At the beginning of the year, I felt that my experience at the Documentary Academy had inspired me to create more ambitious work for our media coursework. This has became a reality for us, when you look at our work from last year, we filmed it all in one day, but this year we have had several days of filming and we also used a lot more people to be apart of the cast. This was difficult to coordinate, because we are college students we all are very busy but on some days of filming we required 11 people to be available. In order to communicate with all of these people to find when they were available for filming we created a Facebook group chat so we could find the days and times that people could work. This proved to be more effective than text-messaging or word of mouth because it was there and people could take screen-shots to remember. Being in a group chat also meant we could make compromises easier.
Not only this but actually directing each of them and guiding person through their role meant the three of us (Daniel, Lizzie and I) had to be coordinated and on the same page. I had used the software Final Cut Pro outside of college and so when it came back to working with Adobe Premiere Elements, it took some time re-adjusting to using it. Also, we were working with a newer version (version 11 as opposed to 9), we also transferred the platform from working on a PC to an Apple Mac.
This year we also used a number of cameras for our ancillary tasks. To create our main poster, we used Daniel's camera (Fujifilm Finepix s3400) and put it on a continuous shooting mode, while we ran and clashed together, thus resulting in our final image for our main theatrical poster. We used another camera (Sony Cyber-Shot DSC- HX300) to take photos of behind the scenes and production work, Clare usually took these while we were busy working. We used my camera (Nikon Coolpix P520) to take photos for the Selene and Eve Teaser poster along with the magazine main-images. The cameras we used were bridge cameras which meant that they were relatively easy to use, but it took a while to find features such as the continuous shot on Daniel's camera because he had never had to use it before.
We used the same video camera as last year: Sony HD camcorder. But, where we had previously been very strict about using a tripod, this year we had been inspired by The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross 2012) which was mainly handheld. We wanted our shots to have movement and motion, so we did not use the tripod as much. This is unconventional for a Hollywood-style film, where they use a lot of cranes, dollies and camera equipment. When we needed a dolly-style shot we had to improvise using a long desk and resting the camera on fabric (a jacket) and then dragging the jacket along (the camera with it) to create a dolly-like movement.
Not only this but actually directing each of them and guiding person through their role meant the three of us (Daniel, Lizzie and I) had to be coordinated and on the same page. I had used the software Final Cut Pro outside of college and so when it came back to working with Adobe Premiere Elements, it took some time re-adjusting to using it. Also, we were working with a newer version (version 11 as opposed to 9), we also transferred the platform from working on a PC to an Apple Mac.
This year we also used a number of cameras for our ancillary tasks. To create our main poster, we used Daniel's camera (Fujifilm Finepix s3400) and put it on a continuous shooting mode, while we ran and clashed together, thus resulting in our final image for our main theatrical poster. We used another camera (Sony Cyber-Shot DSC- HX300) to take photos of behind the scenes and production work, Clare usually took these while we were busy working. We used my camera (Nikon Coolpix P520) to take photos for the Selene and Eve Teaser poster along with the magazine main-images. The cameras we used were bridge cameras which meant that they were relatively easy to use, but it took a while to find features such as the continuous shot on Daniel's camera because he had never had to use it before.
We used the same video camera as last year: Sony HD camcorder. But, where we had previously been very strict about using a tripod, this year we had been inspired by The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross 2012) which was mainly handheld. We wanted our shots to have movement and motion, so we did not use the tripod as much. This is unconventional for a Hollywood-style film, where they use a lot of cranes, dollies and camera equipment. When we needed a dolly-style shot we had to improvise using a long desk and resting the camera on fabric (a jacket) and then dragging the jacket along (the camera with it) to create a dolly-like movement.
I knew that we would be choosing a difficult genre- post-apocalypse (sub-genre of sci-fi). The empty locations and interesting story-line were difficult to determine. But, this style of film is currently very popular. This is explained by Roland Barthe's cultural code. The film is related to our culture, apocalypse films are popular because of the general-knowledge of global warming and other threats to our planets eco-system. In times of peace and prosperity, our society looks to things that could be a threat to our way of life- the apocalypse being the most prevalent. Our film was inspired by The Road (dir. John Hillcoat 2009), which shows the effects of the apocalypse on society being utterly devastating and showing how animalistic and primal humanity becomes. We wanted our film to be of a similar philosophical tone but adding more action, in this way we were inspired by The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross 2012) in that by being in a microcosm situation the action and drive for survival is a lot more concentrated. The Hunger Games (and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire -dir. Francis Lawrence 2013) make use of the proairetic code. This is the idea that action and pace will get the audience interested in the film, we included a lot of fast paced sequences in our trailer and our trailer also contained a lot of action, whether it was fighting or just rushing. By having a fast pace, this keeps the audience interested, it also enhances the effectiveness of the hermenuetic code- making the open-ending even more enigmatic.
We felt that changing the last-shots of our trailer to make it look as if Haden's group triumphed, would add to the audiences sense of insolubility- there is no way that Michael's group can solve the problem of Haden's group, let alone find a way to bring the adults back. This brings in another of Barthe's codes: The hermeneutic code. By using the idea of enigma to intrigue the audience and make them want to see the film, because as a general rule audiences dislike suspended answers or open-endings. Film examples of this could be Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan 2010) and Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly 2001) these films deal with the psychology of man. But, where in Films loose ends are unconventional and a rarity, they are an essential for a trailer- otherwise the audience could simply watch the trailer to find out what happens. But, the hermeneutic code is also brought in at the beginning of our trailer as well, the audience will be question how and why have the adults gone?
I also felt it was difficult to create a trailer for a film that does not already exist. The film is normally finished or close to being finished when the trailer is made, giving them footage to use in the trailer. We had to get the idea for the narrative of our film and work out which segments we would need to be included in the trailer and then film those sequences. When storyboarding it was hard not to plan out whole scenes and it took a lot of restraint and we knew we could make the sequences look less like a scene by changing the order and adding copy. Towards the end of our filming and storyboarding we felt that a lot of improvisation would make the film seem more natural and real, we would not be as restrained by our storyboarding. Although, it is usual for some improvisation, we did a lot more than what is considered conventional for a Hollywood-style production. I found that we were often inspired by the location we were filming in, we would come up with ideas for shots and sequences.
We explored a new area of film post-production, as we created ancillary tasks to match our film promoted in our trailer. By using the similar imagery from the trailer of antitheses and rivalry we linked the posters (main theatrical and teasers) to the trailer, along with the use of locations. Our magazine was different, due to following the convention of direct address, it was difficult to portray the sense of rivalry. So, we had to use facial expressions and body language in order to convey the sense of separation (despite being in a group in the photo). We also wore the same costumes that we had worn in the trailer, this as well as the location of the corridor used in the trailer, linked the magazine cover and trailer.
Not only did we create draft designs for our posters by drawing them out, I also created mock-up designs using applications on my phone, in order to add text and start thinking about font and other areas of layout. Using an app called "Over" I arranged the text of our posters until we were satisfied with the result which I saved for us to use when using Serif Draw Plus. We used the computer program rather than the apps to create the final posters because it was more intuitive and also because the apps lowered the image quality. We knew that as a Hollywood-style company our poster would be on a large scale such as bus-stops and billboards, so we wanted the quality of the image as high as possible.
This year, we used an online-storage facility: OneDrive (previously SkyDrive). This was so that we could exchange various material for making our media products without using memory sticks (these can be lost or broken). It has also served to be useful whilst blogging, with all of us being able to access and upload material.
We had created a Facebook group chat in order to coordinate for filming, but we decided to create a Facebook page for our film as a form of distribution. Viral marketing is a popular way to distribute films, but it is also a convention for Hollywood films to have a Facebook and Twitter page. So as a Hollywood-style institution we decided to heed this convention, we created these pages, updating them with information about the film and posting various character posters and teaser posters. Some people messaged the page, inquiring when the film was due to be released (believing it to be real). Although, we told them that this was all part of our A2 Media work, it showed us how strong and effective using social media to promote films is. We noticed that our Facebook page was a lot more popular than our Twitter page, our Facebook page having nearly 100 likes. As a result we decided to post exclusive content to Twitter in order to encourage a bigger following.
Links to the Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/timemovieuk
https://twitter.com/timemovieuk
Audience Feedback/Survey
We hosted two out of three of our Audience Feedback/Survey screenings in the Lecture Theatre (where we had filmed the "Ged" Shot). This was to create a more organic feeling, to the audience who would usually experience the theatrical trailer in the cinema. On a whole we surveyed 44 people, ideally we would have liked to survey more, but we had limited time in terms of analysing and collating data.
We asked the audience open questions in order to get a variety of honest answers, and to prevent us from influence the results with leading questions or answers. This is why these three bar charts differ in their areas. Two people had queried the accents of our characters in the trailer, this was due to the fact that the majority of our dialogue was enunciated clearly. This was so that people could understand and it was clear what was being said. Personally, I do not think we altered the way we spoke too much. Despite sounding out words fully we sounded natural. So, we concluded that we should not need to rectify this in our final trailer because it needs to sound clear so the audience can understand what the film is about.
Where one survey said that the acting could be improved (5 people), another question in the survey revealed that the acting was one of the areas, that on a whole, they liked (12 people). So, we took this that these results cancelled each other out. The acting was not easy to change once the trailer had been made already, so we thought that because the majority had liked the acting we would leave it. In a similar way, 6 people in total said the cinematography could be improved, but 14 people said that they liked the cinematography, this was clearly a matter of personal opinion. In fact we found that most of the answers to theses questions balanced themselves out, for example 7 people did not like the soundtrack, but 24 people did. This showed that the majority of the audience liked the trailer as it was and a minority thought that it could be improved or altered.
We were very happy that nobody had said our trailer was below three stars. The majority (at 52%) had said the trailer was four stars, which was a very positive majority, but on top of this a further 23% said that it was over four stars 9 (7% said five stars, 16% said four and a half stars). This was very positive feedback for us. But, we knew that by doing some final tweaks in editing the sound etc it could make the trailer even more of a success.
We were alarmed at the number of people who did not know the title or were confused. We had followed the Hollywood convention of only having the title on for a few seconds so it forces the audience to pay attention. But, we realised we would have to make the title stay on-screen for a longer period of time, in order for it to be more obvious to our audiences. Our trailer could be successful in stimulating our audience to want to see it, but it would mean nothing if they did not know the title or if they were confused at the title.
Here are a few samples of the surveys (once filled in):
After analysing the results of our audience survey, we decided to re-watch our trailer with fresh eyes. We polished up the editing, fading some of the audio in to make it smoother and adjusting some of the gain on the audio as well as adding in background noise to the dubbed areas to make it sound more organic. We also made sure to add links to the Facebook and Twitter pages for our films at the end of the trailer (which is the conventional place to have these links). We then extended the amount of time that the title "TIME" remained on the screen, so it was more obvious what the title was. We also decreased the amount of time that the institutional credits were on-screen, we noticed that it was conventional for them to remain visible for a few seconds.
Interview/Commentary:
We have filmed and edited together an extensive interview that also doubles as a commentary. We were inspired by the "Unscripted Interviews" that are available on YouTube and are used to promote films. The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (one of our influences) have done these interviews. Below, is the interview that prompted us to create our own Interview.
We made our interview as a form of promotion but also as part of our evaluation of our work in A2 Media Studies. Unfortunately, we were unable to turn the heaters off in the hall, it became apparent when editing that the heaters were very loud but due to time constraints we have been unable to re-shoot the interview, if we did have time we would have. Also, I am afraid the quality was greatly reduced when it was uploaded to YouTube, sorry.
The A2 Media Studies coursework has been a challenge, but as a result I have developed new skills. I am now more confident with working in a larger group as well as furthering my organisational skills in order to arrange shooting days. We created a more ambitious narrative for our trailer, this has paid off in our audience feedback. By using new technologies available to us, we have been able to create our work more efficiently. As a result of this year's project I feel inspired to create more media work, not just films but other areas of media such as print media. I look forward to working with my fellow media group members Elizabeth McLaughlin and Daniel Shippey, we have been able to create and refine so many ideas already. Media is currently a significant part of my life and I envision that it will continue to be so.
We felt that changing the last-shots of our trailer to make it look as if Haden's group triumphed, would add to the audiences sense of insolubility- there is no way that Michael's group can solve the problem of Haden's group, let alone find a way to bring the adults back. This brings in another of Barthe's codes: The hermeneutic code. By using the idea of enigma to intrigue the audience and make them want to see the film, because as a general rule audiences dislike suspended answers or open-endings. Film examples of this could be Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan 2010) and Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly 2001) these films deal with the psychology of man. But, where in Films loose ends are unconventional and a rarity, they are an essential for a trailer- otherwise the audience could simply watch the trailer to find out what happens. But, the hermeneutic code is also brought in at the beginning of our trailer as well, the audience will be question how and why have the adults gone?
I also felt it was difficult to create a trailer for a film that does not already exist. The film is normally finished or close to being finished when the trailer is made, giving them footage to use in the trailer. We had to get the idea for the narrative of our film and work out which segments we would need to be included in the trailer and then film those sequences. When storyboarding it was hard not to plan out whole scenes and it took a lot of restraint and we knew we could make the sequences look less like a scene by changing the order and adding copy. Towards the end of our filming and storyboarding we felt that a lot of improvisation would make the film seem more natural and real, we would not be as restrained by our storyboarding. Although, it is usual for some improvisation, we did a lot more than what is considered conventional for a Hollywood-style production. I found that we were often inspired by the location we were filming in, we would come up with ideas for shots and sequences.
We explored a new area of film post-production, as we created ancillary tasks to match our film promoted in our trailer. By using the similar imagery from the trailer of antitheses and rivalry we linked the posters (main theatrical and teasers) to the trailer, along with the use of locations. Our magazine was different, due to following the convention of direct address, it was difficult to portray the sense of rivalry. So, we had to use facial expressions and body language in order to convey the sense of separation (despite being in a group in the photo). We also wore the same costumes that we had worn in the trailer, this as well as the location of the corridor used in the trailer, linked the magazine cover and trailer.
Not only did we create draft designs for our posters by drawing them out, I also created mock-up designs using applications on my phone, in order to add text and start thinking about font and other areas of layout. Using an app called "Over" I arranged the text of our posters until we were satisfied with the result which I saved for us to use when using Serif Draw Plus. We used the computer program rather than the apps to create the final posters because it was more intuitive and also because the apps lowered the image quality. We knew that as a Hollywood-style company our poster would be on a large scale such as bus-stops and billboards, so we wanted the quality of the image as high as possible.
This year, we used an online-storage facility: OneDrive (previously SkyDrive). This was so that we could exchange various material for making our media products without using memory sticks (these can be lost or broken). It has also served to be useful whilst blogging, with all of us being able to access and upload material.
We had created a Facebook group chat in order to coordinate for filming, but we decided to create a Facebook page for our film as a form of distribution. Viral marketing is a popular way to distribute films, but it is also a convention for Hollywood films to have a Facebook and Twitter page. So as a Hollywood-style institution we decided to heed this convention, we created these pages, updating them with information about the film and posting various character posters and teaser posters. Some people messaged the page, inquiring when the film was due to be released (believing it to be real). Although, we told them that this was all part of our A2 Media work, it showed us how strong and effective using social media to promote films is. We noticed that our Facebook page was a lot more popular than our Twitter page, our Facebook page having nearly 100 likes. As a result we decided to post exclusive content to Twitter in order to encourage a bigger following.
Links to the Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/timemovieuk
https://twitter.com/timemovieuk
Audience Feedback/Survey
We hosted two out of three of our Audience Feedback/Survey screenings in the Lecture Theatre (where we had filmed the "Ged" Shot). This was to create a more organic feeling, to the audience who would usually experience the theatrical trailer in the cinema. On a whole we surveyed 44 people, ideally we would have liked to survey more, but we had limited time in terms of analysing and collating data.
We were shocked that 70% of our demographic thought that the film would receive a 15 certificate. But, we were confident that it would only a 12A which meant around 8% (or 26% if the 12 certificate is included) of our audience identified this. As it is not about the violence being shown that makes it a higher certificate but how it is shown. Much of our violence is implied, you are not shown the effects such as blood or bruises. The camera does not linger on the violence it usually cuts away before any sort of damage is done. This would be well-within the BBFC's guidelines for what makes a 12A certificate film.
"At 12A, moderate violence is allowed but it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if they can be justified by their context (for example brief sight of bloody injury in a medical drama).
Action sequences and weapons may be present at 12A or 12, and there may be long fight scenes or similar. Weapons which might be easily accessible to 12 year olds (such as knives) should not be glamorised in 12A and 12 works."
The weapons such as the bats in our trailer are accessible to 12 year-olds but, we have made no effort to glamorise them. Haden's group is the only group to use them and they are portrayed negatively in the narrative. The long fight-scene is implied from the fighting seen in the trailer, but this is acceptable for a 12A.
We asked the audience open questions in order to get a variety of honest answers, and to prevent us from influence the results with leading questions or answers. This is why these three bar charts differ in their areas. Two people had queried the accents of our characters in the trailer, this was due to the fact that the majority of our dialogue was enunciated clearly. This was so that people could understand and it was clear what was being said. Personally, I do not think we altered the way we spoke too much. Despite sounding out words fully we sounded natural. So, we concluded that we should not need to rectify this in our final trailer because it needs to sound clear so the audience can understand what the film is about.
Where one survey said that the acting could be improved (5 people), another question in the survey revealed that the acting was one of the areas, that on a whole, they liked (12 people). So, we took this that these results cancelled each other out. The acting was not easy to change once the trailer had been made already, so we thought that because the majority had liked the acting we would leave it. In a similar way, 6 people in total said the cinematography could be improved, but 14 people said that they liked the cinematography, this was clearly a matter of personal opinion. In fact we found that most of the answers to theses questions balanced themselves out, for example 7 people did not like the soundtrack, but 24 people did. This showed that the majority of the audience liked the trailer as it was and a minority thought that it could be improved or altered.
We were glad that 79% of our demographic understood the general narrative of the film from what the trailer had shown. But, we were impressed that a further 7% not only understood this, but they had spotted some of the sub-plots as well. So overall 86% of our participants had understood our narrative through viewing the trailer. This was a positive, as it shows that the trailer was effective at giving the audience a taste of what the film is about.
The number of people who would go and see the film in the cinema (from watching the trailer) directly corresponds to the amount of people who understood what that narrative was. But, 5% of our audience would still consider going to see the film, despite not fully understanding the narrative. We saw this as a major positive, the trailer is still attractive enough for people to want to see it even if they don't understand. But, we also found that people had explained they would not see the film because the type of film does not appeal to them as a genre.
We could have taken these results as a failure to convey the genre, however these genres all come into our film in various ways, there is the mystery (enigma code) of the adults disappearing, the adventure, and action of trying to survive in the harsh new world. There is also the apocalyptic and sci-fi elements key to the story. Many of the people (46%) thought it was a thriller film, understandably due to the pace and action involved as well as the high-drama. Arguably our genre of "Post-Apocalypse" could come under many of the genres the audience thought our film belonged in. But, I could not see how our film is related to horror, unless they were thinking of the violence involved.
We were glad that the majority of the people we had surveyed could identify the main characters. But, we decided to go against the convention of mainly showing the "Good" group. We showed a balance between showing Michael's group and Haden's group, still favouring the "good" group, but including more shots of the opposition than is conventional. We were pleased to see that this did not distract the audience from recognising the main characters.
Unfortunately, two out of our three screenings did not have the posters for the audience to answer this question. So, we had to be skeptical about the results. But, the majority agreed that our trailer matched our main theatrical poster. It is also important to note that they were shown the mock-up poster rather than the final version. I think that the trailer ties in very well with the ancillary task of the main poster. Due to the shot in the trailer of the two groups colliding, it is the same concept that is behind the poster.
We were very happy that nobody had said our trailer was below three stars. The majority (at 52%) had said the trailer was four stars, which was a very positive majority, but on top of this a further 23% said that it was over four stars 9 (7% said five stars, 16% said four and a half stars). This was very positive feedback for us. But, we knew that by doing some final tweaks in editing the sound etc it could make the trailer even more of a success.
We were alarmed at the number of people who did not know the title or were confused. We had followed the Hollywood convention of only having the title on for a few seconds so it forces the audience to pay attention. But, we realised we would have to make the title stay on-screen for a longer period of time, in order for it to be more obvious to our audiences. Our trailer could be successful in stimulating our audience to want to see it, but it would mean nothing if they did not know the title or if they were confused at the title.
Here are a few samples of the surveys (once filled in):
After analysing the results of our audience survey, we decided to re-watch our trailer with fresh eyes. We polished up the editing, fading some of the audio in to make it smoother and adjusting some of the gain on the audio as well as adding in background noise to the dubbed areas to make it sound more organic. We also made sure to add links to the Facebook and Twitter pages for our films at the end of the trailer (which is the conventional place to have these links). We then extended the amount of time that the title "TIME" remained on the screen, so it was more obvious what the title was. We also decreased the amount of time that the institutional credits were on-screen, we noticed that it was conventional for them to remain visible for a few seconds.
Interview/Commentary:
We have filmed and edited together an extensive interview that also doubles as a commentary. We were inspired by the "Unscripted Interviews" that are available on YouTube and are used to promote films. The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (one of our influences) have done these interviews. Below, is the interview that prompted us to create our own Interview.
We made our interview as a form of promotion but also as part of our evaluation of our work in A2 Media Studies. Unfortunately, we were unable to turn the heaters off in the hall, it became apparent when editing that the heaters were very loud but due to time constraints we have been unable to re-shoot the interview, if we did have time we would have. Also, I am afraid the quality was greatly reduced when it was uploaded to YouTube, sorry.
The A2 Media Studies coursework has been a challenge, but as a result I have developed new skills. I am now more confident with working in a larger group as well as furthering my organisational skills in order to arrange shooting days. We created a more ambitious narrative for our trailer, this has paid off in our audience feedback. By using new technologies available to us, we have been able to create our work more efficiently. As a result of this year's project I feel inspired to create more media work, not just films but other areas of media such as print media. I look forward to working with my fellow media group members Elizabeth McLaughlin and Daniel Shippey, we have been able to create and refine so many ideas already. Media is currently a significant part of my life and I envision that it will continue to be so.
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