Voice over

 This is the voice over script for the trailer. For the voice over we decided that we needed to look at trailers that also had a voice over and look at the effectiveness of this compared with the outcome of the voice over as well as wether the voice over was done my a male or female as well as if the voice over was long pieces or wether it was short pieces.

By looking Pearl Harbours film trailer, you can see that the trailer consists of a male voice over which creates a foundation for other non-diagetic sound to be placed over the trailer.

In comparison by looking at Saving Private Ryan it is clear to see that the voice over of the trailer is not as effective as Pearl Harbour's because of the genre difference as well as the differential decoding of the target audience and the purpose of the film.

 However by comparing these voice overs with the voice over in which I conducted as an individual was challenging the conventions of a war film.

By looking at a Slide share presentation i was able to gather some statistics which state that the most effective gender for a voice over is male because of the more assertiveness with the tone and pitch of the voice which suits 80% of genres of films.  This information i collected was from the slide on the hyperlink below;

The effectiveness of gender voice-overs in television commercials

Social networks

Some of the social networks that our team have used within our course work are;

• Blogger
• Youtube
• Slide share
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Intergram

We used blogger to update our blogs with new information about all of the information and steps that we was taking within our coursework to reach the final product. We also looked at other blogs from people with similar specifications and also some blogs with how to get target audience as well as how to use imovie and final cut express to their full advantage. By using Blogger we had this as an advantage with our digital technology, this is because we used this application within our foundation portfolio, we used it to record all of our blogs and vlogs as well as posting our final pieces on to the internet via this web application.

   

We used youtube to research many different things such as trailers. The reason why we decided to use youtube to research trailers is because on youtube there is a wide range of possible trailers which are available to anyone who can access the internet.  We also used YouTube because we managed to upload out trailer on to the internet to get some national and international views and responses on the final product. We mainly used this web application because on youtube there are a variety of different videos that we watched when we was stuck or confused about how to do a certain thing. For example we used YouTube to research how to use liquid latex to do a scar on the face, and so by following the video which we found on YouTube we were able to recreate a scar which is part of the make up with the trailer for the main character. The benefits of using youtube is that there is so many trailers on this site that no matter what genre you are after there is bound to be a trailer with that genre. We also used youtube to research the different ways in which we can edit the trailer as well as the different ways in which we could edit the poster and magazine pictures. We also used youtube to display our final trailer to get feedback form the general public. 

We also used slide share to help us out with things such as target audience questionnaires and the genres which we was considering choosing for our trailer. I personally used Slideshare for when i was stuck on a blog post to see if someone else had written a powerpoint about the post that i was doing and seeing if i could get any help from reading it.

 We used Facebook for many different reasons throughout our coursework, the main one was for target and audience feedback. This is because we uploaded many different posts on to Facebook, some of them were titles and fonts so that we could see what our target audience thought about our possible titles and the possible fonts in which we thought of. We also used it to get feedback on our poster ideas and magazine ideas as well as our final products of our poster and magazine. We also posted the final products as a package bundle onto Facebook to see what people of all ages thought about our final product. 

We also used Twitter to upload our final versions of our products such as our poster, magazine cover and our trailer. From this we was able to gather our target audience feedback by using a variety of different social networking sites to be able to catch the attention of our desired target audience.

We also used Instagram to upload our poster and magazine ideas as well as the full package at the end to see what followers thought about our trailer, poster and magazine cover. I have included my target audience feedback from Instagram within my blogs for my reasons why I have changed something or for the reason why we haven't changed anything.

Final Film

Above is a screen shot of our film which has been uploaded onto youtube. By clicking on the link below it will take you to youtube where you will be able to find our trailer.

http://youtu.be/d9rUKMleKmI

Magazine Cover

Music inspirations and ideas

The music inspiration in which i have looked are are these two songs, This is because I think that by the removal of a few of the lyrics from 'eye of the tiger' then this will give a good base line for the training scenes for the girls. This will give the atmosphere of inspiration for the characters as well as giving teh audience a new atmosphere in which they would associate the genre WAR with. This will also be apart of our goal which is to challenge the conventions of a typical war film.

Survivor- Eye of the tiger

In the wild, seeing the "eyes" of the tiger signifies death, because right before a tiger attacks, it turns its ears forward so that the spot on the back of each ear faces nearer its prey. The "eye spots" on the back of tigers' ears serve to confuse predators and reduce the risk of attack from behind. Hence, once someone sees these "eyes", the tiger is about to attack. So this can be related to our trailer because it is linked to death and the fear of being worthless and afraid.

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" was written during his World War I experience. Owen was an officer in the British Army, and he wanted for all of the people back home to know what peoples sons and husbands were doing as well as what monstrosity it was causing. His poem explains how the British press and public comforted themselves with the fact that, terrible that is was, all the young men dying in the war were dying noble, heroic deaths as they were patriotic enough to die young and proud, dying for their country. Although the case was that there was obscene and terrible deaths, but Own wanted to throw the war right into the patriotic's noses just to visually illustrate how vile and inhumane the was really is. He explains within this poem that people will encourage you to fight for your country, but, in reality, it may simply be sentencing yourself to an early unnecessary death. The title of the poem means "Sweet and Fitting it is," and then the poem ends with the title that is, in fact, a lie.

peer assessment

November 
 So far so good, maybe go back through your research and add in more detail and look in to different areas to compare them to one another as this will help you analyse :)   ---- Emily

December 

    I like the fact that you have given justification for your reasons why for choosing a certain picture or title, i also really like how you have investigated other areas which influence and contribute to your final piece.-- Jude

January

 I like that you have gone down different paths to create a sort of advanced in your technology and knowledge since starting the course, I also like the fact that the blogs are all organised and easy to access.---

Georgina

March

I like that you have completed all of the necessary blogs as well as extra ones to possibly gain you more marks as well as explaining all of your points fully. I mostly like the way in which you have evaluated your groups choices on the magazine cover and poster.  ---- Lois

Garage Band

To create the music for our trailer we used a program called GarageBand, below I have included a print screen of a part of the track in which Emma created. The reason why we chose Emma to create the music for our advanced portfolio was because she had used GarageBand in her foundation portfolio so she was already familiar with the software and its applications. However we still worked as a team on the music this is because all three of us had certain inputs into the music creation, we done this by suggesting certain things in which Emma could input into the music as well as giving reviews when Emma had done a section we would all listen to it and give our feedback. Emma was able to use GarageBand loops to be able to create the music in which we needed, what this meant was that she was able to construct a piece of music by having a collection of musical instruments combined together, by finding tones which complimented one another and which fit in with certain parts of the trailer. Emma made sure that each piece of music was long enough for the trailer section by using the timer tool which can be located at the bottom of the screen. Within the screen shot in which I have included its clear to see where one instrument is as well as where others are located.

Final Cut Express

When it came to editing our footage and composing our trailer we decided to use a software called Final Cut Express. This is a different software to the one in which I used within my foundation portfolio. The one in which I used within my foundation portfolio is Imovie which was more advanced with the technology and last year I did not find that Imovie was easier to use than Final Cut Express. Below I have included some print screens of how we used Final Cut Express to create our film trailer. 
   
The first step in which we had to do was import the footage and pictures from the SD card to the mac as we used both still images and running footage within our trailer for different effects. The screen shot below shows that the footage in which we required is on the bar at the bottom where we can edit the footage to make it as effective as what we can do with this software. By using this software we have the ability to import a large amount of footage in one go which makes it more effectively and efficiently.

After we had imported the footage it was time to start composing our film by clipping some footage. This step is where we started to combine footage sections together, within this stage we hadn't added in any transitions so the footage was jumping from one scene to another so it was not in a flowing matter at this stage. However by using the software to its potential we was able to shuffle the footage around into different places so that we could create our desired plot as well as to make sure that the footage made sense.

After we arranged the footage as well as editing and cropping the desired footage to what we needed and required we then began to slot it all together with the addition of transitions. We used a variety of different transitions to start off with but then we decided to keep the consistency throughout the trailer, so we decided to stick to fades of black and white. The reason for this is because as a group decision we felt that it looked more professional when we had consistency throughout the trailer. The fades to white added more of an action feel to the trailer and it gave the trailer a quicker pace with the transition, however the fade to black gave the opposite which was the corresponding feel which is what we were looking for which was fear which is what we wanted the fade to black to represent.

The editing process in which we under went involved the following steps;  cropping, cutting, inserting, adding filters, removing and overlapping sound, using two different software's together, changing speed and many other steps. Two members within the group had the most strongest skills and knowledge about using Final Cut Express within our group and so everyone within the group still had a go at using the software so that they can also gain confidence and contribute to the trailer. This was a benefit to the group as we was able to make the trailer a success between the three of us.

My Role within the group

Because of some disturbances within the groups unfortunately I was unable to stay with the same group from my foundation portfolio, which meant that as a group we had to figure out what everyone's strengths and weaknesses were so that we could help one another and combine our strengths for the effectiveness for our film. My main role within the group was being the main character within the film as I was the member with the most confidence about being filmed and performing to a high standard. However the other two members of my group gave me suggestions and input about what I could do to improve my performance as well as telling me things which would help our group such as standing in a different position for the magazine cover. I also had the roles of making the scripts for the voice overs as well as performing the voice overs for the trailer. Last year my role was to do the schedule and to organize what shots we needed on each filming trip, however this year I was able to expand on my knowledge and gain experience within all areas of the coursework rather than in one aspect.
  My weakest areas are editing which is because I had to learn editing by self-taught techniques because i did not know how to use Final Cut Express and so I had to look up certain things such as how to insert transitions as well as how to render the clips and I looked this up by asking our technician as well as looking things up on the internet with an application called YouTube.

Challenging the conventions

Within our trailer we challenged the conventions of a typical war film. This is because our film has the typical conventions of;

• Location- in an abandoned place which is perfect for a battle scene between enemies. Or long empty streets with little housing.
• Natural ambiance lighting from natural sources such as lamppost lighting as well as natural lighting form the sun and surrounding reflections.
• Typically all males feature in the film, to show assertiveness and firm decision making.
• and many more...

However as a group we have decided to challenge the conventions of a traditional war film, this is because we wanted our trailer to be rememberable for our target audience. 

   We challenged the conventions of a war film because we decided to have all female characters and actors within the film. This challenged the convention of a war film because typically there would have been all males within the film which would have meant more of a materialistic view to the film as well as the target audience having a different judgement and a different view of how they would percept the film. By having all females we challenged the convention of a war because typically back in the day, women were not allowed to fight in the war. So this also advertised and promoted women's rights and feminism within a generic time for the country.

    We added in artificial ambiance lighting within the film to give the film a more of an edge feel to it for suspension and adrenaline rush.By having the torch as a source of artificial lighting this gave the scene at the end a more of a clearing to the suspected visual representation of the film. We challenged this convention of a war film because of the effectiveness in which it produced as well as how it linked to our trailer effectively which gave the trailer something to flow by as well as having an uncovered section within the film to intrigue the target audience.

  We changed the location of shooting our film to challenge the conventions of a war, this is because of the effectiveness of which we found with other locations as they produced the atmosphere to accompany the acting and representation of the war with the contrast of the music which was made, produced and directed by Emma.

As you can see from our film poster that we have challenged the conventions of a war film poster as well as challenging the conventions of a war magazine cover, below are the examples and our magazine cover and the film poster.

Story Board

Watch the story board right from the paramount and touchstone screen through to the billboard at the end.

final film poster

Magazine development

This picture was taken so that we could get a different perspective compared to the film poster. This is because  within the film poster we have focused upon a single individual character to have the feeling of total alone ness within the picture for emphasis and affection to the target audience. At a first glance this is just a simple picture but in fact it symbolizes their solitude as a character and an individual about how alone they are in something so serious and life changing.  We did consider having both of the characters looking into the camera to have that connection with the target audience, however we wanted to capture the power and portray it in way of an emotion. An emotion of looking up and having just that tiny bit if hope which will help them conquer their mission. The key concept of this picture is something very small but it is very significant and this is the position of my hand ( the one in the army gear ), As you can see from this image you can see that both characters look very distant, but by having the hand connection they symbolize unity and becoming one and it also creates and portrays a stronger connection between both characters.                                                

This was one of our first ideas for our film magazine.  We thought that this kind of position may portray a sense of fear as both of the characters are trying to hide behind the tree suggesting that they are running from something.  However we found that this kind of magazine cover didn't suit trailer conventions and the angling of the characters also looked strange.  In hindsight we could see that there wouldn't be enough room around the characters for text, the tree trunk takes up the center of the cover which draws in most attention and Laura's positioning it too twisted, a more direct angle such as Jess' would have worked better.  It presents our main character as very vulnerable for our magazine cover, vulnerability is something we could use in our poster however for the magazine we wanted to create a sense of power to imply more things about the film.          

                                                                                                       Improved

                  Original          

These are our two different magazine covers which we had to change and improve upon due to the target audience feedback as well as not having the requirements for the target audience. The target audience feedback suggested to us is that the girl in the army outfit is to much blended into the background and the so the magazine cover did not have the affect in which we wanted it too. So by having taken in our target audience feedback we decided to take into account all of the possibilities for our magazine cover.

 The difference between the two magazine covers are; changing the colour of the text at the top of the magazine cover as well as for the exclusive  text which is located within the magazine cover at the middle left side of the magazine cover. We also elaborated on the background colour of the trees as well as the composition of the outfits and how they were lifted with the use of colour enlighten tool. Emma was the more professional and most educated when it came to Photoshop so she was the one to make all of the changes as we wanted more of a professional look to the magazine cover rather than an amateur doing the magazine cover.  We also changed the title of our film with font, this is because we decided to have our logo included upon the magazine cover, this is because at first we just substituted for a different font style due to us not of already completing the trailer. 

Green screen

The green screen was used within our research and planning because we wanted to research about the best possible ways in which we could present our trailer and poster, as well as showing how our skills have developed from our foundation portfolio to our advanced portfolio.  But after doing some trial runs on what the outcome would be we decided that this would not be effective within our trailer because of the realism behind it. This is because all backgrounds we could find for the green screen made the trailer look amateur and completely unprofessional. We mainly used the green screen within our research stage of our coursework which allowed us to experiment about how we could use the green screen effectively or to see whether it would work or not.  By experimenting with the green screen we was able to gain knowledge and information about how to use the green screen as well as how professional photographers use green screen to create film posters and magazine covers.
 
During the research stage of researching magazine covers and how the are combined with different methods and forms of applications and softwares, we came across a convention which was the background of the covers. Which was commonly a hazy background or a background which looked like it had been technically modified to fit the purpose of the cover. By looking at this conversation we attempted to use the green screen to re-create the magazine covers which we had researched. The reason why we attempted to use the green screen was to try to have the professional approach on the magazine cover. Although the outcome which happened was unbearable, this is because no one within our group used the green screen before in our foundation portfolio so we was unsure about all of the different factors which could affect the outcome of the picture.

A benefit of using the green screen is that by capturing shots and still images with the screen would increase the professionalism of the film poster as well as almost imitating the film posters we have researched which could become more appealing to our target audience. It also allowed us to re-take the still images as often as we like rather than having to wait for the most appropriate weather moment.

In conclusion with using the green screen it is clear to us as a group that we could not use the green screen to add professionalism within our promotional package, this is because we were not comfortable and confident when using the green screen as well as trying to combine the appropriate background with the possible picture. We also felt as a group that we lacked the knowledge of how to use the green screen effectively to get the best possible grade for our film poster.

Film Poster Collage- war