David Loveday

A2 Media Studies

Candidate Number - 6175

Centre Number - 17131

John F Kennedy School

Trailer

YouTube link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM61hMtYRvk&feature=channel_video_title

Poster

Website

Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Trailer

Poster

Website

Evaluation - Question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

Evaluation - Question 3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As part of our project, we had to collect feedback from our classmates, teachers and friends as well as the target audience of our trailer. Here is the feedback that I recieved for each of my three products. I have gathered both class feedback from my first drafts, then the feedback from the target audience, teachers, etc for my final drafts.

Poster (First Draft)

'Really good image'

'Image looks professional'

'Good use of colour'

'It is laid out well'

'Looking quite plain, more could be added to it'

'Image doesnt say much about the film'

'Picture needs to be more centered'

Website (First Draft)

'Layout looks good so far'

'More needs to be added to it'

'Colours arent as attractive as poster'

'Needs more added to it'

Trailer (First Draft)

'Really good editing'

'Really like the filming'

'Goes well with the music'

'Looks slightly like a music video'

'Doesn't explain much about the story'

'Don't understand what its meant to be about'

Poster (Final Draft)

Good

'Really Good image'

'The sepia colouring of the image is very original'

'Model looks very sincere and edgey, very well posed'

'Sets an intersting mood'

'Makes you curious as to what the film is about'

'A cool poster'

'Gives a good feel for what the films mood and genre might be'

'Well presented and laid out'

'Very simple but in a good and effective way'

Bad

'Doesn't really explain what the film could be about'

'Not sure about the health consequences of the cigarette'

'There isn't much information about the movie in the poster'

Teachers comments: 'Again looks like a poster for an independent film, very good image with good use of colour. Font works well with the picture and theme of the film'.

Website (Final Draft)

Good

'Interesting contrast to poster'

'Simple and clear'

'The image is very thought provoking'

'Not at all dull, really catches the eye'

Bad

'Too simple'

'No direct link to poster'

'Not much resemblance to the poster'

Trailer (Final Draft)

Good

'Brilliantly filmed and edited'

'Some excellent camera angles'

'The colours look really good'

'A good range of different types of shots'

'Good use of scenery'

'Works really well with the music'

'Looks like an independant film, in a good way'

Bad

'Looks quite like a music video rather than a trailer'

'The story isn't very clear'

'Don't understand what its meant to be about'

'Some of the on-screen text is quite hard to read'

'Can be quite hard to keep up with'

'Very confusing'

Teachers Comments: Obviously not a Hollywood blockbuster but it looks like an excellent independent film. Excellent camera angles, editing and use of colour. A story that is open to various interpretations. Recommended for an 18 age rating.

Analysing My Feedback

From my feedback I have learnt that the editing skills shown through the trailer are very good but the message of the trailer is not very clear and people do not get a clear indication of what the film is meant to be about. The poster recieved good feedback, people seemed to like the imagery and thought it related well to the trailer. My website design though was rather dull and many people stated that it didn't really relate to the other two pieces. I was happy that some saw it as an independent film as that was I was aiming to produce.

If I were to do this whole project again, I would definately concentrate more on adding more detail to all three of the products. I would have focused more on making each of them relate to each other in some way. I would have definately made my trailer more clear to the target audience. The style of construction that I used made it very hard to understand or make out a storyline.

Evaluation - Question 4

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

1. Blogger (www.blogger.com) – Blogger is a website where you can create your own personal blog. I created my blog within this site to display the progress of my work to my teacher and also my classmates, who also each have their own blogs. They are able to comment on my blog posts and they can express their opinions on my work and give their feedback. If this technology was not available, I would have had to regularly display all my work to the class and write down comments and feedback.

2. iMovie - iMovie is a video editing software program which is available on Apple computers. I used this program to edit my movie trailer. It enables me to cut out bits of video and place them in the order I want, I was able to add sound effects and music over the top and it also allows to put on-screen text and visual effects in. If this technology was not available, then I would have had to of made the trailer on a film camera and cut & edit all the pieces of film myself.

3. Adobe Photoshop – Photoshop is a photo editing software which is available on both Apple and Windows computers. I used this program when creating my poster and website designs. It allows me to do things such as crop images, enhance the colours, adjust the lighting and remove and unwanted marks on things such as a characters face. If this technology was not available then I would have had to create my own lighting set-ups, apply make-up to the people I was photographing and I also would not have the advantage of all the visual effects I have used.

4. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) (www.imdb.com) – IMDb is a database website which includes all information related to movies, television, actors, directors and production companies. I used this site to find films related to the genre of trailer that I am making and also to research into movie posters, websites and trailers. If this technology was not available then I would have had to go to a shop that sells films and look for films under the same genre as my trailer.

5. YouTube (www.youtube.com) – YouTube is a video sharing website where you can create an account and upload, share and view your videos. Users are able to view other people’s videos, subscribe to their channels and leave feedback though a comments function. I used this site to upload my trailer, which would then be embedded into a post on my blog and also shared on facebook. If this technology was not available I would have had to show my trailer to my family and friends by taking my laptop to them and then recording the feedback on paper.

6. Google (www.google.com) – Google is an internet search engine where website results will be found for anything that you type into the search bar. I used this search engine to discover the sites which I have previously explained such as IMDb and blogger. If this technology was not available then I would have not found the useful sites that I have discovered, therefore the quality and accessibility of my work would not be as good.

7. Facebook (www.facebook.com) – Facebook is a social networking site where people can create an account for themselves where they can add and speak to their friends, upload photos and also share things such as website links, YouTube videos, etc. I used this site to embed my video which I uploaded through YouTube and share it with my friends so that they could give me feedback. If this technology was not available, as I said before about YouTube, I would have had to of shown the video individually to each of my friends and record their comments on paper.

8. Safari – Safari is an internet browser which was developed by Apple. I used this as my primary internet browser because I was working from an Apple computer. If this technology were not available it would be much more difficult to find out information and I would have to gather research from things such as books.

9. GarageBand – GarageBand is a software program created by Apple which enables you to create your own music and podcasts. I used this program to create the background music for my trailer. If this technology was not available then I would have had to of created the music by playing the instruments myself and recording it.

10. Canon EOS 500d D-SLR Camera – The Canon 500d is a digital single lens reflex camera. It is a professional camera which allows you to manually manage the functions of the camera so you can create a clear looking image. I used this camera for the photos on my poster and website designs. If this technology was not available then I would have had to use a film camera, meaning I would not be able to edit the image.

11. Canon HG10 HDD Camcorder – The Canon HDD Camcorder is a video recording camera that saves all of the film onto an inbuilt hard drive rather than onto tapes. I used this camera to film my trailer. If this technology was not available I would have had to use a traditional film camera.

12. Apple Macbook Laptop – The Macbook is a laptop created by Apple. This is what I used to manage all the creating and editing of my pieces of work. It operates all of the software programs that I have previously mentioned (Photoshop, iMovie, GarageBand). If this technology was not available then the whole making and researching process of my project would be extremely difficult. I would have to do things such as draw and print all the poster designs myself and edit all the film by hand.

Final Trailer

Development of Trailer

The program we used to created the trailer is called 'iMovie'. This allowed us to crop clips of video and re-arrange them, change the visual colours, add text to the video and also add music over the top.

Here is an example of the editing process of our trailer. The green markers underneath the thumbnails indicate the music and audio tracks that we added to our trailer. They are all tracks that were included in the iMovie program so they are all copyright free. The blue markers above the thumbnails indicate the on screen text which overlaps on the video. Both the text and audio markers can be shortened and made longer to suit the video.

Pictured here is the 'Insepector' tool. This allows you to edit the colours, lighting and saturation on the video files. We used this to create the dark and dull lighting that we were looking for.