The brief I chose for my advanced portfolio was; A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer together with two of the following three options, a website for the homepage of the film, a film magazine front cover featuring the film and a poster for the film. I have chosen to produce a film magazine front cover and a poster for the film.
Before I started producing my promotion package for a film I researched the history of film trailers, purpose and functions, conventions, film genre and existing film trailers. I researched how the Internet, YouTube and magazines promote films. I then did a textual analysis of a couple of film trailers of different genres one of horror which is my chosen genre. I researched the conventions and how the music and editing effect the audience and how certain techniques work.
When I began producing my trailer I decided on my audience giving my film a 15 certificate.I researched the conventions used in film trailers, film magazine front covers and film posters. the purpose of these is to promote the film which is going to be released and give the audience a chance to own some memorabilia.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Film Trailer - To follow conventions of horror movies I had find the right music for my film I looked at pre-existing films of a horror genre, I decided to use the theme tune from 'Nightmare On Elm Street" I used this because I knew it was iconic and many people would recognise it, I edited my trailer to work with the music. I used the conventions of a horror movie when choosing my cast, from my research and knowledge I knew that there's always a female character in horror movies that always comes across as the damsel in distress. So I decided to make the female character the antagonist thus challenging the normal conventions of the horror genre. To follow conventions I asked my antagonist to wear white or light coloured clothes and my protagonist to wear black allowing the audience to know who the 'good' character and who the 'bad' character is. When filming and finding a location for my trailer, I knew it had to be set in college to follow the narrative I wanted so I found locations that had the long corridors I had envisioned and stairs to add a more dramatic feel. The shots I used were a convention of horror trailers such as; close ups and medium shots to add tension for the audience. The edits which I have used also follows the conventions of horror trailers such as dissolves and straight cuts. However one convention I may not have followed is dialogue, their is no dialogue in my trailer except for a voice over and a female screaming at the end of my trailer.
Film Poster - After looking at several film posters I discovered that there are many different conventions to follow, such as a member of your cast to appear, the title of the film, copyright and film logo. However there any many items which can be used such as the list of actors, directors and producers and even the location of the film. I followed many of them including the character, location, title of the film, logo and copyright. However I left out the actor listing because I personally felt that it took something away from the poster obscuring everything else. I followed the conventions of horror posters like the colour scheme, the poster is very dark which is consistent of the horror genre. I took the photos for my ancillary texts on one of the same days as filming, I did this so that the clothes would be the same in the poster and film front cover and the film trailer.
Film Front Cover -
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Before producing my main product and ancillary texts I researched some of the packages which came with other movies, such as iron man I realised that the posters and film covers promoting the film had a specific colour scheme (red and gold) so i decided to follow the same pattern, having black font with either a red or white stroke and shadow too add mysterious effect which is a theme throughout my film trailer. I feel that my main products and ancillary texts work really well with each other. The theme of horror is consistent within the trailer, the poster compliments this by sticking to the conventions and having dark imagery and allowing the audience to instantly know where its set and who the characters are the tree in the background adds a eerie feel to the poster instantly telling you what the genre is. My film magazine does a great job of promoting my film and looking professional at the same time. The combination of the three work exceptionally well promoting each other.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I have asked several people for their opinions of my film promotional package. The overall view was that most people preferred my teaser trailer for my film as opposed to the theatrical one, they said that it was because it felt as though it had more mystery and tension which fits for it being of the horror genre. They liked the colour scheme I used black and red being bad and dangerous and white representing good and tranquility. They also liked the way in which my trailer was edited although on the theatrical one a couple of them thought that it took too long to establish the scene. They really liked my film poster they thought it represented my trailer exceptionally well. My film magazine was produced well and advertised my film adequately. overall I think I did a good job in my production and although I would maybe add some more shots into the theatrical trailer I believe that it starting slow makes the audience feel comfortable and get to know the characters a little even though they know something bad is going to happen.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In order to produce my film package I had to research many different items such as; the history of film trailers, conventions of film trailers, analyse film trailers, analyse film posters and also analyse film magazines. In order to accomplish this I used the Internet starting at google and following any links which looked relevant. To plan my production I used paint to brainstorm my ideas for my poster and magazine front cover making text boxes and using colours I thought would work well together. I also used a scanner to upload my storyboards of my film trailer onto the computer so I could upload them onto my blog.
Film trailer - To produce my film trailer I used one of the colleges cameras which uses miniDV tapes to record on thus giving a digital format which we can upload onto the computers ready for editing. After filming and uploading the footage onto the computer I then had to re-name the clips that I had just shot making it easier for me to edit. I then loaded 'Adobe Premier Pro' using my clips which were named I dragged them onto the timeline in the order wanted them, to get the footage to the exact point I wanted it I could either drag the clip to the length I wanted which means that only the visible part would be viewed but if I decided I wanted the extra footage I could just extend the clip alternatively if I knew for certain the sections of the clips I needed I used the 'razor' tool which allowed me to simply cut the clip to size. If I wanted to slow a clip down or speed it up all I had to do was right-click the intended clip and select the 'speed/duration' box and change the settings to suite my purpose. I also needed to add 'title' screens in my trailer to accomplish this you click on the timeline where you want the title to be and go to 'file, new, title' then a box appears which allows you to add text boxes or images with a range of font styles, colours, and effects such as adding a stroke or shadow to your lettering. After getting the intended clips in the order I wished to use them i focused on editing. following the conventions id learned I used; straight cuts, fade In's, fade out's and dissolves. For a straight cut you just place the next clip you wish to view next to the previous one, to get fade In's and out's you have to use the 'pen' tool in order to do this you need to select the 'pen' tool then click on the yellow line which appears on your clip then use the 'control' (CTRL) key on your keyboard by pressing it and holding it then select the points you wish for your clip to fade in and out. Alternatively for the dissolves I used for my 'title' screens they were in a different folder of editing effects, you had to have the two clips you wished to dissolve on the same line on the timeline and have the effect overlap them so that one dissolved into the other. I also added audio to my trailer, after uploading my chosen track into the programme I wanted to erase the background noise in order to do this I had to lock my video clips using the box at the side of the video lines ticking the padlock icon, this allowed me to delete the unwanted background noise leaving me free to add my music track and voice over. I faded my music track each time I had a voice over to add more suspense for the audience. I then rendered my video and saved it, then uploaded it onto my blog.
Problems I encountered, using the colleges equipment meant that the time I had was limited so i could only use the camera's when they were free. The editing computers were also limited and I found it difficult to get time on them to edit my trailer, also the first computer I was on crashed and I lost all of my work and was forced to start again this time n a different computer. Also I hadn't really used 'Adobe premier pro' that much so at the beginning it was slow to get started. However not all of the problems i encountered were technical. Due to using four cast members five including myself and also using the college as a location it proved difficult to get a time when we we're all free so I could film, this problem was overcome easily by filming mainly in our dinner times.
Film Poster and Film Magazine Front Cover - I produced both of my ancillary texts in the same way using the same programme. I used a digital camera to take my photos making it easier to upload them onto the computer. I took my photos in the blue room which helped a lot in editing. After I had uploaded my images onto the computer and loaded the programme 'Photoshop Creative Suite 4 or Photoshop CS4' I began editing the photos I wished to use. To erase any of the excess image I didn't require I used the 'crop' tool allowing me to keep the main part of the image. To delete the blue background and only keep the person in the image I used two tools firstly the 'magic wand' tool which makes a selection by colour range meaning that all I needed to do was click on the blue background and press the delete button and the majority of the background was erased however there were some parts which was difficult to delete using this tool so I then used the 'lasso' tool to use this you have to keep the left mouse button held down as you go around the part of the image you wish to delete the click the delete button, after this process is complete you have a transparent background. To change the the levels of brightness of the images you go into the 'hue and saturation' menu allowing you to make the images lighter or darker. Then to put your main image on a background you have to create a new layer then colour it however you want to, in the case of my poster I coloured it black then added another image of the college and put that layer behind the one of my antagonist I wanted the college too look eerie so I made it darker and used the 'gradient' tool this allows me to use two or more colours and blend them to a certain percentage, in this case black to transparent. I wanted text on my ancillary text so I added a text box and wrote what I wanted and looked through the fonts to find something appropriate for my film poster I couldn't find one so I decided to download one called 'neverwinter nights' I then wanted to add an effect to it so I added a 'stroke and shadow' which means that there's a different colour around the letters and it casts a somewhat blurry shadow of a selected colour. To move my images and text boxes around to get my layout right i used the 'move' tool. After I was satisfied with my ancillary texts I saved them as a '.jpeg' file format as opposed to photoshop's '.psd' allowing me to upload it onto my blog.
problems I encountered, I used several different computers for photoshop throughout producing my ancillary texts and they were two different versions of photoshop; 'photoshop CS3' and 'photoshop CS4' this made it difficult to open my file or even impossible on some computers and I was forced to do most of the work on my home computer which used 'photoshop CS4'. The font style also caused some problems as my home computer had the 'neverwinter nights' font I wished to use but the college ones did not causing it to change to a generic font and effect the whole layout of my work.
