Candidates

A + Eee Entertainment candidates are as follows:

• Emma Cottee (3051)
• Amy Gallacher (3079)
• Elizabeth Boulamatsis (3026)
• Emily Wright (3234)

Evaluation - Emily Wright

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Wednesday's Child Teaser Trailer

Here is our completed teaser trailer for our multigeneric mystery/thriller Wednesday's Child:

Magazine Front Cover

Above is my finished magazine front cover, which i made using Adobe PhotoShop CS4.

As a group we decided to choose different images to use for our magazine to widen our audience range. The image i used was a close up of our main character, Chloe. I thought that the close up was effective as you could see her emotion and created the feeling i was looking for.

I edited the image by using the saturation tool to enhance the red, also the brightness and shadows tool to make the image more darker to create cohesion with our production. This made Chloe look Innocent in horrible surroundings.

I kept to the typical conventions of Empire magazines by using the same red title, tagline that runs underneath the title, date and price between the 'M' and the website. I did this in order to keep my cover at a professional standard.

For the text i used quotes from the poem 'Mondays Child' which we also used within our trailer. I hoped that this would get remembered as it appears on both and would get easily recognised. I kept with the same font that we have used throughout each task 'American Typewriter'.

In my research i thought that it was important to create a colour scheme to make the cover look effective and at a high standards. I used the colours: Red, black and white which in cohesion with both the trailer and website.

Movie Posters

For my poster design i decided to almost do a series.

I got this idea through my research, with the Coraline posters. I thought it was very effective and kept it fun and enjoyable for the audience. It also would build up suspense for each new poster.

I used, again, the lines from the poem 'Mondays Child' which is in our trailer and repeated on my magazine design to keep the posters ongoing.

The last poster i designed is typical of most posters with the actor/actress' name shown.

I also used our production company name and distributor.

To keep in cohesion with all the tasks i used the same colour scheme, font and style.

Photo Shoot

When looking into doing our ancillary tasks, we realised that we would need some new images as using ones from the film were just too poor quality. We wanted to use pictures for backgrounds and other smaller images so we needed some new, better quality photographs.

So i arranged a date with Chloe (our main character) to do a photo shoot. I took along props that we used within the film and also her original costume. I then shot various images in the locations that we chose.

I edited the photos by using the saturation tool to bring out the red and the light and shadow tool to make her and the background quite dull compared to the red.

After doing this we picked some of our favourite images:

Posters & Magazine Cover Planning

In preparation for making our posters and magazine covers, we came together as a group and decided on the type of shots that we wanted for each ancillary task, and the colour schemes and layouts that we wanted.

We then realised that we would be needing various other shots of our characters for the backgrounds and smaller images, and so we arranged another photoshoot with Chloe as she was our main character. We brought in all of the props that we would be needing, as well as her costume, and Emily photographed her on the location of our shoot.

We could then sort through these collected images as a group, and decide on the best shots for the different products. We found that we could also use these images on the DVD cover, and on our website to create a strong cohesion between all of our products.

Completed Teaser Trailer

We have now finished the filming and editing of our teaser trailer and it is ready to be burned to disc and uploaded to our blog. After we have created our ancillary products, we will then upload them and our teaser trailer so that they can be easily viewed.

Editing Log

Throughout the process of editing our footage into our teaser trailer I have kept track of the hours spent editing by each individual in the group. The log below shows each date, the number of hours, and the group members present at the time. This system will help us divide the work more fairly and total the amount of time spent editing.

iMovie

After the results from our audience feedback, we imported our footage onto the Mac's to use the iMovie programme. This would help us with our titles and transitions, as well as offering a wider range of fonts and better graphics as we finished editing the teaser trailer as a group.

After uploading our footage and naming our production, we could begin to split the clips in certain places to add in title screens where appropriate using the 'T' button on the right hand side of the panel. For the majority of our titles, we chose to use the same title style, and the same font - American Typewriter - to create cohesions. This particular font helped create the image of a traditional typed police report.

We could also strectch out our audio and change the fade duration in/out to control the rising tempo of our soundtrack during the institutional shots, as well as how quickly the music fades out at the end of our teaser trailer. Similarly, we could lengthen and shorten the black titled shots appropriately so that audiences would have enough time to read what was presented.

iMovie helped us to finish our production to a much higher standard, creating a cohesive and professional-looking teaser trailer. As well as being simple to use, it offered us a wide range of tools that we could experiment with to make the most of our final product.

Audience Feedback Changes

After looking at the main issues highlighted in our audience feedback, we began editing our production further to help it reach its potential as a teaser trailer.


The first issue that we dealt with was one of continuity. We made sure that the clip of Chloe on the swing did not appear after the one of the empty swing as it had before. This was fairly easy to change.


Next we had to deal with the issue of a rough outline being visible on a black screen. When we transported our trailer to the Mac, we did actually remove all of the black screens and replace them with title screens that we could adapt. This then solved the issue of the persons outline and made it look much more professional.

After we had added in the titles at the length that we wanted, we could then add in the text and graphics/animation that we wanted on them. This solved the problem of having little information in our teaser trailer. This also extended the length of our trailer, and we also added in some extra footage that we had not used to meet the conventions of a trailer (length-wise).

Once we had the full lenght of our trailer in place, we could then sort out any pacing and audio problems that we had found. We made the trailers pace gradually increase to create more enigma, and matched the audio more precisely to the action.

Lastly, we considered that our institutions may be too bright. We managed to put an effect over them to 'Cartoonise' them further. This actually blurred them slightly and made them seem less bright and happy than previously, which was much more effective.

We feel that we have considered all of our audience feedback and made the appropriate changes, along with several others, to make our teaser trailer meet the necessary conventions and be as effective as possible.

Audience Feedback Results

Before we transported our production onto the Mac for further editing, we presented our First Cut to many of our peers (media students and also those whose media knowledge is not as advanced as our own), as well as many staff from our sixth form, and family members. This meant that we were covering a wide range of audiences.

We told them to analyse our production closely and tell us what was effective and what was not so effective about it. We could them take these suggestions and improve our teaser trailer, based on what our audience wanted.

Here are several of the issues found within our teaser trailers' First Cut by our Audience Feedback:

• Continuity issues - There is an image of the empty swing, then later we go back to the swing with the girl present.
• Black screen issues - At one point you can roughly see someones outline on a supposedly blank screen.
• Pacing issues - There are a few issues with the increasing pace of the trailer, and it could become slightly faster towards the end for added enigma.
• Titles & Text issues - Our First Cut currently has no titles or added text.
• Institution issues - The institutional logos appear brighter than may be suitable considering the genre and tone of our teaser trailer.
• Currently too short, even for a teaser trailer.

After considering all of these constructive criticisms we will begin work on our final production. We will then post updates of the changes that we have made due to this feedback from our audiences so that our progress can be seen clearly.

Audience Feedback

During the process of our editing we created a First Cut of our teaser trailer. This was the initial outline of our trailer to give an idea of what the final outcome would be. We presented this rough cut to our media class, members of staff, family members and our friends to get a real idea of peoples' responses to our work. This means that we would get feedback from a wide audience of different ages and both genders.

Results from our audience feedback process will be posted shortly.

Adobe Premier Pro.

The whole of our group was involved in the editing process, and therefore we have created an editing log showing this. For the main part of the editing process, we used the programme Adobe Premier Pro. before moving onto iMovie at a later stage.

After using Adobe in our AS year, we were all very familiar with the workings of the timeline and the different precision editing tools available, as well as the many audio and video effects and transitions. This helped us to work through the footage that we had collected - swiftly but thoroughly - to create a smaller amount of footage that we would later use for our teaser trailer.

Once this small amount of footage was in place, we could go about using the razor tool to slice it perfectly by zooming in on the timeline. We could then break down all of our footage and move it around the timeline with the cursor tool to change the ordering.

We could also unlink the original audio from the video and remove this, before adding our soundtrack to the trailer. This meant we could then focus on fitting the cuts and movement exactly to the tempo of the music. As well as this, we could add multiple effects to create different colouring in the shots, such as making the red particularly stand out against the wooded areas.

Once we had used all of the available tools to our advantage and created our First Cut, we could then, after audience feedback, transfer our production to the Mac's for iMovie to add titles and DVD menu's.

Soundtrack

In our foundation portfolio production we found it difficult to find uncopyrighted music to use as a soundtrack, and we also had no access to Apple Mac's at our sixth form. However, this year we have been much more fortunate with the Media department now having Mac's that we can use, and also a source for uncopyrighted music: Steven Scott (who will be credited).

After we had our main structure of footage, we played around with one of Steven Scott's tracks that we particularly liked, and cut it up into smaller sections of different tempos so that we could mix around the order and fade them together. We chose two main sections of the track: an upbeat section for the faster areas of the trailer, and a slower and much quieter section to help build tension. We then added this audio, as well as the pre-recorded audio of the newsreader to our rough structure so that we could edit the transitions to match up with the beat of the music.

We linked the faster paced sections of music to the shots in which we had altered the length and sped up the movements, and also to the sections in which our characters were running (disequilibrium). The slower sections we then added to the tension-building beginning of our trailer in the equilibrium stages, as well as at the end of the trailer as a fade out.

We could then finish editing our teaser trailer with more precision based on the soundtrack that we had altered from one of our uncopyrighted tracks.

Completed Filming - Shooting Schedule

Below is a photo of our completed shooting script as we have now finished filming the necessary footage for our teaser trailer. This shows the dates we filmed each section; the locations; the cast and crew present and the costumes and props necessary.

Completed Filming

Now we have collected all of the necessary footage for our teaser trailer, it is time to move on to the editing stage of our production. For this, we will be using a combination of different programmes such as Adobe Premier Pro on Windows, and also Garageband and iMovie on Macs.

As we begin to use these programmes in our A2 year, we will update our progress in posts and also explain how we have explored different techniques and tools that we did not last year, or we did not have access to (having only gained access to Mac's in our A2 year).

Alongside our editing, we will now also begin work on our ancillary tasks.

Viral Marketing

A lot of people, especially our age, spend a lot of time on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Therefore viral marketing would be a good idea to help in promoting our film.

One of the films that did this and in doing so achieved considerable awareness was The Dark Night. They began their viral marketing process by utilizing the film’s tagline “why So Serious?” and also launching an official website featuring the fictional political campaign of Harvey Dent, with the caption “I Believe in Harvey Dent”. The site was expected to interest fans and have them participate in online puzzles and games. One of these included fans to send e-mails and as they did pixels would be slowly removed, revealing the first official image of the joker; it was ultimately replaced with many “HaHas” and hidden messages that said “see you in December”

Including puzzles and games within our website could be a possibility as I like the way that fans can get involved and be excited to see what’s going to happen or what they are going to see next. But at this stage we wanted to focus more on Facebook pages ECT and hopefully these pages will, in time, advertise our website.

Another film that tackled viral marketing was Cloverfield.

They began by making each character create a MySpace page advertising the film. The main attraction on these pages was the teaser trailer. But the name of the film was not featured in this. Fans become aware of this and the unnamed film began to be discussed all over the internet; on blog’s and many more networking pages. This led to more fans. After this a website was released and puzzles and games were featured the same as The Dark Night.

I think the way that Cloverfield built up their fans and then released a website was effective. Hopefully when marketing our film we can follow in similar footsteps as it seems to work.

Viral marketing obviously can play a big part in making different audiences aware of new films. The internet attacks so many different demographic groups allowing maximum awareness.

Viral marketing is definitely something we will be doing.

Final Casting

As we came up to the final stages of our filming, we finalised our cast list which became as follows:

• Child - Chloe Hill
• Villain - Russell Denny
• Mother - Emily Wright
• Father - Sam Morris
• Female Police Officer - Elizabeth Boulamatsis
• Male Police Officer - Steven Bourner
• Newsreader - Alexandra Watt

Ancillary Products

When discussing how we would spread the work for our ancillary products, we decided that Amy would take on the majority of the work concerning our website, with input from the rest of the group. This then left us with posters and magazine covers. We decided that Emily, Elizabeth and I would then divide the workload of these remaining products between us with input on planning from Amy. We would all individually sketch designs for each, and then bring these together to create our final products.

We agreed that this would make an equal spread of workload as we would all be involved - whether in a small or large role - in all aspects of the ancillary tasks. We also decided that, as Amy was taking on a large task in our website, we would create a series of posters, and possibly several magazine covers so that we were having an equally sized role.