During the process of editing.

In order to allow everyone in the group to edit some of our footage, other members of the group began to draught ideas for the films poster as the second part of our project.
To allow us to start editing, we first had to upload all of our footage onto the laptop. We then used the cutting tool to delete the footage that either went wrong or we decided not to use for our final teaser trailer. Editing is very significant in our particular trailer as we need to create a "jump cut" effect. This will increase suspense and will relate to the twist in the narrative of the film. The jump cut will be presented with a scratching sound effect to emphasise the irritating sound of the main character, scratching individual names (victims names), into the table.
We plan to research the sound effects during the process of another member of the group editing the footage.
Will are re-ordering the footage as we want to create flash back effects and avoid giving away the order of the narrative and the twist in the film.

Design for film poster.

During the process of editing, we started to think about our ideas for a poster. We looked at exsisting posters from the same genre and found that most horror films use combined images of inconography for the film. For example, The Ring uses layers and images to create one poster.

The bottom layer is of white noise from a tv screen, on top of this is a photot of one of the scenes in the film and then on top of this was the title of the film and other small text. From this we decided that on our poster we wanted to combine the picture of the main character with a picture of the title written on the desk that we used in the teaser trailer. We wanted the main character to look powerful and intimidating so we decided to have that as the main part of the page and bigger than the other aspects of the poster. Underneath thi, we would have the photo of the title and then under that we would have "Coming soon 2010".
When researching film posters, we found that most had a slogan. We wanted something that sounded threatening and we wanted it to follow off from the title so we chose "The List; the last thing you'll ever see!!". We believed this is easy to remember for audiences to memorsie it and pass it on aswel as being daring and encouraging them to want to see it.
In our research we found that some posters also have a logo either for the film as an individual or a range of films from that aprticular company. During editing we noticed a shape on the back of the hoodie worn by the character in the film. This stood out to us as it looked luminous in the light, it looked like a sillouette of an animal. We thought this would work well as it is a reasonably simple shape that relates to the genre of the film because an animal is a threatening character. With this, we would have the name of the compnay that produced the film.
We was aware that a the certificate had to be printed on it too to help emphasise and attract a particular audience.

Practice shots of props and locations.

To experiment with the camera and add to our planning, we took pictures of the locations we may use for our final teaser trailer.
We experimented by taking many of the shots in the same place (the corridoor) but from different distances as we wanted to see if it would emphasise the effect of isolating the character the further away the shot is taken.

We also took a range of shots in a classroom that we believed would be the darkest classroom in the school. We took a few shots from different directions so that we could decide on which directions would be more effective.

Our shooting script.

This was our shooting script. This is what we used to plan out the time we was given to complete our film trailer. We knew this wouldnt necessarily go to plan but we used it as a template so that we could manage our time effectively. It included details such as dates, people, props and techonology used.

Our storyboard.

This is our storyboard. This is what we used to plan our shot by shot and record details of the length of each shot, the type of shit, the sound, the mise en scene, the lighting and transition etc. This then helped us to create our animatic and furthemore, start shooting. This also helped us to set up the area we were shooting such as mise en scene.

Our animatic.

We chose to present our shot by shot as an animatic so that we could see our trailer shot by shot in brief but moving form. This was created using postlets with each shot briefly drawn on each and then photographed in order and uploaded on to the computer. We put these together and edited the time each shot was viewed using (PROGRAMME?)

Storyboarding.

In preparation for our filming, we created a storyboard using postlets so that we could move around and experiement with our ideas for individual shots. This may seem like more and unecessary effort however, in the long run, we are saving time and the more time spent on planning, the more accurate our product will be.




After this, we took still shots using a digital camera of each postlet note so that we could upload them onto this blog.





We then transformed our final idea for shots onto a neater storyboard that we could use when we start our filming. This will keep us organised and clued up.

RESEARCH into genre.

Make a list of films from your chosen genre that you are familiar with.
FINAL DESTINATION.
THE ORPHAN.
THE RING.

Which films will influence your own project?
FINAL DESTINATION.
THE RING.
THE KNOWING.

Explain how they will influence your project.
WE ARE USING THE IDEA OF DISASTERS FROM THE KNOWING AND FINAL DESTINATION.
THE SINGLED OUT CHILD, RAPIDLY WRITING ON PAPER FROM THE KNWOING.
THE SYMPATHY FOR THE VILLAIN AND A YOUNG GIRL BEING THE VILLAIN AND VICTIM FROM THE RING.

What common themes do these films have? (e.g. horror fims often deal with teenage morality, overcoming evil, challenging suburban lifestyles, jealousy etc).
OVER COMING EVIL
TEENAGE MORALITY
HIDDEN STORY, REASON FOR REVENGE

How do these films create narrative "enigmas" for the audience?
NEVER SEEING THE GIRLS FACE; HIDDEN BY HAIR.
WHY DOES SHE WANT REVENGE?

How do they appeal to their audience?
TEENAGERS USUALLY WANT REVENGE AND CAN BE AGGRESSIVE/BITCHY.
PEOPLE IN GENERAL ARE ALWAYS CURIOUS AND WANT TO BE "IN THE KNOW" SO THEREFORE WILL WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE GIRL LOOKS LIKE; DOES SHE LOOK JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE?

Conventions:
Narrative convention : Teenager previously bullied, wants revenge and people die.
Character conventions : Hidden face (mysterious); young person; Villain = Victim.
typical iconography : Dim lighting/ low key; typical teenage clothing, victim/villain is very average.
Camerashot conventions : Close ups; long shots.
Editing conventions : Occassional fast pace cutting; lack of continuity to create suspense.
Casting conventions : Average looking teenage girl, long dark hair.
Sound conventions : Eery sounds; scratching/screeching irritating sound effects; laughter buy others; echoes and blurred sounds.



The Knowing Teaser trailer.

Voice over.
Introduction of main characters, showing loving relationship, typical of a horror.
Usually some sort of closeness or connection between two people.
In this particular trailer, it is father and son. Mum had previously died.
Characters profession is shown, probably chosen because it doesn’t give away the narrative, it is more background information, showing that the genre maybe sci-fi.
The setting emphasises time by showing computers and updated technology.
Shows some of the narrative, but the part where it makes the ending unpredictable, it shows different parts of the story without linking it up completely so you still want to go and see it to find out how it all comes together.
Maybe showing too much for a teaser trailer, it is more of a trailer.





The Ring 3 Teaser trailer.
Close ups of “underground movies” typed on Google.com, from this we know what time the movie is set, and we automatically know that someone is onto something needs to research something mysterious.
Very slow trailer. Very basic, looks home made.
Slightly disturbing images.

FEEDBACK for both film and trailer ideas.

To gain feedback on our ideas we approached many people of the appropriate age group (15+) to give us an idea on how successful they think our film would be, if ever it was to be sold. We had alot of positive and negative feedback on both our ideas, and overall this helped us to determine which film we would choose to continue to work on for our teaser trailer.

THE LIST
Ra'eesha says "the film sounds like a good idea, and i think it should attract many viewers"
Jordan says "im not a fan of horror, but i think for the people that do like that genre it would be a good idea"
Nathan says "sounds too similar to Final Destination. Also, how would the killings occur?"
Rianne and Lorisha add "Good trailer idea but not a good idea for a film. It should also be an 18 certificate as 15 would not be suitable for this type of horror".
Jack concludes "Good suspense for a film, and it sounds like a good idea"

SWEAT
Ashley says "people can relate to this film alot more, especially people of our age as it is more realistic for us. Alot more realistic from the first idea"
Danielle says "it would be good to see how they achieve the goal"
Yama concludes "It will ve a good idea as we see how fanancial support can help people pursue their goals and how much people value opportunities".

Our group and i used this feedback to reconsider which film would be more suitable and concluded that with the limited resources and time that we have to make the teaser trailer, and for it only being a one minute teaser trailer, that we would continue with using our first idea, The List.

Our groups 2 film ideas.

Film 1.

Title: The List.
Genre: Psychological horror.
Certificate: 15.
Target audience: Teenagers and young adults.
Demographic audience: Skilled manual workers to the unemployed; builders, plumbers, students and casual workers etc.
Psychogrpahic audience: "Explorers and strugglers".
Unique selling point: The main character is a girl. Usually, we would expect the viscious character or villain to be a male.
Enigma: By not showing the main characters face, we ask ourselves who she is, what is her purpose and reason for existence.
Similar narrative: The Knowing. Carrie.
Narrative of film: A teenage girl is being bullied consistantly for being an individual; she lacks social skills in order to do well in school, believing that making friends would be a interruption and a threat to her life. However, the bullying gets worse and decides to release the stress by writing her problems out on paper. She soon discovers a supernatural power of controlling and moving objects around her (telekinesis). She gets obssessed with this power through practice and then begins to write a list of names she wants revenge on. One by one, mysterious disasters happen to each individual but makes the mistake of wishing death on her own mother; her only friend. This leads her to want rid of the power and makes her very ill. At thsi time, she is still writing down her problems. One day, one of the bullies discovers her power. Telekinesis is announced and suddenly everyone is amazed by her and wants to be friends. Sally Jane discovers the truth and it sends her to an early grave - she commtis suicide.
Teaser trailer idea:
Long shot, walking through bright empty school corridoors with an irritating scratching sound through out the shot. Although many cuts through it, the whole shot will last between 10 and 2o seconds.
The next shots will be focussing on the girl in a dark room, scratching names into a class room. Shots will be taken from various positions, showing the action from different directions.
The last shot will be an extreme close up of the title (scrathed into the table) with the certificate and the company name. This will be presented along with a loud bang, silencing the previous sound effects and ending the trailer.

Feedback:
George - "I liked your idea of the way your title will be repsented at the end of the trailer".
Mr Marcus - he edited our idea of just having the scratching sound effect in the room where it was happening. He believed it would work as a continuous irritating sound throughout the trailer, only quiter.
Joy - "I like the narrative, the idea of the child being bullied and discovering supernatural powers, it works with a typical horror, you can recgonise the genre straight away".






Film 2.

Title: Sweat.
Genre: Drama.
Certificate: 12A
Target audience: Young adults.
Demographic audience: Higher and middle management such as bankers, lawyers, doctors, professionals, teachers and creative people in the media etc.
Psychodynamic audience: "Aspirers and suceeders".
Unique selling point: The dancers are male.
Enigma: Which out of the two men will succeed and achieve their goal.
Similar narrative: The persuit of happiness. Save the last dance.
Narrative:

RESEARCH into horror and drama teaser trailers.

RESEARCH into teaser trailers.

Throughout this project, I have been working with Jay Coleman, Nazmeen Begum and Christopher Ogori.
To develop our understanding on teaser trailers and learn about the conventions, we watched a variety on www.youtube.com and www.imdb.com. We watched Toy Story 3, Superman, The Dark Knight and 20012.
From this, we discovered that most teaser trailers are significantly shorter than your regular trailer; they usually create an enigma and suspense, allowing the audience to raise questions about the film and be eager to keep an eye out for the trailer and then the film. We noticed that different genres determine how the teaser trailer is presented and what it consists of. For example; Toy Story 3 lacked showing of the narrative and storyline (possibly due to the film not have been completed yet) and just introduced characters that automatically made the audience realise what the film was because they could relate it to the previous Toy Story's although they may not all appear in the movie to come. However, the teaser trailer for 2012 based on just the setting and soudtrack to create suspense and get a feel of what the atmosphere is to be like in the full feature. Both teaser trailers created an enigma through lack of narrative and storyline.

A2 study.

For two weeks I have been working towards creating a presentation analysis of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. In order to complete this, I had to research the film in search of posters, interviews and trailers etc. These then provided me with enough information to understand the narrative of the film, its genre, the characters, the films themes and the way the production is advertised, promoted and marketed.
I found that the poster connoted and suggested alot about the films storyline and the main characters giving an emphasis on the charactors actors as they are hugely famous in both America and the UK.
The trailer, unlike other trailers, consisted of clips in order of which the film is recorded as the narrative is the main feature of this film, in contrast to transformers which appeals to most because of the special effects. We begin to understand the story during the trailer and the outcome is hinted at yet not given away completely.
The interviews include the individual actors, discussing their charatcers personality and their part in the film, this would usually be shown during an interview with a TV host for example along with a clip from the film which consists of just one scene from the film. I found this on the IMDB wesite.
I also found a clip on the IMDB website, that would usually be shown during an interview, backing up a particular discussion; automatically suggests that the film is a hybrid genre, a combined romantic and comedy, this is because of the attitudes expressed by the characters and the setting such as use of sarcasm, laughter and marriage materials scattered around their apartment. The soundtrack used in this clip also has an effect of recognising the genre as it is very easy goin music, typical of rom-coms.
The film is promoted to audiences on many websites such as the movies official website, this allows you to donwload screensaves and backgrounds for your mobile phone, view still pictures from the film, watch the trailer etc, the IMDB website allows you to take these similar actions too.
This small project allowed me to understand reasons for particular conventions in magazine and poster production as well as recognise how trailers work in appealing to audiences. I have also gained knowledge of what websites are useful when researching films, whether they have been around for years or still yet to be released.

film promotion power point

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Final product

Evaluation for coursework: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Sinse our preliminary task, I understand more about the different effects of different camerawork, such as a character being seen as inferior when using a high angle shot. I am now very confident with the names of a large variety of shots, I can talk about them well, I understand the effects of each, I can identify them and I am comfortable with knowing where each could be used.
I am also much more aware of what to avoid when keeping continuity and how to ensure there aren't any parts where the audience is confused about what is going on in our product.

Evaluation for coursework: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of making our final product, I experimented with the editing techniques on the laptop to look for effects I could use that was created an appropriate effect for a particular shot. I used a black and white filter as we previously decided we wanted to use this effect at the beginning of our opening to empahsise the change in time. To further contrast the two times, we used another filter for future shots which added more un natural colour to the scene, this gave ti the effect of seeming comical and magical in relation to spoof films and the fantasy genre.

From looking at exsisting products, we found that only the main chaacters actors and actresses names were presented at the beginning of the film, and depeneding on the genre of the film, they are presented differently. As our product was a hybrid genre, a mixture of fanatasy and street life, we decided to have our credits float in seperately. Our chosen font was necessary as the black and white combined with shaddow has connotations of ghosts which had a similar impression given by the music playing. Both had connotations of mystery and being spooky. This also related to the narrative of our film as it didnt follow contemporary norms, for example, the first scence consisted of speech that talked about technologies such as computers, yet this scene was screened in black and white which suggested that this particular scene was back in time, this is a major contradiction which emphasises reality of people but in an unrealistic world.


Other technologies i used in this project was the internet, we had to research film genres to find out all the typical conventions of each. We used a website called www.imbd.co.uk , we found that if we searched a genre, all the films existing to this genre would appear and we could click on these to find out other information about the individual films, we could also watch clips from the films. This will be useful for future projects as i have now had more experience at researching and gained alot of knowledge about different films and the genres they belong too.
I also learnt how to create and use a blog to store our all our work, consisting of all our planning such as influences , shooting script and research etc. This will also be useful for the future as i now know how to use technology to save and store all my work.

Evaluation for coursework: How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a "hip hop beat" as a soundtrack during the introduction on "Rapunzelisha" and "Dwayne" as this would attract our audience because they will immediately feel the music as it is typical of black and white teenagers in South London to listen to this type of music for entertainment.
We also used dialogue and mise en scene of typical South London teenagers such as the typical clothing, "bling", blocks of flats and estates that they live, the slang language they use etc. This helped address our audience because they can relate to it aswell as find it humourous as it is so stereotypical of this representation but people don't realise it.















When our product was screened, we recieved a very posistive response. We had comments implying that our work was very sucessful which proved to us that we targeted our audience correctly seeing as they enjoyed and understood it.

Evaluation for coursework: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our chracters in our film are typical black teenagers and typical white families living in South London, therefore, our target audience is black and white teenagers living in the same area. This is because the audience can then relate to the attitudes and situations of the characters and understand the vocabulary used in the dialogue. Our product also raises a question of awareness, that black people and white people of today are able to mix in South London so why can't they follow this example in some other areas? Therefore, black and white people need to be able to watch and enjoy this film in order to take action and influence others. Because of this message, our film is also aimed at other teenagers from different locations in London so that they can empathise and understand a different way of life.

Evaluation for coursework: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Small British media institutions such as BBC films or Stealth films might distribute our film as our product has a niche target audience and doesn't have any famous film actors or actresses. Kidulthood is an example of Stealth films, like our product, it used black and white cultures together and has representations of teenage lifesytles in London, this contributes to the reason why they might like to distribute our film, because they target the same groups of audiences such as black and white teenagers and young adults in South London.
Our film is likely to be most popular in most areas of London as many teenagers in this city could relate to the film as they are living in the same lifestyle and getting into the same situations as the characters in these low budget films, therefore, cinemas all over London such as Greenwhich, Surrey Quays and Peckham etc .

Evaluation for coursework: how does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our main storyline consisted of modern day chracters and is set in the streets of South London, two social groups are represented, teenagers and race. Use of attitude in dialogue suggested that teenagers today are often moody, stubborn and determined to get their own way.
We used black cast as we were trying to develop a story around the life of a stereotypical black teenage girl living in the typical lifestyle. Use of dialogue emphasised the stereotypical speech of young black people such as slang, "choong", this also helped to show the typical attitudes black teenage girls have and how similar they are to many white teenagers living in this area. For example, "Rapunzelisha" refers to a boy called Dwayne as "choong" suggesting she thinks he's attractive, white teenagers in this area use this vocabulary and street language too, white girls like boys too and some are attracted to black boys aswell. This suggests black and white people don't have their individual dress codes or speech anymore, the generation we live in allows us to mix and talk how we wish and dress how we want. By using white characters at the beginning of the story, with neutral attitudes towards "Rapunzelisha", because the mother introduces the story of her to her child, the audience get the impression that black and white people may be segregated sometimes, but we are all people and everyone is accepted in the streets of South London, the area in which this film is set is very diverse. This indicates the message that other areas could follow this positive example.

We also represented social groups such as young children of today. For example, use of dialogue in the first scene included talk of electronics such as computers, "It's been ages sinse you've let me read you a story, you're always on your computer". This emphaised that it is typical of young people to spend alot of their spare time using techonogly. The way in which the mother said this, represented the way a stereotypical white mum in South London would speak. Being less well spoken as someone maybe living in Central London with alot more money, suggests that mums living in this area are less educated and working class.

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

As a group, me, Jay and Joy looked at existing media products and focused on the conventions of different genres. We were inspired by fantasy, comedy and street life genres, however we decided to challenge them by combining all three.

We found that all the film openings started off with introducing the main characters and setting. For example, Save the last dance started with "Sarah", the main chracter, on a train journey, during this there were flash backs from her past so that the audience understood why she was leaving home and moving to New York. Similar to this, in Shrek, there is a narrative voice over telling a story so that the audience understood why the princess was locked in a tower and put under a spell.

So we noted the typical mise en scene, typical characters and typical soundtracks etc of each genre and decided to use one convention from each. For example; we used the typical characters from a street life genre such as teenage black boys, similar to Kidulthood and the typical soundtracks from a fantasy genre such as Shrek.

We watched a variety fo film openings from each genre as we wanted to ensure that the conventions we were going to use, were stereotypical, therefore the audience would immediately understand the ideas behind it and be a ble to identify the different sub-genres within. Street life film openings we watched were Kidulthood, Adulthood and Save the last dance. As the cast in our product were going to be English, we chose to stick to the chracteristics of the characters used in Kidulthood and Adulthood as putting on an American accent may of created humour where it weren't intended. Plus, our film had a moral to it therfore we wanted it to be taken seriously, too much humour would have made this less effective.

Fantasy film openings we watched were Shrek, Enchanted and A Cinerella story. From these we decided to use the typical narrative, such as "girl likes boy" from A Cinderella story and the opening of the book used in Shrek to begin the main storyline.

Once we thought of our storyline, we watched the beginning of The Wizard of Oz as I thought the idea of black and white converting to colour would be a success at emphasisng the fact time had changed. We aslo used this convention to challenge and develop the genre of our product as usually, when there is a flash back to the past, it would more likely be the past that is in black and white and the present in colour, however we done this the other way round. This also had the effect of making our film product obviously modern as films these days, set in this time or in the future, are made to be a bit more "wild and whacky", shown through use of mise en scene and soundtrack, this is used in the modern version of Romeo and Juliet, a crazy atmosphere is shown through the use of these conventions. However in our product, we created this effect with film filters.