Evaluation: Question 4

"HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH AND PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?"

CONSTRUCTION

Final Cut Pro And iMovie

When constructing our teaser trailer, our main source of technology for our teaser trailer compilation was iMovie where our actual trailer was exported into being a singular video. Our main editing base for adding effects to make our trailer stand out was Final Cut Pro. Here we were able to adjust:

• Hue
• Speed
• Credits
• Sound

We were also able to add:

• Effects such as quick flashes fading in to introduce new clips

• 'Prism' effect to create a sense of disorientation to conform with our psychological drama genre

• Glitches to conform to the technological aspect and genre of our teaser.

As we created a teaser trailer this year, it was essential for it to be visually attractive due to its short duration, so by putting in assorted effects it hopefully made our work stand out. 

Photoshop

When creating the poster we used mainly Photoshop and this enabled us to manipulate the design, contrast and layout of our poster so that it coordinated well. We also ensured that there was continuity within our products so we used a blue/green washed out filter and places lines across the chosen images to create an electronic glow to conform to one of the genres of our trailer which was technology. This was hugely inspired by the Catfish poster as was the entire theme and plot of our teaser trailer which was inspired by Catfish- The Movie.

Myfonts

This was the website in which we obtained our typography(hyperlink) from. On myfonts.com we were able to search for a font similar to the one used for the Facebook logo and typed in the name of our film, 'Alternet.'(hyperlink perhaps film title) By doing this we added our own twist on something that is publicly used and made it personal and original, but at the same time it conformed to the genre of computerisation(hyperlink the ring BP) within our film. Once our typography was made, we printscreened the Facebook navigation bar and placed our made typography. Myfonts enabled us to manipulate our title appearance to make it suit our liking.

Wix

Wix.com aided us in creating our website. We took advantage of the new media technologies available so we chose a layout that was the most user friendly so our would be audience would find it easy to navigate. This efficiency was looked into by some deconstructions(hyperlink a website deco) of websites hence we altered the colours to conform with our poster and trailer keeping the Facebook theme by making the font blue. The image was edited with an effect on the website and then it was placed against a black background to stand out.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING 

Deconstructions

Deconstructing trailers, posters and websites was our initial research before planning our media productions. Once we had decided to do a trailer based around the psychological drama genre, we could research film productions sharing the same conventions and begin planning. ‘Catfish’ and ‘Hard Candy’ stood out to us as a main source of information for our media productions.

Youtube

All our researched trailers could be found on YouTube, which also allowed us to find related trailers and build a better foundation of research. We could also use IMDB to find recommended trailers consisting of similar conventions.

We also used YouTube to research and plan the soundtrack for our trailer. There were a variety of unsigned artists and non-copyrighted soundtracks we could use. We then used YouTube converter to download the audio we chose as an MP3 to place in our Trailer.

Survey Monkey

We used a website called ‘SurveyMonkey.com’ to perform a survey that would get the audiences opinion on what elements we should include in our trailer. This public feedback helped us ensure the most pleasing outcome for our trailer. To gain more results, we used Facebook to share our survey.

'SurveyMonkey.com' - Our survey.

Test Shots

Test Shots - YouTube Video

Test Shots - YouTube Video

It was important to plan shots that could be a challenge to set up when filming, therefore, we did test shots. We did a test shot of Matt’s room to experiment with lighting, mise en scene and camera angles. We also put some of the footage on YouTube, which we embedded in our blog so we could see the outcome to its full potential, as opposed to just photos. This also allowed us to experiment with filters on the camera setting and tamper with the colour of our shot.

Test Shots - Incandescent Photo

Test Shots - YouTube Video

SoundCloud

Before using YouTube, we researched suitable soundtracks on SoundCloud as it allows you to search for music of a specific genre that has been created by many unsigned artists. We found several tracks that could have been suitable however, decided on downloading one from YouTube.

Blogger

We used blogger to refine and finalise all our research and planning. It is where all our work is documented, and a database for us to look back via specific labels and remind ourselves of certain elements of research of planning we may need to work from.

EVALUATION

Facebook/YouTube

Considering our focal theme was 'Internet' and 'Social networking' we used Facebook as a method of evaluation and a platform to showcase our main media product and to welcome first hand feedback and response from our target audience. The interest, views, comments and likes we received on Facebook and YouTube were all positive and reassuring of the fact, our promotional package indeed appeals to our chosen audience.

(Snippet of the response of our uploaded Trailer to Facebook/YouTube)

Evaluation: Question 3

"WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?"

From the audience feedback we received, it was clear that there were many specifics that were being demanded by our audience.  The main lesson learned when having seen our audience feedback was that it was essential to meet demands of the ‘target population’ for our products to be successful and popular.

The process of actually taking our audience feedback into consideration was a simple one, which needed time and also it was essential to be aware of the unexpected which could be drawn from the audience feedback. Once an idea was thought of, it was then processed into different forms of analysis and then our products were created. The term product is used quite loosely here as the most audience feedback we had was for the teaser trailer.

Firstly, once enough people had answered the survey which was 54 in the end, the responses were made into bar charts on Excel and this showed clearly what the leading vote was which we would then try to enact.

The name our audience preferred for our trailer

Mise en scene our audience most wanted to see

The attributes our audience wanted to be part of our trailer

Once the audience survey analysis was completed, we then proceeded to actually trying to conform to their feedback. Having sat down and discussed the feedback we wanted, when filming and creating our trailer we used the feedback to shape the trailer in the making. I feel that we were quite loyal in respect to this and fulfilled quite a number of their desires, they are listed as followed:

We named our trailer according to the most popular name chosen by or audience.

The pictures were the source of obsession we created on behalf of the feedback.

The unexpected twist was that our protagonist was actually homosexual and was in love with his best friend
whilst using anonymity online as a girl.

SURVEY MONKEY

The heart of our audience feedback stemmed mainly from the survey we created on Surverymonkey.com. We did this in AS, and the audience feedback was not taken into consideration as much because our film opening was created already once we got the results back so changing it would have possibly ruined our implanted ideas. This year it proved to be really effective because we learned that by abiding to our audience's preferences, our product would be amiable which means it would gain more popularity. Once having posed the questions to our open audience I then moved onto creating graphs to show the results which would give us a clear insight as to what our audience preferred. This proved to be helpful as it gave us innovative ideas that we even forgot about, so by doing this it gave us more variety to create as well as when having to edit. From our audience feedback we created:

• a montage
• a jump cut
• a time lapse 
• a source of obsession for our protagonist which were drawings
• and we also used a selection of locations that our audience wanted to see such as a bedroom, the school and different rooms in the house

WHAT WOULD WE DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

In terms of the survey, I would definitely make more surveys that would coordinate with the ancillary products so we could obtain maximum audience feedback and for our work to gain more popularity as well as achieving constructive criticism. Also, there are many things that we did not include in our trailer that people wanted such as ominous piano music as the main track. We could not include this because finding an artist to play a piece with a few glitches was quite difficult, so we used dub-step which had piano elements within it.

VOICE OVER

This piece of non diegetic sound was excluded from our trailer purely because it did not conform with our trailer. The voice over also ruined the suspense created within the series of the clips and the pacing was really difficult to get right. We had asked peers in our class to listen to the piece and we had responses such as:

"Hmm... It doesn't seem as effective with the voice over."

"No, take it out, the music makes it perfect!"

"I'm not really listening to her voice because I'm focusing on the different sounds going on in the trailer like the dialogue and that. It sounds quite monotone."

YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK

Facebook and YouTube were our final technologies we used to 'advertise' and promote our finished teaser trailer. These networking sites enabled us to get an objective point of view as well as the positive comments we received because they are public and the people watching it would be a disinterested party as they hadn't watched it before. This was almost like the breaking point because it determined whether our trailer conformed to our audience's liking. We were glad to see that our trailer was successful as it received positive feedback from both YouTube and Facebook:

We have 134 views and counting on YouTube which is relatively interesting because we don't know who has actually watched our teaser trailer. The graph below backs this point up and shows us clearly on a graph the breakdown of people from different countries watching our trailer.

From all of this it is clear to say that audience feedback plays a huge role in shaping the final products.

EDITING- lighting

Our lighting was all natural lighting apart from the flashing lights to mimic the game playing in one clip. The lighting editing was the quickest part as it did not need a lot of focus, we just needed to make the images slightly more clear in our trailer so that it looked as professional as it could: this was all done on Final Cut Pro.

First the clip was imported and to every clip we did the following:

The 'Vibrancy' effect was added as it gave the picture a clearer viewing and also aided in making the colours stand out. This was most important for the clips of the actual internet filmed onscreen because every colour had to show in order to make it look more vibrant, of course, and to make the quality of the filming seem even more clear.

Just to make the quality a bit more defined the 'Crisp Contrast' effect was added. This merely made the picture more outlined as well as appearing clear and vivid so our audience could inspect every detail of the teaser trailer.

Voice Over- Trial and Error

In our original storyboard and when planning our trailer, it was said from the start that the voice over would be used in the teaser trailer as this is a common convention. A reminder of the script:



"Enter a medium. Social Networking.
A Place where you can be who want to be.
Become your fantasy.
But what if your fantasy is to manipulate, deceive and impersonate.
What if your fantasy is to be something you're not."


In order to record this, we allocated someone we knew who we thought would be ideal for doing the voice over and proceeded to record it. This was done in the recording studio at school, and we had booked a day to do this. The whole procedure was done by Ella in the live room where she read out the script and we paced it according to the speed of the trailer by giving hand signals. Then when Ella was one, I went on to removing any static sounds done via a Mac on Adobe Audition by going onto 'Effects'--> 'Amplitude and Compression'--> 'DeSsor'. It was then completed by adjusting the threshold and dragging the first line where the dark green area is back to take the static away.

When putting the voice over onto the Mac for it to be used on Final Cut Pro it was only necessary that the voice over was saved into our area, ready to put on iTunes and then put into our trailer. Once this was done, we dragged it into our trailer once everything was in place, so that was the music and all the clips in the order that we wanted them to be in. However, when playing the whole final thing with the voice over, it was needless to say that it did not cohere with the trailer at all and sounded 'messy' with the music and the occasional dialogue. The voice over did not work well also because we figured that even if we were to redo it, we would never be satisfied with any voice we tried out. This then lead to the decision of excluding it from our trailer completely.

  

EDITING- text

The final choice for our text that we would use throughout the trailer was very simplistic. We decided to use a simple format for the texts throughout the trailer because the actual edits done to our clips tended to be quite extravagant. To keep the trailer looking not over done we chose this font and effect.

THE EFFECT

The effect we used in the actual transitions was one called 'feature.' We chose this because of the subtlety it offered and also it suited our teaser trailer well because the clips were often quite exaggerated compared to the texts inputted. This effect was inspired by the Hard Candy text effects within its trailer. The story line of both Hard Candy and Alternet are quite twisted and being psychological dramas, the way the text subverts the extravagance of the trailers it makes it even more effective because of the simplicity of the texts. The fading away in our actual transition could even enforce the idea of loss of identity, because of the way the letters gradually vanish once they appear. This could represent our main protagonist and his loss of identity via the web.

THE TYPOGRAPHY

The typography that we chose for our texts was an ordinary non cursive style called [FIND NAME OF FONT AND GET PRINT SCREEN THEN ELABORATE SHAHNAZ BABESSS DON'T FORGET YOU SEXY CREATURE... sorry getting a bit carried away]

THE TIMINGS

Some of the texts with a longer sentence would be harder to read in such a short space of time, the one minute allowed for our overall trailer. So in order for our longer texts to stay for a longer duration so our audience had  more time to read them, the clip of the said texts had to be dissected into 3 parts, and the first and last cutting would be made shorter, but the middle clip would be made longer, so that the actual sentence, once it appeared, would stay on the screen for a longer period of time. This eventually made our trailer a lot more audience conscious fulfilling their satisfaction.

This effect and font used in the teaser trailer were all found on Final Cut Pro. These text were then added to our iMovie saved trailer by exporting the file.

EDITING- special effects

THE 'GLITCH'

The glitches you can see in the trailer when having introduced the names of our actors was added in to add something slightly more special so that it stood out and also made the trailer conform to the stereotypes of a psychological drama being quite harrowing as the intensity of the stares increases the 'fear factor.' 

This was achieved by firstly making the clip very short, so it was made to be 0.5 seconds. It was necessary to make the clip appear to be more 'smooth' and high in quality, so the effect of 'cartoon' was added which made the image appear slightly more softer. This was done by selecting the 'cartoon' effect and dragging it onto the clip.

Then to create the shaking effect the 'earthquake' effect had to be added, this was done in the same way as demonstrated in the paragraph above. This effect made the glitch move side to side slightly more to emphasise the glitch more so that it did not look like bad quality filming naturally.

This was then completed by adding the 'bad T.V' effect

THE 'PRISM' EFFECT

This effect was added to make the image seem in some way quite distorted but in a subtle way, to suggest how the protagonist seems normal to his friend but then there is something off key about him. This effect was found on Final Cut Pro. It was simply done by opening and cutting the clip on Final Cut Pro and adding the effect actually called 'prism' onto it by dragging it. This was then saved as a separate movie and then imported onto iMovie. This effect merely highlighted the outlines of the main elements in the clip, and this added a slight touch of oddity in the appearance of the clip.

FLASHING PENCIL EFFECT

This effect was made on Final Cut Pro and was done just to make the trailer more fast paced to add to the disoriented illusion we were trying to create. The quickness of the clip and the fastness adds to the nature and convention of a teaser trailer being short, so in this we were successful in meeting a teaser trailer's typical convention. Doing this followed the same procedure of dragging the effect onto the clip. Also this clip was added to create almost a small bridge before the clip that came after it as it was quite long, so by introducing those jump cuts with this small, snappy clip made the trailer flow a lot more visually.

TRAILER- final feedback

The final form of feedback we obtained was via Facebook. In order to obtain optimum audience feedback to ensure our trailer was not only popular but had also met peoples' expectations, the trailer was posted onto Facebook. This was connected to our video which was connected to YouTube. By using convergence it was very easy to make our trailer gain more popularity. Posting it on Facebook was a success as our views have/are increasing. By doing this, it was also a sort of assurance from the initial audience feedback we received, so we needed to make sure the trailer lived up to their expectations.

This image shows the likes and comments we received once we posted the trailer.

This image shows the likes and comments we received on YouTube for our trailer. The number of views are also displayed.

EDITING- sound

There were sounds that were needed in our trailer which we included and these steps are demonstrated in the screen grabs below.

SOUND EFFECTS

We decided that the first clip of our trailer would be in silence, with only the sound of the clicking being heard for dramatic effect. So we did this by muting the actual clip, and then going on 'Sounds and Music' and searched for a clicking sound to ensure that it would sound crisp with no interference.

The screen grab above shows the two clicking sounds put into the trailer. We made them especially loud so that they could be loud and so that our audience would be able to hear this properly so that it makes the impact it needs to.

GETTING THE 'DROP' RIGHT

Our selection of music has the perfect silence we searched for which then is followed by the beat dropping into an intense instrumental. When assembling the clips, it was then necessary to make the beat drop exactly where the disequilibrium starts. This was successful though it was quite difficult getting the beat to drop exactly where it needed to, but this was eventually achieved. Once we had clipped all of our clips and then added the texts, at the start of the song on the timeline it was possible to open up the 'clip trimmer' for the sound on a drop down menu in the top left hand corner on the little white cog sign on the actual music. This enabled us to be able to adjust the drop to match the trailer.

MAKING THE MUSIC FADE

So the music ends on a not too abrupt stop it was essential to make the song fade towards the end. For the last clip (not including the 'coming soon' text clip following our final clip) we made the music fade by dragging a small white bead backwards which made the grooves of music rounded meaning that the last clip faded in sound and eventually came to a stop. This made it have an overall smoother sound making it sound professional, additionally.

COMPANY LOGO

The 'Revolver' company logo is introduced with a sort of subtle low 'whooshing' sound. This was done so that the music that followed the logo introduction did not just start without any backing whatsoever. This was achieved by inserting the company logo but then muting it and going onto the music sign icon on iMovie to find a dramatic but subtle enough sound to accompany the clip. This also is a feature of any kind of trailer, so we used a reputable film British film company logo in our own teaser trailer.

EDITING- the use of Final Cut Pro

It is noticeable that in the screen grabs that were taken of the editing process included images from Final Cut Pro. This software was used to add any special effects so it would make our trailer prominent and exciting to watch. This was a simple process as is illustrated below:

1. We imported the clip onto Final Cut Pro to begin with and then selected the edits we wanted

2. It was then necessary to press Command+E so that the file could then be shared. We gave the lone movie, that it would turn into, a name.

3. Then this clip was saved into our area as a movie on its own.

4.Subsequently, we would revert back to iMovie and then select 'import files'

5. We would open the file on iMovie and this would work as a clip on its own, ready to be used in the trailer.