Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3 from Monique Jackson

Audience feedback has been one of the most significant processes that has aided us in the creation of the production of our ancillary texts. My partner and I interviewed some members of our targeted audience which shows their opinions about what things they felt went well with our ancillary products and what they felt could be improved.

Name: Emma
Age: 18

Emma states that she would engage within the film if it was so actually become a product. She states that the editing within the trailer was to a high and professional standard. This means that we were able to coherently produce an effective trailer that contained good continuity editing. She explains that the music was really effective and that it tied in well with the action on screen. I can therefore state that, the music not only fit well with the production, but it also enhanced what was happening within the trailer and made the trailer more exciting, engaging and furthermore, it made the enigma codes more prominent. Emma states that the two actors names in the top corners of the film poster could have been made bigger and bolder, just so that they didn't fade into the background amongst all of the different colours used. I agree with this and if we had the opportunity to go back and change this I would.
Our magazine clearly adheres to all of the conventional research that a magazine should contain as this audience member states that the poster is both professional and contains all of the things she would expect too see on the cover.



Name: Robert
Age: 19

This person stated that they like the trailer due to the generic codes and conventions of a trailer, which is the fast pace that it has. Not only is this a convention generically but it is also something that the action genre must abide by.
He goes on to talk about improvements and he states that we could have adapted the sound more because at some points the sound can be quite loud and vice versa.
Robert then discussed our ancillary products, we asked him what he liked and what he thought needed to be improved. He liked the image of the science lab that was taken from that scene and overlapped with our character. From this image he was able to identify that the trailer was about a girl with a rare blood type, this shows that our ancillary products represent the film effectively. Furthermore Rob critiques our magazine front cover and states that he would like to know more about the characters. I personally feel that this image allows some sort of identification about the characters from their positioning. Rebecca is stood at the front which indicates that she is the protagonist, because she is centred people are most likely to focus their attention on her.



Name: Ben
Age: 18

This audience member stated that the soundtrack used within our trailer was useful in aiding the action on screen, as, it enhanced the different atmospheres present throughout the trailer, such as, tense, which in retrospect is a good thing for an action film trailer especially as a majority of the scenarios happen during disequilibrium (Todorov's narrative theory) so the audience will want to know what is going to happen next.
An issue which has been frequently referred to throughout the development of this product is the poor recording of the dialogue. However Ben does bring to light, a new critical analysis. He states that the audio was clearly recorded inside when the characters were clearly outside. As we are not a high budget company we were unable to record a piece of text outside without it resulting in having an extremely poor quality, if we were then this would have been something that would have been constructive criticism for us.
Ben points out that the caption 'What if you had to run to protect your blood?' underneath the title 'TYPE Z' he felt that it needed to be more prominent. He suggest the use of a different font and even having blood dripping down from it, which would link the two ancillary texts more because there are blood splatters over the masthead and the film title.
Amongst other points Ben states that on our magazine cover he like the use of the blood as it gives a personal quality to the magazine, it isn't just a generic one, the main focus inside is this new film, 'Type Z'.

Name: Sophie
Age: 18

Sophie says that she felt the trailer to be really 'invigorating', this is something that we strongly wanted our audience to feel and this was achieved through the multiple locations, shots and angles. Our trailer was commended for our high quality, however, Sophie states that this high quality could have been kept consistent if only the news reporter scene didn't look so poor in quality. The news reporter scene was probably a scene that we struggled most with. With our first draft we were told that it didn't look professional enough, so we changed it, upon changing it we were then told that it didn't look realistic. We then found an app which we placed the recording on, we were aware of the low quality but the choice was either to have a non-professional scene or a low quality one.
The font used on the film poster is a font used on our other ancillary product and is used within the film trailer, Sophie stated that the font used really reflected the content of the film being advertised. Finding the correct font that reflected our genre was something that we spent a lot of time on because you tend to get fonts that completely do not reflect a genre of a really, gothic, horror type of font. From analysing our trailer and ancillary products Sophie was able to find a strong link between them all, just from the font used. Finally, the magazine front cover, she said that the magazine looked really professional, a product that you would actually see being advertised. One thing that Sophie said she would change about the magazine is the 'Jack Black' section. I agree with her, everything on the magazine looks like it has a purpose for being there, whereas this caption stands out significantly because it doesn't look as interesting and purposeful as the others.



Name: Tinika
Age: 18

This audience member stated that she liked the trailer because it has a sense of fluidity about it. Even though trailers are not suppose to have a sense of chronological order they are not suppose to be randomly placed, each scene needs to have a purpose within the trailer, this is because some scenes may be more heightened in a dramatical sense than others. Therefore, scenes need to be strategically placed in order to captivate an audience and leave them wanting more.
Although we have been bought up on the poor quality of sound on numerous occasions, this audience member states that she felt that the actual dialogue itself worked really well. It is important within a trailer that you don't use too much dialogue, this is because it can give too much of the plot away and because the action on screen may lose affect.
We are further commemorated on the synergy between all of our products due to the same text used throughout. Furthermore, we were praised on sticking to the conventions of a film poster, including things such as, a credit block and a release date. Finally Tinika states that on the magazine she liked the use of the blood splatter as it alluded to the plot of the trailer.



Name: Elijah
Age: 18

This audience member states that we have stuck to the action genre conventions as he says that our trailer was very fast paced and full of a variety of quick shots. From our genre research this is something that surrounded the genre significantly. As you can gather a majority of the people within the trailer are 18 but they all play characters of varied ages. The protagonist plays a character who is 19. Elijah likes the fact that we chose to have a protagonist similar to his age as he can relate to the character more, relation such as, emotions. My partner and I purposefully wanted a protagonist of this age, for this exact reason.
The decision for the chosen shot of the film poster was to give the impression of someone running away, this is the encoded meaning, and because Elijah is the preferred reading for this text he clearly identifies this.
My partner and I made sure that, on the magazine cover, that the two characters were the most prominent so that they were the main focal points. Finally, this audience member was able to notice the link between the blood (and the red background used) within both ancillary products and the trailer.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2 from Monique Jackson

Evaluation Question 1

Film Trailer 'TYPE Z' - FINAL

Analysis Of My Final Magazine Cover

Final Magazine front cover

This is the final magazine front cover created after all of the constructive criticism:

Analysis Of My Final Film Poster

Final Poster

After constant criticism and feedback about our poster including things such as:

• The layout
• The positioning of text
• The chosen text colour choice

This is our final product:

Character stereotypes

The protagonist of our trailer is a young white female with blond hair, this challenges the socially normal stereotype which is normally a young, white male. Furthermore, the protagonist of our trailer is usually the character who is classed as the 'dumb' one that dies first. This character is usually the most vulnerable and innocent, who seems as though they would not be able to handle them self in tough situations. However, throughout out trailer, through the use of varied shot, angles and dialogue this character is portrayed as strong and powerful. This character does have a moment within the trailer where she is portrayed as being vulnerable but with her strong willed personality she is able to overcome this.
My decision for choosing this character as the main protagonist was done on purpose because I wanted to be able to challenge normalities.
From my research, it is males who mainly engage in action films. Applying Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' theory to 'stereotypes of characters' could mean that there will be an increased chance in men engaging with the trailer because a female protagonist is more pleasurable and satisfying too look at, opposed to a male.

Another challenging stereotype is our antagonist who is not visually seen a lot, but he does play an important part.This character is a young,black male. Black males, just like the white blonde female are usually one of the first characters to die, however this doesn't appear to happen within our trailer. He obtains a high status within the film and has a dominating presence about him.

Magazine Front Cover - EDITING PROCESS

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our magazine cover to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the cover and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

One of the main things people liked about our magazine cover was the big, bold font that we chose for the magazine title. They liked the grey gradient that we applied to it that gave it a rustic look to suit our genre. As well as the magazine title, the group also liked the film title, as they noticed that we used the same font on the poster.

As well as this, a few people said they liked the "couple of the year" caption. They said it resembles something that would actually be put on the front of a magazine for a new upcoming film.

Another favoured trait was the way the characters were a different colour to the red background, because it makes them stand out because they play important roles in the film.

The group also thought that the black banner on the top right corner of the magazine cover was good because it looked professional.

On the other hand, many of the group did not like the 007 caption, as it did not look professional and looked somewhat out of place on the magazine cover. However, they also criticised our placement of the other captions such as the "their most in-depth interview" caption.

The sample also could not see the date of the magazine, nor could they read the caption on the banner on the top right corner.

Overall, the sample really liked out magazine cover, as the image colours, images and fonts we used suited the action genre. The main things we must change are the sizes and content of the captions.

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1

Here is the first draft of my Magazine Cover

Total Film - Magazine

Total Film – Magazine Analysis from Monique Jackson

Conventions of Film Magazines

Magazine Name Tally

In order to decide what to name our magazine, we decided to come up with three names on our own that we liked. We then asked 20 17-18 year olds in our year group to pick their favourite one using a tally chart. The most favoured name was 'REEL', therefore it is most likely the name we will use. However, since the number of people who chose reel was only 2 away from the number of people who chose lens, we will do a survey using survey monkey to determine which name to use as our final choice.

Magazine Name Survey

Survey Analysis from Monique Jackson

Film Poster Edit

We have edited our film poster onto a bus stop advertisement and a train station advertisement. This is because these are just a few ways in which our film would be advertised to our targeted audience. Our target audience is teenagers/young people, who use public transport often, therefore there would be a higher chance of catching their attention which means they would be more likely to see the film.

Film Poster - EDITING PROCESS

Poster editing from Sarah Nurse

Film Poster - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our film poster to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the poster and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

People really liked the image that we created for the poster. They said that they like how the science lab is layered on top of Rebecca and how the images fade together. They also liked the chromatic effect that we used on the image, as it gives the poster a more polished look. Also, they liked that Rebecca looks as though she is trying to get away because it helps show that the genre is action.

They also liked how the release date was visible in big, white text because it means that it is easy to find our when the film will be released.

The sample also liked the font used for the billing block, as it looks professional and resembles a real film poster billing block.

As well as this, they approved of the production logos at the bottom corners of the poster because they add to make it look more realistic.

Finally, they also liked the font of the film title, as it is big and bold so it suits the action genre.

Some improvements that were discussed were the addition of a BBFI certificate logo so people know if they will be able to see the film when it is released. Another improvement is changing the colour of the film title to a lighter shade so that it is more visible on the background image. Also, a big criticism was changing the colour of the headline and billing block, as they were barely readable. However, we explained that because there are so many assorted colours in the background image, black works the best. To this, the sample suggested adding a border around the film poster so that the text is visible. As well as this, people also suggested that we take off some of the names at the top of the film poster so that only two or three names can be in a bigger font and stand out more. Lastly, we got some feedback to put the caption under the film title all in one line.

Film Poster - Institutional Information

Whilst researching film posters and what is included in them, I have found that at the bottom of my film poster I must include some institutional information in a small font. This should tell the audience some of the actors and actresses who are in the film, and some of the people involved in different stages of production including the director, producer, editor, composer, costume designer and writer.

Here is the institutional information that i have created by using the websites 'Bighugelabs' and 'Befunky'. It contains most of the names I listed above except the editor and costume designer because we didn't want to include too many names. The release date of the film is also included on top of the billing block in a bold, red font because it can catch viewer's attention. I also added the production logos that I created in the bottom left and right corners so we can show the companies who made the film. The BBFI '15' certification is also included so I can show who will be able to view the film once it is released. This layout is very typical is how a lot of film posters choose to show institutional information

Film Poster - DRAFT 1

Here is the first draft for our Film Poster - advertisement

 

 

Conventions of film Posters - Analysis

Types of Film Posters

There are many different types of film posters and these are a few: Teaser poster, Video/DVD release poster, genre identification, character poster and the main poster.
A character poster features an individual character, or an ensemble of characters from the film. This character poster may contain a tagline that gives off a reflection of the character.
A teaser poster, which is also known as an advanced poster is a promotional poster. The purpose of this is to alert target audience members of a new upcoming film and to create hype.

The main places where a film poster is known to be published are: billboards, bus stops, on buses, underground stations and cinemas.

Through thorough research about different types of film posters, my partner and I have decided that we are going to do a standard sized A4 poster.






 Due to the variation of different film posters, there are many different sizes.                      Large companies who have a big budget are able to create these large variations in film posters, whereas smaller companies are unable, therefore they make one or two.

Film Posters History

What is a Film Poster?

A Film poster, is a poster that has been created in order to advertise a film. This method of advertisement broadens the horizons for the amount of people who will see the advertisement for the film. This means that the amount of people who will potentially view the film, will increase.
In this day, a variation of film posters displaying different images, and different texts are printed out. This is because if people see a variation of images from a film this may incite them more, into engaging in the film.
A film poster will generally contain an image with some text, the image used on the film poster is usually of the protagonist (as they are usually the bankable, A-List star). However, prior to the 1990's, illustrations were more commonly used than photos.
Gordon Gorey stated that posters - a transition from "sound-orientated beings to primarily visually-orientated"

History

The covers of film posters didn't contain any stars, this is because the actors felt embarrassed participating in this 'new' industry and so decided to remain anonymous. Producers were thrilled with this outcome as it meant that they had complete control of this medium, as long as there were not any stars.

1910 saw the demand in the public wanting to know the names of the nameless actors. The producing companies realised that they could make money out of the 'movie stars' and so, this sparked a change which meant that now, actors names were published on film posters.

The 1920's were considered the golden age of the silent movie. Beautiful locations took the place of the cinema. Well known artists were bought in to design portraits and movie posters of the protagonists.

The film industry really became its own in the 1930's. Not only did the 'Great Depression' happen, where people believed that the cinema wouldn't be as popular due to tight restrictions on money, but the Great Depression saw an increase into the number of people who went to the cinema, because they wanted to escape reality.

With the 1940's came the development of the television. Due to this new creation a number of people who use to attended the cinema replaced it with the TV, as a result, the movie companies reduced the amount of films they created. This meant that a lot of actors and actresses were out of the job which proved a devastating blow for them.

In order for fight the popularity of television, in the 1950's movie companies created more fantasy films. The ever popular 'war' genre was now replaced with other genres, such as, science-fiction, comedy and 'B' drive in movies. Although drive-in movies had been around since 1933 it reached its peak in popularity during the 1950's with over 4,000 screens in the United Sates alone.

The 1960's bought the boomer generation to their teen years. Since there were so many children from the post-war baby boom a majority of the films were teen orientated. Rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley entered into the light of stardom, not only for his music but for his involvement within movies. Action films became increasingly popular during this time as we saw the introduction of the infamous double agent, James Bond 007.

The 1970's was a launching pad to the era of the blockbusters the 1980's. Movies such as, The Godfather, Star Wars, Rock and Star Trek were born. Posters of this time did use photography but there was the occasional use of drawing and painting created by famous artists like Ansel Adams, Frank Frazetta and Bob Peak created some popular posters of this time.

Special effects belonged to the age of the 1980's, this was the key to the success of films such as, Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The 1990's welcomed computerisation of special effects, which bought two of the largest money making films in history, Jurassic Park and Batman Forever.


Finally, the earliest forms of advertising for movies included hand painted crates and sandwich boards. The turn of the 20th Century saw a world with a very high illiteracy rate. Posters or advertising for any entertainment needed to have vibrant colours and pictures and a limited amount of words, so that the advertising could be appreciated by a large number of people.

Types of Posters

There are different types of advertising film posters, for example:

Teaser Poster

This type of poster is a poster is released early, as a promotional one. The content of the poster is very basic, this is so that not too much information about the plot, theme and characters are not revealed. The purpose of a teaser poster is self explanatory, the poster is released in order to inticte and create and awareness for an up and coming film.






Character Poster

This type of poster is self explanatory. It is a poster that reveals the different characters within that film.
On the poster, there will be the name of the actor, the characters name.

SECOND CUT - Trailer

Feedback from our first draft aided us in making adjustments to our trailer. They were:

• Muffled sound and at some points the recorded dialogue was much louder or some were even too quiet. This variation in sound mean that the audience couldn't completely engage with the trailer because of the dipping and amplified sound. 
• Secondly, the news reporter. We were told that she didn't exactly look 'professional' because of all the jewelry she wore and the fact that we couldn't see her tau-so, although she was stood up. We were also critiqued on the image and the positioning of it. After re-doing this section we were still told that it didn't quite replicate a proper news report, as a result we will be re-doing this section. 
• From the previous trailer we were also told that our fight section was too long and very unrealistic due to the prop used (a gun with an orange nib). Therefore, we shortened the scene to just over a second which showed an aggressive push performed in slow motion. Adapting this shot meant that we conformed to the conventions of an action trailer as we had a variety of effects and quick shots. 
• Our targeted audience informed us that they understood what the trailer was about,but they wanted it to be clearer. As a result we added in extra dialogue at the end "INSERT QUOTE". Our feedback stated that, including this dialogue made all of the action of the trailer make sense and this just enhanced it.

IDENT DESIGN - Black Tape Productions

Here is a slideshow on how I created one of our production company logos:

Black Tape Productions from Monique Jackson

Here is the clip I used to create the logo:

Here is the final logo:

IDENT DESIGN - Blue Arrow Productions

Here is a slideshow on how I created one of our production company logos

Blue Arrow Ident from Monique Jackson

Here is the final product

Sources:

https://logomakr.com/

Film Trailer - First Draft

Day 4 of Filming

Day 3 of Filming

Day 2 of Filming

Day 1 of Filming

Risk Assessment

A2 media Risk Assessment from Monique Jackson

MI5 LOGO RESEARCH - SI5 LOGO CREATION

 The MI5 is a very well known intelligence agency in the government. They work to protect the UK against threats to national security. Their role is defined as "the protection of national security and in particular its protection against threats such as terrorism, espionage and sabotage, the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means".

Our trailer idea involves a secret agency within the government that aims to complete a similar task: to protect the UK against threats. We wanted to make a logo of our own so that we could use it as a prop on a badge for our trailer.

We used a logo making website and started off with two shapes: a triangle and a circle. We then wrote out 'SI5'. We decided to make the logo dark to indicate that this agency was dangerous and could cause harm. We chose to use blue, grey and black because the colours all go well together.

We then fit all of the components together and realised that the 'SI5' wasn't as visible as we wanted it, so we ended up making the font a lighter shade of blue to the logo was clear. We also made the triangle a shade lighter as well.

Below is the final logo that we produced. It is very simple, but we will use it as a prop for our trailer to make out agency appear real.

Filming Schedule

DAY ONE: 13th February

ACTORS:

• FREYA
• REBECCA
• SOPHIE
• GYING

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Papers
• iPhone
• Backpack
• Gun

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Rachel's costume - smart, professional clothing
• Jessie's costume
• Leo's costume - suit with a trench coat
• LOCATIONS:
• School - Common room
• School - Canteen
• Sophie's House

DAY TWO: 16th February

ACTORS:

• GYING
• RAVI
• SOPHIE
• MONIQUE
• DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Phone
• Gun
• Goggles & lab coat

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Leo's costume - suit with a trench coat
• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit with black bandana
• John's costume - smart suit
• Dr. Jackson's costume - lab coat and goggles

LOCATIONS:

• School - Media room
• School - Science lab
• School - Office
• School - Common room

DAY THREE: 1st March

ACTORS:

1. REBECCA
2. DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Handcuffs
• Gun
• Camera
• Tripod

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit
• Alex's costume - black leggings with t-shirt

LOCATIONS:

• School - PE closet

DAY FOUR: 7th March

ACTORS:

• REBECCA
• GYING
• DWIGHT

PROPS/EQUIPMENT:

• Camera
• Tripod
• Guns
• Fake plant
• Table and chair

COSTUMES NEEDED:

• Leo's costume - suit
• Hayden's costume - all black tracksuit

LOCATIONS:

• School - PE field
• East Croydon - Car park
• East Croydon - Alleyway

Equipment used for Filming

The camera we used for filming is a 'Nikon D3200', it is lightweight so can easily be carried around on our travels to different locations. Further to that, the fact that the camera is lightweight works as an advantage to us, because when carrying out steady cam shots its easier to hold still, allowing us to achieve perfect shots.
Furthermore, this camera allows us to film in high definition, giving us a crystal clear narrative. We are also able to change the colour settings and brightness, which is useful when filming in extremely dark places.

This is the tripod that we used throughout filming, it is a 'Hama Star 63'. The design of the tripod allows us to adjust the height and the angles of the shot (turning the top of the tripod). This equipment allows us to get the correct level or angles for our shots without difficulty.  

Finally, since we are unable to afford a professional microphone in order to separately record our sound, we decided to use the 'iPhone 6' to record our dialogue. This is because we felt that the dialouge on the camera sounded to muffled. We will create vocal recordings and then insert the dialogue over the recorded footage for our trailer. 

2D LogoDesigns

Together, we have created two production logos to use for the start of our trailer. The names of the companies were chosen by students in our school from a questionnaire (seen in a different blog post). Both idents are very simple to read for the audience and reflect the action genre by including big, bold fonts and using dark colours.

These 2D designs will be animated and used in our trailer.

FIRST DRAFT - Blue Arrow Productions - IDENT design

The images show the development of the ident in which my partner and I created. After creating and completing the survey about which ident name our targeted audience preferred we began to plan for the actual ident, coming up with various sketches. We wanted to create something very self explanatory, the arrow is blue and underneath are the words 'PRODUCTION', therefore creating 'Blue Arrow Productions'. Additionally, we wanted to produce something simple but creative, as, less is more.

This ident will appear that the beginning of our trailer as, from our research a majority of idents appear at the beginning, therefore, we want to stick to this convention.
My partner and I will animate this ident. This is because we want it to go with the action genre. We want to create the mood and set a sense of pace from the very beginning and everything in the trailer accounts to this.
The bottom image is our final ident.

Ident Questionnaire

We have asked 23 students in our sixth form, male and female, aged 17-19 to draw a line next to the name that they liked the best so that we could choose which two names to use for our idents. We collected the results in a tally chart because it is a simple method. We used students this age because they're of a similar age to our target audience so we want to know which names they find the most appealing so that we can have a better chance at engaging them in our trailer.

The top name that was chosen was 'Black Tape Films' so this is the first name we will use. 'Blue Arrow Productions' and 'Purple Reel' tied second, however we personally liked 'Blue Arrow Productions' more, so that is the second name that we will use.