to capture dark image that represented the films mood. Most the images were captured handheld as it allows for better placement and movability.

To edit the images and transform them into advertisement pieces we used Adobe's Photoshop because of its range in tools and accessibility. The editing of my images took a long time and I once again used 1001Fonts to create titles, heading and captions. The adjustment tool was my first use as I wanted to further the dark feel and to do this I increase contrast while decreasing saturation. By increasing Contrast the difference between dark and light becomes clearer which in turn makes the darks even darker and as I decreased saturation the colours began to merge, overall this created the eerie and rundown feel to the poster and magazine cover.

The clone tool was a big part of my editing as I used it to transfer the text into the images which was what really turned the images  into advertisement. I feel my use of tools and sources made the ancillary tasks effect and created consistencies.

Once the main and ancillary tasks had been completed I started evaluation. For the Evaluation Question 1 I utilised Prezzi once again as I felt the story like display it created would help me explain step by step how I achieve the task. For the second evaluation question I used "Scribd" a upload site to add the PowerPoint of work to my Blogger page. Then for the third task I created graphs/charts with Microsoft word to show data in a clear and conclusive comparison.

Question 3 Evaluation

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have accumulated a vast amount of data from our audience feedback both within and outside our target audience, we did this as to test whether our original age ratings were correct. While gathering data we asked our audience a variety of questions for the main production task (Film Trailer) as well as the ancillary tasks (Film Poster, Film Magazine Cover).

We asked 19 individuals to view our production pieces then respond to our planned questionnaire. From the 19 individuals we asked we sectioned them into smaller segments. (At this point I should mention not all individuals answered each question)
We ask
11 males between the ages of 14 to 18
8 Females between 14 and 18
(14 being under target audience age)

After the viewing of the main production piece we asked our audience the following questions and their answers helped to see the success of our piece.

Question 1 - After seeing the Film trailer was it compelling and exciting?
Of the males asked 9 said Yes while only 2 said No, of the 2 that replied No both were under our target audience age.
Of the females asked 6 said Yes while 1 said No, the single No was given by a individual out of the Target age.

From this not only could we conclude that the production piece successfully attracted our target audience it also reinsured us we set the Age rating at the right age. However this also showed that by targeting only male audiences we could have missed many female viewers.

Question 2 - Have you seen any Films or Trailers that were stylistically similar?

Our aim for this question was to see how successful at creating a unique film trailer. Most asked said that it was unique and that they haven't seen anything truly similar however parts could be compared to other films in the same genre such as trainspotting. One said it reminded him somewhat of "Requiem of a dream" while another said the music reminded her of Transformers although the trailer itself didn't.

I feel this proves that not only did we use the conventions of the genre but still create a unique story, I believe this was because of the dark feel and because the mystery we put in the characters and the storyline.

Question 3 - What genre do you feel our trailer conforms to? please tick ONE or MORE.

The idea of this question was to see if the genre was well presented through the use of conventions and filming style. We gave the individuals a selection of genre including Action, Adventure, Drama, Social Realism, SCI-FI and Historical.

The results are as shown in this Chart:

From the answers of this question we decided that our genre was very successfully received, mostly because of the effective combination of story and conventions as well as how we portrayed the characters. I am very pleased at the results of the question as it proves the hard effort the Luke and I put into researching conventions was worth it.

Question 4 - Do you feel the music of the trailer applies to the genre?

After the long process of finding a music track to create the right atmosphere we feel we needed to test its effect on viewers. We collected the answers to see the results.

Of the males over 16 a total of 3 said the music did suit the trailer while 1 said it didn't as it was to dramatic.
The males under 16 had 5 Yes answers and 1 No.
Both of the females under 16 said the music did fit and 4 of the 5 over 16 also said it did, leaving 1 that said it was to action based.

From this we were satisfied that most of our target audience felt it was suitable however if we were to redo the production we might try to slow down the music tempo to keep the action feeling lower.

Question 5 - Do you feel the editing at stages of the trailer are jumpy?

During the editing of the trailer we used a uneven style to disorient the viewer without feeling jumpy or poorly edited, to test how effective it was we asked this question wanting a majority of answers to be No.

The overall total was 10 Yes to 9 No's which wasn't a favourable answer because of this I feel the technique we were trying to use wasn't effective as much as I had hoped.

Question 6 - In your view does the trailer represent real life situations?

From this data we can conclude that we further meet the conventions of Social Realisms by making the trailer represent real life situations.
The final question about the trailer we ask was, After viewing the trailer would you be likely to go see the film? Of which 10 answered Yes, 4 said No and 3 did not answer ether way. which was a positive for us as it means the film was well received.

After questioning our sample of viewers about our main production task I asked them to view the ancillary tasks (Film Poster and Magazine Cover) and asked them questions to tell the effectiveness and overall success of the pieces at being advertisement for the main production task.

Do The Film Poster and Magazine cover share any similarities and consistencies?

For this question we wanted to see if the viewers could link the poster and cover with the trailer as one piece. Many consistent aspects of the ancillary tasks were picked up by all individuals regardless of age, such as Fonts, Colours, Location and emotions portrayed. For me this was a huge success as it showed regardless of their view on the film they could see how the pieces were linked to each other and the trailer.

Question 2 Evaluation

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




Question 2 Evaluation 1

https://www.scribd.com/doc/260117323/Question-2-Evaluation-1

Question 1 Evaluation

This is my Evaluation task 1 on prezi, in this task I discussed "In what way does your media production use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?".

Finished Magazine Cover

This is my finished magazine cover, I feel it is a good example of a social realism magazine article as it conforms to many of the expectations and meets the style of the magazine. I used similarities between the trailer, poster and magazine to further the consistencies as I feel it will help viewers identify links between the products.