Evaluation Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here I have re-posted the video we took of our audience interviews:

After reviewing the comments made in this video, and from the feedback we received on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, I made a video to discuss what I have learnt from our audience feedback.

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Film Poster:

Film Review:

Film Trailer:

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Film Review

This is my take on a Total Film review. I tried my best to re-create elements from both the magazine (eg. 'talking point', overall layout) and website (eg. social media bar, advertisement) and merged them together. Although I did copy the social media bar, advertisement and 'most popular' table from totalfilm.com, the rest of the page has all been created by me using the program Paint.net. I feel it is effective as it looks fairly professional, is laid out clearly into sections, and links with real film reviews on the market.
(Right: the basic plan for the layout of my review)

Film Poster

Here is my final film poster I made using Paint.net. I stayed fairly in line with my second draft poster, only got rid of the factory background, added my own original pictures of the cast, and inserted other necessary poster conventions eg. snippet from a film review, star rating, website address etc.
I like the overall look of the poster: I feel the steam underneath the film title and in the background creates a mysterious look, and I like the way the red, blue and grey colours on each of the characters stand out and are visually pleasing.
I also made some examples of how we could possibly advertise out film - in bus stops and on the walls of the tube - as these are areas where lots of people, including our target audience of young people, visit every day.
This, along with our film trailer, gives us an insight into how our film's advertising would look, and we know that, according to our audience survey, these elements draw audiences to a film the most.

Second Poster Draft

After my initial attempt at designing the layout of my film poster, I decided to try again to make it seem more professional and realistic to other real film posters.

Firstly, I inserted the film title (from the previous draft) and overlapped two transparent images of smoke I found online.

I then found some suitable images online to use as our film's characters until we photograph our own ones. I then positioned them according to how I wanted my poster to look, with the protagonist in the centre and the villain and the femme fatale either side of him.

 I then cut out this section of my background image and moved it in between the protagonist and the femme fatale, as it looked similar to the table we used in our film which the gang keep their money box on.

I then inserted the background image of a factory I found online, as it is one of the settings are film takes place in. I chose to include this setting in my poster as it demonstrates the dark atmosphere of our film, and so audiences will be able to gain an understanding of what our film contains from the poster alone.

Then I pasted an image of a red money box similar to the one we use in our film, and placed it on top of the box in the background. To make it seem more realistic, I gave it a 'Glow' effect as it gave it the effect of having a shadow.

 I then added the typical elements of a film poster: actor's names, credits, extract from a film review and a 'coming soon' image.

After this, I felt the background image needed to be more striking, and so adjusted the 'hue', 'saturation' and 'lightness' to make the setting seem darker and also to bring forth the red colour in the beam on the ceiling, as it would then match the vibrant colour of the money box.

Then, I wanted to make the femme fatale stand out more against the dark background and so I added the 'Glow' effect to the image of her. This made her seem a bit more seductive and gave her an almost angelic-like appearance, which is fitting for the nature of her character.

Finally, I added a few more images of smoke, and adjusted the properties of each layer to blend each new image in with the rest. I found that the 'colour burn' effect was particularly effective, as it made individual images darker, which made the overall poster seem a bit more balanced and intricate.

Film Poster Draft

As part of the course, we have to make a poster for our film. I decided to create a draft of this, where I could experiment with different designs, images, fonts and effects in preparation for the final poster.
Using images found online, I put together this poster using the downloadable program 'Paint.net'.
Of course, the images and credits which I found online will be replaced with my own photos for my final poster, however I am fairly happy with how this draft has turned out, and believe it to fit with not only the narrative of our film, but the conventions of the noir genre as a whole.













Firstly I inserted all of the images I wished to use into the canvas (the background image, the two characters, and the film title), and positioned them according to how I wanted them to appear on the poster.



I then decided to add an image of 'Coming soon...' as it links with the conventions of film posters.

I also gave the image of the woman a 'Gaussian Blur' effect to partly hide her identity and make her seem mysterious.

I then added the credits for both the actors in my film (at the top of the poster) and the crew (at the bottom). I copied the bottom credits from an existing poster (Warrior) for this. I also added a 'Glow' effect on the film's title, to make it stand out from the dark background a bit more. However, I later decided that the title needed to be bolder, to catch the audience's eye. Therefore, I used the 'Outline' effect to create the white stylisation, and adjusted the 'Thickness' and 'intensity' of the effect to give the effect of looking like actual steam.

Finally, I added a snippet from a review, which was also taken from the Warrior poster. Obviously, for my final film poster I will include my own credits and review for this.

Film Review Analysis - The Muppets

Film Poster Analysis - Shutter Island

Film Poster Analysis - Sweeney Todd

Final Film - Steam

Film Trailer

As an extra, we decided to quickly put together a trailer for our film. Although it is not perfect, it sums up the main points of the film and gives us an idea of what our film's marketing would look like.

Audience Feedback

After we finished the final cut of our film, we selected some of our peers to see what they thought about our film. From the majority of their responses, we got the idea that most of our film was a success, with our settings, characters and storyline all proving popular with audiences. We acknowledge ourselves the areas our interviewees thought we could have improved on, as all three of us have stated that we feel the chairs scraping on the floor were a bit too loud (even after reducing their volume) and that we could have perhaps varied the shots in the cafe a little to keep the scenes interesting. However, overall, we are fairly happy with our end result, and feel that our filmmaking skills have greatly improved over the duration of the course and in comparison with our AS level films.

Rough cut of film

After showing our film to several audience members via Facebook, we received the following feedback:

From these comments, we felt that our film was mostly a success, with the music, characters and plot being popular overall. However, there were some points, like some of the shots being a little too long, that we felt we needed to rectify. Therefore, we made a few minor touches to this rough cut for our final edition. These included:

• Mixing up the shot of my character (Harvey) watching Scarlett as she walks away from the table upset by inserting a close-up of my face, as we felt the original shot in this video was too long. 
• Reducing the volume of the chairs scraping on the wooden floor in the first cafe scene, as in this rough cut we felt it was too intense and verged on being annoying. 
• Cutting out the sound of Scarlett's tray hitting the table before Lenny grabs her hand, as we felt it was a little too disorientating and didn't serve any purpose. 

Editing Techniques

Creating our Production Company

Company Name:

After brainstorming ideas, we came up with several possible names for our production company:

1. The first was 'Flash-Forward Media', and this name could link to our film due to our frequent use of flashbacks, as well as the 'Forward' making the overall company sound quite modern and cutting edge. 
2. We then came up with 'MKF Productions' which was simply a collaboration of the first letters of our names. We never intended this idea to be our final company name, as we feel it is too ambiguous and was simply made as a spur-of-the-moment idea. 
3. Another possible idea, however, was 'BlackBox Productions', and this name creates a sense of mystery given its meaning. I feel this name would be effective, however as a group we all preferred our final idea: 'PinPoint Pictures'. 
4. As shown in our brainstorm, we liked the idea of using alliteration for the name of our production company. Overall, we felt that PinPoint Pictures flowed the best out of the four, with the name also giving the impression of our company being professional and precise, which we felt would attract audiences to our film. 

Company Logo: 

After researching into the logos used by real production companies, we found that most use a simple, yet bold, design. The company name is often in a clear, easy to read font, and the accompanying image often uses only one or two striking colours which grab the attention of the audience's eye. 

Therefore, using the program 'LiveType', we constructed our own company logo. We chose to use a simple, yet distinctive font (American Typewriter) as it is easy to read and looks professional. We liked the contrast between the black, grey and red in Bad Robot's logo, and so we chose an image of a pin which would give a similar effect.


Animation:

Using LiveType, we continued to make an animation for our logo. After experimenting with lots of different techniques, we eventually decided on an effect called 'Experience' which gradually highlights our logo from left to right. In addition, we decided to have the image of the pin move too, and so applied the 'Bounce' effect to it. We partnered this movement with a sound effect of a pin dropping on a table, which we feel is a subtle yet effective addition to the logo.
Overall, I feel our final production company logo is effective as it remains simple, professional and distinctive, while still staying in line with other company logos in the industry.

Behind the Scenes/Outtakes

Music for our Film

We originally planned to make our own music for our film, and experimented with different effects and sounds on GarageBand. However, we later decided to use copyright-free music for our final film, as we felt the songs we found suited our film better and sounded more professional. We chose to use these songs:

• 'Shades of Grey' by PK Jazz Collective & Alex Fry. (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Pk_jazz_Collective__Alex_Fry/Shades_Of_Grey/01_-_Shades_of_grey)
• 'I'm Changing Myself' by PK Jazz Collective & Alex Fry. (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Pk_jazz_Collective__Alex_Fry/Im_changing_myself/Pk_jazz_Collective__Alex_Fry_-__Im_changing_myself)
• 'Seeing Hebrew Scrabble Hush' by Eidetic Seeing. (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Eidetic_Seeing/EP_1002/01_Hebrew_Scrabble_Hush)
• 'Prey' by 2kutup. (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/2Kutup/Split_1819/Pray)

(All from the website 'www.freemusicarchive.org').

Call Sheet

Film Script

Communicating as a Group

Character Profiles

Detective Harvey Blaine: 

Harvey is undercover in the Bacalla gang, trying his best to leak information to the police while still keeping his cool. He has worked his way up the gang's hierarchy, becoming more entwined with the gang until he took the role of one of Lenny's two under-bosses. However, Harvey's downfall is perhaps due to him becoming too entwined with the people around him, and his sympathetic nature ends up coming back to bite him.

Scarlett Marcel:

Scarlett's brother had been a part of the Bacalla gang for many years, yet after trying to leave, Lenny killed him. Scarlett then became Lenny's 'property', being made to run a local cafe as a front for the gang's meeting place. She is visibly unhappy with her mistreatment, and confides in Harvey's caring touch. Harvey takes a risk to help Scarlett, but her allegiances are more ambiguous than they first seemed.

Lenny Bacalla:

Lenny Bacalla is at the top of the gang's hierarchy, and uses his wealth and power to control the people around him. His mob's powers span across the city's underground, including owning a local cafe and even a manufacturing warehouse. He is a dangerous man.

Practice Film Shot

At school, we experimented with a few different shot types  in preparation for creating our film, and this video illustrates our attempt at a continuous shots. We plan to use this shot type on location in the scene where we introduce our main characters.

Costume Ideas

As a group, we discussed what sort of clothing we wanted to dress our characters in, and concluded that the gang members should be dressed in suits. We decided on this outfit as the gang in our film are fairly sophisticated and wealthy, and should therefore appear similar to the gangs in other modern noir films like The Departed and Trance.

Our femme fatale, on the other hand, is of a significantly lower status than the other characters in the story, and works in a cafe owned by the gang's leader. Therefore, we decided that she should be dressed in items of clothing which match the iconography of her profession, including an apron and basic, casual clothes underneath. We thought we would dress her in a white t-shirt when she is first introduced, to make her seem as though she is a victim and is downtrodden by the gang. As the film progresses, however, we decided we would dress our femme fatale in a red t-shirt, which has semiotic connotations of danger, passion and love to emphasise her evolution into the manipulative double-crosser who betrays the men surrounding her.

Props List

Our film incorporates a number of different props:

• In the scenes based in the cafe, our waitress will be interacting with props usually associated with her job: a tray to carry drinks on and a cloth to wipe down tables. These props can easily be found on location, and so we have full access to these. 
• We also have access to a red cash box similar to the one in the image shown, which is important as it is a vital prop for our narrative. We will also need to either use our own money to put into the box or purchase fake notes from a prop shop in our town centre. 

• Finally, as our hero and femme fatale end up being tied to chairs in our final scene, we will need to source both rope and two chairs to move into our location. 

Deciding on our Locations

As our new idea takes place mostly in a cafe, we decided that my family's business, Taste Cafe in Baldock, would be a suitable location to use. This location is easy for all of the group members and actors to get to, as it is in the centre of the high street and is well-known in the surrounding area.
We also needed a dark, atmospheric location for our final scene, and after deliberating whether to use Kelsey's large van or my Dad's factory where he works, DBC Tools, we decided on the factory. We feel this setting suits our needs well, being easy to access and available to us after school times each day. I then went on Google maps to take pictures of the exact locations for future reference, in case anyone forgot where our settings were located.