Emma

Overall Evaluation

2010-04-19T03:48:00.000-07:00

Teaser Trailer

I think our teaser trailer works very well as it conveys that the girl is trapped, scared and upset. By filming the girl against a door, we portray this feeling of her being trapped as she is not going through the door but is instead up against it. This works well as it shows the audience that she is like a hostage, which is what the main film is about it. Although we all felt that the use of the door handle behind the girl, looses the effect of a closed atmosphere. The room was a good place to film, as it was very dark which gave us the effect we wanted. This worked well with our genre of a thriller as it gave a eerie effect which created a tense atmosphere for the audience. Jade was positioned to be kneeling as this gave the effect that she fears something/someone, which works well with our genre of a thriller.

I feel that the actress should have wore a different costume, as the dress gave an effect we didn't really want. We wanted her clothes to show normality, but this was balanced out by the use of her nail varnish she was wearing, which worked well with the showing of normality.

The script that our actress was asked to read, worked well at the end as it ended in mid-sentence giving a small cliff hanger until the title 'Stalked' appeared on the screen. Although I feel that we could have made the script have more sentences that would create suspense and nervousness as it would create the effect we were after.

Our camera angle worked well with the interview type of teaser trailer. We chose to only use camera angle as this fitted the genre, but I think this worked well as it made the room feel smaller as we were not using many angles to show exactly how big the room was, which gave a good effect of the girl being trapped.

The lighting in the room was very dark, which I feel gave off a great effect to make the atmosphere feel eerie and tense. This fits the conventions of a thriller and works well with the magazine cover picture, as this too is very dark.

Magazine Front Cover

The main image on our front cover of a film magazine works well I think as it shows exactly how the girl is feeling, which is fear, sadness and vulnerability. By making Jade kneeling and looking up, we show how someone has power over her, which works well with the storyline of our film.

As the photo has been edited to make it quite dark, I feel this allows the surrounding headlines to stand out to the audience. By editing it this way we also convey the type of genre the film is and will attract the audience we are aiming for.

By using the same font for 'Stalked' and 'Empire' we show that our film is the main film and the magazine is revolving around that film. This works well as the use of the same font for all three of our products allows the audience to recognise and become familiar with the film.

Film Poster

I think the image on our poster works well, as it portrays that the girl is hidden and the close up of her face shows her vulnerability. By making the whole image black and white, except her eye, which we made bright blue, it shows her innocence and makes her seem younger.

I do not think the large gap in the middle of the poster works so well. I believe that the title 'Stalked' should have come down slightly which would have got rid of the large space.

I like the use of '02.02.12' as it is very blunt and precise which I think gives a great effect of a tense atmosphere, and fits the thriller conventions in movie posters.

By placing 'Stalked' in capitals, I feel it grabs the audience's attention and works well with the use of the film release date.

Evaluation of Production

2010-03-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

Filming

Filming at first came to be difficult for us as we had a few problems:

Film ideas
Filming time
Location of filming

We went through numerous amount of ideas for our filming, with only a few actually going onto paper. At first our ideas were much too like a trailer even though we was using not to use the clips in the actual film. We finally decided upon an 'interview' where the girl would be in character and would speak directly into the camera, expressing what happened to her. Once we had all of this planned, we came across another problem. Emily was off for a week, which stopped our filming, because at the time she was planning to be the girl. But when she got back, we decided upon using our friend. Finding time to film Jade was a problem as she was in lessons when we wanted to film. We resorted to filming in our free periods and after school. We wished to film in a dark room with only a small spotlight, and so we thought the dance and drama studio would be the suitable. When we arrived, the studio was empty but due to the hall being busy a class had to use the studio. But fortuantly we was allowed to use a photography dark room. Luckily we managed to do our filming in one go, which saved us a lot of time.

Editing

We was happy with our editing, as it only took us two double lessons to complete. This is because we had managed to film Jade talking in one long shot. We only had to add in the Production clips and the Institution clips. We also had to add in the title page and the 'Coming 2012'. We added music as we felt it would add to the suspense and tension, and also covered up some noises in the background. We had a few problems with the images, as there was a blip in one of the clips. We overcome this by putting the production name over the top of the clip.

Audience Feedback

To get feedback from our desired audience, we have put our film on YouTube and on our Facebook pages.

Teaser Trailer

2010-03-08T04:09:00.000-08:00

This is our final draft of our teaser trailer. We decided to make Jade kneel and look up towards the camera. This conveyed that someone was looking down at her. We wanted the trailer to be like an interview, which ensured that non of the content would appear in the film. Jade said how old she was, her name, where she lived, and what she think has happened to her. We used eerie music behind her talking to create a tense atmoshpere. We used gun shots at the end as the 'Stalked' and 'Coming Soon' appeared to continue with the tense atmosphere.

Audience Feedback

We placed our teaser trailer on Facebook and YouTube. Unfortuantly we recieved no comments on YouTube, however we did recieve these comments from friends on Facebook.
Most of the comments are quite positive, with some people giving us improvements to make. These improvements range from making the music quieter as at points it is hard to hear what the girl says, and that the girl seems a little too calm for the situation she is in. One friend also said we should have used more angles, but because we wanted an interview type trailer we decided this would not be appropriate. How ever some friends liked the way we zoomed in on her face for close ups.
Many people agreed that the situation and music was a good choice for our teaser trailer, and that the bang shot at the ended added to the tense atmosphere.

Production Logo

2010-03-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

Film trailers and teaser trailers have a convention of putting the production logo on the last screen. They do this to show who produced the film.
Our production name was 'Tom Ross' productions so we decided to use the 'T' and 'R' together to make a logo. We used red and yellow as the colours stood out easily among the black background.

Stalked Poster

2010-03-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

This is the original image we took of Jade to use for our film poster. We chose to use only half of Jade's face as it portrays that the girl is hidden from something and is afraid. The plain background next to her face will be used for the text such as the film title, date it is coming out and the text used for director's names etc.

We decided to put the poster in black and white because it enhanced the atmosphere within the poster and created a tense feeling. We photo shopped the picture, and made Jade's eye bright blue, to bring attention the girl's face and to show some sort of normality in the girl. We chose not to cut around her head to make her tidy as it gave the effect of normality again.

This is our final poster. We added the title 'Stalked' along with the release date of '02.02.12'. We used TBC as this is often a convention of film posters, when the age certificate has not been decided. We used the slogan 'watch your back' as it reinforced the idea of being stalked. We put it in capital letters to make it stand out and attract the audience. At the bottom of the poster we typed in the director's, actor's names along with other name's of people who are involved in the production.

Final Front Cover

2010-03-04T02:29:00.001-08:00

This is our final front cover. We changed the film poster image to another group's film picture, which also links to the '10 reasons to see La Femme'. We placed a yellow line around the image so that it did not blend in with 'Stalked' of the blackness of the background. We made it yellow so that it links to the banner and so the audience know that that it is the picture for the free poster. We changed the font colour of 'La Femme' to red so that it stood out, and the font was change to the font the original group use.

'Unknown' was change to a lime green to make it stand out, and give the effect that the film is about aliens and gives an eerie feeling.

We feel that 'La Femme' is too close to the line underneath and we would improve the front cover by making the space larger.

First Final Cover

2010-03-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

This was our final front cover. We have uploaded the main picture to advertise the film and to show that 'Stalked' is the main article in our magazine.

We changed a few things on this draft such as taking the small bubbles out as they did not fit the convention of a front cover of a film magazine. We also moved the title to the opposite side so we could fit everything on. I think it looks better on the left side as the girl is looking towards the left. We took the box away from the 'Exclusive Interview' article as this was not a convention of a film magazine front cover. We also change the font to white as this made is stand out further. We removed the background colour from the 'ever had the feeling' as this was again not a convention, and we then changed the font to blue to make it stand, over the balck and her skin. We changed the alingment of the 'Top 2011 films' so that they are up against the edge of the magazine and so that it tended to fit around the picture. We added '10 reasons to see La Femme' so that we could advertise what else was in the magazine. 'La Femme' is another group's film, which meant that we could also advertise their film. We also added a bar code.

This cover also shows our font choice, of Dirty Finger, we have made Empire and Stalked in the same font as this is a convention of film magazines. It again shows how 'Stalked' is the main film article on the magazine.

We did not like the picture above the banner about the free poster, as it is not a poster you would not want on your wall. So we would like to change it. We also feel that 'Unknown' does not stand out enough and so we plan to chnage the font colour.

Magazine Front Cover Plans and Edits

2010-02-22T07:58:00.001-08:00

Whilst Emily was away, Tom and I created the base layout for our front cover of the film magazine on the computer. We used the paper layout that the group had originally created. 'Empire' and 'Stalked' are in a different font to the ones shown here, as the ones we are using are not fonts on my home computer.
We looked at different film magazines such as 'Empire' and 'Total Film' to see what the conventions are of a film magazine cover and how they are set out. We found that the main film has the main headline and the the title of the magazine fits the convention of the main film. We used this convention and made 'Stalked' and 'Empire' in the same type of font.
Film magazine covers also advertise the other appearances of films in the magazine by advertising them on the front cover. We decided to put a film review and an interview of a film star as the other main articles in out magazine. We also put top films that we released in cinemas the year before.

These features are used to make the audience want to buy the magazine and read the articles inside. By doing film reviews on upcoming films, advertises the film and attracts the audience to view it when it is released in cinemas.

This is the original picture we took for our front cover. We wanted the girl to look scared and as she had been crying. We achieved this by streaking Jade's make-up, making her face slightly black as if tears had caused the make up to run. By cupping her hands she looks vulnerable as she is keeping herself all huddled up. She is also kneeling and looking up and into the camera, which makes it seem that there is someone with power over her and she is coiling away from them. We realised after taking the picture that she had nail varnish on, but we decided to leave it as it shows her normal life and conveys that at this moment in time she is not in her normal habitat.

This is the final edited picture, we darkened the photo, which makes the effect that she is trapped and in an un-natural setting. This also brought out her shadow more and herself. As this is for our front cover, we placed 'Empire' behind her head, ready for when we place the picture onto the front cover layout.

Questionnaire Results

2010-02-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

1: Do you regularly watch films?

Yes No

17/20 people said yes they regularly watch films.

2: When deciding to watch a film, what genre do you tend to choose? (choose all that apply)
Sci-fi Drama Horror Rom-Com Thriller Comedy Action

Comedy was chosen by the largest amount of people, which shows it to be a main choice for people. Although this question is not asking what genre is a person's favourite, it still conveys that more people like comedy over oer film genres.

3: Do film posters help you decide if you want to see a film?
Yes Sometimes No

9/20 people said that poster sometimes make them want to see a film, this is useful as we are creating two film posters to advertise our film and here hey are shown to help people to decide to see a film or not.

4:Does watching a film trailer help you decide whether you would like to see that film?
Yes Sometimes No
16/20 people said that viewing a trailer does help them decided if they would want to see the film or not. This is a good way to advertise a new film, but could also put people off viewing a film. Some people may have answered no, as films may be prequels/sequels to their favourite films meaning they may automatically go anyway.

5: Have you ever read a film magazine?
Yes No
11/20 participants say that they have read a film magazine, which shows that film magazines can be a useful way to advertise an upcoming film, as it may attract more people to view it.

6: When seeing a film magazine in a shop, what attracts you to find out more about the movie?This question gave us a wide range of results;

Boldness of title
Font of film title
Picture of film
Any actor's/actresses' names

7: Of the films you watch, what film certificate do they tend to be? (choose those that apply)
PG 12A 12 15 18

From this graph we can see that most participants chose to watch 15 certificate films. Most of the participants were of our age range, but some may have felt that they needed to rate their film higher, demand characteristics.

8:Do trailers reveal too much about the film's storyline?
Yes Sometimes No
A majority of people said often the trail res revel to much about the film, which may make the experience of seeing the film boring for them as they know what is happening next.

9: Do you ever feel mislead by trailers/ posters?
Yes Sometimes No

This graph shows how 12 participants felt that they have been mislead by posters and trailers, and believed that they were better than the film actually was.

10: Over the past year, what movies have disappointed you the most?

Harry Potter

Clover Field

Paranormal Activity

Sorority Row

Unborn

Questionnaire

2010-02-09T05:41:00.000-08:00

1: Do you regularly watch films?
Yes No

2: When deciding to watch a film, which genre do you tend to choose? (Choose those that apply)
Sci-Fi Horror Thriller Comedy Rom-Com Action
Drama

3: Do film posters help you decide if you would like to see the film?
Yes Sometimes No

4: Does watching a film trailer help you decide if you would like to see that film?
Yes Sometimes No

5: Have you ever read a film magazine?
Yes No

6: When seeing a film magazine in a shop, what attracts you to find our more about the movie?
7: Of the films you watch, what film certificate do they tend to be? (Choose those that apply)
PG 12A 12 15 18

8: Do trailers reveal too much about the film’s storyline?
Yes Sometimes No

9: Do you ever feel mislead by trailers/ posters?
Yes Sometimes No

10: Over the past year, what movies have disappointed you the most?

We have carried this out on males and females of ages 16-25 yrs old as this is our target audience and we are in the priocess of analysisng the results.

Problems with Planning

2010-02-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

During our planning of our poster, teaser trailer and film magazine cover, we have encountered many problems.
The main problem we have had is deciding on costumes for the person to wear during the filming. The group was split, with some wanting her to wear a dress and some wanting to wear normal clothing. I felt that by wearing normal clothing, it did not give off the right effect we wanted, which is vulnerable. We finally decided the girl should wear a dress.
We had problems designing our film poster, as at first we wanted the picture to be taken at a bus stop, but later decided this would be too difficult as we would have to have the correct lighting and same surroundings, which may of changed if we had to re-visit the setting.
Planing our teaser trailer was hard, as it was felt that we had designed a trailer more than a teaser trailer. So we had to re-plan it to fit teaser trailer conventions, which we decided upon an 'interview' where the girl is describing the feelings of what has happened, without letting the audience know what has happened.
Often during our planning, some of the group was away, either for exams, etc, which casued a problem with the planning, as when they returned, they disagreed with the ideas that had been suggested, meaning we had to re-plan and come up with different ideas. Emily is away,which has caused a few delays in our work, as she was meant to be our main model, we chose someone else, but the set back, has caused us delays in filming etc.

Font research and Anomatic

2010-01-28T02:04:00.000-08:00

These fonts are for the title of our film.
Font number 1:
We think it looks too plain, and does not give our desired effect.
Font number 2:
This font looks like a child has wrote it, which does not have any link to our film. As there would be not children in our filme.
Font number 3:
We like this font as it captures the right feeling for our title.
Font number 4:
We also like this font, as it looks like the title for a horror movie, which is what we want.
Font number 5:
We do not like this font, as it looks too medievil which is not the effect we want.

This is our anamatic. To make this, we drew our our storyboards and then filmed them with a flip camera and uploaded them onto Pinacle. In Pinacle, we edited the clips to make a short film, of which we hope of teaser trailer will come out like. In the spaces of 'institution' and 'production' we will put the actual names of them, but for the moment we have not decided what names to use. On the clips with the girl, she will be talking, about her memory, as the camera slowly zooms onto her face. The black boxes will have the girl screaming over the top, but for only a few seconds. The girl is crying through the film, which is shown through the running mascara that we will put on her, and red eyes. the clips with 'institution' 'production' and the film title, have black around the edges, as we are going to use a spotlight effect in Photoshop.
We have forgotten to place the website of the film, on the bottom of the last clip. this will be http://www.stalked2011.com/. In this clip we had drawn 2010, but the film will be coming out in 2011 instead.

First Draft: Magazine cover

2010-01-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

This is our fist draft of our front cover of a film magazine. We have used our main charcter as the front cover's main image. She is in the clothing that she is going to wear in our teaser trailer as this will allow viewers of the teaser trailer to recognise her and maybe buy the magzine and vice versa. In the draft she is standing in an upright posture, but when we take the picture, we are going to experiment with this, and decide which posture will make her look vulnerable. This is also the same for her costume. We are going to try different types of clothing to see which one gives us the effect we are after. She also has a sotlight over her, which is also bing used in our teaser trailer. This makes her the main image on th cover, and dfra viewers to see her first. We used 'Empire' as our magazine name, but we may decide to change it later in the production. We have made it a glowing white, as this is the colour of our film title. We put all the typical conventions of an 'Empire' magazine on our front cover e.g. the date of issue, bar code, price, and magazine number. All around the edge, we have advertised the articles that appear within the magazine, such as 'Top 2010 films' and 'exclusive interviews with the stars from Unkown'. To advertise that our film has an article in the magazne, we have put 'ever had the feeling your being STALKED' next the main image with 'STALKED' over the image. For promotion reasons, we put 'FREE love tunnel poster' in a banner on the bottom of the page, with a small picture of the poster. This wil help to attract people to buy the magazine.

Film Posters and Initial Teaser Trailer Idea

2009-12-10T01:11:00.000-08:00

We looked at a few horror film posters, to allow us to get some ideas for our own poster. These posters helped us to use a range of ideas when creating our film poster.
We looked at this poster even though it does not match our genre or storyline. We used it to get a range of ideas for our poster. This film is a certificate of 18, which is higher than ours, but from the poster, it could attract a younger audience as well.

We chose to look at this poster, because of the use of the lighting upon the person in the poster. This is because we want to use this effect in our poster. The background is quite dark which is also another effect we want to use. This film is certificate 18 which is higher than our film age, but that is due to th context of the film, the poster was still useful when creating our poster.

This poster has the conventions of a horror, with the dark colours. We chose to lok at this poster because of the use of the dark colours and because its genre matches ours. Although this film is certificated 13, and we are aiming for 15, the poster was still useful to look at when creating our poster.

This poster fits the horror genre, which is the genre we have chosen to base our film upon. We chose to look at this poster, as there is someone watching the girl in the mirror, like a stalker, to which we want our film to have a storyline of. The poster has a blue wash on it, creating a mysterious effect upon the viewer. This film is rated a 15, which is the certificate that we want our film to be.

This is our first idea for our teaser trailer. We have decided not to use it as we felt that it had too many footage that may look like it has come from the film. Also it did not create the effect that we wabted to convey, it did not fit our horror genre. In this storyboard we had visioned a girl writing her diary, whilst her 'stalker' is watching her house from across the road. The 'stalker' then got closer to the house, which we showed by using a range of camera angles and shots. We did not finish this story board as we realised the problems half way through creating it, but the ending would have been either the girl writing the film title in her diary or the 'stalker' posting a letter with the title upon it t6hrough her letter box.

Teaser Trailers

2009-11-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

This week, we have learnt the diffeences between normal film trailers and teaser trailers. We watched 2012, Fame, Toy Story 3, the Blair Witch Project and other trailers to see the differences and the different ways to create a teaser trailers.
The differences are:

Teaser trailers (TT) are much shorter
There are hardly any film footage in the TT
TT do not tell the audience much about the film
TT can be like dirctor's commentary and just have actors speaking
TT can be made whilst film is being created
TT come out a year in advance of the film

Movie Poster: First Draft

2009-11-26T02:17:00.000-08:00

This is our first draft of our movie poster. The poster is in portrait as it allows us to show the girl's full body and surrounding scenes. We have decided that the picture for the poster will be in the dark, as our movie is going to be about a stalker and this is when they tend to operate. It also creates a tense atmosphere. We have only drawn the stalker's hands and eyes as we do not want the audience to know what the stalker is or who. We are going to make the stalker's eyes an abnormal colour as it creates tension and suspense. The girl in the poster is looking over her shoulder as if she can sense someone behind her, she also has a worried expression. Her hair is blowing which creates pathetic fallacy. We used 'Coming 2011' instead of coming soon in 2011 as it is more definite but creates suspense as it is unknown when in 2011. The movie title 'Stalked' is going to be in messy hand writing, we are going to try it in chalk and see how it looks with our poster. The age for our film will be 15 years as there will not be any major explicit scenes.

Ideas for teaser trailer

2009-11-24T12:34:00.001-08:00

Over the past two media lessons, Tom, Emily and I have looked into some ideas that we could use for our teaser trailer. At first we came up with the genre we wanted, which was a horror. We like the idea of a diary based fim as this mean the audience could see the stroyline through the character's eyes and see into their thoughts and feelings. Our first ideas for our teaser trailer were too much like a trailer, as we were using images from the film more than a teaser trailer would. The idea was about a young girl writing her diary, with a falsh to the days events, with her shadw in a shower, then a flash back to her, andthen back to the bathroom with a steamed mirror with a message on it.
We changed ou idea but kept the use of a diary. Although the title of our film is unknown at the moment, we are keen on having the film based on a stalker of some form, human or not is unknown at the present. Our idea that we are working at the moment is using no footage from the film, a young girl writing her diary, a transition to 'Paramount' etc, then to a view through someone\thing's eyes at a house, we then will see a note floating tothe floor with something like 'Im Coming' in news paper cutting. We then will have the screen to change to title of the film and then the year date.
This is only a working progress of an idea though, and will be subject to some change.

The main function of a media text is to generate income and profit. How far do you agree wth this statement?

2009-11-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

The main function of a media text is to generate income and profit. How far do you agree wth this statement?

I agree with this statement. For example, Walt Disney is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, everytime they buy shares or take over another company their main aim is to make a profit from it so that it is a worth while payment. If their aim was not to make profit and an income then there would be no point in them buying the company, it may also restrict them from buy further companies and shares. Although Walt Disney also has another aim when buy shares or a company, this is to advertise. For example Walt Disney owns part of GMTV, and quite often the competition prizes are trips to Walt Disney parks. This advertises the company, but at the end of the day also contributes to their income as the winners are going to the park, spending money there, and most probably will tell their friends about it, making them want to go.

An institution that most probably not produce a media text with the main function to get an income and protif, is the internet. Unless the reader is paying for the sites, then most are free. Most internet sites will produce a text for free, and the costs are covered by the adverts on the page, but BBC.com does not have adverts, and is not getting an income via the website, but through people paying the television licenses. Web pages rely on the audience to view the adverts so that they can generate an income. But most people ignore these.

Newspaper are an institution who do produce media texts to generate an income and profit. They do this by advetising products and stores etc for the type of audience they are aiming at. Papers like the Sun also have card games and bingo etc in their paper, which can generate a profit as it is encouraging more people to buy their paper. They also do he £9.50 holidays to gain a larger audince.

So overall I completely agree with this statement, I think that behind everything an institutions does there is an aim to gain a profit and an income.

Institutions

2009-11-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

Institutions can be anything, from school to home. They are basically anything with codes and values to follow. Media institutions are:
-Internet
-Film
-Music
-Broadcast
-Print
Each of these institutions can not work without the others. For example, music can not work with out broadcast and internet to advertise it.
Global patterns are always changing, and as they do so does the concept of the institutions.
Walt Disney is a major film company. Within the company, it has its own codes and values that must be followed. Disney is a family based company, and so films that are produced have a family nature with no sexual refereces, rape, exteme violence etc.
Walt Disney has a powerful affect over the industries. It has shares in many companies, even GMTV. It owns industries such as ESPN, all of the Disney creations e.g. Walt Disney studios, miramax, pixar, marvel entertainment, fox family worldwide, and saban entertainment.

Essay Plan

2009-10-02T01:25:00.000-07:00

Essay plan: How does Hollyoaks Later help to attract the target audience?
Introduction:
-Hollyoak's target audience
-Times of showing

Paragraph 1: Stroylines
-comparision between storylines in Hollyoaks and Hollyoaks Later
-HL more explicit stroylines
~older end of audience
-some stroylines in more depth e.g marriage of Syndie

Paragraph 2: Characters
-same characters as normal Hollyoaks
-young
-fashionable

Paragraoh 3: Settings
-more settings e.g prison, festival
-same setings that they are familiar with e.g SU bar

Paragraph 4: Time Slot
-for older end, those just coming in etc
-still can understan Hollyoaks with out watching the spin off

Paragraph 5: Conclusion
-sum up how Holloaks Later attracts audience

Hollyoaks and Eastenders

2009-09-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

Hollyoaks and Eastenders have many differences, the main one being their target audience. Hollyoaks aims their soap at the young generation, such as teenagers and university students. Eastenders on the other hand aims the soap at a wider audience such as families, and people who work. Hollyoaks main cast is young characters who wear all the latest fashions and get dressed up just to sit at home. Eastenders is different to Hollyoaks as the character list is a range, from Dot and Jim down to Roxy and her little baby girl. The characters in this soap wear normal every day clothes apart from some of the younger characters who may wear some clothing that is fashion. There are also many more differences between the two well known soaps, such as settings, the time slots, and the storylines.