Q4 evaluation (Draft)

Question 4

Research:

During the research process of creating our film, poster and radio trailer, a lot of digital technology went in to audience research, specifically researching what our target audience (who are those between the age of 12-21, who are unemployed and students) want to see in all 3 products. For example, to reach a wide range of opinions within our target audience me and partner created a questionnaire using the software survey monkey. (Insert images from questionnaire on opinions on film, poster, and radio trailer). We created a web link that we could share by sending the web link to various people, using social media platforms like WhatsApp. The use of survey monkey to create our survey was very effective in collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, because we could create various types of questions, such as rank, open and closed question and through this we were able to get a better understanding of how our target audience firstly perceived films within the horror genre, secondly we were able to get a better understanding of what our target audience thinks makes a good poster and radio trailer, so that we could make all 3 products as appealing as possible to our target audience. Therefore, applying the uses and gratification theory (Bulmer and Katz). Moreover, the use of social media platforms to share our questionnaire was a very effective and efficient method, because we know that our target audience are likely to have a mobile phone and the social media app WhatsApp that they us regularly, so considering this, sending a web link via WhatsApp meant that we could share our questionnaire to a large range of individuals in a short period of time, with just a few clicks on our mobile phones. We specifically chose WhatsApp, because it is a software that is popular and widely used in our target audience, so we thought that the chances of individuals within our target audience viewing our questionnaire would theoretically increase, as well as the fact that WhatsApp has web link sharing properties.



Survey monkey is a great website to present the findings of questionnaires as well as a great questionnaire creating tool, because survey monkey automatically creates graphs and tables that contains our results. This essentially made it easier for me and my partner to draw conclusions from our findings and present our findings in a sophisticated manner, without having to create our own graphs, on our blog, thus saving precious time.



Am important research task that I completed was textual analysis and to do this I needed access to current short horror films. Thus, I used web 2.0 to do this, as I found several short horror film and radio trailers on YouTube, which allowed me to view the content that I required in high quality of 1080p resolution, so that I could produce a high standard textual analysis on word document. The research tasks that I produced were generally produced on Microsoft word and PowerPoint, but I did not want to upload my research tasks as word document or power point presentation. Instead, I used several presentational tools, such as Kizoa, that allowed me to upload audio of my own voice, images as well as extracts from films. Moreover, I could put this on blogger using the embed code. Therefore, the use of digital technology was heavy in the research section of the production.



Within the planning process of our film, poster, and radio trailer, we used a lot more digital technology, because we decided to get all the work done within the deadline it would be easier to split the work and put all our work together after we completed each of our parts. For example, for our poster I researched the typography to use, using the internet, a MacBook, while my partner edited the images we took for our poster using a mac computer on photoshop. For our films, I created the script using the software the software to produce professional film and radio scripts Celt X, as after a draft was written on Microsoft word, risk assessment, lighting plan and recee for the modern part of our film, while my partner did the same for the 50’s part of our film. This meant that, for a period we could not speak face to face and in these times, we used digital technology to communicate and complete each planning task. For example. We used our phones and downloaded the social media app Google hangouts to face time each other and discussed the lighting plan for the modern and 50’s sections of the film. This was very helpful to us and our teamwork, because it meant that we did not have to physically meet up and discuss things, when it could be easily discussed using web 2.0. As a result, this saved us time and improved our communication. To upload the planning tasks on to blogger, I used several presentational tools, such as Prezi and PowToon and these were very helpful in allowing me to present large pieces of writing in an appealing way, such as the use of animation, funky fonts, and images. I copied and pasted the embed codes from each presentational video, so that it could be placed on blogger. As a preliminary task, we created a practice radio trailer, in which a Mac book was used to record our own voices, which were then edited on the Mac book using the audio editing software Audacity. I obtained sound effects and background music on a website called Sound Bible as well as YouTube. We also received audience feedback though a VOX POP that was recorded using a Dictaphone and edited on audacity. For another preliminary task, we created 2-minute short horror film, called creeks, in which we practiced conventional horror and mystery film camera movements, angles and shot, such as the use of a slow pan and a canted angel. The footage was recorded using a canon camera and the footage was imported from the SD card to an editing software called Camtasia, where the practice camera shots were edited in chronological order, to produce a short linear narrative. This helped us get a small taster of what it would feel like when we are producing our actual film and thus helped us understand that being organised is one the most important aspects of filming. This use of web 2.0, gave us a feel of how it works in the film industry and helped us get a better feeling of what it means to be producers and a screenplay writer. Therefore, this benefited us, because it meant that we could include everything required for a radio script, such as the characters, sounds and SFX in one document in the proper layout four our actors to read and understand.



In the production of our film, a lot of hardware was used compared to the research and planning, whereby there was more use of software than hardware. Firstly, to shoot our scenes, we used a cannon camera and used various types of lenses, that changed the amount of light that could enter the lens. This allowed us the play with the aperture of the camera and to comply with the conventions of the horror genre, we reduced the aperture of the camera by choosing a lens that was narrow, so that we could darken the scenes, especially the horror scenes in our film. To create our poster, we used very strong artificial light from a torch, which was shone at low angle against our actors face in a dark room. Through this we could create sharp shadows on our actor’s face, to give him a sinister and evil look, which is conventional to the horror genre. As a result, using artificial lighting equipment, we could adhere to conventions of the horror genre in our poster, which is important because the poster gives a visual glimpse into our film and if the poster does not connote horror then our target audience may be confused as to how our poster and film link. Lastly, to produce our radio trailer, we used a zoom microphone to record the voices of our actor and actress for our radio trailer and this was important, because we could not create a date where we could book to use the unidirectional microphone in studio, but since the zoom is a portable high quality microphone, it meant that we could take the microphone to our actor and actresses who had tight schedules, instead of them coming to us to use the unidirectional microphone. Consequently, it meant that we could work our way around the timetables of our actors, so that we could finish producing our radio trailer within the deadline.



To produce our radio trailer, we used several hardware and software’s. To begin with, to record voices for our radio trailer, two types of mics were use. First, a zoom mic was used to collect dialogue for our radio trailer from our actress who played Sofia Williams and we decided to use a zoom mic, because it was too difficult for her to come in to the recording studio and use the mic in the recording studio. The zoom mic has two unidirectional condenser microphones. This made it ideal for moving around allowing us to go to our actress with the mic instead of asking her to come to the recording studio, therefore saving time and allowing us to compromise with our actress. However, other parts of the radio trailer, such as the narrator voice was all recorded using the unidirectional mic in studio. All the voices and sound were collated and edited on another audio editing software called Logic Pro X and to import the audio from the zoom mic, a USB cable connected and the audio was then imported onto Logic Pro X. In our radio trailer, we wanted to create a distorted effect and we did this on logic pro x, by using a reverbing tool, to make each dialogue sound like it was being echoed and this helped to elongate each dialogue, producing a longer effect on the overall sound of the radio trailer, as a result we achieved the distorted effect and our radio trailer flowed well,



Post-production:



In the editing process of our film, the use of software once again outweighed the use of hardware. First, the footage from the SD cards of our camera were connected to the mac computers and the footage was uploaded on to the computer. Then, we imported the footage from the documents folder of the mac computer to Final Cut Pro, which is an editing software that is used in the film industry and by huge companies to edit blockbuster films. To make efficient use of time, me and partner decided to split the editing by editing on two different mac computers, which meant we could edit both periods of the film (50’s and modern) at the same time. This was possible, because we do not go back and forth from present to past in our narrative, thus essentially, we treated our film as having two narratives, that linked in the end. Therefore, Final Cut Pro, was a perfect software, because after completely editing each of our parts, we could export both, create another Final Cut Pro file and render both footages as one. Without this feature of Final Cut Pro, we would have to take turns editing our film and this would have taken up too much time. In our film, we used green screen to create the ghost scenes and in this, final cut pro was stretched to its ability, as we needed to make sure the green screen appeared natural, but with a distorted effect. Therefore, we used several tools such as the keying tool and we played with the colouring, so that the saturation of the green screen footage, was a lot greyer than the normal footage, so that we could achieve the ghostly and sinister effect. Apart from the green screen, to highlight the 50’s section of the film, we used a sepia filter over the footage from the 50’s section, as the sepia colour is a stereotypical colour associated with the 50’s period.



To edit our poster, we used photoshop, which is the typical software used to edit still images to produce high quality, industry standard and professional posters. The use of photoshop was helpful, because there were many editing tools that helped us emphasise the horror genre and mystery genre in our film, for example, we changed the opacity of the background image of Richard Williams, so that the clock in between Richard Williams and Alan Smith is visible. Despite this being a small action, it allowed us to complete out poster, because originally, we weren’t going to put a clock, but after audience feedback we found that our target audience preferred our poster with the clock in the middle. In addition, due to the change of our male protagonist, we reshot the pictures for our poster using our new actor. However, our new actor was a lot younger the previous actor, he did not have the lines and hollowness in the face, for a light to reflect off. Thus, in photoshop se attempted to create shadows manually, using the light tool. Using photoshop helped us to produce an industry standard poster that advertised our film.