How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Research and Planning
Construction
Evaluation
For displaying my evaluation questions, I have used the same as what I had used in the research and planning, Prezi, Slideshare (PowerPoints), and directly into Blogger. Blogger is free and very easy to use, and allows you to embed presentations or different media forms like images or videos into blog posts. In my first evaluation question, I added in GIF's to help display examples from the trailer. These were created by extracting short clips from the trailer into Movie Maker, rendering them into high quality MP4 file, and then uploading them onto the site ezgif, which converts videos into GIF's in a selection of different fps (frames per second) and pixel sizes. The site also allows you to crop the image, adjust the colours or slow the GIF down, to help give more penalisation into how the GIF looks before it can be saved. I decided to use GIF's as I thought they would be visually more interesting than a still image, and they would help provide better examples of the cinematography without having the need to compile a selection of clips into one video.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
My Audience
The importance of feedback in the media/film industry
Its important for a producer of a product to gain audience feedback. This is because it enables them to learn what appealed to their audience, and what didn't appeal, and also helps them gain an insight into what they can do to improve in order to alter their product in any way in order to fully appeal to their target audience. In the film industry, you might often come across unexpected results in audience feedback, finding out that an element in the film or film trailer that you thought would be a great asset, but instead is received with a negative appeal. This is why people in the media or film industry often create different ways in which an audience can give their feedback before the final product is released. This can be done in various ways.
Questionnaires - They might get an audience to fill in a questionnaire, asking about how they perceived the product and whether the product appealed to them.
Comments on the internet - On video-sharing sites such as Vimeo or Youtube, or social media such as Facebook or Twitter, users are allowed to comment on the video in the comment sections on the websites. This way they can share their opinion on film trailers, even if it is simply stating their like of an actor or the special effects as this is still valuable feedback. Test Screenings - This is where a sample of an audience is given the chance to see the early final cut of a film or trailer before it is fully released to the public. This is where the audience can give feedback on micro elements such as editing and sound, or by perhaps shortening the product duration, or switching footage around.
Critic Screenings - Where official film critics are allowed an advanced viewing of the product. These critics would then publicly release their opinions of the product, in which an audience might heavily rely on their reviews before checking out the final product itself. This also enables film makers to know whether they should expect positive or negative reviews from the general audience.
Interviews - Asking questions to the audience face-to-face can offer more in-depth and open minded feedback as they are not limited to what they can say like you might in a questionnaire.
Audience Feedback
Final Conclusion The feedback I have received from my audience has given me a great insight into how to improve my products. As you can tell from the press above, a number of people who filled in my survey assumed that my poster was for a horror film rather than a crime film. This could obviously be assumed by the fact that the red on the poster had been heightened, and that the background of the poster, behind the transparent binary code, was black. I initially had placed Anon at the top of the page, but feared that this would make them seem too antagonistic, however they were deemed to look too horrifying. I could have resolved this issue if I had experimented more with the positioning of the characters on poster so that it did not look like Anon was too empowering over them, I could have created another photoshoot of Anon posing with the gun (and possibly the laptop) together so that the crime and technology themes can both be conveyed. I could have used these images on the poster and magazine so that the poster had a better use of mise-en-scene to suggest it is a crime film, and so that I had a better angle of Anon on the magazine cover so that the gun would not be hidden. If the filming schedule had stuck more to the original plan, then we could have re-shot some scenes, such as the running ones where the cinematography was not at it's greatest and tried alternative filming techniques that could have included a steadier camera so it is easier to see what is going on and better lighting so it is not too dark in some scenes that look too grainy.
Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of my products as they have received some very positive reviews, particularly the trailer once the soundtrack was changed.
There are a few shots within our trailer that do follow the conventions of a crime film. Quite often crime films stick to a 'film noir' style with dark lighting, like what you would expect of a black and white film. There is a shot of the character Eve who is 'smoking' under a bridge, which I believe has resemblance to this film noir style. There is another shot where Eve's bloody hand falls to the floor with the focusing on the foreground whilst the background is blurred. This is the type of shot you would expect to see in a crime trailer where there is implied death.
Comparative shot to Film Noir: Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Backlit
Harsh Shadows
Although this is not a crime film, it is still part of film noir.
Although we do have conventional cinematography, we do also have unconventional shots. For example, there is a panning shot at the start of the trailer featuring Eve taking drugs. The framing of this shot does not look as if it belongs to a crime film as it is a close up of a female character who is facing the camera, and is on the right side of the screen. usually we see females in the same mid-shot as the male protagonist whilst they are facing each other, not the camera. Another shot that I feel defies conventions is where Anon is walking down the alleyway and past the camera. Crime films tend to film the antagonist from far away as this can help an audience feel safe from them, however the cinematography in this case is that the camera is of a very close proximity to the antagonist. This type of shot may be commonly used when tracking the protagonist, but it is rare to track an antagonist in such a way.
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Mise-en-scene
Anon:
Anon is clearly the 'evil' antagonist, as one might judge by the red lighting that makes them seem intimidating, this is also supported by the fact that we cannot see their real face since they hide behind a Guy Fawkes mask. However there is also blue lighting in this shot of Anon, which can connote that Anon is simply a neutral party, they are neither good, nor or they bad, they might have good intentions, but execute them in unconventional, life-threatening ways. With this representation of Anon, they could be classed as a counter type of a crime antagonist as we would expect a villainous character to have intentions of killing characters for immoral reasons.
Anon's costume might be unconventional for a crime film considering how a large majority of crime films are about gangsters or secret agents. The only colour of their costume is black, which is to be expected, and they wear a Guy Fawkes mask like an Anonymous member would wear. I do not believe that there has been any use of Anonymous as a villainous character in a film, so in this case I think that our film trailer challenges conventions. However, there has been a similar character in the Australian indie film John Doe: Vigilante (2014, pictured on right), who wears an mask, albeit not an Anonymous one, but also wears a black hood, however this type of appearance of character is to be expected in a horror film such as Halloween, but not in a crime film, therefore I still deem our character of Anon to be convention breaking for the crime genre.
Alice & George:
Alice's costume can be considered to be 'slutty' given how she is wearing fishnet tights and an extremely short dress and heavy make-up. To some extent this is what an audience may extent a female druggie to look like. George however is wearing a lot less make-up and is in a simple hoodie and jeans, which suits the stereotype of a male drug addict instead. In terms of crime films these two characters are counter types as female characters tend to play the role of a damsel in distress or a femme fetale who are usually glamorous & rich, and wear long, slim fitting dresses.
Eve:
Eve is represented in this trailer as both stereotypical of a female character in a crime films, and as a countertype. She is stereotypical in the sense that she can be seen as a damsel in distress like many females are represented to be in crime films, this being because she is implied to have been chased and killed by Anon, which would tell an audience she is weak. On other hand, she is a countertype through performance and costume. Like with Alice and George, she is not dressed glamorously, but instead very casual, and her make-up and lighting in the scene at RAF Witham makes her ill and tired, which is entirely different to what you would expect of a female character in a crime film.
Is the opposite of what our characters are represented to be.
Connor:
Males often play the lead role in a crime film, however Connor is the only male character shown in the trailer, in which he does not show up for more than three shots. This would suggest to an audience that he may not have a major role in the film, which is uncommon as there is lack of female-driven crime films.
Applying Propp's character types theory to this trailer, we can tell who is the villain, and who the heroes are, but not necessarily the individual roles that they will play. This is not necessarily a negative aspect as it leaves this information blank for the audience so they might be more tempted to see the film and find out this information themselves.
Locations:
The locations we have used are an abandoned air field (RAF Witham), a woods, an alleyway, a studio room and a park.
Stereotypical locations: The alleyway and studio room are to be expected for a crime film. Alleyway's are usually where a kidnapping or murderous crime would take place in both real life and in films, or where a chase scene is to take place where the protagonist would see a suspicious person who is suspected to have a connection to the crime and run after them, or vise versa. For our trailer we have used it for the latter. The studio room is also often used for an antagonist to record a warning message or where they might have a notice board mapping out their victims or next target.
Countertype locations:
An abandoned or run-down house may be typical of a crime film, but an abandoned air field is not. Considering how crime films are usually set in the middle of big cities it is unlikely for the characters to go to an airfield. The woods are more typical of a horror film where a protagonist is being chased by the masked serial killer, although its purpose in our trailer is conventional in films, it is not necessarily conventional in a crime film. As stated before, films of this genre are usually set in large urban cities, and therefore would not be near a large enough woods.
The location of the park is not what comes to mind when we think of the crime genre, but it is however often associated with drug dealings, which is what we have used it for, so in this context, this location follows the conventions of a crime film.
Props:
Our props consist of fake drugs and a fake gun. Both of these are without a doubt conventional for crime films, the gun is almost iconic of this genre due to excessive amount of gun battles featured in crime films, particularly American films.
Colours:
This film is quite colourful compared to normal crime films. Generally they have a low-saturated look and feature either blue or green tints in order to cpature that 'film noir' apperance. In shots such as Anon in the studio, Eve taking drugs in the airfield and Alice and George in the park, there are actually an aray of bold colours such as red blue and yellow, which is almost entirely uncontentional for a crime film. An example of a film which also uses colour in a similar way is Live By Night (2016).
Comparative trailer with bright colours: Live By Night (2016)
There is a strong use of bold green and yellow througout this trailer.
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Sound
Our trailer has a voice over, most crime film trailers usually have a voice over from the protagonist(s), perhaps extracted dialogue from a conversation that happens within the film. However ours features the antagonist speaking over the top of the trailer, which challenges conventions of film trailers as a whole in my opinion. The majority of modern trailers use one song with one or two melodies for the soundtrack of their trailer, and sometimes features vocals during the third act, however our soundtrack features no vocals, and is instead different melodies entirely as if they were separate songs that have deliberately been composed so that the trailer starts off as a slow pace and then increases pace as it goes on.
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Editing
The editing is semi- typical, as this was filmed purely for trailer purposes, there was not enough footage for a full trailer of 2m30s, so it is a rather short 1m20s, therefore there is not necessarily a second act in the trailer, only first (slow build up, introducing characters, then montage. However I believe that the fact that teh trailer is so short is not a negative thing as it does not reveal too much of the film and only shows the vital information needed, therefore the fact that we have a short trailer means that we are challenging conventions in the editing department of production.
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Themes
The plot of the film defies conventions to an extent, but it is overall typical story from what an audience can gather from the trailer (serial killer goes on killing spree whilst those being victimised are trying to find out what is happening before it is too late). However when applying Strauss' binary opposites theory to the film, there is no cops vs criminal or law breaking vs order as both sides of the conflict are criminals as the drug addicts are using illegal drugs and Anon is a serial killer. This is an uncommon narrative choice, and consequently means that it is defying conventions.
This is the earliest draft of our trailer. At this point, not all of our footage had been filmed due to complications with availability of actors, however we did have the footage from the studio, the woods and RAF Witham. We had not yet decided on a soundtrack piece to use as background music and we had not edited the length of the shots because of this reason that that they were open to be edited later once we found appropriate music to choose, therefore the only sound in the trailer in this version if from the video audio. We started changing the colour balance on these clips so that the colours could provoke the right feeling or atmosphere in each of the clips.
16/01/17
Not much has been changed since the previous version of the trailer. We created a title card to go at the end by using Adobe After Effects and experimenting with the presets. We used the Green Crystals animation preset, but changed the colour to blue to match the blue lighting we have used in our posters, and in the shot featuring Anon.
08/02/17
Since before, we created our studio logo using After Effects again. The image we used for the title is actually the letter 'R' in the font 'Wingdings', which we mistakenly clicked on when choosing an appropriate font. We used the 'Smoke Rising' preset for the background, but recoloured the smoke from grey to blue to make the title stand out more and to match the colours of the title cards.We have inserted clips from the park and alleyway scenes as these had now been filmed. We inserted the song 'Act Three - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival' by Kevin MacLeod into the first part of the trailer, we felt that it did not have the right pace for the montage section.
10/02/17
We noticed a number of audio issues had crept up since the last draft. For example, when George says 'Haven't been getting my usual rounds lately', when it cuts to Alice, you can hear the end of 'lately' repeated. We have also added more colour alteration on some of the clips, and improved on others that were already altered. We created a new title card, as we thought that the previous version did not look clear or professional enough. In this new version ,the background glitches instead of the text. We have included a graphic of a target behind the 'I'. This helps to connote the crime genre as the red can connote blood and violence, and the target is associated with aiming a gun. This also makes the title look more unique, that it helps to create an identity to the film, unlike the previous version where it looked like a generic title that doesn't have any obvious indication that this is a crime film.
14/02/17
As of this date, the issue with the audio problems still exist, and even more have been created since adding the sound into the montage. The sound we used was a sting from Youtube's music library which we decided to repeat throughout the montage, however some of the stings are louder than others, so this is another audio issue we will need to fix.
15/02/17
Anon's voice over has now been recorded and edited, and have been incorporated into the trailer. The dialogue has been placed throughout the trailer in places that we thought it would help create more suspense or more of a dramatic impact. For example we left the last line 'expect us', (which is almost a catchphrase by the group Anonymous in which the character is portraying a member of) is left to the end when the title card appears as it is almost a message to the audience as well to expect the film in the cinema once it is released.
Final Cut (as of 17/02/17)
The audio issues have now entirely been fixed and all the shots have been edited. Although we are happy with our own attempts with editing the music and sounds to be our own and to be as dramatic and suspenseful, we feel as if it still does not suit the trailer, particularly during the montage which we feel is too quiet during the quieting of the stings.
Music Commission My
group member Georgina posted our 17/02/17 verion of the trailer on a number of
different sites such as Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr and Imgur.
Unfortunately the trailer did not gain any attention, or very little
attention on Tumblr and Reddit.
The feedback we gained from Facebook is as follows:
She also posted a survey on survey monkey asking what people think of the trailer. Here is a result that stood out to me:
In both the responses on the facebook comments and on the last question of the survey, there was the suggestion of improving the music or sound to help create more suspense.
Music Commission As there was clearly an issue with the background music that we had made, we decided reflect on our audience feedbacj and decided to look elsewhere for a solution to improve our music. Georgina came across this post on Reddit, made by Alex Benson:
We looked at this sample of their work, which is their own unofficial composition for the background music of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer. We were both very impressed which what we heard and decided to get in contact with Alex to see if he would be interested in composing a track for our trailer, to which he agreed, an even said, "I liked the [Illicit Obsession] trailer, I think it builds up nicely
and would look great with some more dramatic music, especially at the
end".
Draft 1 01/03/17
We recieved the first draft of Alex's work rather quickly. At this point he had only worked up to 56 seconds, which lasts until the middle of the montage. I was very impressed with what I heard so far, particularly the opening of the trailer with the slow piano melody as I thought this helped reflect the mysterious atmosphere of Anon's character. The way that the music changed pace when The dialogue audio however was very quiet compared to the background music, but considering how this is just the first sample, I was not concerned about this at this point. Georgina and I agreed that we would like drum beats during our montage in order to make it much more suspenseful. We informaed Alex that we felt that the piano key after Eve's hand drops to the floor should be synched up to when it comes in contact with the floor as if felt quite out of place otherwise.
Draft 2 02/04/17
The next soundtrack update came the next day. Since before the dialogue had been edited slightly as there is a slight echo or reverb added onto the Anonymous voice, an effect that we were both extremely happy with. The piano note had been swapped with a different sound because, as Alex states on the left 'I couldn't sync the piano with the hand very wel because of how the scenes were timed'. We preferred the latest version because we felt it matched better with the rest of the music and felt much more dramatic. The drums were still a work in progress at this time so they did not sound entirely befitting with the rest of the music or with the atmosphere of the trailer, but as I have said before, I was not concerned about this as the music was still in development.
Draft 3 04/03/17
The main update with the third draft is that the montage had been edited a great amount and no longer features the violin like sound from before but instead sounds as if there is an underline bass or guitar helping to keep the pace of the drum beat. The dialogue audio has been made louder and clearer so it can now easily be heard over the top of the soundtrack music. The background music also drags over the film title now as opposed to before when the music stopped just before the title card appeared. We both thought that the improved montage music made this section of the trailer more punch-y and dramatic. Compared to the original music we had used in our 17/02/17 version of the trailer, we felt that Alex's composition had overall improved the tone of the trailer. We were so amazed with what we heard in this draft neither of us could suggest any improvements to be made, but rather the final touches relied with Alex should he want to make final adjustments.
Final Version 06/03/17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbug44vJbw
Here is the final version of our trailer. There had been very little editing since the last update on the soundtrack, but there are subtle differences with notes here and there. We added a credit for Alex on the release date and credit card at the very end of the trailer.
Here is a vlog made by my group member Georgina Gilbey, documenting how our first day of filming went in the woods. The scene consisted of Georgina's brother, Ryan Gilbey (playing the role of Connor) hearing a noise in the bushes, turning towards it, and also running through the woods for our montage scene. It was late in the day when we filmed, and it progressively got darker towards the end of the shoot, so there was an issue of not having enough light to capture the scene with decent lighting. However, this did help to make the scene more dramatic and it can potentially be edited in Adobe Premiere Pro to make it brighter if needed.
Shooting Day #2 - RAF North Witham
We decided to go to RAF Witham (now Twyford Wood) as we knew that we would have access to the site since it is now public property. Unfortunately, after a long walk up to the control tower, it was fenced off with signs saying 'authorised access only', this was probably because the building is now too old and unstable for any public member to enter. We compromised and decided to use the remains of what was a raised platform or a bridge to shoot our scene with Eve. We filmed in mid-day when the sun was strongest, which made Dominika (who played Eve) look pale and sickly, like we wanted as it makes it more believable that she is a drug user. There was large areas of thick ice on the ground which we had to look out for when we were moving around to change camera angle. We also filmed a section in the woods near the car park where Eve is walking along whilst holding the pill bottle and acting 'high'. Since it was a narrow and slippery muddy path surrounded by nettles and thorny plants either side, we were limited with the amount of space we could walk around in this area, and caught people in the background of a few shots.
Shooting Day #3 - Park
In this scene, Alice and George are required to have a conversation about the disappearance of Eve. To prepare for this, we created a script.
This vlog was made by myself. Though it was cold and wet, the weather on this day was perfect for filming as it was extremely foggy, which made for an interesting background. Filming went fairly smoothly on this day, although there was a great number of outtakes where actors would forget their lines or where they would look at the camera when talking, or for instance in the scene in which Alice (Reannah McNee) would be running, a woman and her two dogs would walk into shot, and later the dogs would directly greet Reannah as she exits the gate, so we had to switch to another gate on the other side of the park, albeit the background was less interesting and you can see two students walking in the distance, however since it was foggy, this is not very noticeable.
Shooting Day #4 - Alleyway
This was our last day of filming, and it was shot in the Alleyway. Dominika Malina (Eve) and myself (Anon) were to be acting in this scene, consisting of Eve walking down the alleyway, spotting Anon who is approaching her, resulting in a chase. There were a number of times when we had to stop filming because someone was walking down the alleyway and we did not want them in the shot. The shots where Anon were the hardest to film as I had to try and keep up with Dominika, and my group member Georgina, who was filming, had to keep up with me. We decided to improvise a POV shot of Anon aiming the gun and running whilst Eve was running away, however this meant I had to hold the gun, whilst Georgina held the camera and we had to run at the same time, which did not have satisfactory result.
Voice Over Recording Like with the park scene, we created a script for Anon's warning message to the drug addicts.
We created three practice recordings prior to the final recordings we were to create in the recording studio.It was a way to experiment with the audio edits to help make the voice sound slightly distorted. It also let us experiment with the way the voice-over would be spoke, either aggressively or slow and threatening.
Georgina and myself recorded this speech in the school's recording studio. We recorded both of us saying the speech so that there could be a back-up narration should one not be up to a satisfactory standard, also becuase we had an idea that we could mash up the two voices when editing the audio tracks as this would make the character sound much more 'anonymous' so that no one could detect who the character is by their voice.
