Evaluation Question 4

'How did you use new media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation strategies?' 

 

Research and planning

(Via 'Haiku Deck' presentation software).

There were many useful websites which gave me insight into planning a successful movie trailer. For example, this one https://www.slideshare.net/jazzyprince/codes-and-conventions-of-film-trailers-26226759 gave me some information on what conventions are used in movie trailers and what their purpose is. This link gave me an overview of the importance of trailers in general. I learned lots about the different types of trailers, their huge budgets and how they play a big part in the success of the film. I found it interesting how there's lots of controversy about spoilers and misleading trailers. Because of this, many people have stopped watching them, or they just stick to the teasers so that they don't feel like they've been shown the entire film already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_(promotion)
There are plenty of videos on YouTube which show beginners where to start when filming and editing their trailers.

For example, this one gives advice on what editing software to use and how to incorporate sound and music into the file. The presenter tells us what effects he set out to achieve and how this would effect the viewer's impression of the film.

I watched lots of amateur trailers to see what other people my age had could achieve with the same budget and level of experience.

 

I used social media (Facebook) to discuss my ideas and see if other people thought they were good or not.

This was useful because the actor (my brother) goes to Uni, so during the weeks when he wasn't around, Facebook was our way of discussing things for the project.
I also talk to my friends on a group chat, where we discuss how our trailers are progressing.






I used Microsoft Word documents to record all of my ideas and to draft the trailer scripts. I prefer typing to writing because it's quicker and you can easily change or cut out ideas.
This is the second rough draft of the script. Many parts were changed and never filmed.
(Via slideshare)
The internet was a useful source for providing me with up to date statistics for my secondary research. For example, these website https://yougov.co.uk/profileslite#/, http://business.pearlanddean.com/films_guide helped me to understand my target audience better and to adapt my product in order to make it more appealing to them.
Here are some examples of my results.

Microsoft Excel helped me to compile my data from my primary research and organise it into various charts (like below).

                                                      

 

Another useful internet source was 'Weeworld' (http://www.weeworld.com/). I used this to create a character representation of a typical member in my target audience.

Animatic: I made my animatic on Premiere Pro, after drawing and uploading a series of pictures which show the appearance and chronologic order of my scenes. The purpose of this was to plan the length of each shot and see how the storyline ran smoothly. I could check that it all made sense, visualise the angles and camera movement and ask people what they thought of my trailer. This helped me get some valuable feedback so that I could change certain parts before its construction. The animatic was made on 'premiere pro'. It's a professional, yet simple editing software which I used because I didn't need to add any special effects. It was simply a case of dragging the picture files in and choosing the transitions.

Construction
The camera I used was the Canon EOS 1300D DSLR and a 36GB SD card. It has zoom options, an 18-55mm lens and records in 18 megapixels.
I also used a tripod to keep the shot steady for many scenes and images. I didn't use a microphone because the camera picks up sound pretty well and I planned to edit voiceovers in. We also recorded them on the camera.
I uploaded the footage on to my laptop with a USB cable.



When it came to editing software, I wanted my trailer to look the best it could, but I had to consider that I didn't have skills, knowledge or experience to achieve professional results.
So I weighed up the advantages and disadvantages of some of the most well known programmes.

Other editing programmes include; iMovie and windows movie maker. But these are too basic and I wouldn't be able to achieve the desired effects with these limitations. So I eventually went with After Effects because experts seemed to agree that it was better at producing more impressive visual effects. I had to watch lots of YouTube videos to learn how to use it and to ask experienced people for their advice.

I used Photoshop CS6 to make my magazine cover and poster.
Photoshop is the most popular photo editing and manipulation software. I chose it because it offers a full range of tools to create various effects and because I have some previous experience using it.



I uploaded my finished trailer to YouTube, which took over 2hours. The advantage of uploading it is that now people can view it and give me their feedback (see Evaluation Q3).

Evaluation Question 3

'What have you learnt from your audience feedback?'

Audience feedback is very important in the media industry. Results can be very different than predicted. The film makers might think that certain aspects of the movie will attract their viewers, when actually it isn't nearly as successful. Therefore it's important that they test what does and doesn't work in the eyes of their target market. Getting their opinions on what they do and don't like, will help the producers to improve their product and make it more appealing to the fans. They can take out bits which are offensive or ineffective and add in bits to give a better result.

There are many ways that a producer can go about collecting audience feedback. Here are some of the ways that they encourage people to express their responses;

• Questionnaires: Getting viewers to fill out some surveys on their viewing experience (or their opinions on the movie idea) is a good way to find answers to specific questions.
• Interviews: For a more in depth answer, they can ask questions face to face, which will result in more open ended, detailed responses.
• Test screenings: The majority of movies are test screened, which means a preview of the film is shown to a select audience, in order to gage their reaction before its release. The audience is asked to provide their feedback, which is then analysed and then the film is re-edited accordingly. These types of screenings are generally shown to the target market of the film, or to general viewers to see how they react.
• Critic screenings: These are screenings for national and major critics, so the film makers can see if the movie is to receive favourable or bad reviews.
• Comments: Nowadays, movie trailers are mostly seen on the internet, via YouTube and social networks, like Facebook. The clips generate millions and views and comments which show how people receive the trailer and what they think the film will be like.
• Q and A's at film festivals: This is where viewers can ask questions relating to the film and its release.

These websites have useful information on the subject of movie responses:
https://fairuza1.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/why-is-audience-feedback-important-in-the-media/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_screening

My target audience
Here is an overview of typical members in my target audience (according to my market research).

The majority of my audience are males aged between 18 and 25. When it comes to horror films (their favourite genre), they prefer disturbing ones with plot-twists as opposed to gory slashers and mainstream clichés. They want something unpredictable which leaves a lasting impression and topics to think about. Watching films is more a hobby; they don't usually put on one with the intention of passing the time in a fun but forgettable way.

Their likes include;

• Watching films (at home or at the cinema)
• Playing videogames
• The internet
• Going to pubs and clubs
• Music
• Nature
• Science
• Boxing and some other sports
• And doing crossword puzzles.

Many of them are middle class people who shop at regular high-street brand stores. They mostly have girlfriends ad apparently, their most likely pet would be a cat.

According to YouTube demographics (http://digiday.com/media/demographics-youtube-5-charts/) here are the most popular categories of interest for male audiences.
Apparently the majority of males (young and young adults) spend an incredible amount of time watching gaming videos.
This fits in with my research, which shows that young men like to play lots of video games - some of the genres (like racing and fighting) fit in with their other hobbies too.
I looked at some videos on YouTube to represent the subculture of my target group. Here is a channel which I think offers content that my audience would watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGwermHQwkU

Audience feedback during production
My final product was quite different from what I originally had planned. After showing it to my brother (who is in my target group) he pointed out some of the flaws in my idea and suggested how I could make the production process more practical.
Here are the some of the pointers that I received;

1. To use a high quality DSLR (Digital single lens reflex camera) instead of my camcorder. He lent me his camera (which was newer and more reliable than my one) so that my footage would be better quality. I noticed that the DSLR was more sturdy and had more settings which made filming easier. As a result, my scenes look clear, crisp and less shaky than they would have done.
2. To use After Effects instead of Premiere Pro for my editing software. I had no experience when it came to editing video footage. My brother told me that with After Effects, I can add in more effects which would better suit my trailer needs (like adding the creatures).
3. After filming the 'alley scene' someone recommended that I put a dark filter over the footage. I was against it because I had spent a couple of hours on the bloody shirt and makeup and it was already hard to see the creature. But in the end, I'm glad I took that advice because the makeup was rushed and the shirt was too yellow to be creepy.

It made the blood and bruises harder to see, but the dark filter ultimately made this scene better.





4. During filming, I learned that blurring the background in a shot, made it look more professional.

The background is blurred here because it attracts more attention to the foreground and makes it look more focused in comparison.





5. Some other advice I received was regarding the angles and camera movement.

In this scene, the camera moves upward. My brother helped me position this shot (with the therapist's foot visible in the foreground for continuity).

6. I wanted to use another soundtrack: Prodigy - Deathray, at the end of the trailer. But during editing, someone told me that this would take some of the tension away and that I should stick with sound effects. Since the scenes turned out differently than I imagined, I agreed to this.
7. I was prepared to make a number of props for the creature scenes. But after discussing this with my brother, he said that creating them on Photoshop would not only look effective, but would be more practical. He actually thought that using an actor was the best option, but I didn't like the thought of applying all that FX makeup.
8. In the planning stages, I had a lot more scenes which I wanted to film. For example, the main character was meant to be addicted to the drug. It was originally going have awesome effects before things started to go wrong. The idea behind this was that the character would lose his mind after repeated use of substance...that all of those awesome hallucinations(?) were making him slowly lose his mind so the creature could take over his life. But I had no way of re-creating these so called effects, so I re-drafted the idea so that the pill just turned his life sour right away. There were also some more scenes, like how the character would fall asleep, have a nightmare and then wake up in an unknown place. But some people thought this didn't really make sense, so I took it out. I'm glad I took out a lot of scenes because the remaining scenes were actually longer than I had anticipated.

Finished product feedback
My trailer was quite well received among friends and family. People thought it turned out better than they thought it would.
I created this questionnaire and surveyed a sample of 10 people in my target market.

Positive feedback

I was pleased to get positive feedback on; the acting, the creatures, the sounds, the voiceovers and some of the other effects (like the out of body experience scene).

Negative feedback

One of the suggestions that I got, was that the party scene was a bit dark and it was hard to see what was happening.

Someone else thought that the therapist should have been seen taking notes.

My poster was perceived as a bit simplistic to some people; it didn't really have a wow factor. But they said it had all the right conventions.

As I thought, I got comments on the weird placement of the barcode on my magazine cover. Someone also pointed out that mag covers don't usually have page numbers on and some of the colours weren't completely unified.

Conclusion

Overall, my products received generally favourable reviews. I am pleased at how it turned out and at how people received some aspects, especially the bits which I thought were a bit flawed (like some of the sound effects).

The critical comments during production have made the final cut of  'Sleepwalker' more successful than it would have been if I had not received this advice.

In light of the recent feedback, if I were to make some improvements, I would;

-Make the party scene lighter so that it's clearer to see

-Maybe give the therapist a bigger role or some more screen time.

Evaluation Question 2

'How effective is the combination of your trailer and your poster and magazine cover?' 

Evaluation Question 1

'In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?'

 This PowerPoint explains the conventions and countertypes that I have used in my trailer.

Poster conventions





































Like most horror film posters, mine features an image of the villain. But it doesn't follow the most commonly used convention, which is to put an image of the main character on it.

Magazine cover conventions

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My magazine cover is quite conventional. It has the usual features such as; masthead, skyline, main image, puffs, articles and banners. The red and black colour scheme is a definite connotation of the horror genre.
However I have challenged some conventions of real media products with the position of my barcode and the changes in colour (with the red puffs).

Finished trailer

Here is my finished trailer.

Editing diary 4: After effects screen shots

Here are some print screens of the trailer before it was completely rendered into a finished product. These show; me adjusting the colour saturation and tone (for the filter effects), how the clips are put in order, the format of the trailer and what quality they are rendered at. I had to render the trailer in 3 different qualities, because I wanted a high quality version and a lower quality version which would take up less gigabytes so I could save it as a back up on a USB.

Editing diary 3: Sound

I got most of my sounds from YouTube videos. They include; music, trailer sounds and Foley sound effects. I used many videos, so I wont upload all of them; but here are the main ones.

This is the song used for the party scene. It's 'Rhythm Box' by Prodigy. I chose it because the beginning sounds muffled which is perfect since the music is hear from outside in my trailer.

Here is the layered whispering sound effect, used in the paranoia scene.













This is the bone crunching sound effect (used in the alley scene).

This is the rain and thunderstorm sound effect used at the start of the trailer. It is played at the psychiatrist office, which is shown when it's raining. The rain is from another green screen YouTube video.

Inside the psychiatrist office, you can still hear the muffled rain.


These are some of the sound effects which I picked out. I used many of these videos, which provide free music and typical horror sounds.

Editing diary 2: Adding creatures

There were more than 6 creatures shown in my trailer. One was an actor, one was a prop and the others were edited in with computer effects.

1. Tall bedroom creature
The first creature shown was the tall, twisted creature in the bedroom (sleep paralysis scene).
In order to design my creature, I needed a base to work with.

I searched in google for a twisted, elongated body which fitted the look of my creature. I believe this image might be an art concept for 'The rake' (a creepypasta story).

I liked the look of this scary face and decided that it would fit on the chosen body.

Here is the finished product. Of course, the entire scene was made up of pictures, so getting the creature to move proved to be difficult. I just wanted it to jump towards the character, so I dragged the image forward really quickly.

 

3. Street creature

This creature was meant to have twisted limbs like the image on the left.

This is how it turned out. It doesn't look quite realistic (in comparison to the background), but it's shown for a second. It doesn't move in my trailer because it would be too hard to make it walk forward.

 

4.Crawling creature

Aside from the dark filter, the only other editing in this scene are the flies.

I got the flies from a Youtube video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJLb5xL7B9w) with a green screen background. After deleting the green background and re-adjusting the size and quantity of the flies, I layered them over the footage. I also deleted the buzzing sound which was included in the video. Some Youtube videos request that you credit them in your project, but this one didn't mention anything like that in their description.

4.Shadow creatures

It was easy to add these demons in. I just found some shadow images in google and manipulated their shapes. With the shadow hands, I just stretched them out to look like their were reaching forward.

Editing diary 1: Filters and credits

I opted for simple, professional logo and font for my film title. Most cinematic movies use a black background with a large silver font.
I thought about adding some smoke effects or ash around the letters, but I decided that less is more.



There is a dark shadow in the middle of the word, which is a continuous theme with all the credits in the trailer. I thought this was appropriate because it links the film's logo with the mysterious shadow figures shown in the trailer. It adds a much needed dark tone to the title, since big silver letters could be used for any movie genre.

This took a few hours, but I edited (my gran's) house to look like it was lit up at night time for the party scene. I thought it would be cheaper and easier than buying props (like balloons and banners), especially because filming at night wouldn't look high quality on camera. As with the office editing, I added texture to the sky and put a blue filter over the entire picture to make it look dreary. I wanted to light up the windows a bit more, but as I increased the orange, it started to look unrealistic. I felt like the background needed a focus, so I photoshopped a bigger tree in there. I also thought that a full moon would complete the typical horror atmosphere.

I initially took a number of photographs on the house. In my original storyboard, the house is seen straight on from the front. But when I was filming, I decided that this low angle slanted shot was more cryptic and daunting since it showed more of the sky.

Here is the edited bedroom. The colours are mostly blue, black and grey because my market research said that these colours are popular among my target audience.

I previously posted the un-edited footage of this scene (see 'production diary 3'). Here is a screenshot of the edited version, where everything is darker so that it looks like night-time.

Production diary 6: Extra scenes

These extra scenes are mostly towards the end of the trailer.

1. Alley scene

At the end of the trailer is a compilation of short clips to build dramatic tension. One of them is a scene in which the character is trapped in a claustrophobic environment (an alley) with a creature crawling towards him. It was important that the creature moved (it needed to crawl) and the only way to effectively do this was to get an actor (me) in horror makeup.

Here are some pics which inspired the alley creature. It is a bloody person (female) who is missing the lower part of their body and pulls her body forward by crawling.

 

 

For this scene, I covered an old yellow shirt in black and red paint and food colouring, to achieve a bloody effect. It was very messy and took a lot of colouring to cover all the cloth. I thought that yellow was a good choice since it would make the dark colours stand out. I covered myself in white makeup, eyeshadow (for bruising) and fake blood made from honey and food colouring. The crystallised honey had a great texture. I had to apply lots of it around my eyes. During the course of the filming, it started to drip down into my eyes and it stung really badly.

 

This was the trickiest scene to film for a number of reasons. Firstly, I wasn't completely happy with the way that the makeup turned out. I had to rush because it was getting dark and I knew that the quality of the film would decrease without light (which it did). I felt really messy under all that makeup and fake blood. It accidently went on some places (like the walls and the floor) and the ground which I had to crawl on. The ground was also dirty and unpleasant to crawl on. Another problem was that there were only 2 of us (me and the actor) so we had to take it in turns filming eachother. I had to wipe my hands before touching the camera, which is something I didn't initially think through.

I also underestimated how hard it was to crawl a good few metres using only your hands to drag your full bodyweight forward. I wanted to look like my body was cut in half, so I couldn't use my legs to move at all.

Since we were filming outside, there were many noises which the microphone picked up. This meant I had to completely cut out all the sound and edit voiceovers in.

Here is a high angle shot of the creature crawling. We didn't use this shot.

I didn't use this shot either because you can't really see it. It took us an hour to film all the shots and the sky was getting darker. We had to run in and get some torches at one point.

 

In the end, we made it work with the editing. Hours of preparation and filming for this scene was turned into a 3 second clip, but at least it looked effective. The footage turned out quite grainy, especially in comparison to the other scenes. But I was reluctant to re-shoot it because it meant doing the whole process again and that really didn't sound appealing.

 

2. Outdoor scenes

The compilation of clips at the end is mostly comprised of these scenes where the character is shown outdoors, running or hiding from something. This is what most horror trailers show at the end of their trailers. It creates mystery because we can't see what they're hiding/running from.

 

 

Each scene is shown for 1-2 seconds. They're mostly filmed in various places of my garden.

 

3. Walking downstairs

 This happens before the street scene. It's the stereotypical shot where the main character slowly walks down a creaky staircase. Footage used here is un-edited.  

 

4. Final shot

 

For the final shot, I used the Samara head. I just put the camera on it's tripod and lifted the head up slowly. I wanted more of her hair to be visible, but since I had my hands on her head, I had to use a black filter to hide this.

Although she is a blue/purple colour, she looks grey in this shot because I thought it fitted better with the other scenes. The repeated use of the grey filter created a continuous colour theme. Her original colour was too light in the footage.

 



Production diary 5: Street scenes

There were 2 scenes which I needed to film on the street; one where there was a creature present and one where the main character is feeling paranoid and frantic.

Like with the creature in the bedroom, I decided to take a picture of the street and edit the creature in later. The demon in this scene was designed to be all twisted and freaky. I actually wanted to make a paper mache/puppet prop for it (like the Samara head), but I didn't know how I would make it stand in the street (and it would have disturbed the neighbours). We had to be quick when filming this scene because there were quite a few cars driving on this road.
As you can see in the picture, it was getting late but the quality of the footage was still good. This happened in a later scene, where I underestimated how long the filming would take and it got dark so the footage was all grainy.

The other scene that was filmed in the street, was the paranoia scene. This is one of the side effects of the pill. Since it wasn't possible to get lots of characters pointing and staring at him (due to lack of actors), I though that him just looking around in a frantic way would be enough. I later edited in some layered voices which are heard inside the characters mind. Here is the un-edited footage.

Production diary 4: Bedroom scenes

The main character's bedroom is my brother's bedroom (left). It's a small room and it was sometimes difficult to get the tripod in the right position for the shot. I had to adjust the distance and height of the equipment many times, just to get the right angle. For example, I wanted a low angle shot of the corner of the room. Since I couldn't move back very far, I had to tilt the tripod to the extreme which was uncomfortable for me since I still had to look through the lens.

For the paralysis scene, I used water mist to give the appearance of sweat.
It worked well and didn't cause skin irritation or stain the bedsheets.

I struggled with getting good lighting in the bedroom. The curtains had to be closed because it was meant to be night time; but I couldn't just rely on the lamp because it made the footage look grainy and orange. After finding a good place to put it, I used a strong torch to provide a clear white light which would reflect off the wall in the background, without making the room too bright. You can see the sphere of light shining off the wall in this picture. The lamp was positioned in the foreground, which effectively created shadows on the main character.

It was hard to get a low angle shot in such a small room. This is the scene where the creature is standing in the corner of the room, about to attack the paralysed character.
I had to take a picture and edit the creature in later because there wasn't time to make a prop and makeup wouldn't look realistic for this part.
I read online that in most cases, editing looked more effective than actual props or actors. You can create an object which looks as deformed and exaggerated as you want, which is more difficult to achieve when working with an existing object.