Evaluation: Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop challenge forms and conventions of real media products? At least 9x still shots analysed

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

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

Audience feedback had a significant impact on our production process. We gained a lot of feedback via questionnaires at the start of the project.  For example, we asked the audience what they looked for in this genre and what they expected, in order to give us ideas for what to feature in our teaser trailer.

After filming our first idea for our teaser trailer, we captured the footage and edited it on premiere pro. We weren’t entirely sure that the idea had been a success so we decided to take audience feedback from our classmates in order to see what their reactions were. 

Here is the first draft we made for our teaser trailer:

A lot of the feedback we received for the production was via interview with the spectator who then gave us verbal feedback. We felt this was the right way to gain feedback as opposed to a questionnaire as they could communicate their thoughts and be more detailed than they could be on a piece of paper.

Other classmates said they were not sure of the link between our characters, they felt that the genre was not portrayed as there were not enough conventions and overall, thought our trailer could be improved. We took these comments on board, and decided to develop our idea and change the layout of the trailer. We built upon the initial idea, and finished up with a complete different filming location for the second shoot. As the audience felt there were not enough conventions present in the first draft, we chose a house, which had dark lighting, a long hallway and black stairs, that all represented the psychological thriller genre well. After filming here, and doing a first edit, we asked some more classmates their opinion.

Feedback was positive which showed that we were on the right track but a comment we received was that we should make some shots a different colour, so that you know they are in the past in contrast to the present. We thought this comment was true and decided to put the flashbacks in black and white, as this fitted the genre well. 

We also received comments suggesting that we add music that built up suspense, therefore when searching for the music for our trailer we looked for spooky, dramatic music that would make our teaser trailer extremely effective.

When we had finally finished editing our teaser trailer and were happy with how it looked, we decided to take audience feedback from members of the public. Even though our target audience were people aged 15-35, we decided to take feedback from the largest target of our target audience which were people aged 15-20. We showed members of the public our trailer and then asked their opinions, whilst asking questions that related to our project. We shot this in a cinema as a news report.

A lot of the feedback was positive, and every person we questioned said they would want to go and watch it. They also said features such as the lighting and sound were particularly effective, showing that we didn’t have to make any improvements to our trailer. We received constructive criticism highlighting that the dialogue could have been stronger and there could have been more of it.

Overall, audience feedback played a significant role in our we modified our trailer and met and challenged audience expectations. We took the comments into account and made various changes to the lighting effects, sound and genre conventions.  We gained this feedback in a successful way as all of the audience were honest and gave us constructive  criticism which overall helped to improve the quality of our trailer.

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

Overall media technologies were extremely important for the role of research and planning,production and evaluation. With the ever technological world we live in we decided to take advantage of the choice of software packages and hardware available, eventually completing our A2 coursework.

1. Research and Planning

Youtube

In order to research into similar products for our research we had to use programs which used Microsoft Internet Explorer, and enabled us to access the famous Youtube. This program allowed us to watch and analyse trailers and find out more about similar products. We found Youtube beneficial to our process because of its advanced features and flexibility. It allowed us to pause and stop clips to create screen shots without the need to restart the clip, and if we wanted that further viewpoint we could also enlarge the screen. A disadvantage of Youtube in the research and planning stages was that the videos would sometimes freeze due to a poor internet connection. There was also constant adverts at the start of each clip from the sponsors. The impact of this technology was that we were able to adopt certain conventions from other teaser trailers when we made our trailer and we could look at trailers like "The Machinist" to give us ideas. It enabled us to be more creative because we gained some new and innovative editing techniques.

Google

Google was another search engine that helped us with our research and planning. For our location reece it allowed us to take aerial photographs of the surrounding and area, which meant that we were able to compare how accessible the two locations we considered were. One was based in Booker, High Wycombe, whereas the other was based in St Peters Street, Marlow.

1. High Wycombe

2. Marlow

Samsung Fuji Film Camera

A Samsung fuji film camera was another important item of technology that we used. A clear advantage of using this camera was that it was high in the level of mega pixels and therefore provided high quality photos. The device was also compact and portable which meant that it was easily carriable, especially in this case shown below. The use of this camera helped us complete various tasks which included photographs of the filming process.  This camera was also different to the standard ones currently on the market, as it also had the option to take panoramic photos of the surrounding area if you wanted to. A clear disadvantage of this particular camera was that it had a low battery life and often needed charging, which was deemed a nuisance.

Microsoft Office: Excel 2010

Microsoft Office is software package used by many globally, and we can see why because of the range of programs available. An advantage of using this software that we found was that it enabled us to create a Gannet Chart with ease and then we separated them into clear blocks. We were able to clearly show the production schedule of our A2 coursework because of this. This program was also useful for our film and audience research analysis. On excel we were able to easily tally and count up our results with minimal errors and maximum speed. We also made our results look more interesting as I became more creative and put the results onto a range of pie charts and bar charts. This meant our feedback was far easier to read. If you wanted to find out the amount of disposable income our audience spend on cinema targets you can clearly see this because it has been labelled correctly. You may also notice the 3d effects which made it look different. 

Microsoft Word

Word was a particularly important software that we used for our research and planning stages. Firstly it enabled us to create our audience research questionnaire, but we were also able to type up our written answers to ensure that they were grammatically correct. An advantage of using word was that any text could be easily changed. The introduction of word to the world was a revelation for this reason, and since then it has advanced dramatically. It also allowed us to create screen shots.

Powerpoint

Powerpoint was another tool we used for our research and planning. I particularly like this software as it actually enables you to copy and crop and image. It was particularly useful for screen shots for the analyse of teaser trailers. A screen shot is shown below:

A Key Tool-Hp Photo Smart Scanner

Overall a key tool we used for our research and planning was the HP Photo Smart Scanner. This machine was able to scan our storyboards in, which was vital because we spent a considerable amount of time drawing the detailed shots. This allowed us to be more creative and artistic with our storyboards as we didn't have to worry about the limitations of technology. This was a clear advantage and impacted on our production because it gave us more time to plan and construct. The only possible disadvantage of using this scanner is that it would sometimes take a long amount of time to power on.

2. Production

Our overall production needed technologies so that it could be successful. Blogger, the logo shown below was particularly useful as it enabled us to have freedom in the creativity of our blogs, especially the layout.

Print Screen:

Blogger helped us to display in our work in a creative way. We could choose the actual colour scheme of our blog and even choose our own background if we desired, which I did. This was a definate advantage to blogger. A possible limitation of this software is the the "compose" tool was sometimes difficult to use e..g placing images side by side. The use of blogger will obviously have a visual impact on the viewer, because the various designs made it look more interesting and conventional. Without the role of this media technology our work wouldn't have been displayed properly.

Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro was one of the most important piece of software we used as it enabled us to create our "Beneath the surface" teaser trailer. Without the editing techniques available we wouldn't have been able to import our captured footage from my home Sony Video Camera and then add various affects to fit into the conventions of a psychological thriller. If you look at the various screen shots it shows that we were able to add a black and white effect onto the shots and then even add transitions.  The ability of adding a fade to the opening shot of me helped us to be creative as it connotates that she is experiencing a flashback. The use of this editing effect also fitted in with the plot. Furthermore, another benefit of using premiere pro is that it allowed us to cut and chop footage and increase the pace of the trailer. We couldn't have created the montage of clips at the end of the trailer which include the eye shot:

Premiere Pro also gave us the creative freedom to create our own titles. The titles were edited onto a black background with a striking white font. The text "What would you do" followed by "If the childhood you remember" was a useful editing tool because it provided our audience with more infomation about the plot, whilst not revealing to much. A possible downside was that we didnt use much dialogue.

Another aspect which was helped by the media technology of Premiere Pro was the editing of sound. Combined with the use of the website called "Free Sound" I was able to research and find sounds such as "Jobro Big Boom" to create the effect that I wanted. Overall you may notice that our sound effects are quite dark and loud, which is the why we chose them as it follows conventions of a psychological thriller. Putting sounn when each title sequence appears is a similar technique used by the likes of teaser trailers such as Pirhana 3d or Inception that I analysed. The use of this media technology would hopefully mean that if our audience were in the cineama I would hope that it makes a big effect on them and would make them pay attention. A possible disadvantage of using Premiere Pro is that the sound wouldnt sometimes transfer across, and it would also freeze on a regular basis, however these are clearly issues with the software construction.

The Sony Handicam Video Camera

This was the device used to film our main production. A revolution in itself, the Sony Handicam with a Cark Zeiss Vario Tessar 12X Opitical Zoom Lense was extremely versititle and also easily packed away.The video camera also had a 480x digital zoom, with the actual words "Super Steady Shot" written along the top of the device. It is fair to say that the product has lived up to its description as we were able to film various camera angles and were able to be creative in the number of postions we held the camera. This could of been a high angle shot or a low angle shot. The impact of this new modern technology was that it was also able to pick up sound from our production from when the psychiatrist Dr Edwards speaks. It was also of sufficent quality and was loud. The camera was also used for our evaluation, and still managed to pick up sound over loud air conditioning vents.
A disadvantage of this camera was that the lead connected to the college computers do not fit in the "DCIN" slot but this provoked me to be more intutive because we simply used another camera and swaped the tape over. It is interesting that we still use tape in this modern day of technological change, but we felt that there was less risk involved because smaller more compact digital cameras, although more advanced, can also break more easily and have complications, including the random delete of footage if the camera memory corrupts.

Photoshop 

       The software packages available to me at college included Indesign and Photoshop. We found photoshop useful because it enabled us to manipulate the two pictures of Elizabeth and Sian and then set them in grayscale. It also allowed us to further be creative as we magnetic lasood each eye and changed one from a dull blue to a striking green and the other to a bright blue. The use of the hue and saturation was also a good tool.

Photoshop was also useful for the editing of the editing of the first draft of our magazine. Without the use of indesign its fair to say that our magazine and poster wouldn't of been as effective. For the first draft of our magazine we were able to increase the brightness of the shot to make Sian look like a celebrity, however we felt that it didnt follow conventions and took another picture of Sian in front of the candle which didn't require much editing.

Indesign

For our poster indesign helped us to create the look we wanted. We initially created the background and titles first. The various choice of fonts and titles was excellent and we managed to choose "Minion Pro" because it looked striking against the dark black background without the ability to be able to put the fonts in italic we would not have been able to create the look we wanted. The ability of adding text was also helpful on indesign because we added the credits along the bottom and made the poster look similar to many other posters on the market place. Using the red tool on 2012 also meant that we could emphasize when the film is going to be released to members of the public.

Indesign is also a media technology that was beneficial to us when we created our magazine. We created the bold red masthead "feature film" and outlined it in white against the black background to make it stand out. Indesign also allowed us to be creative because we added cover lines which included Kiera Knightley and Hugh Grant and used a yellow font. Indesign also let us add a lure along the bottom. 

Evaluation

For our evaluation we decided to be creative in this analysis of our ideas. Audience feedback was created so that we could gain opinion on our products and the benefit of using a media technology (HTC mobile phone) was that the sound and video was clear and you could clearly understand the content. Using an HTC phone with a camera was good and it highlights how far media technology had travelled with the introduction of 3G and 4G phones. Using the phone was an advantage however the only downside is that we had to use the phone software which kept freezing.

Audience Feedback Screen Shot:

For our evaluation we also used word to type up the script of questions.

Our evaluation questions combined all the creative skills we knew. For question 2 I used windows movie maker to create a podcast. I found using windows movie maker quick as it allowed me to easily add titles and pictures but I thought it was not as advanced as premiere pro as there were not as many video effects or transitions. I used a microphone to film this, and an IBM laptop. This was definitely a dated laptop, but an external hard drive made it faster. The advantage of using this media technology was that it was portable.

Question 3 of our evaluation was by far the most creative as we travelled to two separate cinemas and used the video camera to film. 

This eventually did involve premiere pro and you can see that we used Media technologies to create a rolling title sequence to make it look like a news report. We also added the word ‘live’ to make it seem more realistic. The impact of using this technology made it look like the people we interviewed had just seen the teaser trailer in the cinema and we were actual news reporters. Finally we did use Youtube for screen shots and to export the clip. The use of you tube was an important media technology throughout all the stages of our production, but it was the most beneficial to us when we finally had to export the final clip of Question Four.

Summary

Overall the construction of our media products involved many uses of technology throughout the research,planning, production and evaluation process. Without the use of this technology our trailer would not have followed conventions and our scope to be creative would have been seriously reduced. I believe in this ever changing world technology will be at the forefront of the film industry and without it, it will cease to make an impression upon audiences.