Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and evaluation stages? on Prezi

Evaluation Question 3

Tom Harris

This is a mind map i made on bubbl.us talking about what we have learnt from our audience feedback 

Evaluation Question 2

This a video of us answering evaluation question two, filmed on photobooth and roughly edited in final cut express.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Sophie Richardson 
This is the prezi i made, answering evaluation question one, talking about the technologies we have used. 

Final Magazine Cover

This is our final version of our magazine cover! 

Final Cut

Another One Bites The Dust Final Poster

Audience Feedback

We did hot seating when our products were nearly finished, where we went round each iMac and watched each others trailers

This is the feedback we recieved when the products were completely finished.

Editing Process

TRAILER
Before the editing process even began, we had to collect enough footage to make a complete 2 minute trailer. We shot certain scenes 6 or 7 times even if initial ones were alright to be absolutely definite that when we came to editing the trailer, there would be no errors. So, after importing the video clips of Final Cut Express, we started looking through each one and deciding which of them were suitable to use. Then, in co-operation with the screenplay we had written weeks earlier, we put the clips we had chosen into the correct order and cropped out parts of it if there was unnecessary visual or audio input or if the footage lasted too long. After they had been ordered and initially cut down, we started adding effects to some of the clips by narrowing the screen with a mask shape, and darkening the scene by reducing brightness and contrast. We also played around with the sounds so that some of the audio was heightened and other parts mute so that the soundtrack, which had not been put on yet, would be more prominent. Next, we inserted the logo we had created earlier into the start of the video to make it seem more professional. This was quickly followed by creations of several intertitles which we made on Final Cut Express and slipped in nicely between the footage. We added the transition Edge Wipe to some of the videos and intertitles to make the flow of proceedings even more smooth. Next, we inserted the soundtrack to accompany the visuals and finally finished it by inserting the green rating card at the very beginning of the trailer.


MAGAZINE
Before being able to edit anything on photoshop we had to take the correct images. Whilst shooting we continued to take shots, hoping that the spontinuity and the realism of the situation would come through in the pictures. We had to shoot three or four times to get all the images we needed for the print products. For the magazine we initially wanted to use an image with both main characters in, and after trying it out we discovered that these weren't working right so we played around with the images and in the end, we cut our female protagonist from the pictures using the magnetic lasso tool. We then used a black background and pasted the image onto the plain black document. Then erased around the image to make it smooth and so there were nothing left from the other image. I then used a gradient tool to add an orange glow behind her. We used the fonts from dafont.com to create the sell lines and used a variation of colours and added strokes onto the text to make them stand out and look more like a professional text.


POSTER
For the poster we also had to do a number of shoots to get the images we needed for the poster. We used about four different images and none of them looked professional. There was one shot that we both liked the poses and positioning on the image but due to the height difference between the two people, despite Lauren wearing very high heels we couldn't create the poster or magazine with that image. As it was a high angled shot, the height difference looked even more prominant, so we cut lauren on the image and then moved her further up the page and more to the right then merged the image so it became one. Then to fill up the space where the original image had been we used to the gradient tool and just pulled black over it until it looked near enough one image. We then used to photos of my hands covered in blood to look like zombie hands, changed the exposure and brightness on photoshop then burnt them, then again using the magnestic lasso tool cut them and put them all around the edge of the poster. We then added the credits and text but still felt that the poster was missing something, so we set out to take a picture of the sunset when the sky was a pinky/red/orange colour. We took this image and layered it over the top of the poster image, then changed the oppocity and erased it so that it looked as though it was in the background of the image when it was orignally taken.

Logo Sketches

This is the initial sketch I made of what was going to become our film production company. It is called Orion Productions and is simple in design and content. First, I used Final Cut Express to edit a picture of space I found on Google Images. I cropped the image, then made it zoom in and swirl at the same time. I let it do this for about 3 seconds then paused it after this time. Then, I created the text which reads "ORION PRODUCTIONS" and made it rise and fall until it reached the near bottom of the image. There, I used key frames to maximise the brightness to 100% but quickly reduced it to normal so it gave the effect of a quick flash.

Voice Over Construction

For the start of our trailer we wanted the voice over to sound like several overlapped radio broadcasts warning people of the escaped victim, which started the zombie outbreak. We constructed this by using a video camera and filming myself, Tom, Al and Beccy reading from our script, then overlapped them the way we wanted it to sound, then we removed the video so we were left with the audio.

Sophie Richardson 
Today (Friday 7th October) we recorded our voiceovers for the trailer in the dance studio. We recorded it using a video camera and just kept the audio. We have now dropped it into Final Cut Pro and are going to start editing it. We recorded four different people saying our script, myself and Tom both did it and we recorded Al and Beccy too. We now have a variety of different voices to use in our trailer, we recorded these as separate radio broadcasts, we are now going to decide which voice suits specific parts of the voiceover the best then edit it so it sounds like different broadcasts overlapping one another. Tom Harris has imported the files into Final Cut and is currently removing the audio to use and editing them into the right order.  

Al read - “...local authorities have advised citizens living on the island to report any suspicious behavior to the police immediately...”


and...


“...people of Hollow...stay indoors, stay equipped and above all...stay safe...”


Beccy read - “...the escaped convict in question was originally detained in the Hollow Psychiatric Facility situated on the south of the island and is described by officials as extremely dangerous...”


Sophie read - “...talks within Parliament are believed to have been very constructive regarding the future of Hollow Island...”


Tom read - “...it is with deep regret that all ferries arriving to and departing from Hollow are hereby cancelled to maintain the safety of British civilians living on the mainland...”

Magazine Update

Sophie Richardson 

We came up with a few name ideas and have decided to call our film magazine 'Film International' But we have stylized this so that the 'Film' is on its side and replacing the 'I' from international, talking inspiration from total film magazine. We have stylized the mast head in a red font with a barley visible stroke, which is grey with a very low opacity. We have used one image just of Lauren.   We then added a orange glow behind the picture using the gradient tool. Adding various sell lines, a mast head and a puff.

Magazine And Poster Photoshoot.

Sophie Richardson

During one of our media lessons where our main female protagonist (Lauren Smith) was free we took her to the studio to take some shots, to see if we could get any good ideas. We were heading out to film directly after the lesson so we didn't have a great deal of time. We each took it in turn to take shots just using the white back drop then we had an idea. We went and got some of the red facepaint and fake blood and the three of us there at the point put it all over our hands then onto the backdrop. We all did it so that there was a variety of different handprints in different shapes and styles. we then positioned out model in front of them to take some shots. We got some of her using her weapon and as she is supposed to come across as feisty and confident, we got a shot of her doing her lipstick in the reflection of a knife. We though that this would portray how strong and independent she is and how she would come across. Unfortunately as we only had one of our actors available for shooting at this point we won't be using any of the shots. We took inspiration from them though, as the white backdrop was so big, there was no way we could of kept it for later shots.  

One lunchtime we got our main two characters and took them to the studio to take the shots for our print products. We looked at a number of different posters and discussed what shots would be taken, how they would taken and where. We used a black backdrop in the studio, we got a good variety of shots, some won't be useable but will be good for our evaluations. We got shots from high-angle, low-angles, close ups, medium shots. We got them to pose in different ways our female actor (Lauren Smith)does modelling already so she was very helpful and knew how to pose well from what we said aswell as working well with our other actor.From this shoot we got both images for our magazine and our poster.

Hazard and Risk Assessments

When completing these products, we knew that there would be certain factors which could slightly or majorly prevent us from completing the work. Listed below are a few of these factors:

Becoming ill
Hardware of Software not working
Time not managed well or at all
College is closed
Not being able to get into college
Not getting actors or locations sorted
Having a bad day
Files are deleted
Extreme weather conditions
Problems at home
No Planning
No software at home

Poster Rough Cut

Sophie Richardson

This was a rough cut our film poster and after some feedback from teachers and peers we chose not to use. I thought it didn't look like an actual film poster, it wasn't coming together and looking professional. So we compared it to the  Shaun of The Dead poster to get inspiration and to compare it with  a professional text.In the shaun of the dead poster it looks like a poster then surrounded by zombies. Looking at our poster you couldn't see anything to do with zombies in it. We then had the idea to put zombie hands around the outside of the poster, I had some of the fake blood i used in the trailer, then i went and put it on my hands and took photos of it. I then burned the pictures of hands on Photoshop, changed the brightness and contrast levels on them. When i was about to drop the photos on the poster, i realised that the image wasn't right. We looked through our images, and one of the images we wanted to use the height difference between the two people was very noticeable and would cause problems when coming to print. So we cut lauren out on one of the posters and moved it up and changed the positioning, then merged it in photoshop so the image became one. We needed to have the document to a size A4  and because the changes we had to make the image wasn't this side, so i used the gradient tool to add a dark gradient over the bottom of the poster.
This was the original image.

Photoshoot Images

This is the image we were originally going to use for the magazine cover, but when trying to put sell lines and the mast head of the magazine we found it didn't look professional and we were finding it difficult to put the selllines without ruining the image, so we decided not to use it.  

This is another shot that we both really liked. I liked the poses of the characters, the composition of the shot. It looked like a professional shot and after we took it and put it on the iMac we realised how good it looked, unfortunately it wasn't suitable for a print product, but was a good shot non the less.

This was another type of shot we tried, trying to make it seem like a love/hate relationship, however the shot also wasn't suitable for print products, but we felt we had to experiment. 

This is one of images Tom took of my hands when i covered them in blood which we then used on our poster. 

This is a photo from the shoot we did just with Lauren, we didn't like the image so we decided not to use it, but wanted to take a variation of images to see what would match the best.

This is one of the images we took  when we covered our hands in fake blood and put them all over the white back drop. These were good  images to experiment with, but we still found that they weren't very suitable  for either print products.  

Sound update

We have made a simple soundtrack on garageband using a variation of different bass sounds and drum beats,  we again looked at Shaun of the Dead, using a similar beat. We realised that the conventional film trailer from this genre didn't allow its music to fully overpower the visuals but was used more as intensifier to increase the amusement. Also, we saw that the music didn't continuously repeat throughout the trailer and changed the mood when the scenes in the trailer either got happy or sad. Therefore, our soundtrack compromises of a varied style of music which coincides with what you see on screen very well.

Rough Cut - No Soundtrack

Update.

On Set Images

Sophie Richardson
Whilst we wear filming, Tom Harris did a lot of the filming, i helped position the cast how we wanted them and taking stills for the other products. We both were discussing the different locations we could use while we were on location and how the shots could be composed differently. Filming went quite well, we got a number of the important shots we could use, and we practiced with our actors a couple of the other shots we will be using next time we are filming.

This is a photograph i took of Jen on my digital camera between takes when we were filming our opening sequence. The wind made Jens hair all flowy and combined with the make up and costume mad her look very eerie. I think this kind of shot would be ideal for our poster or magazine cover. I think the lighting and the composition of the shot is good. I think for the poster if we could fade it out and have it in the background then our main characters over the top, then our film title (Another One Bites The Dust) over the top it would look good.

This is a shot of the character Karl, played by Matty Frankland. I took this on my digital camera while we were filming. It is supposed to sum up the character as a dosile, funny, not too serious guy, showing that he finds everything a laugh, this is a character trait which our other main character, Sarah played by Lauren Smith isn't going to find amusing. I think this shot is good because the composition of the shot itself worked out quite well. The depth of field is very good, i managed to capture a shallow depth of field and his facial expression and pose just worked very well to create this shot. If we were to create character posters a shot like this would be ideal.

This is a shot of our main character Sarah (Lauren Smith) I took this while filming, she was supposed to be giving Karl (Matty) a patronising, disappointed look, although this isn't the best of shots and we probably won't use it, but i included it anyway as it isn't a bad shot.

This is a three shot i took of the characters we were using. It isn't necessarily going to be used, but i thought if we needed a shot like this at some point it would be good to use. It shows both Karl and Sarah brandishing their weapons and stood next to the zombie. This isn't supposed to be a deadly serious shot, but a more comedy based, showing that is a horror-comedy.

This is joseph  dressed as  one of our zombies!

This is michael dressed as one of our zombies!

This is myself filming the watching shaun of the dead scene in toms living room.

This is me doing josephs zombie make up and at this point i am applying the white facepaint.

  This is tom filming the scene where the zombie is banging at the window

Shooting Schedule

3/10/11 

We are going to start filming this week. 

We are setting ourselves a deadline to have all our poster and magazine shots complete by next monday (17th October). 

We are going to take our shots with our two main characters and a couple of the main zombies on Abbey Road, one day after college this week. 

Friday 7th October. 
We are recording our voice overs too with a video camera. We will be recording this in an empty room with a few different people, so we have a clear sound.                            

We're going to be filming on Abbey Road on Friday after college.

Photoshoot Plans For Print Work

Sophie Richardson
We plan to take photos on set while we are filming, to give them a sense of spontinuity and with the make up and the scene set it should create a good amount of images.
We are also going to take our two actors into the studio to do some shots, we will be using the same outfits we used during filming,  

Model Release Forms

Video Update - Discussing Actors

This is an update, recorded in PhotoBooth, giving details on what we have completed, what we are in the process of completing and what we are going to do next. 

Location recce and assesments.

Abbey Road. 
We are going to be taking a number of stills aswell as filming on Abbey Road.
We are taking some of the images for the magazine cover and our film posters on this road.
There are going to be some of the most important shots of the trailer filmed on Abbey Road.
When we are introduced to our main characters and the main zombies.

This location is behind the arts centre, we found it to be a good location to film our last few shots. 

This is the Studio in the arts center, where we will be taking the photographs for our print products. 

This was one of the alleys near The Leas which we filmed the final shot of the trailer again, however the shots looked better on the original footage so we decided to use them instead.

This is toms house where we filmed nearly all the interior shots.

Toms back room, where we filmed a small number of shots.

Toms garden where we filmed the scene with the zombies being attacked with the toaster and snooker cues.

Toms living room where we filmed them watching shaun of the dead and where the zombie getting a CD thrown at them was.