Before Evaluating

On evaluating my products, its vital to gain audience feedback, in order to do this I will employ various methods, firstly I will create a questionnaire in which to record the information. Due to the visual being a movie, interactive methods will be essential. One way will be to upload the video to facebook, along with the questionnaire, inviting people to view the trailer and then answer the questionnaire and either message or email me their responses. Secondly, I plan to arrange a viewing one lunch time in school with 30 people who after watching can fill in the questionnaire. Lastly, should these methods fail and only provide me with limited responses I will paste the link of the video to watch on youtube in facebook status’s and on twitter asking people to leave their comments and opinions.

After this process I will began the evaluation stage.

Steps before completion

Before submitting my final task I wanted to add some finishing touches in order to finish with the best possible quality. After having seen some work from students doing PVA I noticed the use of a cinematic effect on some of the shots. I wanted to adapt this style into my own work in order to follow the conventions of a Hollywood style film aimed for an audience of children and young adults. By searching on youtube I was able to find some tutorials on how to create the specific effect. I was pleased with the final finish- however some of the poorer quality shots once changed didn’t look as professional as others.

I took on the advice given from my teacher in the need to quicken the pace. This was achieved through carefully establishing where the major beats are and then cutting the shots to the beat of the soundtrack to give an up-tempo feel.

Overall, I am satisfied with the finished product, however given the chance I may have chosen a different genre to focus with as for me, I feel the trailer lacks a solid narrative.

Final Cut of Seeking Stardom Trailer

Production Stage-Main Task- 07/03/10

With regards to the main task, the deadline is looming and finally I can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Main struggles have included finding a soundtrack appropriate for the genre, one that peaks and troughs in the right places and creates depth to the trailer.

Good sources of copyright free music are not exactly the easiest thing to locate- especially for the genre of my trailer. Just as I was giving up all hope, after having trawled through freeplaymusic.com searching myspace.com for unsigned hip hop/r&b music, asking teachers within the music department and even resorting to garageband I managed to find a track from freeplaymusic.com that I had downloaded a couple of months back. Thankfully it did everything I wanted it to- I just hope it goes down well with my teacher.

In addition I have recorded a voiceover to accompany the titles within the trailer, with the idea in mind to subvert conventions I recorded a voiceover with a scottish accent. I also recorded the traditional american hollywood voiceover, I am yet to hear back from teacher as to which one I should use.

Lastly, I believe a range of shots have been covered and therefore filming is now no longer necessary and has come to a close. On this journey through the creating stages I have become more accustomed to programmes such as premier and I am particularly pleased with my improvement with the use of photoshop.

Creating the Ancillary Tasks

Within my chosen brief it was asked that I create a magazine front cover and a film poster (as mentioned in my previous drafter ancillary task post).

Whilst creating these tasks I found the magazine front cover a lot easier to make, perhaps due to the stricter conventions there was less scope for originality and creativity- a skill in which I lack. After having had some photoshop tutorials as to some of the basic available effects I was equipped with enough knowledge in order to go on and create something of a high standard. Naturally, there were certain aspects in which I lacked knowledge, however help wasn't afar, my peers and teacher were able to assist me where help was needed. For example I was introduced to the blur tool which blended my layers together nicely so they didn't look like they had simply been cut and stuck down- they looked like one piece.

Moreover the blending options within photoshop such as drop shadows created a clever effect for me as I was able to make my film magazine title look as if a spotlight was shining onto it due to the shadow behind.

Above is the final copy of my movie magazine front cover- overall I am very pleased with the finished product, I believe it to look professional due to the incorporation of all conventions commonly seen on magazine front covers. For me, the array of fonts work particularly well in creating a musical high school feel, fitting the genre. Becca (the singer) has been placed in the foreground to highlight her importance in the film. Every image on the front cover is iconic of fame and the musical genre. Teasers and a puff again take into consideration the conventions.

On creating my film poster I found it a lot harder to come up with a design which worked well and looked professional as a poster. A peer showed me a brush available for download for photoshop which created a spotlight effect which then gave me inspiration for the poster I ended up creating. Similar to the magazine cover I have used my three main characters of the film as part of the poster again posing related to their speciality. As mentioned on the ancillary tasks mock up I have included titles from the trailer to give more of an insight into the film as well as the release date and logos of the production companies. Again I am pleased with the finished look of this text. I created another poster with a similar look, however more boxed, which I then showed both to my class mates and teacher who all felt the piece above was more together and looked more professional.