Improvements on Final Typography

After the evaluation of the trailer using comments from YouTube, it was mentioned how we could make our typography more creative to grab the audience and create a much more gritty sense to our trailer.

I decided to make it more interesting by using a paintbrush tool on Photoshop at different opacities. 

 

I felt this mirrored gunshot splatters and blood against the typography. I needed to make sure that this typography did not over power the poster and make it look crowded.

 

This is our groups final typography.

 

Conventions of a Website

A website needs to follow certain conventions so that certain information can get across to the audience in a particular way that is easy to locate. 

The conventions of a good website include:

Trailer 
The trailer must be placed on an appropriate area on the screen, as well as it must start automatically to create a professional feel to the website. 

Layout
The layout must be clear and user-friendly so that the viewer doesn't waste time around the website, and they can find the information that they need to quickly. In addition to his, the website must fit on a screen comfortably and there must be no need to scroll down. 

Critic Reviews
These often appear on a variety of websites to give an insight into the film from related magazines or newspapers. 

Image
An image of a character(s) or location may appear on the website. This may be taken from the film itself, or taken especially for the website. 

Conventions of a Film Poster

Film posters are vital in the combination of a promotional package. 
The film poster must include specific conventions to meet not only the genre, but of a normal website. 

These include:

Typography 
The typography must be effected and easy to read. The Typography must also dominate the screen, but not take over.

Image
An image from the film, or one specifically taken for the purpose of the poster must be included to alert an audience of what they are going to expect from the film. Showing locations, or actors. 

Billing Block
The billing block is vital on each website to give credit to producers, actors, and directors. The main actors may also appear on a separate part of the poster. 

Release Date
A release date is often featured on a poster to alert an audience. This could also be shown as the film is 'coming soon' 

Tagline
The tagline for the film is often shown on the poster to give an insight into the narrative.

Evaluation Questions 4 - Mollie

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

Final Cut

In previous projects we used the software iMovie, we were satisfied with this but we wanted to make the software go further, as after planning our montage we knew that this would appear more professional so we researched this extensively as a group we decided to use Final Cut Pro for its more advanced editing opportunities. This allowed us to show a more creative flair when creating our project. The tools were also much easier to use especially when speeding up certain parts of the trailer.   

Recording Studio
We researched what would be the best way to convey our narrative through our trailer, as in previous projects we didn't have the success we hoped for as we used actors. Therefore we only had the single protagonist during our A2 project and instead of using dialogue we opted for a voice over. 

We decided that the use of a voiceover allowed us to meet the conventions of an urban drama trailer better, as we saw this used in a variety of previous films such as Adulthood and Ill Manors. So our group recorded this in the recording studio using the software Logic Pro 6. This highlights our creativity and the fact we wanted a crisp sound to our voice over.

Photoshop
This software allowed us to have a creative flair to our ancillary texts. I had no prior experience to using Photoshop so I took it upon myself to test out a variety of tutorials that I could learn the basics from before it came down to the creation of our poster. Through this, I learnt about the free transform tool, as well as the variety of paint brush and eraser tools. I also learnt the effect that different opacities had on an image. 

After deconstructing a variety of previous film posters, I was able to come up with the conventions of a film poster that I knew I could work with to meet and challenge. One of the urban drama film posters that we sourced our inspiration heavily from was that of Shank, we also liked the colour scheme that they used and it created an 'action film' sense to the urban drama genre. I sourced inspiration for our typography and created a variety of ones that I thought we would be able to place on our poster. My favourite typography was the eroded one. This created a gritty sense to our poster. However was hard to see on the final product. I used this tutorial to follow and go through the basics of what was needed. 

I followed these steps very carefully, and learnt about threshold layers, and how to work with contours and highlights. This was vital in the eroding process as the highlighted parts of the layer were where the eroded parts of the typography were.

By using the previous basics of Photoshop that I had learnt before, the opacity and knockout tools were easy to use and I was able to use this to create this typography. 

I was also able to use this software when it came to the construction of our poster, as the knowledge that I had gained from creating typographies and following tutorials allowed me to play about with many tools that would make the poster appear very advanced.This was especially the case when it came to erasing the image. 

I also used my knowledge when it came to sharpening parts of the image. I wanted to create a 3D effect against the background, so I used the sharpen tool so that I could outline the square and rectangular object's edges. 

Wix.com

I previously had experience when it came to producing a website, but this was new software. I really liked the user-friendly nature of this and the fact that I didn't have to use HTML when resizing or reshaping and image or a piece of text. The website was easy to make improvements on, and I was easy to work with the grid on Wix.com.

  

Oh Snap!
I wanted to create a series of documentary style time lapses throughout our trailer. 

I researched a variety of apps and looked at the best reviews on the app store before deciding that I would pay to use this Oh Snap! app, this app was only available on iPhones. This allowed me to create easy time lapses by placing my phone in a steady position and setting a timer - that was adjustable. I had many attempts with this, and learnt the best way to and time to record them. Previously deconstructed trailers such as Ill Manors used time lapses to highlight the location of the urban drama film, so I knew of the high effectiveness this time lapse would have.

YouTube

We used YouTube for a variety of things, from tutorials to deconstructions to source inspiration for our media product. We also used YouTube to help us gain a soundtrack for our trailer, and then we used a YouTube converter to download the audio to place as an MP3 in our trailer. We also relied heavily on YouTube for our audience feedback. As this allowed us to collect information in an organised way and act on it for our final media product.

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey was used to create a survey during our research stages so we could gather audience feedback for what they wanted out of our Urban Drama film. Which we could then use to help us during production. We used YouTube in the process of evaluation by opening the comments up to the audience for constructive criticism that we could use to make our teaser trailer professional.

Evaluation Questions 3 - Mollie

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is very important in the development process. From initial planning and research, we knew our target audience of teenagers between 15-25 would give honest feedback and opinions. 

We also knew it would be easier to gain a lot of responses as the age is that of our peers.

Survey 

As we were undecided about certain aspects of our trailer during the initial planning stages, we created a survey using Surveymonkey.com to allow us to find out what our target audience wanted out of our trailer and find conventions which supported Fiske's theory that generic conventions 'embody the crucial ideological concerns of the time in which they are popular' which also gave us an insight into the narrative of our teaser trailer. 

We found a conflict of opinions during our Survey, so we added the option for the audience to decide that they wanted 'both' aspects to be featured in the trailer. This proved good for us during the production stage of our trailer as we had more options for establishing shots in both London as well as an estate, making the montage more fast paced.  We developed on from this and created a lot of deconstructions for many urban drama films.

This was vital for us as it gave us an insight into what conventions were needed for our products, and how the narrative was able to be given to the audience.

We extensively planned our filming days as we learnt from our AS coursework that the transition in dusk is very quick, and therefore when out on location we had to make sure we were punctual with our actions. From the deconstructions that we researched, it was clear that we needed to include a montage within our trailer to make it very fast paced and effective. The plot of the narrative is often shown through this, so we knew we had to be tight with our editing and select key parts of the trailer that we could show to create a disequilibrium.

YouTube Feedback

After the first production of our trailer, we wanted to seek opinions on how we could develop and improve, we used the YouTube comment section for this. Overall, we got great feedback from a variety of people. We had 12 responses from that we analysed and used in the development process to make the trailer better and to make the conventions of genre clearer. Good feedback included the fast paced editing of the montage which we were pleased with after extensively planning this. The audience also commented that the editing of the montage fitted well with the soundtrack that we used. 

Our audience agreed that our trailer was clearly and Urban Drama with the effective titles and protagonist, and the music played a strong part in this. 

I made some graphs to highlight the points of improvements based on the YouTube comments, I also looked at what the audience liked as we knew we wanted to include more of this into the trailer. 

From our audience feedback they stated how we must make the titles longer and redo the typography, as well as reorder the positioning of it on the trailer, therefore we acted on this, it made much more of an impact towards the end of the trailer and fitted with conventions more.
This comment 

showed that we needed to create more of an impact at the end of the trailer, so we planned more montage shots so that the disequilibrium was clearly shown at the end of the trailer.

After many typography recreations we acted upon the audience feedback and researched further into what would make our media products and trailer combine even better through the use of typography. I therefore acted on the conventions of genre and redid this with the use of the paint splatter tool that therefore made the typography more gritty and keep to the colour scheme even better.

One member of our audience commented on how they liked the use of the black and white shots that we used during editing, this inspired us to place this more throughout our montage, so we chose a dark running shot of our protagonist and edited this before placing it in our trailer as shown above. 


Overall our group was pleased with the amount of constructive criticism that we got in order to create a really effective urban drama trailer.

Evaluation Questions 2 - Mollie

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

We wanted to create a create a synergy between our media products so that we could create an effective promotional package. I am confident in the effectiveness of my trailer and ancillary texts as I cover the codes of conventions of real media products.

Colour Scheme
It was important to create an effective colour scheme that we could use throughout all our media products. This would have made them fit together as part of a promotion package. We chose the colours black, white and red. We chose this as they mirrored parts of the British flag, as well as adding a gritty sense to the images and typography that we used. We kept to the colour scheme throughout with aided use of the final typography.

This was used on all of the media products to make them appear more professional and make the package fit together. We also relied on this colour scheme heavily on our website as we felt this would be the place where our target audience was able to easily access. We therefore chose reds and whites on the links as black was hard to see for the user against the time lapse.

This compared to the poster ideas post that I created we can see the inspiration that I took from this especially with the layout for our final poster to promote our trailer. The colour scheme from Shank was one that we took huge inspiration from as we liked the action film genre coming through with the contrasting red against a darker background. 

Layout 

A good poster must include text that stands out on the page and an eye-catching image that will give an insight into the narrative. We took a few test shots of our main protagonist before deciding what we needed on the poster to make it more professional. We tried close up and long shots, we liked the close ups against a graffitied wall, but after considering it's placement on the poster it appeared unrealistic. We therefore went with the image of the protagonist in front of a block of high-rise flats, giving more of an insight into the narrative. 

With my poster deconstruction we can see how the image is the focal point of the poster and this links in well with the teaser trailer as many interpretations can be gathered before the trailer is even watched. 

With my website production we can see how the layout is effective to create a user friendly website. In addition to this I kept with the genre of the teaser trailer and used parallels throughout my products for example using the same colour scheme throughout my media products. This is done with the typography, and the link colours on the website. I edited the time lapse of the website on Final Cut so that I could add this typography that was the same in all of my media products. 

Tagline
After extensive research and planning , we knew that a successful urban drama movie had a gritty and attention grabbing tagline.

We researched into this and came up with a tagline that would create awareness of our film whilst giving a slight insight into our narrative. We based our final tagline decision so that we could support Tudors theory that ‘a genre defines a moral and social world’ We used this tagline on all our media products, we used the tagline on our website by putting it at eye-level with the audience and kept to our colour scheme so that it was easy to read. 

We also did this with our poster and placed the tagline at the top of the poster, which was a common convention of all other film posters. We had to portray our tagline within our trailer so after researching credits we decided that a much more effective way would be to place a voice we recorded a voice over with the help of our protagonist.

Location
After researching and deconstructing various urban drama trailers, we knew that a good location was vital in creating a realistic nature of the film. 

We did extensive location scouting and surveys to decide what was best for our trailer. After the survey we decided that the combination of an estate and based in London would be best for our trailer. As we were located in these areas it was easy to find suitable locations for our needs. We took a variety of test shots to make sure that lighting wasn't an issue in these areas. We filmed the bulk of our trailer in the same area, but if we needed a more secluded space for our scenes this was easily accessible. This took several weeks to film in it's entirety due to the transition between light and dark being very quick to film all our montage shots in. 

We filmed the time lapse in a nearby area that was less crowded with high-rise flats as we knew we had to position our typography and links around this image. We also used the same high-rise flats on our poster as this was easy for me to work with on Photoshop. By using the same gritty areas for our filming locations, this created a consistency between each item of the promotional package and highlights the brand awareness that we were trying to create.

Combination

On our website we created the effectiveness more by having the teaser trailer play automatically on the website to reinforce the brand that we created and help them identify between our media products.

Evaluation 

If I had to improve the ancillary texts to meet the standard of our teaser trailer I would have the time lapse on the website move more to create a more outstanding effect. However I am confident in the combination of the poster and the teaser trailer; the poster gives an insight into the genre quickly and easily, which is vital and easily figured out as Miller suggests ‘the number of genres in any society depends on the complexity and diversity of society’ therefore we can judge the appropriateness for the target audience. However I believe that my media product and ancillary texts all fulfil their purpose effectively.