Evaluation 2

Colour - One way I combined the main product with the ancillary tasks was through the colours used throughout mostly being black, white and red. All of these have connotations from the thriller genre and help show that all three of the tasks are connected. All three of the tasks include very low key lighting also which shows that they are all connected. Below shows the magazine and poster tasks using dark backgrounds with white writing as well as red throughout.

Font and title - The fonts throughout the three are all very similar being sans serif large blocky fonts which grab the audiences attention and is easy to read when it is being looked at. Something that was exactly the the same in each of the tasks was how the title 'edge' was presented with it being made to be part of a knife. Below is how the title is used in each of the three tasks.

Settings - All three of the tasks have settings shown in it that link them all together, they all show a industrial or unsettling location with the magazine having a dark tunnel with lots of graffiti showing he is in a dangerous area, the poster shows the power lines as well which shows he isnt n a safe place. The trailer has several different settings throughout but  all of them link to the previous two as they are all dark and eery.

Evaluation 1

Frame 1 - Props

One of the props we used throughout the trailer was a fake shotgun, this connotes that the protagonist is dangerous and unstable as not many people have guns. In our trailer there is a shot where the protagonist is almost a silhouette showing the gun, this is also used in the trailer for elephant, a thriller about a school shooting. The comparison is shown below above in the two pictures.

Frame 2 - Setting

A lot of the settings relate to a lower to middle class which is the target audience, a few examples of this are the small alleys, the graffiti walls and the train tracks and power lines which all point to a more industrial area. We got some of the inspiration for the industrial setting from split which is set in an underground hideout that looks very industrial, the picture on the left shows this. The picture on the right is from our trailer and also shows the industrial location due to the large pylons, both of these also give a sense of claustrephobia as they close in around the camera, both could also be viewed as POV shots.

Frame 3 - Storyline/Plot

The story line of out media product came from a few different thriller movies, the aspect of the age and school shooting comes from the film elephant which has primarily teenage characters which is also included in our trailer, it also takes the lead up to a school shooting which is something which is hinted at during our plot. It also takes the mental health aspect from shutter island with the main character having mental health problems like paranoid schizophrenia which is shown in the film too, paranoia is a major part of both our film and shutter island too as in both films the main character doesn't know what to believe is true. The final film we took aspects from was requiem for a dream which is heavily drug orientated which is something our film explores. The screenshot below shows the paranoia throughout as he is getting scared of people being behind him.

Frame 4 - Title

The reason for using the knife in our logo is that it links heavily to the story line due to the suicidal themes throughout as well as the title itself being edge which could connote the edge of a knife. The slashes in the word edge again link back to the suicidal thoughts and self harm as it suggests the cutting that having a mental illness leads some people to do. Even the black background connotes death and again links back to these suicidal thoughts that the main character is having. The ideas for this came from other thrillers such as split which also had a white writing and black background logo. The font also links to the title as the letters have cuts through them which split them apart.

Frame 5 - Special Effects

One of the effects I used throughout was the night effect on sony vegas pro this meant that we could keep the whole trailer low key lighting rather than having to record at night, we did this because it is stereotypical of thriller films to be low key lighting as it make the audience feel more uneasy. This is shown in the screenshot below. Other thriller films like shutter island were also majorly lowkey lighting which we tried to get the same effect as



Frame 6 - Introducing Characters

The first shot of our trailer shows the main character surrounded by alcohol bottles that are empty this instantly shows that he has problems with addiction. Another film that included alcohol was the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Frame 7 - Camera shots

One of the camera shots we took inspiration from was from requiem for a dream where it is a Birdseye shot of the protagonist laying on the floor. the high angle shows that he is vulnerable and weak as he looks smaller. It also shows that he has a drinking problem due to the many bottles around him and the bottle in his hand.

Evaluation 3 - Audience Feedback Changes

Magazine - 

 The magazine on the left was the first draft of the magazine, the feedback I received from teachers and peers was that the top of the magazine was fine how it was and didn't need to be changed so I left it the same on the finished product. The first bit of criticism I changed was the placement of the title of the film and the other small headline, I moved them down so the main image could be seen better, this was feedback I got from one of my teachers. I was also told that changing the three bars at the bottom left was a good idea which i acted upon by changing the middle one to look like it had been blood splattered which links into the genre of the film the magazine is about as it is a thriller. It also makes it look a bit more professional. The final bit of feedback I acted upon was to increase the size of the red circle and to reduce the size of the barcode. This is to draw the audiences attention to the  important red circle advertisement rather than the barcode

Poster -

Some of the changes that I made to the poster due to audience feedback was that I enlarged the centre image so that the main character was easier to see due to it already being quite low key lighting, I also had the knife and motto higher up the page but moving that down after getting feedback from my teacher allowed the centre imagine to be more open. I also got told to make the block of writing smaller which I also did to allow more space for the title etc.

Trailer -

The main criticism was the pace of the trailer, due to this we sped up the pace to make it seem more like a thriller trailer. we did this by chopping up several shots and adding more into the gaps to make it seem more sped up. Another criticism we recieved was about the final title not having a coming soon so we decided to add this afterwards.

Evaluation 4 - Technologies

Photoshop - One of the main technologies I used during the A2 media coursework was Photoshop, I used this for several things such as the two ancillary texts, practicing Photoshop with the copies of film magazines and also creating the title and production company logo. Some things I learnt during the coursework on Photoshop was how to use things such as contrast and brightness to make an object look like it belongs in a different background, I did this on thee film magazine as I used a different background to the original. The different filters I used are shown in the picture below.

FL Studio - Another technology I taught myself how to use during this coursework was FL Studio which is a music producing software. I did this so I could tailor the music perfectly for the trailer we wanted to make rather than using pre-made music. I taught myself how to do this through YouTube tutorials and just playing around with the software and making other music. I go more indepth into how I made it in the post about the music itself and why I made it how it is. Some of the main things I learnt on FL Studio was how to mix different parts of the soundtrack so they sound about the same levels and nothing it overpowering, this helped make it sound much more professional. Below is a screenshot of part of the soundtrack.

Sony Vegas - I used this to edit the trailer. I had to teach myself a lot on this software as I have rarely used it before. Some of the things that I have learnt on this during the coursework include how to create the flicker effect on the text throughout, this was surprisingly hard to do and took a while to learn bu the finished product looked professional and effective for the genre. I also learnt how to put things in slow motion during the trailer which helped the timing with the music. Below is several screenshots of the different parts of the trailer.

Snapchat and Facebook - These were two of the main communication methods during the production of the trailer. Snapchat was useful as it was easy to send across pictures and videos during the editing process even though we were not together, this allowed the production to sped up massively.  Facebook was also useful as I could get feedback from friends to see what they liked and what to change. I have included sime screenshots of conversations below.

Youtube - Youtube was mainly used to learn how to do things, such as create the music and help with the editing of the trailer. It was also used to upload the drafts of the trailer and some of the evaluations and research that required voice recordings.

Blogger - Blogger was used to write up all the research, planning and evaluation of the media. Even though it was slightly awkward to use it was easy to layout and made the writeups were easy to read.

The Box Film Poster Analysis

Inception Magazine Cover Analysis

Main Image - The main image is of the main character of the film, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, this helps show the readers that the film is going to be of a high quality, the writing around him is all slanted towards him giving it a 3D look and really making him the center of attention in the shot. There is also back lighting behind him, this with the 3D look and low angle shot makes him dominant and important.

Film Magazine

This was the first draft of the magazine cover for my film. The feedback I got back was that the mast head and surrounding aspects such as the main picture and date etc was fine. The two blocks of words were slightly too high and distracted from the main image so I was informed to move them down. The circle in the bottom right was too small, while the bar code was slightly too big and distracting. Finally, the three red bars looked slightly out of place since they were all equal lengths and should be changed a bit. These were all amended in the second draft below.















This is the magazine after the feedback was taken into consideration and changed.