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

Construction We incorporated various technologies such as SLR cameras, Mac computers and other software to help us create our teaser trailer, Poster and Website.  The image to the left is the 5D Canon camera we used it to take pictures and a 500D to film (right) our teaser trailer.  This ensured high quality viewing for our audience and captured the detail of the writing on the wall.  It was easy to connect the cameras to the Mac and transfer the images to edit with ‘lightroom’ adjusting the contrast for all the pictures.   To create the time lapse we used a device which took pictures every 2 seconds.  We also looked at YouTube clips in how time lapse's work and what they are.   

 

Wix was very easy to use to make our Cause Unknown website.  Click here to see more on how we constructed the website with different features.

To gain audience feedback  we used YouTube, Facebook (using our own profiles and making a 'like' page) and SurveyMonkey this helped us on our research in improving our teaser trailer.  We also created a Twitter account due to the ever growing popularity of the social networking site.  People are able to see what we are doing with our film and can interact with us on a more personal level.  Audience feedback is most effective online because of how easy it is for people to access the internet through smart phones, Ipads and computers where ever you are.  Nearly all technology has the internet so it is quick to respond to surveys and watch videos.     

A YouTube converter allowed us get non- diagetic sounds but make it sound diagetic.  This was particularly used on our website with the sound of a girl whispering.

Garageband on the Mac computers was useful as it has been in our AS level work last year.  We can layer different sounds to make it more realistic within our teaser.

To create the typography on the website and blog we searched on the internet for 'handwriting' fonts to get the child like writing we were looking for.  Urbanfonts has thousands to choose from making our font look unique.  

For our teaser trailer we used iMovie '11 this uses up to date features and we are able to set the frame per second (fps) to our accordance which was 2fps.  We trimmed clips to bring focus on the wall and the writing itself.  

  

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

The combination of products is what entices an audience into paying to see the film. We wanted all our publications to feature a common theme, and use the same symbolism in each. We looked at the Dark Knight Rises ancilliary, as they each use minimalist symbolism to tease the audience into watching the film. The poster uses the 'Bat' logo as an instant draw, very simplistic yet instantly recognise. Although we do not have our own symbol, we can use one, such as a white dress, to represent something that will draw our audience in.

The Dark Knight Rises website uses black to represent darkness, and a broken Batman mask to represent Batman being broken. The rain and figure of Bayne represent how he has been left outside, alone and without help. It is this style and symbolism that we used for inspiration for our combination of ancilliary texts, as we used the angelic figure of the dress to symbolise a light in the darkness, and kept the same gritty theme throught out publicatuions.

Our teaser trailer shows innocence, paired with confusion and fear with the ripping white noise creating unease and discomfort. This contrasts with our poster, as our poster only shows the innocence we are trying to convey. The absence of writing on the wall is also a choice we made, to separate the trailer from the poster and website. We have also hidden her identity in both the poster and website, which conveys innocence.

Creating a balance between similarity and contrast to create a consistant and visually distinct style was our biggest challenge when creating our ancillary texts. All pieces convey a dark feel, with the white dress and blonde hair representing an angelic feel, with a sense of lighting up the darkness. The trailer also plays on this symbolism with the match lighting up the surroundings with a luminous glow.

Our website uses similar imagery as the other two publications, however we opted for a darker theme. Using a photograph of the drawn-on wall, we have created a dark scene,with our trailer at the center. Using the trailer in the center, Eva (our main character) is mostly covered up, removing some innocence from the scene, whilst drawing more attention to our trailer.




The poster is our most 'innocent' publication, as it doesn't give much away to the audience and shows Eva is a dim but fair light. Attention is drawn to the centre of the poster, which shows a souble shadow of Eva. this double shadow is representative of her mind, fragmented into two - the innocent little girl, and the angry and seemingly endoctrinated tortured soul. The title is also split in two, which is also a symbol of this.

Our trailer is a combination of both innocence and darkness, and is the most revealing of all our pieces, as we reveal Eva's face. The time lapse shows how this is happening over a long period of time, and expresses her frustration and confusion. The trailer compliments our poster and website by keeping with the same angelic feel of Eva, however when we see her face at the end of the trailer the image is black and white with her in darkness, looking angry. This contrasts with our poster, but also shows the two sides of Eva - the angelic figure, and the angry tortured soul.

The idea of our ancillary texts are to draw our target audience to our trailer, which is more revealing than the website and poster. All our pieces are good advertisement, as each piece leads the audience to ask questions - The poster and website leave her without an identity, whereas the trailer reveals her face, however that leaves the audience asking why she is angry.

Creating the Website

This is a draft of what the website looks like currently without the trailer. We used Wix.com to create it and it was very simple to use with lots of different features such as fade in, changing the behaviours of the different sections.  
We made the background picture transparent because otherwise users would not pay attention to other areas of the website and other tabs would be disguised.  We went for the white coloured font so it stands out from the blackness of the background.  The white symbolises purity and innocence, representing the young girl but the black is there to tell the audience that there's a dark side in the narrative.  
The sound adds an eery effect to the page with whisper sounds (sourced from YouTube)- it also can depict the idea of schizophrenia we have put into the trailer with different voices in her head which is put on to the wall.   
  

Black Swan Website

This is one of our favourite website designs as the layout is simplistic with Natalie Portman (main character) duplicated, the image has an minor effect with it moving slowly side to side.  Clips of the film is playing on top of the main page when you click on the 'Black Swan' title.  Reviews are put on the website (as shown on her back) this entitles the audience to know how the film is and of course the quotes shown will be all positive with one or few powerful words which remain memorable.  A link to another option is created by a fade in transition.  People who visit the website can have a choice either to 'turn on' the music or 'off.' Showing they have the audience in mind.

The main website covers majority of the screen, with a black background and shots of the actual film.  Links to Facebook and Twitter demonstrates the movie likes to have interactivity with their audience, this way, the movie gets to have a greater level of feedback from different sorts of people all over the world. 

This screenshot is illustrating how the film incorportes a short clip of the film with a 'skip intro' tab so it is not compulsory to watch the zoomed in clip.  however it does give a nice insight to what is included in the film.  

Quite long descriptions of the cast and crew is included, this shows how good the actors are within the Black Swan. 

It can also be an attractive trait to audiences to make them watch the movie because they maybe watch films for the actors.  Artistic imagery  

is used as the background to show the elegance of the theme which is all to do with ballet but contrasting with the black to illistrate there is a dark element within Black Swan.    

The website is very easy to navigate from page to page as you don't have reload the whole webpage.  We would like to incorporate this style into our own website as well as how the image is shown- whereby it covers the majority of the screen.  This way, it will be more eye-catching to audiences, keeping them more focused and interested.

'A Beautiful Mind ' Website Deconstruction

A Beautiful Mind  is interactive as you are going through links which is entertaining for the audience.  You are able to play games which test your mind - links in with theme of the film.   Even though the film is not horror related we like the features created on the page.  This gives us a clear indication of what tabs to put on our own webpage. 

Website Deconstruction

We've done deconstructions of High Tension and A Beautiful Mind - the websites.  We thought High Tension isn't as interactive as we would have liked because the image is very striking and effective however the features aren't great.