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

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? on Prezi

Magazine cover research

As a group we researched in to the different types of film review magazines on the market. We found that magazines such as 'Empire' and 'Sight and sound' were not appropriate for the type of magazine we were looking to create. Reasons for this were that Empire realistically wouldn't have our genre of film on the front of their magazine as they usually focus on blockbusters, rather than an independent romantic comedy.

One of the magazines we considered doing our cover in the style of was 'Studio' (a female based magazine) which is aimed at women through the use of the articles and focus upon female actresses. Their website informs us that all articles are written by women, for women. Along with content being inspired by fashion & beauty which are stereotypically appealing to the female market. We found that each of the covers for Studio magazine focused upon the beauty of the actresses with the use of posed shots of women both in character and out of character. Due to the dominance of women throughout the magazine we would be forced in to using 'Cindy' on the cover. In this case our target audience would be for the female market, ruling out men reading the magazine unless they were female enthusiasts. 

The other magazine we considered using was 'Little white lies'. Little white lies focuses upon the creative design of each issue which is followed throughout the content of the magazine. From the cover examples of the magazine we can see that the predominant focus is of the leading role within the independent films it displays in the magazine. The actor/actress on the cover of the magazine is usually edited in order to be perceived as comical and appear more graphical than other film magazines. The individuality of the style of Little white lies appealed to us as a group as it does not follow the usual conventions of other magazines. We decided that following the style of the magazine would be a good idea. But, we decided to change the form of the front cover as we would like the focus to be on both 'Cindy' and 'Chase', but the style would be kept the same. 

The use of the new imovie

We decided to use the new iMovie unlike our class mates because we liked the precision editor and the way it seemed easier to use images and cutting tools. The new imovie also allowed us to cut scenes to a 0.1 second gap so we could have exact timings.


Also we had the idea to use a green screen. This was a new piece of technology for the group and the school in general, so we used this green screen to add the recording outline to the image. This was a piece of visual post production. 


Furthermore, we extracted audio from images to play through clips that didn't have the exact audio that we needed underneath it. This was helpful especially when voices on video were not projected enough, so a voice over was needed.

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

This is asking us as a group to think about synergy between our trailer the poster and the magazine front cover for example in what ways does it feel like it is promoting the  same text and in what ways could this be improved.


We will do this with a voiceover and possibly some green screens at certain points. But we will be aiming to show where there is synergy and what we have kept similar throughout our film, poster and magazine. We will look at fonts, colours and characters. The fonts were similar on each of our products, the colours were kept the same and the characters 'Chase' & 'Cindy' were included on all three showing consistency and what we wanted to keep centre of attention. 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We will be examining our feedback given by our chosen candidates. This will give us the possibility to gain valid criticism from various reliable sources.Praise and criticism from people who have not previously seen are film will give us the opportunity to discuss how we could of done things differently. 


To present this we will be creating a video which will switch between the critic and us which will show the criticism/praise and our evaluation on the ideas pointed out. 

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

We will need to consider the role of computers in the process of making our various pieces  of practical work. We will need to think about how many different technologies that would have been needed ten years ago to create our film trailer. We shall discuss how convergence can be applied to our media product and how as a group we were frustrated and guided by technology during our project. We will be presenting our evaluation of this question through a PREZI.On this we can include short clips of the software we used and a wordle. 


Things we will include and consider in a Prezi are our use of live type, garageband, and photoshop. We can also say how we used a video of the process used in photoshop to create the magazine cover which we videoed on the computer itself. Furthermore,there will be discussion of how last year we used a video camera which filmed on tape, whereas this year we used a media card which in turn shows how technology has improved. 


Another example displaying how technology has improved is through accessibilty to computers in modern day society, this has only taken place in the last ten years. This opportunity has allowed students work to be developed in ways which would not have been possible previously which shows how the development of technology is useful. This would be expanded on the Prezi.


The frustration we faced from using photoshop will be included in our prezi as we found we had to constantly work out how to do certain things eg magazine cover. Adding to this we show how technology didn't enable us to do everything we hoped to which showed how technology guided us. We will also point out how we had difficulties in finding the font for our poster as we wanted it to stick with our theme whilst being original and creative.

Poster development.

We have taken some pictures and got a feel for the lighting as we want the subject of the photo to be clearly visible and the picture to be of a good standard. We felt that some of our images were too dark and editing them would effect the quality of the images. The result of this was that we retook the photos and managed to get the two effective character shots. The photo shoot gave us the idea to have 'Chase' leaning on the title of our movie. Not only would this be attractive to the eye, but it would also give a feel for his character. Furthermore having 'Cindy' slightly slanted against the 'V' of our title works really well too. 


As a group we had to look for the official font used for posters so we had to search on the internet and find it and then add it to our project, we also had a problem using the exact same font as the font used in our trailer as this was an edited font on the program live type so it was not easy to replicate so we had to find a font similar to this font this worked quite well but we as a group know that we should have picked a font to remain complete synergy throughout or film.


After much drama, we came to the decision creating a heart out of images was not going to work. The result we were hoping to get was not up to our expectations so we decided to scrap this idea. Instead, we decided to use the text with the two main characters as our main statement across our poster. In doing so we decided to make our poster landscape. Along with this we decided to use a film strip across the top of our  poster which would show the development of the characters' relationship. 


Our final idea was to make our poster more interesting and display our theme of love by using the outline of small red hearts on our background. This fitted in with the theme of our poster and presented the originality we were aiming to illustrate. The hearts also hint on what is to come in the film.

Poster influences for 'Valentines Diary'

As our movie is a romantic comedy we decided to research in to how these movies were incorporated in their poster. We became aware of the characteristics of these movie posters quite quickly. The posters usually were based on a white background which reflected the innocence of the movie. We found that using a white background would be the most suitable for our trailer and that the use of this would mean that emphasis was placed upon the characters and the titles rather than any special effects.


Film posters we felt influenced our initial ideas were ones such '500 days of summer'. We found their film poster influential to our poster as the style of it fits the romantic comedy genre, along with an indie influence to it. We found that the idea of using multiple layered photos was a good idea, and thought that using this effect would be effective on our poster if we took shots of 'Chase' & 'Cindy' together. From observing this film poster it is clear to see that there is characterisation with the use of the male located on the bottom right drawing. We felt that using the main characters in our movie individually with a prop that enhances their character and allows audiences to get a taste of what is to come. 

Other fim posters that influenced our design was '50 first dates', we thought that the use of polaroid images could work as it was personal and we felt we could show the development of 'Chase' & 'Cindy's' relationship in this way. Instead of taking this idea straight it gave us the idea to create a heart out of mini polaroid images. We felt this would be creative and an individual way of providing audiences with a taste of what is to come. As our idea developed we were inspired by this to create a film strip portraying the two characters as individuals and romantically.

Change of idea for The Chase

After reviewing our idea on 'the chase' scene we have decided the shots we already had of Antar chasing Cindy could work. Our reason being if we took multiple short cuts of the pre-exsisting footage we would be able to create an effective final clip for the trailer. The short cuts would vary from our previous shots and would create the correct atmosphere for the scene.

It become apparent when testing this theory that the idea worked. The short takes put together which we had already shot fitted together creating a successful sequence.We were happy with the outcome and decided that this would be perfect to use in out trailer. The atmosphere is unnerving for the audience and ends with a cliffhanger which portrays the idea there is something to come. 

our initial idea for a poster

This our poster idea the heart is made of specific moments we wanted to show as things in our story which show the characters bonding. the middle of the heart will have a picture of the two holding hands this shows the two will finally come together. The title of the film valentines diary will be the colour red as this is used for most romantic films released on valentines day. The slogan lights camera attraction relates very well to our film in the sense it incorporates exactly what our film is about. The poster will have to images of both characters either side very distant from each other this is where we wanted to show the characters opposition to each other.

We had some problems with this and decided we would use the idea of the two character still but the heart would not fit and look as good as we originally thought

Change of 'Preppy' to 'Chav'.

After much of a debate we as a group have come to the decision to change our preppy character 'chase' in to what one would call a 'chav'. Our decision was based upon the idea which was brought to our attention by Antar of whom would be playing the character. He pointed out how it was rare for a preppy teenager to be present in an English school as this type of stereotype is comonly portrayed in American films as the cliche character.

We discussed what would need to be changed and what effects the change would have on our planning. It is apparent that the only change that would need to be made would be the actor's voice and appearance. The storyline would appear the same and little change would need to be made. Now we must look in to the traits of a 'chav' and how we can encorporate this in to our work. Our approach is aiming to be naturalistic and not stereotypical in order to create realism within our work rather than completely unrealistic.

Research in to Independent Production Logos.

As our teaser trailer is going to be for an independent film we decided to look more into independent film company logo's as research to give us more reasoning behind our logo. We came to find that a lot of them are quite simple, yet effective which we feel is exactly what our logo idea is aiming to be.
We have decided to use a mixture of technology and photgraphy to create our logo giving us an interesting range of techniques which is much more creative. We like the idea of using graphical letters in order to encorporate the 'Productions' part of our logo rather than writing the word on our hand like we originally planned. In order to do this our aim is to use a blank piece of card being held by the person wearing the hat stating 'ANC'.

Filming Schedule.

ANC Filming Schedule of INDIE CINDY

Date & Time	Scene	Location of filming	Props & costume	Description	Who is needed
2nd November	-Corridor scene	-School corridor -School lane -Locker room	-hoodies -leopard print top -jean jacket	-Two contrasting social groups walking past one another. -Antar chasing Cindy. -overhearing conversation in locker room	Antar Adams Cindy Wellings Connor James Chloe Mel
9th November	-Cindy bedroom video diary	-School lane -Nikita's house	-range of indie style outfits -hoody	-Video diary of Cindy speaking -video diary of Antar speaking	Cindy Antar