Evaluation

Ancillary tasks - Movie Poster

Here is our Movie poster, once again we do not show her face, as she is not representing one individual, but a whole demographic (young girls who are vulnerable to crime via web 2.0) and is therefore a symbol rather that one single individual. The shading is dark and grey; this shade best represents realism as everyday surroundings are often this kind of gritty shade (concrete and tarmac in urban suburbia etc.) which brings the audience back to reality and makes them associate our product with the real world. We want this realism as we are reflecting reality within our narrative, portraying the cyber manipulations of modern society, which extends the threat of criminals.

I created this poster on Microsoft Word 2010; the same programme I used for the other ancillary task. This was a difficult process but after getting 'movie' style fonts off 'dafont.com' it elevated the quality of the product (in my opinion). Here is a screenshot of the task on Microsoft Word, I made sure there was a blank document on the right, as this was where I inserted all of the text box's and relevant features (if I put them straight into the left document it would have disrupted the layout - as I discovered on many an occasion)

I decided to add the eye (from clip art) as it represents the idea of 'being watched' and general crime. Perhaps it is a symbol of our male psychopath character.

With regards to the reviews, I researched the reviews given on movies with a similar genre and came up with the 'quotes'. Also, I had to download the stars off dafont.com.

Ancillary task - Magazine front cover

Here is our Magazine front cover, Me and Hebe used the photo from her Instagram. This photo was originally used in her photography (AS Level) but fit perfectly into our media project, as it represents the isolation and gritty realism we want to portray. I used Microsoft Word 2010 to produce this cover, which was extremely difficult as it is not designed for these purposes (e.g. moving text would change the layout of the whole cover, clearly as Microsoft Word 2010 is not designed for designing purposes) . However, eventually I was able to create this cover, and am fairly satisfied with the results. I feel I avoided the mistakes made in the ancillary task I evaluated previously (on this blog).

I used these effects to alter the photographs shade

Final draft of trailer 'Sweep'

Production company logo

For our film ident I opted not to adopt the concept of synergy, so did not want it to necessarily reflect the direct themes addressed in our trailer. I wanted to emphasise what our 'production company' would aim to do, which is, reflect (hence the chosen image) and echo (hence the title) what happens in modern society. This relates heavily to our film, as we are socially commentating on cyber manipulation and  the negative aspects of the freedoms which our liberal society offers to potential criminals. Some examples of the modern realities we are trying to portray are things such as cyber-bullying (which has led suicide - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26151425) and dangerous. 

The process of making this was fairly easy, I used microsoft word to make it. First I got the image on clipart then want on dafont.com to get the font (as the ones on microsoft word tend to look cheap and unprofessional). This was, in comparison with the ancillary tasks, an easy task as it required far less elements, and time. 

Day 2 of filming

For our second day of filming we planned out our goals roughly on a piece of paper by listing the shots we aimed to do. However as the day progressed the light became too dark to complete, so we had to leave out a few shots for a final day of filming. Here were our aims for the day:

-Shots of the male and female character leaving the house (experiment with a variation of distance shots)

-Male character getting in the car 

-Girl waiting to be picked up

-Male character picking up the girl; film from her perspective and do a pan of the car arriving, for a range of shots

-Her getting into the car 

-Car lock being turned on by male character; to make the clear implication that she was being kidnapped or 'swept'

One shot we particularly liked was the one of her leaving her driveway, for this we decided to film a still shot from behind a gate (half of the shot was the path she began to walk on and half was the blurry fence). This shot is called selective focus. This gave the idea that someone was spying and created an immediately uneasy feeling, which we felt would complement our genre of gritty drama perfectly. Moreover, the rusty, decayed and pointy gate has negative connotations; which encapsulate the dark and uneasy mood of our piece.

Another shot we liked was the static-crab shot of the male character. Here, he walks towards/into/over the camera and drops the cigarette next to the camera, this looked very aesthetically pleasing. The fact that he is above the camera reflects his oppressive authoritative role in the film. We also wanted to have him smoking to show the age difference between the two contrasting characters; him being older (the one who's taking advantage)

Sound for our Trailer

Me and Hebe decided that we would not use diagetic sound in our trailer, this is for a number of reasons. Firstly, the films supposed message is one relating heavily to the growing influence of social media (which doesn't include diagetic speech), so we thought we would reflect this in our trailer, by not including any diagetic sound and basing it on their online conversation. Also, good actors at this level/age are hard to come by, so in order to increase quality I thought it necessary to reduce the roles of the actors; removing speech from the equation. Furthermore, I believe that a trailer for a thriller should have much suspense, which, I believe, can be best exhibited through tense music and silence - not speech.

Here are some soundtracks and samples I am thinking of using for the trailer. With regards to permission, the ones I have looked at give permission underneath the video, e.g one says 'licence this for your project'. If I were to use one of these I will have to time it so that it reflects the events of the trailer; a task which I look forward to. I believe that these soundtracks will help emphasise the creepy and tense nature of the trailer.