Sunday 27 February 2011

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Second, i created my Magazine cover so i will continue by talking about that task.

The first code and convention that i used was that all text used was in bold, block capitals. The text is all large and stands out, thought the Magazine title stands out above all else. The bold mashead used it to grab the attention of potential consumers to sell the product to, as many as possible. This is something that you always see, on all products, not just magazine covers. The title always gives an insight into what the magazine is about, e.g. Film is a film magazine, FHM (For Him Magazine) is a magazine for men.
This codes and covention is extremelely important and is essential. It envites the consumer to buy the magazine for its theme without even considereing the contents of the issue in particular. My film magazine dubbed "Green Screen" attracts a fairly large (if not all) film loving individuals, as it is not aimed directly at one corner of the film industry. By using a large clear masthead centered at the top of the page my magazine front cover takes its first step into using and develoing the codes and conventions of real media products.

The second code and convention to examine is the House Style used on the article coverlines located around the page. The coverlines are common practice in all magazine front covers. I have yet to come across a magazine cover with no cover lines.
Across the top right corner of the Issue cover is located an aditional selling point, an advertisement for free posters. Many magazines as an aditional selling point offer free goods / memorabila.
Across the bottom of the cover is the strap line. this often contains a list of things that are contained within the magazine that are there in each issue or things that are unique to each issue. I decided upon the first of the two options as this issue already has the awesome article about my film. I have noticed that magazine usually contain 1 special articale and a number of small article or a few slightly over average articles plus a few smaller articles. This is a common code and convention that i could chose one or the other and not both.

The main image on the cover is framed by all of the coverline, taglines and contents. While researching our anscillary tasks our class found that a lot of the front covers featured either the whole of the an individual or a mid-shot (or closer) image of the person. I chose to go with the full body shot but cut out the feet and hands (becuase gorillas walk on all four). i chose to do this because of the lack of feet that the Gorilla suit has. The main image, if not the title, is the first thing the consumer sees and tells the audience what is in the magazine issue. This image tells the potential audience about the content of the film and often just shows a person with somethign that could be argued as new and different. This is why i chose my gorilla, something not often portrayed. The use of a main image, an important character from the film, is another key way in which my magazine front cover uses the codes and conventions of real media texts.


As well as the above mentioned cover lines, title and main image, i included the simple, often missed, things like a price and a barcode. These components are vital in making the magazine front cover look like a real text. By following the codes and conventions i have used, you may not be able to pick my media text out of a line-up as the A2 coursework item, as was my aim. By including all these fine details i have further used and developed the codes and conventions of real media texts.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are endless ways in which my media products use and develop the codes and conventions media texts taken from the real world. I tried not to challenge these conventions as much as possible as my aim was to devote my film as a homage to all of the 'old school' monster films that time has forgotten due to their replacement of newer sequels and remake with the advancements that have taken place in technology since there creation. There are however, certain angles in which my products disagree with a few of the codes and conventions.

I first created my poster so i will begin by talking about that particular task, followed by my magazine cover. The main code and convention, and by far one of the most important, that i used and developed here was the bold, block capital title of the production, G-DAY. This is very similar to most other film posters as it must be, and is, clear and easy to read, and above all, stands out. It's the main focus of the poster and therefore needs be large and interesting, catching the eye of any passing by potential consumers. I have used this code and convention on my poster by making the poster one of the most dominate parts, consuming the bottom-middle and bottom-left thirds.

Second, i will discuss the main image. This is something all posters to my knowledge have in common in terms of codes nad conventions, as the fact that they have one( and not none). The code and convention of film posters is to include an image of some of the characters contained in the film, often just the one character, be it robot, human or otherwise. In some cases, posters have been know to show a sillouette or half of a face. I chose to not aim my poster towards the heroin, but towards the monster involved. There were two reasons for this. The first was that the majority of other monster themed films went in this direction, and the second was that human characters depicted in my trailer/film do not dominate much screen-time. The of the main part of the film is the rampaging gorilla through a city/town. I felt that depicting the gorilla in front of a possible military base attracts the younger target audience that I am aiming for, in order to revive the partially lost style of monster-movies.


The next code and convention that I followed was to advertise the actors names across the top of the poster. The reason for this being that there fame could also help sell my product to the consumer and to give them credit for their part in the film.


The next code and convention that I used was the depiction  of the film information. This is always located somewhere at the bottom of the poster offering some publicity to the other names encorperated with the creation of the film. this is always in Block Capitals, with the lesser words such as 'the', 'and' and 'is' being a smaller size of font. By keeping this code and convention on my poster I used and developed the codes and conventions of real media texts.

The last notible code and convention used was the the release date. This is a vital point which is often an exact date or more often 'coming soon', informing the audience to keep looking out for it.

The role of any movie poster is to advertise the film to the potential consumers by informing the audience what the film involves, which genre it is and when the film can be expected. I feel that my Poster has met this criteria.

Saturday 26 February 2011

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

I collected results from a total of 30 different people of varying ages. This data was collected from my survey which was poser on http://www.surveymonkey.com/. I felt that the best way to collect these results was to print copies of the questionnaire place them in various public places and to approach people in town, all with a copy of the trailer, the poster and the magazine front cover. The traielr i loaded to my ipod in order to show. I placed 10 copies in a local coffee shop, handed 10 out to some of the students at my school and the other 10 i approached people in town.
Out of the 30 people, 11 said they would rate the trailer 5 stars out of a possible 5. This is 36.7% and was the majority. The lowest score the trailer received was a 2 Star, so there was some variation.

The posters most popular score was 5 stars and this was given by 56.7% of the people.
The magazine cover recieved the most positive feedback with a wopping 90% giving it a 5star rating.
I decided to use a 5 star rating system as this seems to be the most common used system when rating magazines and other media texts.
70% out of the 30 people said that there favourite part of the trailer was the gorilla, mainly due to their comical reaction. This was followed by the 5 people who said the Fist-slam scene was thier favourite part, accounting for a further 16.7% of total people.

15 out of the 30 people, 50%, said that sound was there least favourite feature of the trailer, and personally i agree with them, wishing that i had spent more time on it. I first thought this may have been due to my gorilla roar actually being  abears roar but this turned out to be quite amusing.
14 out of the 30 people thought that the trailer looked like a real media text. That is 46.7% of the people asked. However 30 out of 30 thought that it was very similar (if not the same as) to a real media text.

Friday 25 February 2011

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

As well as the Audio, i thought i put together the image you see below to point out the main ways in which the main project and the two ancillaries work together. All arrows of the same colour point to the same theme of things, just so it's easier to see the differences.
The combination of my works together establish the genre in a clear and easily distinguishable way. The other extremely effective combination of my product and anscillary tasks is the distinct similarities with each other so that the consumer can recognise them as promotions for the same film. This then allows the text with the least amount of popularity to ride with the success of the other two texts. The title used for all three texts in my products is consistent in its use and formatting. This is a vital feature concerning sales, as it allows the  consumer to know that it is associated with the other piece of text, that it is the same thing. By using the same formats and fonts the audience will begin to recognise the title or font and associate it with the film, by doing this where ever they see the font, whether its in print or video, they will recognise the film, just as other films in the media world do so. An example of this is the 'Spiderman' Font, where Sony were sued for using to simlar a font for thier product 'Playstation 3'.

Other components were kept consistant across my products such as the title, such as the use of explosions and the metal texture used in the background of my ancillary tasks and the cube in my trailer. The other thing I kept the consistant was the parody themed genre. One could agrue that this is a vital aspect in establishing the role of the film, attracting the vast variations of taget audiences.
By keeping up with this consistency carried throughout the the two ancillary taks and the main project, all three link together and work as a combination to drive home the genre and promote the film.
The penultimate thing would like to draw to attention in the three tasks kept consistnat is the re-occuring appearence of the same character, the oversized gorilla. One could also argue that the lack of props is kept consistant, but then again so is the lack of flying pigs. Using the same character throughout is extremely important as it gives the audience an impression of who, in this case what, the film is about and who to look out for. The audience can then recognise the film by the character in any adverisements and also, by extension, in any other advertisements such as the cadburys gorilla playing the drums. Also, by having the main character as not being human, it gives the film a difference of not being about a hero that is to slay the beast / villain. Using the same army related theme in terms of clothing, locations and forts was also an important part. These combinations i hoped would attract as large an audience as possible.

Thursday 24 February 2011

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

For those of you who haven't listen to the audio here, I have given a summary of the varying different technologies i had used, both hardware and software:
  • Windows - all posting / blogging
  • Macintosh - all creation / editting
  • After effects
  • Videos
  • Sound Recorder
  • Photoshop CS4
  • Final cut pro
  • Scanner
  • Internet
    • Youtube.com
    • Google.com
    • Blogger.com
  • Powerpoint
  • Sound track pro
  • Imovie
  • Photographs
    • Camera on Phone
    • Camera on Ipod
    • SLR Camera
  • Screen shots
  • Film cameras
  • Microphone (voice recording)
    • Radio station
    • Headset

Monday 21 February 2011

Evaluation/Construction Documentary

Okay, i've finished my projects to the best of my ability with a sense of proffesionalism, and now i need to evaluate them. I have been given four different questions and i will approach each one in a different way to ensure that i use different forms of media texts, whilst finding the best and easiest way to present the information. One of the questions is about audience feedback and so i will have to begin collecting from my questionnaire and other methods.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Audio

Im working on some audio to go with my trailer. some features include
  • gorilla roar
  • song
  • explosons
  • Thud
  • sirens
  • helicoptor rotars

Saturday 19 February 2011

Fist Bit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4GQQForQ7k


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNSEbZyvr4M



here the fist is filmed in front of and on top of the green screen.
i know that the fist comes down to low i.e. it doesnt line up with the back ground, but that was intentional. when i insert this composition into the overall composition it will be scaled to fit so the gap won't be seen.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Update

I was hoping to post my Overall footage so far but unfortunately youtube seems to hate me :(
this may be because the footage is to large in size/length, but i doubt it seeing as i have seen larger when perusing youtube for personnel amusement.

Monday 14 February 2011

Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3AnV1rOwdY




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0MH3cwx3QA



Scatter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvlXKyYybQo



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E968Z3a6KhM



This is the clip to enter into the overall footage, which at the moment isnt finished.
For this shot i gathered my actors together ( SPECIAL THANKS TO THEM ALL ) and asked them to march around the corner and wait a little before acting like they have seen my gorilla and running away in fear.
This shot was filmed from fort regent as where a few of my shots. It was the only place i could get the angle i desired for my shot (looking down / high angle).
 As you can see from the scale in the bottom left of the photo, the shot was taken over a distance of about 2,500ft / 500m. this photo of a map was obtained from google maps before editting (text added).

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Cube Metal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HupkA07gBOU




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dfJ11mtYR0



I had to start this remake from scratch as i couldnt replace the solids in the last version.

Cube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFj5jzDkck


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOOZA6kFknA



I have built this cube in after effects via copying / duplicating the same layer ( the front face ) and rotating it by:
  • 90 degrees about the anchor point in the x-axis for the top and bottom faces,
  • 90 degrees about the anchor point in the y-axis for the left and right faces,
Each face was then moved to line up with the front face.

Friday 4 February 2011

Building Attempts

In order to film my gorilla interacting with the buildings i need a building shaped object covered in Green-Screen. To do this i 'borrowed' my teachers filing cabinet and wrapped it like a christmas present in green paper.



















I didnt need to wrap the back as the back isnt seen in shot.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Update

I'm going to start updating my blog with the components for my trailer as i complete them

Saturday 29 January 2011

Anscillary Task - Magazine - Step-by-step

My magazine cover is going to be, or is depending on when you read this, very similar to my poster, consisting of the same or similar materials such as the bullet holes, blood splatters, title etc...
The background Items from my poster
So here is my basic background from my poster. it's what left after cropping and scaling the poster to fit a magazine cover removing all of the non useable items like the actors names and things that will be replaced like the photo of my gorilla.

i started with my gorilla, one of the many other photos i took on my shoot of Michael Medway in it, using my technique of removing the green screen by selecting a colour range (green) and deleting it. this again left holes in my gorilla and so i duplicated the layer and moved it a frame to the right.
Gorilla
I brought back my title, the 'is coming' line and the associated splat and placed it at the bottom of the page to inform the readers what the issue of the magazine will centered on.
G-Day is Coming

I needed a magazine title and decided to use ' Green Screen ' as it is a common association with movies and relative to my film, being the kind of magazine that would do an issue on my fillm.
Magazine Title
Monthly Flm Magazine

To promote my film the magazine will be giving away free posters of my film. this is advertised as a nice selling point, on top of a yellow rectangle with a black stroke rotated to 45 degrees.
Free Posters
Next i needed some magazine articles to attract the consumers.
Article 1
Article 2, this article being the most important, i coloured yellow, the same yellow as the free poster add.
Article 2

Article 3

Article 4

Article 5
This bottom tagline informs my readers what the magazine as a general has to offer. these things are contained within every issue, most likely part of the default magazine template for each month.
Tagline
Without the barcode readers would find purchasing the magazine a lot harder as all modern shops are fitted with barcode scanners as a way of keeping track of stock and sales.
Barcode

This tagline (centre-right) is to give the consumer a tagline associated with the image.
Dirty great Ape
This i felt completed my Magazine Cover. 
Finished Magazine Cover


Thursday 27 January 2011

update

Working on my step-by-step for my anscillary tasks. updated my finsished poster stepbystep with
photos/screenshots


started step by step for magazine

Anscillary Task - Poster Step-By-Step Build


I started off by taking a photo for the background image of a location seen in some of my trailer footage, giving a sense of consistency, though it quickly occured to me that this component did not follow all other examples of movie posters that i researched. i then used a clean sheet of metal so that the background had some texture and not a simple block of colour (which wouldnt be very proffesional, would it).

My origional background
Metal Sheet

I inserted a photo of my gorilla previously picked from my numerous line up of photos from my photo shoot. On this layer i cut out all of the green screen not via the magic wand as this proved to awkward as it left green in the fur around the edge of the suit, leaving a green outline. not what i wanted.
Metal Sheet with Gorilla
Used the tool to SELECT > COLOUR RANGE, and used the colour picker to choose the variations of greens, solving my problem. The problem this brought up, which i didnt realise until later is that it also took tiny segments of my gorilla with it (as black is comprised of all colours). I will explain how i combatted this problem later.
Select > Color Range
On the wall in front of me (behind my Mac, where i was working) is/was the picture poster of ' from hell '. At eye level was the perfect reminder that i needed a fine print text, listing all of the high-up names envolved in the creation of my film (trailer). i had great fun thinking of numerous variations of names to " fit the bill "

My Work Station

Film Information
Next i needed something which all Movie posters have, a title for my film. while joking around with the clowns in my class, i came up with the Name ' G-Day ' as a play on Z-Day which in itself is a play on D-Day. this helps to fit the generic parody that is my film. An army print text helped to create the idea that the gorilla is a threat to the public and needs to be fought by the armed forces.

Title
A lot of posters have dates or 'coming soon ' quoted, so i decided to do the same in the same army stencil font used for my title. To help these texts stand out i gave them each a 3pt stroke. to further the illusion that this is an army stencil used in a hurry, i used a  splat behind the the ' is coming '.

Coming When
 
Coming Soon Splat / Paint Drip

To give the scale of the size of the gorilla i decided to fit somewhere in one of the texts a gorilla and a building forming the letters L and A  (nicely fitting in the word gorilla, you may notice) but they didnt fit anyone noticeable. Luckily i was going for my poster to be themed for the character, the kind of poster you would see in the forum of the cinema as a collection (one for each character).  following this idea, i named the character ' Gorillaarrgh '. this helped play with my generic parody, reflecting the 'old school' traits in films, one could argue are lost to modern-day films.
Gorillaaarrgh!
In this text i left out the two letters prementioned and the required amount of space to fit my custom letters.
The building was actually built with the most simple of programs, powerpoint, a series of rectangles. i then duplicated this layer (back on photoshop) and moved each layer one point to the right and up one, a simple way of giving a 3D illusion, after all no building is 2D. the first and third (from the front) layers i coloured grey and the 2nd and fourth, black. the gorilla i painted black leaving his face gray as a silouette.

LA

3D building

No action/monster/parody poster is complete without a few bullet holes, so i scattered a few here and there, as though he (my gorilla) has just been fired upon, of course being left unscarred.
To go with the flow of the gorilla being the result of a top secret lab, i wanted the angled black and yellow lines found around a military door. so i created a serious of parallel black and yellow rectangles and cropped the them so that the corners were cut off.
Bullets + black and yellow lines
Cropped Black + Yellow Lines
I then gave the lines a minamal amount of opaicness, so that the metal texture could be seen through it. Now it looks like its part of the metal wall and not just stuck there by photoshop. i won' tell if you wont :) i used the blur and smudge tools along the edges of the colours to give a sort of war-torn effect.
Opaic Black and Yellow
Blurred /Smudged Black and Yellow
Right, here i noticed something that i mentioned at the beginning with my gorilla. when getting rid of the green screen i lost part of my gorilla. i noticed this because his head was showing signs of yellow.

Yellow noticed through the head
i can't stress how long it took me to work out what the problem was, but oh well i worked it out. to solve the problem i duplicated the layer of the gorilla and moved it a point to the right, problem solved. it took me ages to try work out a way to solve this when the answer was so simple. this also darkened my gorilla which gave nice unintended effect.

Problem solved

Blood Spatters
To give credit to my actors and to use them as a selling point, there names needed to go on the poster, as well as to follow the conventions of all other posters. to keep up the consistancy, i used the text from the title and the 'is coming' line.
Actors Names
Although the law of thirds applys to all components (excluding the quote line), the bottom third was looking a bit empty even with the gorilla, the title and the film information. therefore i felt it needed something else to go behind all this as a filler. que the explosion!

Explosion
This i produced from stock footage, after all i couldnt really go around blowing things up without permits and what-not. so from stock footage, (video files of explosions on black backgrounds) i found the frame i wanted and removed any unwanted things such as the black background, which i did via the magic wand, the one-click-wonder. this left a hard edge which i removed via a feather edged eraser.


Effect of the Feathered Eraser
Quote line - almost finished i had a big gap in the middle to place my quote line, taken straight from my trailer. (the bit with the cube)
Cube from trailer
" It's Human Nature
            To Attempt The Impossible
                                          And Play God "

the colour of the text, i lent towards the gray end of the spectrum so that it did not stand out over the movie title or the character name.


I feel that this completed my poster.



Finished Poster