evaluation

Different media codes and conventions.
My media project follows the codes and conventions laid down in standard media production quite loosely, although there are some conventions that are broken due o to the limits placed upon us due to the fact that we are only part of a small organisation. The first media convention that I followed was the use of fairly fast shots in quick succession. I found this incredibly useful for making my trailer more exciting, as when I tried using slower shots, it slowed my production down and made it less enthralling for viewers to watch An example of this is during the chase scenes where the action cuts from one chase to the next in a matter of seconds.. A second media convention that I hollowed was the building up of tension throughout my trailer. This was particularly useful for me as it allowed time to give the viewer some insights into the plot while still keeping excitement levels high. This was achieved by cutting fairly quickly between shots of different people and locations effected by the power surges. Focusing in on the hero from the halfway point also helped, as it allowed the audience to see him dealing with various hazards create by the villain, and made them wonder whether he would make it through alive or not. Finally, I believe not giving away too much information about the plot was another key media convention that I followed.

There are also some media conventions that I did not follow, firstly, action movies like mine tend utilize a large amount of special effects., due to the fact that we are a small college with only 150 students, I knew right from the start that it could be impossible for me to follow this convention. Another thing that I did not follow were the rules regarding the use of dialogue, most trailers in the action genre use very little dialogue in order to keep the viewers focused on the action, but I had to ignore this rule because it would have been very difficult to get the story of my trailer across otherwise.

I will now look at the decisions made with regards to the mise en scene for my production. For the scenes that took place inside the Blackmore corporation headquarters, I shot these in the point 4 ( the colleges newly built sports complex) the reason for this is that with its highly polished floors and modern design, the Point 4 looks every bit the corporate headquarters that required for this production. Another example with regards to this is that we shot the scene where the citizens are listening to a radio in an actual house to make it more convincing to the viewer. I adjusted the lighting ales of some locations in order to help them better serve their purpose. An example of this is when I slightly darkened the lighting values of the point4 in order to make it look more sinister. As I mentioned previously, I had limited use fo special effects, I did use a lightning effect at the beginning of the trailer however, in order to better illustrate the power station being affected by the villain’s plot.

I will now look at how my three projects work together. On the positive side of things, I believe that all three projects were very well coordinated, as all three kept a gritty, dark theme throughout. This was achieved through the use of fairly dark colours and text. Pieces of music that also helped to build suspense allowed me to continue this theme into my radio productions. The music that was used was fairly fast paced and fitted into the rock genre in order to get the action oriented theme across to the consumer. However, I also made sure that any usic I used also had a slight electronic feel to it, in order to get the science fiction elements of my trailer across to consumers. The only piece of music that I used that did not follow these tow guidelines was that slow piece of music that I used at the beginning in order to help build tension. I also believe that my website does a good job of linking all the promotional methods together, as it has more in depth information than can be found on the other two methods of promotion.

On the other hand however, the three pieces repeat a lot of the same information. I therefore think that it would be more interesting for the view if all three pieces of material gave out slightly different information. I also believe that there needs to be more links between these pieces of material, as an example of this, I believe that both my radio trailer and my film trailer should have a link to my website, so that interested customers can visit it for more information.

I will now look at the audience feedback that I have received as a part of my production. My video was placed up on YouTube, with a wide variety of people from both my home and college environment viewing it So far, 77 people have viewed my production. The feedback from here was mainly positive, with almost everyone saying they enjoyed it. Some people, such as my mum’s work colleagues, posted the link up on their Face book pages, meaning that I have likely had people whom I have never met viewing the video and giving positive feedback.

On the other hand, some people have given not so positive feedback. One said that some of the props I used, such as the cardboard gun, were too obvious. This is a problem that cannot be rectified, as I believe that it would be very difficult for us to obtain more realistic props. Comments upon the acting ability of the actors involved were also varied, but this cannot be helped due to the relatively small budget of the college.

I will now look at how I have used new media technologies in my work, starting with research. The main way that new technologies were used was through the Internet to gain ideas for my project. This is because I was able to view real life trailers and websites for real films in order to see how an actual movie studio would complete these projects. The two ways I used new technologies in planning my projects was using email to communicate with all the different parties involved, and using an online blog to record this plan. So that I know where everyone was up to. An example of the s when communicated with all the different actors in order to set up my soot at 54 Venn’s Lane In production and post production digital technology became incredibly important to m production. This is because I completed most of my production work using digital technology. This was invaluable to me, as it meant that I could easily go back and alter things if I made a mistake.

I am aware that there was a continuity problem with my piece. this is that the actors who play the agent and the guard also play the civilians listening to the radio in 54. Although this does not present a major problem due to the fact that the scene is shot in semi darkness it is something that I wanted to avoid. Unfortunately, this was not possible due to the fact that it was difficult to contact other actors at extremely short notice, meaning we had no choice but to use the people already available to us.

completing the trailer

after extracting the remaining music and speech samples from my trailer, it was time to assemble the whole project. I did this in Garage Band, by selecting the piece of audio i want to use, and dragging it to its correct position on one of the tracks. I faced several challenges here however, the length of the production was an issue for me, as after listening to several example trailers online, i discovered that the trailer needed to be kept short and sweet inn order to grab the listeners attention and make them want o come and see the film. I also decided not to use too much music in my production, in order to allow the listener to be able to focus on the speech and really get a feel for what the film was about.

radio advert

I have began to construct the radio advert for the second subsidiary project I began by recording several new voice overs to replace the ones form my trailer. This was necessary because although I tried to share resources, with my trailer, many of the announcer clips referred to visual elements on the screen, so i had to reword them in order to convey the same message to a radio audience.

webiste production

i have embedded the trailer into my website and added various still images to my site. I chose images from my trailer that had various dark background colours, as they fitted in nicely with both the mood of my site and my trailer. i used green text on a black background in order to make the site appear to fit within some of the connotations of an action movie site It also gives the trailer some of the connotations of the science fiction genre.. I extracted my images by saving them as stills and placing them into my verbiage.

start of webiste prodcution

i have began to create my web page for my project I have created stills form m trailer to sue as stills for my web page, I also choose a dark background and green teat, as this not only fits within the stylings one would expect for an action movie, but also fits well within the genre for my film. I now plan to embed the trailer into my web page.

changes and things that went wrond druing procuion,

during the production of my trailer, several things had to be changed. in this post, i will document these changes and explain why they happened. Firstly it was impossible to get the scenes to be perfectly matched with their original script versions. this is partly due to the fact that we were very limited with regards to the timing we had to shoot the scenes, as was the case with the office scene, or we found it difficult to obtain the correct props, such as we couldn't find a briefcase for my main character for when he was talking to his boss on the phone. Another major change that was made was that we replaced the scenes that has the main character and the security guard running down hallways, with more varied chase sequences, such as the shots going into the lift and the more varied outdoor scenes. This was done because too many scenes of people running down corridors would have made the trailer less interesting for the viewers and would have also slowed the pace down quite considerably. As part of this, i also decided not to shoot the scone that involves the actor emerging from a cupboard of some description, as this would have proven extremely difficult to shoot, and i felt my time would be better spent focusing on other, more important shots. I also changed the confrontation scene that was originally due to take place in an office to directly in front of the villains super computer, and removed the scene in which the main character steals the computer program and is confronted by the scientist, as I felt this gave too much of the films narrative away. Finally, I had a slight problem shooting the scene by candlelight, as due to the fact the the college I'm at is incredibly small, had to sue the two actors who played the main character and security guard in this scene as the tow civilians listening to the portable radio. I also had to lower my expectations with regards to the prop list. an example of this is that we could no find a uniform for the guards or a briefcase for the main character. this is partly due to the fact that we have no production budget and partly due to the fac that other props on the list would be very difficult to come by.

final edit and music

I have finished puting the ifnal peices of footage into my blog and editing it down to the correct sixe. This was not nearly as challenging as the other edits that i have done, namely because it was much more obvious as to which footage was nessessary for the production, wheras choosing the best footage had previously been a difficult descion. I also choose my three peices of music for my production, the first peice of music was desinged to intrigue the viewer and build up suspense, as it is played durign the beggining of the trailer when we find out th baisc primeis of the film. the second peice of music and played drung the action sequences, so it is desinged to assist in the job of helping to excite the viewer. the final peice of music has a ver similar purpose to the second one, except that it is played during the climx of the trailer and so is sligltly slower.

final shooting

I have finished the shooting of my trailer. This was completed when we shot the final sequences at night that show my main character entering the base. We decided to change several scenes here, as the ideas for scenes that i had originally would have made the trailer too slow. This would have been a major problem for viewers, as action movies tend to excite the viewer, so having a slow and boring trailer would have done exactly the opposite. Disguising our Media studies classroom as the villains lair was also a challenging endeavour, but this was accomplished y typing a massive ream of nonsense into PowerPoint. this may seem silly and pointless, but when the presentation was run on the large monitor that is in our classroom and the lights were switched off, the monitor looked much more convincing in its role as a computer that cold bring down the national grid! the green ambient light that this monitor gave off also helped my trailer, as it increased the threatening connotations that made the scene realistic.

audio voiceovers

I have began recording voice overs for my production and then imported them into Itunes. then imported them onto Imovie. the challenge was adjusting thier length in audio to fit the visual clips as required. I then placed effects onto some of the film clips, such as a echo effect for the two telephone voiceovers , in order to make them more suitable for their roles in the trailer.

editing

I have began to edit the material I have and began to slot it into the correct positions using IMovie,. I have been spending particular attention on the editing side of things, as currently many of my scenes are too long and have had to be cut down dramatically in order to keep the trailer to a reasonable length.

shooting scences

I have began to shoot several scenes for my media production, these include the chace scenes and the scenes around 54, getting the required group of actors together was one of the challenges i faced, as was making sure that everyone gave the permission to be filmed. this was particularly paramount when we were shooting g in public places, such as the point four leisure centre.