Evaluation Planning

Evaluation Question 1A (trailer):
Collage of a shot from my trailer and a shot from an established trailer next to each other covering one of these areas listed below and write a paragraph explaining it, either directly on Blogger or on a software such as Slideshare.  

-Title of film

-Setting/Location

-Costumes and props

-Camera work and editing

-Title font and style

-Story and how the opening sets it up

-Genre and how the opening sets it up

-How characters are introduced

-Special affects

Evaluation Question 1B (ancillary tasks): 
This is the same task as the one above but with a main focus of my ancillary tasks (poster and magazine front cover) and how these challenge and/or develop the forms and conventions of real media products.  I would like to carry out this task on something like Prezi as I think I can bring both a visual and written appeal to it through this software. 

Evaluation Question 2: 
For this task I would like to use iMovie to add photographs and a voiceover on top of my main product (trailer) explaining this tasks aims in a more creative and interesting way. 

Evaluation Question 3: 
For this task I would like to use PowToon as I can bring both a visual and written appeal to this presentation and I can also add voiceovers, photographs and videos etc if needed. 

Evaluation Question 4: 
For this task, for the same reasons as above, I would like to use Emaze as I can bring both a visual and written appeal to this presentation and I can explain in as much or little detail as I want how these technologies helped me throughout this whole process for my coursework.

Evaluation Research

1. Katie Hamilton
http://katiehamilton25.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/evaluation-question-1.html

This candidate uses the technique of having a YouTube video with a voice over and other over lapping images throughout for 3 out of the four evaluation questions. This technique is generally effective as it is visually appealing and isn't necessarily visually heavy on the text used. However, I think she could have been a bit more creative about which techniques and websites she used for each questions to explore and demonstrate her different ideas. Overall, her work is detailed and thorough. 

2. Kayleigh Harris
http://kayleighharrisa2.blogspot.co.uk/

This candidate took a completely opposite approach to Katie's (above). Although these tasks are highly detailed, they aren't visually appealing as she only used a couple of screenshots/ photographs in each question and it appears to be too chaotic due to the amount of text used. I think it looks too busy and she could have used a variety of techniques and skills to show her evaluations. Personally, I don't like this approach so I wouldn't like to use something like this in my own evaluations.  

3. Daniel Windele 

http://danielwindele17.blogspot.co.uk/

This student tried using variety of techniques by including having a YouTube video to carry out his second evaluation task and for the first and second one having software equivalent to Prezi and Slideshare to do so. This student however, didn't carry out his forth evaluation question so I wasn't able to see if he used any more different websites that I could also use.  I like how so far from the two previous blogs I looked at, he has tried using different software as well as ideas to make his tasks seem as visually appealing as possible. 

4. Aneesa Anwar  

http://aneesaa2coursework.blogspot.co.uk/?view=classic 

This is also another example of how a student tries to use different websites to carry out their evaluation tasks. For her second evaluation task she has used Prezi, however, I feel although she tried to make it look as visually appealing as possible it does appear to look quiet busy.  For another question she uploaded a video on YouTube and added text and a voice over on top of her main product.  Her work appears to be detailed yet visually it's a bit busy. 

Poster Amendments: FINAL POSTER

 

This is my final poster for Priceless, I spent a lot of time creating it to make sure that everything was as close to perfect as possible so I wouldn't have to keep making a lot of changes. After I posted it on Instagram, I got a lot of positive feedback as well as some comments which suggested I do some minor improvements. These were mainly those about the tagline "out summer 2016" as one of my audience members commented it looked slightly stretched out so I fixed that and it does look a lot better. A long with that I removed some of the names in my billing blocks as they were far to big so the proportions from text to the bottom of the page weren't the same as those at the top. The only thing that was suggested but I didn't want to change is the colour of the font and this is because I didn't think it would stand out as much if it were a different colour other than black.

Although they were small amendments, I do think my poster does look better and I'm glad I have changed them as this suggests my poster will be even more effective than before.  Overall, I am really pleased with my poster. 

Poster Audience Feedback

As previously mentioned on my blog, I posted my poster on both Instagram and Twitter to get some feedback from those following my account. The Instagram account I created appeared to be most effective as more of my films followers were interacting and giving their opinions than those on Twitter, however, I still managed to get some useful feed back from Twitter as well. 

This collage shows the feedback I got from posting my poster on Instagram. When I posted the poster, I did so asking for both pros and cons in order to see what they thought worked well and what I could improve on. I'm glad I created this account as the comments I received were very helpful, especially because most of the people that gave me feedback were in fact within the age groups of my targeted audience members.  

I am planning on reading through them all again and picking out some things I could improve on which would actually look good if I were to do so as I really want them to be as appealing to my audience members as possible. 

First draft: final poster for Priceless

This is the final poster for my magazine. In the end, I slightly changed the ideas I had for the images in each circle. I thought it would be better if in the top two circles, included photographs of the two female characters with the child as stereotypically, women are much more nurturing that men. In the centre, I still included the photo of the baby and in the bottom two circles, I included two pictures of the couples in each one. 

I like how this turned out as I think it is different and is still eye-catching, I also like how it further makes audience members wander what the narrative is exactly about and why there appears to be a contrast shown. 

Throughout the progression of my poster I have been heavily relying on the rulers tool in Photoshop in order to make sure all the text is placed correctly and the image to text ratio is fitting. To improve however, I think I could possibly try out different fonts for either the reviews or the "out summer 2016" tagline to make them further stand out and visually appealing. In addition, I didn't realise this until now but the gap from the last text to the end of the page isn't the same due to the billing blocks as it is on the top of the page so to improve my poster I could also work on that. 

I have shared this poster on both social media accounts I created for my film and I am waiting for some feed back from my audience members to see what they think I could improve on. On both of my trailer's social media accounts (Twitter and Instagram) I used as an icon image (far right) one which I created on Photoshop. Although simplistic, I think it is highly effective as it informs the audience members on the social media sites available as part of my films promotional campaign and where they can ask any questions they have. This is almost serving as brand identity and I think it works very well. 

Priceless film poster progression

I created the collage on the right to show my poster progression. To make this poster I gradually added each feature to bring it together nicely and make sure each one was placed in the right position. 

In the first one I had a picture of billing blocks from the internet, however I created my own by the second draft to make it more fitting to my film. By the third draft I added the pictures I wanted to include in my poster to give further insight of the narrative to my audience members. Throughout the progression of my poster, I used a basic Photoshop font to just get the layout to my satisfaction.  

As seen on the left, by my final poster, I added a second review and had the particular text I chose to include for the inter-titles throughout my film's trailer. 

Film posters with illustrations

When I had the idea of hand drawing my final poster, although it was an interesting one, I was worried it wouldn't look as professional as it would if I were to use an actual photograph. 

However, I did some further research and found out that there are numerous films within a variety of genres that use illustrations as part of their posters. Some of these films include, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Beautiful Losers, which are both quiet successful films and the illustration included works very well with both the themes and ideas of the film.  

(collage created on www.picmonkey.com) 

Final Poster Sketch

This is my final poster sketch, I used the previous one as a guide and made the appropriate changes that I had in mind in order to make it a lot better. To create this, I firstly sketched it out and then used both water soluble paints and pencils to give it a visual combination of both a painting and photograph. 

I'm really pleased with how it went as I spent a lot of time both sketching it and painting it to get it exactly how I wanted it and I'm especially happy because it turned out as good as I had planned it would. I took a photograph of this and scanned it in to Photoshop. I firstly cropped it, as before I had some of the table I took a picture of the poster on and needed to get rid of it, however, there is still a bit of it left (as can be seen by the edges on the left so when I start adding the photographs and text in it, I will need to crop it a bit more. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product as I am hoping and think it will be very unique and effective. 

Diary Post 10: Editing day 2

Since the last time I edited my film's trailer, I kept trying to amend it and fix it as I went along. Today however, I purely focused on the inter-titles I wanted to include in my trailer. These are very important because as I previously mentioned, I don't want to have any dialogue included in my trailer so these play an important role in delivering and further making it clear to the audience as to what is going on and what will happen.  As well as that, they are important as they are some of the generic features included in a trailer and I'm trying to make mine look as well established as possible.I think it went quite well other than a little change which is that I had to change the way the inter-titles entered on the screen as they were too large and the text kept changing layout. Other than that, I think it is starting to come along together nicely and when I next edit it, I would like to add music and sound. 

Photographs for my film's poster

These are all five of the photographs I would like to include in my poster as I think this will bring it nicely together as it will look interesting with both elements of digital photographs and illustration (sketch). I furthermore think that this will link it closely to my film and give audience members a more general idea of what the film is about. I'm using photographs I took of each female protagonist with the baby and a photograph of the baby by it self along with photographs of the couples to give more insight into the characters that the audience members will see in my film. I chose these photographs of the couples as these are ones that they already had from times they went out as family, giving it a more natural and personal feel to it. I really like these photographs and I think they will work well nicely. 

Poster Draft

I created a collage using PicMonkey to put all of the images I used as inspiration when creating my very first poster draft. As previously mentioned on I wanted to draw my poster out to give it an element of authenticity. I only briefly described my plans for my poster so in this post I am going to explain exactly what and why I created it like this. I used these four pictures as inspiration for the colour schemes, techniques and style.

After looking at them all and taking elements I liked most from each one, I created a rough sketch and also added text to have as a guide. I think this worked out quiet well and I like the idea of drawing it as it is quiet different and unique, drawing in the audience.  In each circle, I am planning putting a portrait of each character and in the centre (where there is a slight formation of a heart), I'm planning on putting a picture of the baby. 

The only thing I don't particularly like about this sketch is how illustrated and fictional it looks, for example the squiggly  parts of the branch doesn't give it a realistic feel. So when I re-draw and paint this, I am going to only keep the squiggly parts for the heart in the middle . I do like however, the positioning of the text, so I am planning on keeping that the same. I would also like to add a second review, probably on the bottom left to add more positive features of my film to the poster, appealing to the audience. 

Poster and Magazine Ideas

 This collage includes the sketches I made of the ideas I had for poster ideas for my trailer. I chose these because I thought if any of them were used as my final one, my audience members would be able to get a feel as to what type of film mine is, even if they haven't seen the trailer. 

• The first one I drew is of a family tree and I chose this because my film covers themes of family relationships and backgrounds etc. 
• The second idea is of a weighing scale and I wanted in each side of the scale to put a picture of the baby I was going to use in my film. I thought that this one in particular was quiet a clever, one because if I chose to have this as I final one, I could chose to have the scales balanced showing how little power or say the child actually has about what will happen due to the circumstances (and of course as it is a baby). This I think would be an effective one as it will make the audience wander what will happen to the baby. 
• The third poster idea I had was of my character Athena standing to the sign showing her pregnant tummy and editing a British Pound sign on top of it in line with her tummy showing connoting to the audience that money in this characters pregnancy or even in her life may appear to be an issue. 

This collage, however, includes the sketches I made of ideas I had for magazine front cover features of my trailer. I again chose these three because I thought they were very strong ones and would each work very well in getting audience members further interested in my film and I think this is because the ideas for the central images of this cover are extremely strong and eye catching.  While sketching these all out, I had the Sight & Sound magazine layout in mind because as I previously mentioned on my blog, after my research I think that the most fitting magazine to my film is Sight & Sound. 

• The first one that I drew is of my character Athena standing to the side with her pregnant tummy showing and instead of it looking like she is leaning against the wall, I had the idea of her leaning against the title of the film. 
• The second idea I had is of both my main character standing with their body language direct to the camera but their heads facing the opposite ways. In the middle of them is the baby, suggesting to the audience that this may be the only thing connecting them. 
• The third and final idea I had is one which include two different pictures that I would then have to edit in Photoshop together. This cover idea includes both my characters against the wall in their house which once edited will give an illusion that they are back to back. I think this is an effective idea as in each picture, the background will be included, showing the difference in their social status and financial situation. 

For my final poster, I think I am going to have the one of the tree which I am planning on drawing/ painting out giving it a more personal feel to it, again linking it in with the social realism genre.  For my final magazine front cover will be the one with the characters looking away with the baby in the middle as I think this one in particular is most eye catching and will make my targeted audience wander what my film is about. I think that the ones I chose as final pieces will work extremely well both all together with my trailer and other ancillary tasks but also individually and I think they link nicely with my narrative, making this clear to my targeted audience that they are part of the same product pieces.