Evaluation Question Four

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

Evaluation Question Four

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Evaluation Question Three

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback

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Evaluation Question Two

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Below is the script for my director's commentary and the actual director's commentary.

Director's Commentary

Script

1.      Hi, my name is Charlotte Southam and this is the trailer I created with my partner, Hannah George for our A2 coursework. The main inspiration for our story comes from the old children’s rhyme ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’; this is also where the music, title and tagline came from.
2.      The main shots at the beginning of our trailer are mostly normal medium shots that track the characters as they enter the woods. These shots show the main setting of the woods, introduce the main three characters and emphasis that it began as a normal picnic. Later we used more dramatic camera shots with much faster editing to show the panic and desperation of the characters and also to increase the tension and generate more interest in our film.
3.      We used quite a few special effects in our trailer such as the sepia toned close up of the body lying on the pentagram. This help to demonstrate that this scene was of something in the past and directly related to what Claire was saying at the time. The pentagram is a very important symbol in our trailer as it represents the idea of the forbidden ritual and emphasises the supernatural themes.
4.      Another of the prominent effects we used was with a pentagram. We used the negative pentagram to represent the point in the trailer (and ultimately the film) when everything changes.
5.      In my poster I wanted to put a lot of emphasis on the pentagram because of its importance in our trailer and it also reinforces the horror genre. This is why I included a red pentagram directly behind the main protagonist’s head; I purposely made the pentagram the colour of blood as this directly links to the blood pentagram on the tree. The trees behind her are also very important as they illustrate the forest setting and also link to the idea of the characters being lost, away from civilisation and away from help. The shock and fear on her face emphasise the horror/thriller genre and it also raises questions about what she is scared of as the audience can’t see what she is looking at.
6.      The editing of the voice over was one of the most time consuming parts of creating our trailer as we had filmed a lengthy speech that described a lot of the story of the woods. When it came to editing the trailer we decided that there was too much speech, so we had to cut it down while still keeping the most important parts of the story such as the part about the dead body being found underneath the tree.
7.      This is where a lot of our more dramatic shots are used such as the close up of feet running and the clip of Roxie being dragged off screen. We used these shots to emphasise the danger around the characters and to increase the tension.
8.      The ‘HCS Horror’ clip is animated to make it look like the words are writing themselves in blood. We chose to do this as we felt that it emphasised the idea of us being a horror film production company and was more interesting than having just the words, stationary on screen.
9.      My magazine cover links directly to the one of the final scenes in the trailer when Lizzie, the main protagonist, is running away from something and pauses before running off screen. The long shot emphasises her helplessness and isolation and I wanted to recreate this in my magazine cover. This is why she is I chose to have her pictured alone with the forest stretching out behind her. The big tree to the right helps to show her insignificance as it is much bigger than her. I tried to incorporate most of the conventions of a film magazine advert so I created a magazine title which is in big letters at the top of the magazine. It is also why I included information about other stories in the magazine about recent or upcoming films.

Evaluation Question One

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

Trailer screen shots (part one)

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Trailer screen shots (part two)

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I had to upload the powerpoints seperately as the file was too large to be uploaded as a single powerpoint.

Final Poster, Magazine Cover and Trailer

Final Magazine Cover

Overall I am pleased with my magazine cover as I think that it advertises our film really well and it fits the conventions of a magazine cover. I also think that it fits in well with both our trailer and my poster and that they all work together to represent our film. I used a full body shot of the main character for the cover as I didn't want to make it too similar to the poster and it left more room around the edges for the text. The only thing I don't like about my magazine is that the image of the main character is very similar to the picture I used on my poster, even though they were originally taken at different times.

How I made My Magazine Cover

How I Made My Magazine Cover

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Magazine Cover Design

This is the design for my magazine cover. I created my own magazine title rather than use a pre-existing one as I thought that this would add authenticity to my magazine and would be more creative. I am going to use a full body shot of the main character in the middle of the cover with a background of trees behind her to show the setting. The title and tagline will be in the middle of the page in big eye-catching writing to try to generate more interest in our film. I will also include information about other popular films as this is one of the conventions of a magazine cover as it encourages people to buy the magazine.

Conventions of a Magazine Cover

Conventions of the magazine front cover

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My Final Poster

This is my final poster. I think that it represents our trailer quite well because it has the trees in the background which show the woods setting and it also incorporates the pentagram which is the main motif throughout out trailer/film. Although I was originally going to make a portrait poster, I decided that it looked better landscape as it seemed cramped, especially with the fairly long tagline which stretched over two lines. Overall I am pleased with the way it looks and the way it advertises our film.

How I Made My Poster

How I Made My Poster

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My Final Billing Block

This is the final billing block I used on my poster. Using the example I got off of the internet, I typed up all of the information on word and changed the font size on the names to make them bigger. I then copied the picture onto Paint Shop Pro and reversed the colours so that the background was black and the writing was white before removing the background and copying the image onto my poster.

What to include in a Billing Block

 I got this billing block off of Google to use as inspiration and a guideline for my own billing block that I would use on my poster. I noticed that all of the names were in a larger font so I tried to recreate this in my billing block. I also used this list as a guideline of what I needed to include in my billing block:

·         Production Company – HCS Horror Inc.

·         Actors – Samantha Kent, Hannah George and Charlotte Southam

·         Music Composer – Hannah George

·         Casting by – S.G. and Co.

·         Costume Design – HCS Horror Inc.

·         Editing – Charlotte Southam

·         Director of Photography – Hannah George

·         Props Co-ordinator – S.G. and Co.

·         Written by – Charlotte Southam

·         Produced by – HCS Horror Inc.

·         Co-directed by – Charlotte Southam and Hannah George

In our group we wanted to split up all of the titles equally as we had both worked on everything together so we worked out that I did most of the editing whilst Hannah did the music. However, we didn't want to just have our names repeated for everything so we came up with another company name - S.G. and Co. (the initials of our last names) to add a bit of diversity to our billing blocks.

Fonts

I experimented with different fonts and text sizes for the title and the tagline to go on my poster as I find one that looked both elegant and slightly creepy. I also wanted one that was clear and easy to read so that someone glancing at the poster would be able to read the title.

Film Poster Design

This is the design for my film poster, I hand drew it and then scaned it onto the computer. The trees in the background represent the forest location and the way that they are looming over the main character represents her isolation and helplessness. The next layer of the image will be the pentagram which is directly behind her head, I included the pentagram as it is a key symbol in our trailer - it represents the past and present summoning of demons and is also used in our trailer to show the point when everything changes. The third layer is a picture of the main character, only her head and shoulders are visble to keep all of the focus on her and her face shows how scared she is. Finally, the title and tagline will be on the top. The title will be in a bigger font as it is more important than the tagline. This picture has the wrong tagline on it as I drew it before we had fully decided on the tagline - the final tagline is "If you go down to the woods today... You're in for a bug surprise..." This picture is also missing the billing block which goes at the bottom of the poster with all of the production information on it.

Conventions of a Film Poster

Conventions of a film poster

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Final Film Trailer

This is the final version of our film trailer, we had to change the order of some of our shots as one of the conventions of a film trailer is that it isn’t in a linear order and to begin with, our trailer was in chronological order. We also added more transitions during the running scenes to increase the tension and to make our trailer more exciting and added a voice over at the beginning to tell a bit more of the story. Overall, I am pleased with the end result as I think that it would encourage our target audience to view our film and I think that it represents the genre of Horror/Thriller really well.

Age Rating Screen

This is the age rating screen I made to go at the beginning of our trailer, it is important as it shows what age group our film is aimed at – late teens and adults. I created this image on ‘Microsoft Word’ by changing the background to green and inserting a table. I then merged some of the columns in the table and typed the text, using an American version as inspiration although instead of putting ‘By the Motion Picture Association of America’ I instead put ‘By the British Board of Film Classification’ as this is more relevant to our trailer. Finally, I got an image of the ‘15’ off of the internet and the logo used in the American version.

Tagline Ideas and Title Ideas

Tagline Ideas

We had a lot of ideas for our tagline because we wanted to use a line or a couple of lines from the rhyme, this meant that there were a lot of lines to chose from. We looked at different lines and analysed them in relation to the conventions of a film tagline:

• Relevance to the film
• Relevance to the genre
• Whether or not it is memorable and catchy

In the end we decided on "If you go down to the woods today, you'd better not go alone..." because we felt that this was the best tagline as it links to the trailer really well and it almost sounds like a warning.

Title Ideas

We had problems with the title for our film as we had two ideas – ‘Beneath the Trees’ and ‘The Picnic’. Both of these titles link to the rhyme and would work well with our film, however, we found it hard to pick between them. We did a small survey by asking different people with title they thought was best but found that they were both fairly popular. We eventually decided on ‘The Picnic’ as we felt that‘Beneath the Trees’ was a bit too wordy and didn’t sound as ominous and ‘The Picnic’ did. Also, using the word ‘The’ in front of it shows that there is something important about this picnic and that it is not just your average day out. I also thought that ‘Beneath the Trees’ was too close to the rhyme and that ‘The Picnic’ was slightly more subtle but still with a link.

Filming and Editing images

This is a screen grab from iMovie showing part of the editing process - this image shows the preview screen, the editing section and all of the film clips we have..

This screen grab shows all of the film clips we have filmed and gone through to find the parts we needed for our trailer.

This screen grab shows all of the clips we selected and edited, along with the music and titles. It also shows the transitions we used and how many different sounds clips we had to overlay in our trailer so that the music and the story can be heard clearly all the way through.

This is an image showing me filming the part of the trailer right at the beginning where the characters are walking down the stairs and entering the woods.

Production Company Logo

I made our production company logo on Macromedia Fireworks because we wanted it to be animated. I made it by firstly changing the background colour to black; I then found an interesting font that seemed creepy and suited the genre of our trailer. Next I changed the text colour to red to make it seem like the name was being written in blood. Then I began writing the text, I did it bit by bit, creating a new layer after every part so that when it is played at normal speed it looks as if the title is writing itself in blood. Finally, I added the red dots that go across the screen from right to left to give the impression of blood splattering across the screen. I liked this effect as our production company name is ‘HCS Horror’ so it makes sense to have a logo that reflects the horror genre.

Trailer Music

This is a very basic version of the music we are going to use in our trailer. The tune is from the rhyme the Teddy Bear's Picnic, it was made using Garage Band so that it could be altered and edited to fit in with the different parts of the trailer. For example, when there is more tension and suspense in the trailer, the music will be faster and higher pitched to help to exaggerate this and to make the audience feel the tension. Also, when the story is being told by Claire, the volume of the music will be lower so that the audience can hear everything she is saying. We did consider leaving the music out of this part completely but music is very important in a trailer and we decided that it was better to have the constant reference to the Teddy Bear's Picnic all the way through the trailer.

Sheet Music

This is an image of the sheet music for the Teddy Bears Picnic rhyme, the highlighted parts of the tune are the bits we used in our trailer. The music had to be recorded in sections as Garage Band would only allow so many piano keys on the screen at a time. After all three of the sections were recorded, they were edited together in Garage Band to create the full tune.