Evaluation Questions

Question1; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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



Question 3; What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Question 4; How did you use media techniques in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Audience Feedback

Feedback from Peers

After a class session of watching and reviewing all the other group's pieces, we received useful feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of our trailer, website and poster. We received the most praise for our typography/animation and soundtrack, as well as the glitching effects we used throughout the trailer. On the website, people liked the neon red theme and the background image used, and on the poster the split image we used was received well. 

However, there were a few improvements that needed to be made. In the trailer, some of the sound was slightly off of the titles which caused a slight delay. Another criticism was that some of the longer titles were not on screen long enough to be read. Regarding the website, people said that the video thumbnail needed to be changed as the current one was quite dark and could not be seen well against the background. The critical reviews were also too small to read, and we had forgotten to include working hyperlinks. Finally, the only improvement to be made on the poster was to darken the '15' age rating as it was very bright in comparison to the rest of the poster. 

As a group, we delegated these tasks amongst us. I needed to make the titles longer and ensure the sound was playing at the right time. I did this by elongating the sound effects so they fit across the whole title, and by inserting more of the title clips. As I made these on Photoshop to be roughly 5 frames long, I just needed to add more instead of elongating it in any way. I set them for different amounts of time depending on how long the title is, for example 'Turn Back' takes less time to read than the longer titles at the start. 

Titles

Creating the Titles

In order to conform to horror trailer conventions, our trailer needed to include titles relating to the plot. This was especially important for us as there was no voice over, so we needed to supply some context to the film. 

I started by writing appropriate titles in the font 'Downcome'. I chose this because it was legible but also had a horror theme. I then took a dirt overlay and applied this to the text only. 

I then duplicated the layer twice. On one of the layers, I removed the red channel and on the other I removed the blue and green channels. I then applied a motion blur of 10 pixels and moved one layer 5 pixels to the right and the other 5 to the left. I wanted the text to have a blurry effect so I removed the original RGB layer. 

I then wanted to use frame animation to make the text shake. I created a few different frames and moved the text slightly in different directions for a 0.04 seconds each. 

I then exported this as a video allowing us to put it into our actual footage.

I also had to make a screen displaying social media links for our film, in which I used the same technique. 

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome as I think they fit our trailer and also I used the same effect with the channel layers that I used on the poster, which I feel ties together our promotional package. 

Editing Practical 2

Editing our Trailer

As we began nearing the end of the editing process, I made some final tweaks to the footage. I added the typography I made for the title and added TV glitch sound effect to fit with the broken sign. I also used the Ken Burns tool on Final Cut Pro to make the logo slowly zoom in for dramatic effect. 

I also added a sound effect timed to play as soon as the typography appears on screen. The video I'd exported from Photoshop was also a bit fast, so I slowed it down by 50%.

The videos I'd exported for the titles in the trailer were also quite short, but as I wanted to keep the speed of the text shaking I added multiple copies rather than slowing them down.

At the end of the trailer, there is also a final moment of glitching for which I added the glitch sound effect we'd been using throughout. For the end two title cards, 'Coming Soon' and social media information, I added a booming sound effect.

For lighting, I felt some of the shots were too bright to fit with our genre. To rectify this I decreased the opacity of these shots. Due to the background naturally being black, this lowered the brightness rather than making them more transparent.

Finally, my group wanted to add a TV turning off effect at the end of the webcam shot. I downloaded an effect from YouTube and bladed it just before the end. I placed the first part on top of the footage and lowered the opacity to make it seem as though the webcam shot was grainy. The part where it switches off plays after the shot so you can fully see this effect.

Website Background Image

Making the Website Background

As a group, we had established that we wanted the background of our website to be an image of a laptop screen lighting up with various shots from our trailer. I started by using the distort transform tool to make the clip fit correctly on the laptop. I then wanted to create a vignette effect to make the edges of the screen blend in better. I did this by using a layer mask with a gaussian blur. 

I then edited the frames. I wanted the image to repeat back and forth so I made frames 1-10 followed from 9-2 so it would loop seamlessly. Then, I edited the colours in the images to make them more like scenes seen in horror films. 

As the colour coming from the screen was different for each clip, I wanted to change the colour my outline was being lit up. I did this by colouring over the areas where the light hit and changing this into the blend mode soft light. 

Finally, I added a gaussian blur effect to a couple of the frames to give the illusion of the image glitching out. I then needed to arrange the images on the website, so I rendered the image as an mp4 video rather than a GIF as this would make a smaller file. I then set this as the background of the website on Wix. I arranged the typography at the top of the site and made sure they didn't overlap. 

Overall, I am very pleased with the result as it is appropriate for our genre, and I managed to make the image on the screen reasonably realistic. I also really like the effect of the light on my face changing as this adds realism. 

Editing Practical

Editing our Trailer

When adding in our production company openings, I found that there was no transition and so I added a crossfade going into plain black from the intro logo and then going straight into the footage. I used the precision editor to make this as accurate as possible. 

I then needed to edit the screen capture footage of our fake red room as there was not enough footage of the plain website before the video loaded. I did this by blading the footage at the part were the site was blank and slowing this down using the retime function. 

 

We also wanted to use an ambient noise in the background to increase the layered sound effects. We found that a default audio file on Final Cut Pro called 'Wind Haunted' worked well for this. 

Finally, as a lot of our trailer uses a glitching effect, I began adding this to some of the shots. First, I bladed shots into three parts and added a plain black box in between as I wanted it to flash. Then, to the shots I applied the 'Bad TV' final cut pro effect at varying levels, so at some point it was more glitched than others. Finally, I used a gaussian blur at various degrees on the shots to increase this effect. 

Poster Image Editing

Editing the image on the poster

As I was the most experienced with Photoshop in my group, I created the main image on our poster while the rest of the group made the text and the social media links. I started off by using a background of a wall similar to the one I used on the typography and dimming the brightness. 

Then, using the blood texture brushes I used when creating the typography  I painted some dark coloured blood splatters on the bottom where the text would be. Then, I added the whole document containing the typography and positioned it at the bottom. The rest of the group also added the parts they'd made. 

As I did not want the main image on top of the wall background, so I added a black gradient so this would only be visible at the bottom. 

I then imported the images of me and the killer that I was going to put as the main image. I added adjustment layers to increase the contrast and brighten the red of the blood to make it stand out more. 

I cut both the images down the middle and positioned them together so that they fit properly. The forehead and the chin didn't match properly, so I used the clone stamp tool to ensure that they did. I then added a scan lines overlay which is consistent within our promotional package and a dirty textured overlay. The finished poster can be seen below. 

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome as I think it's appropriate for our genre and conveys this without revealing too much about the plot. It adheres to the golden rule as elements are placed in different places around the image and the combination of fonts works well. 

'Rogue' Logo Edit

Editing the 'Rogue' Logo

As well as the fictional production company I previously made, we also needed to include an opening for a professional company. For this, we decided to use Rogue as they are known for horror films such as 'The Unborn' and 'The Last House on the Left'. They also have a relatively generic production company opening, compared to one like Blumhouse which is specific to supernatural horror, making it appropriate for our genre. However, I wanted to edit the logo to make it relevant to our film, which is seen done by companies like Warner, for example using their custom logo for the Harry Potter films.

The original Rogue logo can be seen here:

 

I began by applying a red overlay layer in the blend mode vivid light, as the colour red is a reoccurring motif within our promotional package.

I then wanted to add a dirty texture to make this look more relevant to the horror genre rather than just plain red text. I took this image from Google.

However, as the text was red, I wanted this to have more of a warm colour tone to it so it would blend better. I did this by adjusting the colour balance and the brightness and contrast.

I then put this layer in the blend mode soft light and changed the opacity to 64% before putting it on top of the Photoshop video layer. However, I decided that the text did not look effective and so changed the blend mode to overlay and decreased the opacity to 82%.

The finished logo is here:

 

Overall, I am happy with the outcome of this as it ties in with the rest of the promotional package and adds an extra touch to the trailer. I prefer the second style of text as it's more similar to the original logo with the lighting in the middle while still looking different.

Animating the Typography

Keyframe Animation

For use on our website, I wanted to animate our typography so that the letter D swung back and forth and the broken section of the letter M flashed on and off. I did this using transform and opacity keyframe animation in Photoshop CS6. 

First, I copied the layer with the D on it and made it into a new document. In keyframe animation, rotation animates always using the centre point of the layer as the centre of rotation, so I needed to double the size of the image canvas so that the top of the D would become the centre of the image. 

I then transferred this back into the original document where I set a transform keyframe for it in this position. 

To access transform keyframes, the layer needed to be converted into a smart object. I then rotated it to the right, set a new keyframe and then back again so that it would rotate back to the original position. 

Then, I wanted to make the M light up. To do this, I zoomed in on the timeline to allow me to place more precise keyframes and placed a few next to each other in a random order while changing the opacity of the broken colouring on and off. I needed to duplicate all the glow layers so there would be a version for each where the M is lit up and where it is not. 

I used keyframes at the same places as the one on the M layer to make sure they were all lit up at the right time. 

The finished image is below. I have decreased the size to 50% as the file was very large as a GIF, so some quality may be lost. 

I would say overall I'm happy with the outcome as it is suitable for our genre and ties in with the theme of our film, and I feel like I have leant valuable technical skills from experimenting with animation.