CLOSED BLOG NOTIFICATION

Centre Name: NORBURY MANOR BEC
Centre Number: 14343
Candidate Name: PRECIOUS KING
Candidate Number: 8005
Unit: G324

Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Full Audience Feedback Sessions Below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbHGVz3EB3k&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNXwGWHsCdY

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

THIS IS AN AUDIO PREZZI SO PLEASE ENSURE THAT SOUND IS ENABLED.

Final Poster

Final Magazine Cover

Final Trailer

Twisted Trailer Premiere

Below is the poster I made for our teaser trailer premiere in order to inform people on the location, date and time of the screening. This proved a great form of promotion as a large amount of people both students and teachers from my sixth form attended the event. 

Magazine Cover Editing

Magazine Cover Break Down

Editing The Poster

Poster Break Down

Expert Feed Back On Rough Cut Teaser Trailer

My group and I found it very important and necessary too accumulate feedback during the editing process as  we knew that this would in turn enable us to make valuable changes that would allow our final product to be at a high standard. 

We decided to ask a media expert - our Media studies teacher Mrs Ryder Owen, to give us feedback on our rough cut teaser trailer 'Twisted'. All the comments said as seen in the video, all proved valuable and my group and I decided to incorporate the majority of the suggestions provided as well as amending a variety of aspects within our trailer. 

Cast Feedback On Planning and Organisation

After the planning stages of our teaser trailer Twisted came to an end, my group and I felt it necessary to ask different cast members how effective and organised they felt that our planning methods were. Above is a short clip of our final girl Aisha (Jamie) discussing how she feels the process went. 

Teaser Trailer Rough Cut

Magazine Cover Compared With Real Media Texts

Below is our final magazine cover. We decide to keep it very simplistic as we feel that the cover image is extremely powerful on its own and we did not want to draw any attention away from it by using too much text. 

Because of this, we decided to make our issue of EMPIRE Magazine a special edition version as through research we found that most of the special edition Empire magazines had limited text however, paired with a very powerful image. Below are some examples:

Choosing The Picture For Our Magazine Cover

After looking through all the photographs taken for our magazine cover, my group and I decided go with the picture above. Once we started editing on photoshop, we realised that having five girls on a magazine cover was not practical as this left us with no room to put text (which is obviously necessary for a magazine cover) as everything looked extremely squashed and cramped together. Because of this, we decided to only use the three girls in the middle and crop out the others. 

Even though there are five main character's in our trailer, through research, we found that it is not always necessary for all of the main cast to be featured on the cover of a magazine as we found many examples where this wasn't the case. Below is an example of More magazine where the girl group The Saturdays who consist of five girls only have three on the front cover. 

Pretty Little Liars Inspired Shots For Our Magazine Cover

Below are some of the pictures from our magazine photo shoot.

We wanted to go for a 'Pretty Little Liars' inspired photo-shoot as their narrative is very similar to the one we created for 'Twisted'.

Film Credits For Our Poster and Trailer

*** PLEASE CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE***
When we first starting making our poster, we used credits from another movie which acted as a template to help guide us in the making of our own one. Below is a picture of the one we originally used. 

In order to make our own film credits, it was necessary for us to find a font similar to the one shown above and through research, I was able to find out that the name of the font which was called 'Steel Tongs'. 

After we installed this font into photoshop, we were able to make our own credits as pictured below.

The Chosen Music For Our Teaser Trailer

In a previous post, I stated the importance of music in horror films.

Because of this, choosing the music for my horror trailer proved difficult as I found it a challenge to find a piece that climaxed and built up at the points that I needed it to. I knew that this was important as through my research into horror films I found that the iconic tension and suspense in films of this genre is one of the main factors that holds the audience's focus; keeping them captivated throughout. I also tried splitting different compositions and joining them together in order to create a unique piece of my own that had all the elements I was looking for however once this was done, I felt the music sounded very choppy and disorientated as in certain parts the different pieces did not blend well together. 

After a while of searching, I came across this piece entitled 'Epic/Action - Royalty Free Music' which I was really impressed with as it was short and snappy compared to a lot of other pieces that I had looked into which were all around the seven minute mark. This Piece also builds up tension wonderfully as demonstrated at 1:14. The use of the drums and violins also gives the piece a really dramatic effect and through feedback (in a previous post) I learnt that was a factor that helped captivate my audience. 

Blend Over Lap With Adobe After Effects

Flashing Effects With Adobe Premiere Pro

Chosen Film Company - Paramount

The Paramount Pictures Corporation is a television and film production/distribution studio that has made its way to be coming one of the worlds largest film studios.

The company was originally founded by Adolph Zukor in 1912 with the corporation's original name of the Famous Players Film Company.  By 1913, the company had completed five films and was on its way to success. 

                                                                                                                      

The main reason that I picked Paramount to be the chosen production company in my horror trailer is because it is easily recognised amongst viewers as many popular movies such as Indiana Jones, Shrek, G.I Joe, Star Trek and even iconic horror's such as Paranormal Activity, Friday The 13th and Lets Scare Jessica To Death have all been apart of Paramount Pictures. 

Below is a mood board I made of a few different Paramount Horror's

 some information adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures

Staff Feedback on 'Twisted' Rough Cut

In order to obtain feedback, I asked a few members of staff in my sixth-form to watch our final draft so that we could gain useful suggestions and ideas which would in turn help us to improve our final product.

The first member of staff stated that he was very impressed with the second to last shot where one of the actresses get dragged into the bushes. He felt that this really stood out as it leaves viewers wondering what will happen next.

The actress getting dragged into the bushes

He felt that the trailer had really good energy overall and also felt that the accents, pace and different beats of the music were used effectively as it created tension and suspense. He also picked up on the variety of different shots and angles used and felt that these different shots e.g. close ups and wide shots gave the audience a good insight into the film. Lastly, he was able to correctly identify the genre of teaser trailer which is horror and felt that it paid homage to iconic horror movies such as halloween, scream, and I know what you did last summer.

When discussing the weaknesses of our trailer, one of the criticisms was that he felt that the entire trailer was a little on the short side but we explained that the typical length of a teaser trailer is around one minute 30 seconds.

Examples of teaser trailers that are at similar length as ours

He also stated that the message on the phone flashed up too quickly and seeing that it is a crucial part of the storyline, we should leave it up for  a few seconds longer to ensure that viewers will definitely have enough time to read it properly.

The second member of staff stated that as a whole she felt that the trailer was brilliant and was really impressed with the lighting in parts as it helped to build up tension.

Screen shot of the flashing/strobe light effect used in our trailer

She also went on to say that there was a good use of black and white to represent the different flash backs and that her favourite part was near the end as the shots came quicker and faster as this again helped to create an element of suspense and tension.

An example of black and white use in our trailer to convey a flash back

She understood the storyline well and was able to infer that revenge was about to take place. Although she did not have any direct criticisms, whilst watching her body language, I saw that she tilted her head slightly in order to read the message on the IPhone. Because of this, we decided to re-film this shot but this time make it more central to the screen.

Before and after 'I KNOW WHAT YOU DID' message

Character Costume Analysis

Costume Analysis from Precious King

Finalising The Font For Trailer Titles

  

 When the editing process had first begun, I decided to use the font shown in the third picture as I felt that it was very simple, clear and easy to read. I did not want to use any fancy fonts as I though that this may prove difficult for the audience to read seeing as these titles only last roughly between 4-5 seconds. I had also seen a similar font used in 2009 slasher film Sorority Row as shown below:

After a while of using this font, I felt that it was too simple which in turn made the entire trailer seem very unprofessional. Because of this, I decided to experiment with different texts further and came across the font in picture number one. I really enjoyed this text as it transitioned beautifully giving the product a more professional look however once I watched it through, I felt like the blue and tiny sparkles did not go well with our footage or even the horror genre itself.

Finally, myself and my group came to the conclusion that using the same font that we had chosen for our magazine and poster would be most appropriate for the titles in our teaser trailer (after obtaining feedback) as doing so would ensure that there is a direct link between each of our three productions making them look more like a package and fit together better. 

The font used for the title of our teaser trailer on our poster

Finalised Font

Squirting Blood Effect

   

             

       

                         

Different Sound Effects Used In Twisted

When researching the importance of music and sound effects in horror films, I came across a quote from the famous Simon Boswell - a classic horror music composer who stated that "Music in horror films is probably more powerful than in any other genre."

I completely agree with Simon's statement as the visuals, props and mis-en-scene alone in horror films are not enough to build the tension and suspense required to captivate an audience whilst experiencing a movie of this particular genre as the different sound effects and music helps set the pace and convey different emotions that the actors actresses are feeling through out.

Different genres of music can be heard in horror films however orchestral music is the type that is widely used and can be found in classic iconic horror's such as Psycho and Jaws as it is great at building the pace and tension through classical instruments such as the violin.     

  

Through research, I also found that many horror's seem to use upbeat Pop/R&B music to highlight the equilibrium at the start of the film and then later on progress to the more dramatic heart clenching music and sound effects. A great example of this is in the 2009 slasher Sorority Row film. 

Ambient sounds (the background noise present in a scene) are also sound effects that are commonly used in horror films as it usually helps to portray the iconic isolated setting. The most typical type of ambient sounds are crickets, strong winds and owls which are also often used to represent night time.

Below are some of the sound effects I used in my horror trailer in order to build tension and suspense as music and sound effects in horror films play an extremely crucial role as explained above.

IMovie Vs Adobe Premiere Pro

Below is a short presentation highlighting the key factors that influenced my decision to edit my teaser trailer in Adobe Premiere Pro.

IMovie Vs Adobe Premiere Pro from Precious King

Landscape Poster Examples

Although the majority of horror film posters are portrait, myself and my group decided to challenge the conventions of a typical film poster and make ours landscape. This is because we felt our chosen image very powerful and once changed to portrait, it seemed to have lost its effectiveness as the picture appeared very squashed and cramped together whereas the landscape version (above) was very spacious and allowed room to add text without drawing the attention away from the powerful image.

Although this style of poster is not very conventional, I was still able to find examples of both horror and non horror film posters that have also been created in landscape format.

Let me in is a 2010 British-American romantic horror film written and directed by Matt Reeves and starring Kodi Smit-Mcphee and Chloe Grace Moretz

Grave Encounters 2 is a 2012 Canadian-American horror film, directed by John Poliquin written by the Vicious Brothers and the sequel to the 2011 Grave Encounters