Evaluation task 4

Who are your audience and what have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

         Our intended outcome of our production was to create a vampire spoof comedy that did what every comedy is meant to do; make people laugh to entertain and to leave consumers wanting more.

We found that by making a vampire spoof we already had an audience the fan base generated around the likes of the Twilight phenomenon around the time when vampire films were at their peak we knew that this was going to be a hit. Last year we saw many twilight fans flock to see ‘Vampire’s suck’ a spoof comedy based around the Twilight saga.

Our audience demographic we discovered was generally mixed gender young adults aged around 17-25 and were fans of the twilight series and many other spoof comedies. The fact we weren’t just making a vampire film but a spoof gave us the advantage of a larger fan base, of course we know not everyone is a fan of twilight but the fact we are a spoof comedy means anyone who enjoys comedy can enjoy our film without ever watching twilight simply because of the comedic references made in the film.  Being a fan of the sequel myself and at a time when ‘Breaking dawn’ was just out in the cinema it appealed to me that making our vampire spoof at this point in time would be an ideal selling point. We did plenty of research into other spoof comedy’s like ‘vampire sucks’ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1666186/and ‘Scary Movie’ as well as research into many ‘Twilight’ films in order to gain ideas and to see audience reviews that told us exactly what kind of things their audiences enjoyed and what gave them that ‘Hilarious, Hit comedy’ name.

        When gaining feedback for our film trailer we used numerous social networking sites to post our trailer on and to gain feedback and guidance on what we could do to improve our productions. Due to  our school's filtering system we were unable to have access to sites such as ‘YouTube’ and ‘Facebook’ in college hours so whilst in college we made use of ‘Vimeo’ a site that allowed us to post videos online and to gain feedback. We found that as our target audience for our vampire spoof was late teens we decided to post our production on Facebook as with us ourselves being around that age we were able to reach out to our target audience easily in order to gain constructive criticism. We have learnt from this feedback what has worked within our production and what needed to be changed. We learnt that our audience liked the references to twilight as they saw it was something they could relate to and in turn was a way of getting the audience more involved because they will understand the jokes when referring to these films. This research also informed us of what kind of comedic terms worked and what we needed to do more of they particularly liked ‘Steve’s’ unlucky in love story his quest for love became an on-going theme in the trailer showing that our vampire ‘Steve’ is ironically very much the opposite of ‘Hunk’ Robert Patterson.

      I believe that my media skills and ability have changed dramatically in the space of two years I have gone from not even being able to set up a tripod to editing and producing my own film trailer! At first my skills were amateur but as time went on I became more comfortable when using the camera my filming became smoother and less ‘home video like’. When editing our footage we used the video editing software ‘Pinnacle’ at first I felt kind of intimidated by the thought of using the software as I hadn’t used anything like it prior to my AS coursework, but with plenty of guidance and experience I became more confident and was able to edit my footage to a higher standard, making my productions look more professional and stand out as being unique and interesting.

Evaluation 3

Media powerpoint

View more PowerPoint from mitchterry

Evaluation Task 2

When performing research into various conventions and themes which we wanted to use in our A2 media trailer production, we made particularly strong use of various internet sites such as YouTube and the Internet Movie Database. We watched a variety of film trailers on both sites, particularly YouTube (www.youtube.com), due its easy accessibility and use, as well as it being used by major film companies, such as Miramax to advertise their upcoming films and generate hype for them. We found good use of Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) as well, due to the amount of institutional information available on the site, and links to related works, such as to trailers and pages featuring similar actors or directors.

When planning our production, we primarily used software such as Microsoft Word to write up our planning documents and files such as our scripts, shot lists etc. as well as using the photo editing software Adobe Photoshop to design our production company logo, as well as our ancillary tasks of a magazine cover and a film poster.

When filming our production, we used a variety of equipment to achieve our visions of what our trailer was going to be like. We used a Sony handheld camera for filming our footage on, due to its easy availability as well as being portable and very easy to carry around due to its small size. The camera also provides clear images and videos to use in our production. As well as our camera, we used a tripod to steady our shots, which we found was of very important use when filming the bedroom scenes at Antonia’s house, due to the odd angle of the floor, which meant that without the tripod, the footage we had would have been unusable. However, with the use of the tripod, we ensured that all of our shots were at the correct angle and could be used.

Although the equipment we used was helpful in a variety of uses, we also had some problems using them. For instance, although the tripod was useful in correcting the angles of our shots, we found it to be hard to set up the tripod up to precisely counter the floor angle, and were a very long and arduous task. Likewise, when using the handheld camera, we found that the built-in microphone of the camera did not pick up the sound and voice of our scenes, meaning that often in times of editing we found that the music often was louder than the dialogue and drowned it out.  We also used a microphone in our production, for recording the voice over for our trailer. When using the microphone, we at first had trouble getting a clear and useable piece of sound from the microphone, due to the microphone muffling the dialogue from the voiceover, as well as picking various pieces of background noise. If we were to re-record the voice over, then I would use a different microphone, due to the difficulties we faced when recording for this trailer production.

When editing our film trailer, we used the video editing software Pinnacle Studio Pro HD V.15.

We had experience with the previous version of Pinnacle Studio prior to using it to edit, as well as first using the current version it to edit our AS production, meaning that we felt comfortable with editing and capturing our footage into a trailer format. When using Pinnacle, we found that the new version captured all of our footage and separated the different takes and shots we had taken in one action, resulting in a much easier process of transferring our footage onto the computer to edit, instead of capturing individual shots and scenes ourselves over a prolonged period of time, a problem we faced with the previous version of Pinnacle. Pinnacle also allowed us to easily transfer our created images such as our production company straight in to use in our production. When using Pinnacle, we cut specific shots from our footage down to smaller sections, fitting them together with other pieces of footage in an almost montage style, allowing us to connote across certain ideas and themes, bringing out the comedy of our piece by connecting a variety of our footage with comedy elements in. 
Pinnacle was also used in making our animatic, where we scanned the images of our storyboards onto the computer, before transferring them into Pinnacle and placing alongside each other.
Overall, we found Pinnacle a very useful piece of software when creating our production, due to its easy to use interface, and our previous experience with the software meant that we felt more at ease going into the editing process than we would have with prior experience using the Pinnacle Studio software.

When adding the finishing touches to our production, we used the websites http://www.freesound.org/ and http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ to get copyright-free music to use in our production. We found these sites were very helpful and easy to use, and had a vast amount of sounds to be used, meaning that we could become more specific with the sounds and music we wanted, narrowing down the genre of music we wished to use.

After finishing our piece, we decuded upon placing our finished productions upon both our own Facebook accounts as well as on video sharing sites such as Vimeo, to share with our friends and others, asking for Feedback.

These sites proved particulary useful for us when sharing our video, due to Facebook being instantly linked to our friends so that they could instantly view our video, as well as Vimeo having the ability to share and embed our video upon our blogs and other sites, as well as being viewed driectly from Vimeo. We also posted our animatic onto our Vimeo sites, to embed onto our blog afterwards as evidence of producing storyboards and an animatic.

To post our research, planning and evaluations online, we made use of the website Blogger. Blogger was of great help in easily posting our information online in a structured manner, and we could easily send each other information posted upon our blogs to other group members. Blogger was also good for keeping to schedules for filming etc, and meant that we could work both in school and at home to share our information to be viewed by group members, allowing us to post freely and quickly. The website allowed the ability to easily transfer and embed images and videos to use in correlation with our work and as evidence, and to use to show our characters used in our production and the costumes we had used for the characters.

Evaluation Task 1

when researching for production- primary – learning from mistakes from last year-filming etc, questionnaires for possible film titles

Secondary – looking at similar genre film trailers, conventions of genre of film

Dimension films – distributors of films in similar genre e.e scary movie franchise

Decided to focus on make character in particular, main draw of film

Also focus on comedy, another big draw.

Performed qualitative research onto what is shown in both parody and vampire film trailers could incorporate these ideas into our own scenes.

Affected the way we were going to present characters and settings e.g

Adhered fast paced editing and cuts, voiceover, music

Performed role of “glampire” in stereotypical camp manner, also looked the role, needed to adhere to vampire conventions so character was believable.

Ancillary task 2

Film poster:

Ancillary task


Magazine cover :

The Music we used in our production

For our production, we decided to use copyright free music in our piece, with the idea for the music to give the film the comedy edge and match the parody theme of our trailer.
For the opening section of our trailer, we used an orchestral piece we found on the website http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ called "Intrepid Traveler". Featuring a building string section, we felt that the piece would work well with the opening of our trailer, lulling the audience into a false sense of security and playing up to the parody side of our film, presenting it as an almost Epic movie. http://www.freeplaymusic.com/search/preview_file.php?id=92&dur=0&type=mp3 - Shortcut  to "Intrepid Traveler".


We immediately used a sound effect of a record player's needle being pulled off of a record quickly, to give the impression of the track being stopped short of it's climax. This effect is used in various pieces of media, like in a variety of songs, films and television shows, often to switch from one idea of connoting to the audience a switch from a serious situation to a more comedic one. We took the sound effect from the website http://www.freesound.org/.http://www.freesound.org/people/Halleck/sounds/29938/ - Link to Record Scratch sound effect.


For our final piece of music in our trailer, we used a short piece of hip hop music entitled "Beat 1", also taken from http://www.freesound.org/. We chose this piece of music due to Hip-hop's worldwide appeal, as well as due to the fact that the music contrasts with the "camp" character of Steve the vampire, hip-hop music associated with  "urban" themes and rap music. http://www.freesound.org/people/zyberbird/sounds/15495/ - link to "Beat 1"

Checking Blogs

You have to have a clear signed progression
from RESEARCH to PLANNING and CONSTRUCTION then EVALUATION tasks.
Check your blogs for errors and omissions –
refer to my previous posts and maintain a coherent appearance; don’t change
fonts and colours for no apparent reason.
Make sure you have appropriate links and
pictures etc. and that they work.
Simply copying and pasting info from elsewhere will
not get you marks: It must be acknowledged and referred to in relation to how
it has affected your thinking, planning and construction.
If your blog is thorough, thoughtful and shows research,
understanding and personal engagement it will get a good mark. If it is sloppy
in presentation, incomplete and doesn’t really analyse, explain, justify or
appear to understand your choices, it won’t.

Institutional information

Due to the genre of our film, we have decided that our film would be produced by the company "Dimension Films".  The studio, famous for producing many major horror films and franchises, such as the "Scream" franchise, "Scary Movie" franchise, and various films in the "Halloween" franchise.

Dimension Films is owned by The Weinstein Company. After the Weinstein Brothers left Miramax, they took with them Dimension films, to continue releasing specific genre films.The company, previously a subsidiary of Miramax, which in itself is a subsidiary of Walt Disney, has built up a solid reputation as a comedy and Horror film company.
 

For the release of our film, we have decided that the film would be released in multiplexes during summer time, released possibly early summer. Our reasoning for this is that at this our target audience, teenagers and young adults, would not be in education at the time, due to schools, colleges and universities finishing for the summer holidays, meaning that we would have more people coming to see our film. When looking at previous Dimension film's releases, most of their films have been released over the summer period and into the winter season, due to those being the peak times of the year that moviegoers will go to the cinema. This time of year is also when most blockbuster films are released.

For the release of the trailer for our film, we feel that our trailer would be shown before similar films, aimed at a similar audience. This would increase both knowledge and interest in the film, and bring in more people from our target audience to see our film. Our trailer would be shown internationally, due to the themes of the trailer and the film being international .

Voice-over: This Summer... A film like no other...will hit your screen...He's got true blood…

Scene where he's walking through the school

Voice-over:...with his own vampire diary.

Voice-over:..He's a smooth operator...

Burger scene

Voice-over: ... with the courage of a Lion.

Hanging upside down from tree scene, scene with cat
Music changes

Voice-over: He’s the average man’s R-Patz. From the makers of Scary Movie and Spy Hard, Sink your teeth into this! Glampire, coming soon

Altering logos to fit the thriller genre



We are thinking about altering about original logo and changing it slightly so that it is more suitable for a horror. This is apparent in the Batman film, Batman:The Dark Knight where they change the well known logo of the huge film making company "Warner Bros" to make it darker. The whole film was quite dark, and showed a few very violent scenes, this was quite surprising for a DC comics film which used ot be all about the heroes saving the day and bright costumes, etc. The Dark Knight shows none of this, it is a very dark film, mianly due to the horrific villian, The Joker, who was voted the second best villain ever by IGN Comic books, after X-men's Magneto. Although Batman has always been a dark character even when he was part of the Justice League, Christian Bale shows even more of his negative side by displaying all of his flaws and his love for Rachael Dawes.

In using a slightly alterated logo, Warner Bros manages to substain the eerie atmosphere throughout the trailer, this is also shown in the 'Legendary Pictures' logo and the logo for 'DC Comics'.

The movie poster for Batman: The Dark Knight



This is the original Wanrner Bros Logo for comparison.

The Warner Bros logo in the Batman trailer

The DC comics logo in the Batman trailer

Another technique that is used in these logos are the blue flames in the background, this is in keeping with Warner Bros blue background in their normal logo and does slightly resemble the clouds. The flames give us a sense of danger but the blue tint makes it seem unnatural, perhaps resembling Batman himself. Batman is seen as a light, a symbol of hope for the people of Gotham City. However he is unlike the average superhero is the the sense that he isn't light at all, perhaps why he is known as the 'Dark Knight'.




This concept is also true for the massive blockbuster Harry Potter, the films become darker and darker as the go on and the film logos follow this.

Still from the trailer of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

The Warner Bros logo in the Harry Potter Trailer

We hope to take inspiration from this when designing our own logo, it's a good way of keeping to the genre without changing the identity of the company and losing existing fans of the film company when they watch the trailers and don't realise that it is the same logo and film company.

Risk Assesment

When filming our A2 trailer there are numerous health and safety risks that must be accounted for, we knew that at some point in our filming process we were going to have to conduct a risk assesment especially at the point of the scenes in the woods. It was important to make sure all members of the crew were safe to film aswell as the actors themselves.We made sure firstly that all loose branches and twigs were removed from the pathway to prevent any trips and falls as a result. We cleared a large area completely of rubble and branches in order to allow for filming the camera had to be on a straight incline therefore nothing was to get in the way. As in one scene a charcter is climbing a tree we had to make sure firstly that the branch was strong enough to handle human body weight we did this by attaching weights equivalent of the character climbing the tree and also more importantly that the branch wasn't too high up and that it was safe to climb and safe to get down.

Characters in our Trailer

Steve the Vampire: played by Mitchell Terry

• A very un-cool vampire who thinks he's really popular and a total ladies man. He's clumsy and dum and most fo the time a complete scaredy cat. He always wears a cape and has a hair comb on him at all times.

Nora the Geek: played by Gabrielle Tomlinson

• Nora is a typical geek, she wears geeky glasses and plain clothing. She likes Steve but he doesn't relalise until the end of the film. Nora and Steve are good friends for the duration of the film.

Script

Narrator:

Corridor Scene

Steve pushes open doors, crowd moves apart.

Steve is walking through the corridor towards camera, stops  in front of camera.

Crowd Member: gasp

CUT TO:

Steve opens door and looks across the room at girl

Girl with ketchup on face looks confused at Steve

Steve displays look of affection, then brushes back hair smoothly

Girl shrugs, eats burger

Steve leaves, looking sad

CUT TO:

Steve Brushes hair back, sat on tree, almost falls

CUT TO:

Steve hanging upside down from tree

Steve:  it’s so high!

CUT TO:

Steve is sat in office chair, holding cat stroking it

Steve: (in camp voice) Hello Mr Kitty! Hello!

Steve realises he is talking camply, coughs loudly

Steve: (in deep voice) hello…

CUT TO:

Steve appears at a window of a house, and climbs in, getting stuck on the curtain on the way in.

Steve climbs onto the bed of the “Female” and crawls along towards them.

He pulls back their hair from their neck, before they turn to him, revealed it is a man.

Steve: (shocked) you’re a man?!

Man: I can be anything you want me to be…

CUT TO:

Steve eats a slice of garlic bread

Realises it is garlic, begins to choke and collapses

CUT TO:

Steve stood in front of houses on a pathway, pouts and looks into camera, before looking away into the distance

Titles overlaid.

END

Make-up    

As our production is a vampire parody film, we needed to have our lead Vampire character to have the all the looks and features of the stereotypical vampire. To get the look of the vampire we used white face paint as a base all over the face with black eyeshadow used to create cheekbones creating a gaunt and somewhat animated look.We again used black eyeshadow over and under the lids of the eyes, then by lining the eyes with a black liquid eyeliner this gave out more definition in the eyes giving them a more intense look.Yet again we used the liquid eyeliner to line both the brows and the hairline using angled edges to create a dracula esq symetrical face shape. Furthermore we added some red lipstick to the lips coated with a gloss to give a dripping effect simular to blood. Finally by adding wet look gel to the hair we were able to create the combed back look simular to that of dracula himself.

                                                                        

                                                                                          

        

Update on Planning!

You need a script + to state who is providing the props and where/why/how they're being used including a risk assessment if necessary. Your group have some institutional information on who would produce your film but YOU haven't posted it &Film Four don't tend to be sole producerss so say where else you might find funding and how you're 'selling' your film & produce your own,
appropriate, subsidiary studio logo design.

You also need to insert relevant pics into your Research tasks into trailer conventions and analyses to illustrate points and I can't see the fonts you're discussing in 'Possible Fonts' 28 Feb post?

Animatic

Shot list

Done	#	Shot	Action	Notes
Done	1	Medium-close up	Steve sat in tree pouting	Fade after shot
Done	2	Long shot	Steve walking down school corridor through crowd, stops in front of camera
Done	3	Close up	Steve opens door
Done	4	Close up	Nora turns to face Steve
Done	5	Close up	Steve pulls out brush and brushes hair, moves closer to Nora
Done	6	Close up	Nora gives Steve an unenthusiastic look
Done	7	Medium shot	Steve sat in a tree brushing hair back pouting
Done	8	Medium-close up	Steve hanging upside down from tree	Dialogue
Done	9	Medium	Steve and cat	Dialogue
Done	10	Medium	Steve climbing through window
Done	11	Mid-close up	Steve climbing across bed towards “girl”
Done	12	Close up	Steve pulling hair away from “girls neck”
Done	13	Close up	“Girl” turns to Steve, reveals it is a man
Done	14	Close up	Steve shocked at man	Dialogue
Done	15	Mid-close up	Steve eating garlic bread, collapses
Done	16	Long shot	Steve stood posing, pouting	Zoom in, fade
Done	17		Logo, credits