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

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

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

Media technologies are a massive part of the world today and without them the world would be a much different place, especially in the media department. Without the technology that we have readily available to us as human beings the idea of making a movie and it being as successful and as much of a hit as they are today would be brushed to the side. Not only have we got all this technology around us but it is forever growing and progressing and will continue to play a massive role in all areas of the world we know.

One of the media technologies that is growing vastly day by day is the internet and the power of the search engine. To make my media products the best they can be I decided to use the power of the search engines to my advantage, I used sites such as Google and YouTube and there many features to gather lots of research that have been able to enhance the media products that I have created. Generally the many millions of people using YouTube daily take the site for granted and do not consider not having it to either aid in research or just for entertainment purposes, to think that YouTube was only created in 2005, 8 years ago, is astonishing, and without this website I believe that I would not of been able to make my media products in the way I did and the quality of them would take a serious hit as some of the influences that I got from YouTube were a key aspect of the success of my media products.

As before mentioned I used YouTube quite a lot and one of the things that I looked at the most was the trailer for the movie Taken. This trailer has a massive impact on my thoughts behind our film trailer and the other media products that I created, this is because the genre of our trailer and the film Taken is the same, Action/Thriller, and therefore to use this trailer as an influence was something that benefitted me greatly. Without the use of YouTube I would never have been able to use this trailer as much as I did to get a good view on the type of thing that I wanted to create and put forward in my group for our film trailer, therefore decreasing the chance that I felt our film trailer would have.

Another website that I used a lot for research was IMDB, Internet Movie Database, this website enabled me to find many movies of the same genre that I could look at to get ideas for our trailer.

Blogger is a blog publishing service online that allows you to create a blog about anything you wish and upload posts onto this blog. It was bought by Google in 2003, so longer than YouTube has been around for, and allows private or multi-user blogs with the ability to set a time stamp on each blog post you make, for me I was going to be creating the blog on my own and therefore my blog was private. Through Blogger you are able to create more than one blog, this was useful for me as I would be using it for more of my A-Level subjects, and be able to take control of all of these blogs from your own personal dashboard. Once it came to actually posting posts onto the blog, I found that you are able to do much more than just write text, you are able to upload images, videos, sound clips, html links, Prezi presentations to liven up your blog, this was perfect for the purpose that I was using it for as it enabled me to show the research that I had done and upload drafts of the media products that I had created. I was also able to create my own Prezi presentations based on some of the research that I had done, this gave me a much more interactive approach to the construction of my media products and therefore the research, planning and evaluation stages of my product.

When actually producing our film trailer after using the internet and sites such as YouTube and Blogger to research and plan, we were able to gain access to some of the best camera equipment that was available to us, this was through our friend that wasn’t in our media studies class. This was something that we had planned to use throughout our project but due to breakdown in communication we were not able to use this camera equipment throughout our whole trailer, but due the vast amount of media technologies that are out there today, we were able to source other cameras that we began to use to create our film trailer, this helped us in great way as even as something that we had planned didn’t go quite to plan we were still able to complete the tasks that we had set out for ourselves.

After completing the filming of all the clips that were necessary for our film trailer it came to the editing side of things, this is when the media technologies became limited for us as there was a cost to the very best software that we could use and this was simply not a necessary cost so we decided upon using Windows Movie Maker, although not the best piece of software, it certainly does the job that we had set out to complete. When it came to producing the two supporting media products, the film poster and the film magazine front cover, I used three different technologies: Microsoft Publisher - for drafting and setting out a plan; DaFont.com – for finding the perfect font for my products; and CorelDrawX5 – to produce the final versions of both media products. The reason that I used Microsoft Publisher to complete the drafts and plans of the magazine front cover and film poster was because I personally found it simpler to use, this enabled me to create things quicker, I then knew that this wouldn’t be able to produce enough quality for my final versions so I turned to CorelDrawX5 as this had much more quality.

Technological Convergence is the trend of different technological systems, such as mobile phones and the internet to change in time to end up performing tasks that are very similar. An example of technological convergence could be internet services such as BBC iPlayer and ITV Player being delivered to an actual TV set, another would be Skype. The reason that I am bringing technological convergence into this question is because everything nowadays is accessible through a computer, a video camera or mobile phone are compatible with a computer, and without the computer some of the many features of a mobile phone and/or a video camera are lost, this shows that everything is becoming reliable on computers so for something not to be compatible with a computer would struggle to be successful, this is why things such as my media products and work has been completed through the means of a computer, technological convergence.

Monthly Diary - February

February has been a very good month for my blog, I have done a lot of research into my film poster and other film posters, and also into film magazine front covers, and have been able to produce many drafts for both and the finished versions of both also. I am close to the end of my blog now which I suppose is a good thing!!

Finished Trailer - 10 Missed Calls

Final Version - Magazine Front Cover

Final Version - Film Poster

Fourth Draft - Little White Lies Magazine Front Cover

After looking at my final draft of my magazine front cover, I decided that I no longer liked the final draft that I had created. I decided to go back to my 2nd draft as this looked so much more professional and generally just looked so much better.

I have decided to add the title of the film onto the second draft as this made the magazine front cover much more colourful and made it stand out more.

Third Draft - Little White Lies Magazine Front Cover

This is my third draft of my magazine front cover, this is another draft using the same photograph as I believe that this photo is the best that I have and it works very well as it addresses the audience in the way that I want it to. In this draft I have changed the editing of the photograph to make it look different to the photograph on the film poster while also managing to keep it looking dark and sinister. I have also cropped around the head of the character as this makes the character stand out more as it is on a white background and the character is very dark and this is what makes it stand out.

 I have also added the title of our film to the bottom left of the magazine as without this the magazine looked quite bare and didn't really show that much. I have put it in red as it makes the magazine stand out more as before it was lacking colour.

I really like this magazine front cover and believe that if I try and do anything else to it, like for example change the editing of the photograph, it will be too much and I may potentially make it worse. This is going to be my final draft as I believe that the magazine is very appealing to the eye addresses the correct audience and strongly supports the film trailer.

5th & Final Draft of Film Poster

I have finally finished my film poster for our film trailer 10 Missed Calls. I took the last draft that I had completed and managed to find a piece of photo editing software called Photo Editor by Aviary to change the brightness and contrast of my selected photo. I kept the layout of the film poster the same the whole way through as I really liked the way in which it was laid out to begin with, and I kept the titles and wording on the film poster the same as my fourth draft as I believe the light grey works better with the dark photo and makes it stand out much more.

Second Draft - Little White Lies Magazine Front Cover

This is my second draft of my film magazine front cover, as you can see I have used the edited photograph that I edited to make look much more sinister and used the same Little White Lies logo that goes over the top. I believe that this is looking much better as it using the same sort of effects that would be used on a typical Little White Lies magazine front cover and therefore makes the whole feel of the front cover much more professional.

However, I am still not entirely happy with the draft as I believe that it could use a bit more work doing to it and I believe that I may benefit from maybe cropping the photo. I also believe that the editing on the photograph maybe a little too similar to the film poster and I could also benefit from changing this.

Editing Selected Photo

 I decided I wanted to edit the photograph to make it appear much darker and give it an effect that would make the character more sinister. The reason that I wanted to put an effect on the photograph is because that is what the majority of examples from Little White Lies magazine front cover’s do and so I wanted to replicate that but still make it my own and original.

This is my first edit on the photograph that I wanted to use. I have made the photograph appear much darker than the original was and I believe that it works very well. It is dark enough to show the sinister side of his character but it is also light enough to be showing off the actors feature’s along with the characters emotions.

This is my second edit on the photograph that I wanted to use. I used the same software to edit this photo but have used different effects in one to get an effect that I want. This effect is a nice effect on the photo but I don’t believe that it gives off that this is a bad guy character from the film as it appears to be a little too light. If I could make it darker then this photo could be the one.

This photo is again been edited on the same software, this is better than the second photograph edit as it is a little bit less bright and not so orange but still would be much better if it were to be a little bit more dark. Otherwise this is a nice edit as it is still showing the emotion on the character’s face while also showing the features of the actor. This also is a strong competitor.

I believe that I am going to use the first edit for my second draft of my magazine as I believe that this is the best edit for the character and the magazine.

First Draft - Little White Lies Magazine Front Cover

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his is my first draft of my film magazine front cover. I have put this together on Photoshop and it is a unique Little White Lies Logo that I have created from scratch and I have put it on top of the photograph that I selected.

I am not entirely happy with this magazine front cover as it looks very boring and basic at the moment and I believe that I need to do a bit of editing on the photograph to make it look a lot more sinister as this will portray the character that is in the photograph and this will enable it to relate to the audience in a much better way.

3rd & 4th Draft of 10 Missed Calls Film Poster

This is my third and fourth draft of my film poster, I have make some changes to the placing of my codes and conventions but the layout has stayed the same. I believe that these drafts are looking better than the second draft and I have played around with the colours to make it look more professional and appealing to the audience that I am targeting but I still feel that neither of the drafts are dark enough and it still doesn't have that thriller/action feel to it. 

As you can see in this draft of my film poster I have changed the colour of the background photo to try and make it look a little bit darker but it really hasn't put the effect on it that I wanted, I need to play around with the image some more to get a better idea of an action/thriller.

In this draft of my film poster I have kept the background colour the same and have changed the colour of the titles and other codes and conventions to make it look at little different to see whether or not it looked better or worse than it did before. It has changed from black to a light grey and it makes things appear more bold on the page as it stands out much more. 

I still think I need to play around with the poster a bit more to make it darker and more cynical.

Second Feedback on Blog

This is my second set of feedback that I have got from my peers, I have decided to gain some more feedback so that I can see whether or not my blog has improved from the last time I got feedback. Due to this I am going to use the same peers to give feedback on my blog so that they know whether or not it has been improved.

"Taking a second look at your blog later on down the line I can see that you have been adding in more detail to each of your blog posts making them so that the viewer of your blog can get a better understanding of why you are including a piece of research within your blog. This is something that I gave feedback on before. This time round you have done more work on your trailer and more work on your film poster and magazine front cover, all of which I really like, you  can see that you have been creative with them all and that you have thought about the general codes and conventions of a film poster and based your work around this. You have been different with your magazine front cover using a specific magazine's theme which works very well." - Sadie

"Your blog is looking much bigger and better from the last time I saw it when it was looking quite dull and vague. You have edited some of your blog posts which makes them a whole lot better in terms of context and relation to your project and you have filled your blog out a lot more which makes your blog look a lot better. You should maybe include some more posts based around your film poster just to make clear why you chose to complete it the way you did" - Will

As you can see, I have updated my blog from the last time I got feedback from my peers and they are impressed with the latest additions to the blog along with some of the old posts that have been updated. 

Magazine Front Cover - Photo Selection

I have managed to get many photos of the actor that is playing the character that I am using for the magazine front cover. I wanted to have a shot face on to the camera so that the character's eyes are looking down the lens  this way the audience of the magazine can get a look into the characters emotion, I also wanted to have the character with a straight face or a small smile, this way the character is either being very serious with his pose or sarcastic and smug.

These are the photos that I am going to be choosing from:

This is a photo that is dead on to the camera, the character is looking straight down the lens and this would be an ideal picture to use for my front cover. Unfortunately the photograph is slightly blurred which means that when it comes to editing the photo I will lose even more definition from the face and therefore the emotion on the face will be lost completely, this photo will not be used for my magazine front cover.

This photo is another photo that would be perfect for my magazine front cover as the character is again looking straight down the lens and has a small smile on his face, this could be used and would portray the character being smug that he has done something. This photo is a strong choice for my magazine as it would be perfect for what I want to do.

This photo is potentially my favourite of the three, the shot is perfect for how I want it to look on my front cover as the character is very straight faced and is looking directly down the camera, it would be perfect for my magazine and I believe that this is going to be the shot I am going to use. 

2nd Draft of Film Poster

This is my second draft of my film poster, as you can see I haven't changed any of the format from the first draft but I have put the picture in that I have decided to use. The picture works well with the context of the film poster but it doesn't look dark enough, and by that I mean that is doesn't look like an action film and just looks like a standard film poster. This is something that I need to change.

I am going to go away and play around with the film poster and get some ideas as to what I want my film poster to look like, I plan on keeping the same layout of the codes and conventions, moving them up a bit to fit it all in and generally make it look better, but I may change the colours around to suit the picture and make it the best it can be.

Photograph for Magazine Front Cover

I started to play around with a couple of images for my movie front cover that would be created in the style of Little White Lies magazine. I used images from the internet of a famous actress just to get a view on the editing software that I was using, ‘Photo Editor by Avairy’, I used two images and used different effects on each to get a view on what type of effect I was going to use for my final magazine front cover and also the two images that I used were of the same actress but different shots of her so that I would be able to gain an insight into what shot would be able to enhance the experience that my audience would get from looking at magazine front cover.

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These are the original photos next to the edited ones just so that I can show the differences and the editing that I had done on them, I then wanted to compare the two images that I had created through editing so that I can come to a conclusion as to the one that I liked the most and the one that would be best suited to my audience. 

As you can see that images that I used are similar and in them the actress is smiling and posing for the camera, this will be different in the photo that I aim to be using as the actor will be posing but not in a happy way and will just be a shot of the characters face, I decided upon using just the actors face after looking at the two edits and deciding that I will be able to attract and entice the target audience to my film from the facial expressions on the characters face and having a simple close up of the face will do this and hopefully portray an action/thriller character through this. 

After looking at the edits that I have created from the original photographs of Mila Kunis I have concluded that I have made both of the edits too bright and if I were to keep this idea then it would not be portraying my film trailer's theme in the slightest, I need to reproduce an edit that is a little bit darker and isn't giving off such a happy theme, this is even more important as at the moment my idea is to use the bad guy character from the film as the photograph for my front cover, this is what I have come up with.

Little White Lies

Little White Lies is a bi-monthly, British independent movie magazine that features writing, illustration and photography related to cinema. It is published by London-based creative agency The Church of London who also publish Huck Magazine. The design of each issue of Little White Lies is inspired by its feature film, represented on the cover by an illustration of its lead actor. The cover film also influences interior aspects, such as editorial icons, chapter headings and custom typefaces. However, the overall template of the magazine remains the same, this is different from the typical movie magazine.

As you can see from the two examples of front covers from the little white lies magazines it is very different from the typical front cover of any magazine as it does not include all the codes and conventions that would generally be used to attract an audience to the magazine and seems that it is solely relying on the photo and the name of the magazine to attract the audience in which it is targeted. The Little White Lies magazine front cover uses a photo from one of the main actors from the movie in which the magazine is about, this is what I am planning to do by using the bad guy of our film trailer in order to entice the audience to get to know the film as it is going to be based around the bad guy as it is an action film. The photograph that it uses is not just a photo though, on every issue the photograph has been edited in a different way as to add more fun to the front of it, this is what imagine the idea behind it is anyway, this is something that I am going to follow when I create my front cover.

I know plan to go on and do a trial run of the picture that I am going to use as to get the feel of what type of shot I should use, this is possibly to mix things up from the typical Little White Lies magazine or just to keep the same technique that is used on these magazine front covers. 

Draft of Little White Lies Magazine Cover

I have put together a hand written draft of the Little White Lies magazine front cover that I plan on making. I am obviously going to need to work on this poster extensively to ensure that it looks the part and is going to look good so that it will accompany the film poster and the film trailer and advertise the film trailer well.

The magazine cover photo is a picture of Giannaz’s face, played by Renz, this is a close up to the show the expression on his face, this is something that is essential for my film trailer as it has to be the part and portray the character well enough to stand up to the character in the film. It is going to use an effect that is making it look dark and sinister as it is an image of the bad guy in film so I need to ensure that it does this. I am also going to be putting together an original Little White Lies logo that includes a unique bar code  issue number and price. This once finished should look very good and be able to back up my film trailer very well.

Magazine Front Cover Research

After doing further research into the magazine industry I was beginning to look at other types of film magazines and the codes and conventions that they used, I did this by looking at specifically ‘Empire’ magazine, this is as this magazine is one of the most popular film magazines in the market at the moment and is considered to be very successful so must be doing something right in terms of the codes and conventions that it uses. 

After looking at this for a while I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to create something that is the standard magazine and not be able to create it very well, so I started looking at other magazines. I came across ‘Little White Lies’ magazine, which is also another very successful film magazine but is completely different from the standard magazine as the codes and conventions that it uses are completely different. I am now going to look at front covers from this magazine as I believe this is the route that I want to go down. 

Film Magazine - Front Cover Plan

After looking at the poster for my film I then had to start thinking about a front cover of a movie magazine. I began by doing some research into movie magazines and the typical codes and conventions that are included within these, alongside this I was also looking at other genres of magazines as I wanted to compare between different genres to see if they changed at all. 

This is the first draft of a magazine front cover and as it is the first draft it is only very basic, I have just put it together to give myself an impression of what types of colours I am going to use along with the layout that I had originally planned as this seems to be the way in which many magazines have been laid out.

At the moment I haven't thought of a title for my film magazine front cover but that can be something for me to go away and think about, I have included some ideas that I could include within the final version of my magazine front cover but these are liable to change as with feedback from peers and brainstorming myself I will no doubt think of something that is potentially a better code or convention to use. I also, as of yet, have not thought about a style of photograph to use as there are many to choose from, I don't think that I want to use the same character as I did in my film poster and potentially not use an actor at all, maybe just even a photograph of a scene, but this can be decided upon when I get to it. 

Monthly Diary - January

The month of January has been quite a productive month, I have managed to put together a Prezzi presentation explaining the ideas behind our trailer in a more interactive way. We have also looked at possible soundtracks for our trailer for background sound. Our group have also been able to put together a film trailer that isn't fully completed but does give a good sense of where we are at in terms of our film trailer.

Photograph for Film Poster

The main part of my film poster is going to be the photograph that is being used, this is obviously going to be the main part as it should show what the film is going to be about so that the audience are able to get a good idea from just looking at the film poster alone, it should be able to attract the audience without them seeing the trailer or just enhance the trailer. Due to this I needed to ensure that I was getting the right picture. I decided to get some photographs of one of the actors that will be in the film trailer, this was because the story line was revolved around her, these were some of the pictures that I took:

As you can see there are only three here but these are not the only photographs that I took, these were just the ones that I liked the most. 

In the first image it shows the one of the main characters - Jody - standing in front of an abandoned house, in the film this is where Jody is kidnapped and held hostage, this shot has good lighting and the camera angles work well in the context of our whole film idea. The only reason that I would turn away from using this photograph for my film poster is because it looks too staged and for the film poster I would rather use a photograph that seems to be more realistic in terms of our film and therefore would give the audience a better outlook on the film.

The second photograph would be a perfect shot for my film poster, the fact that it is in a section of a house that is dark and secluded would show that she really is being held hostage and the positioning of the shot works really well and would give the audience a great view on the film. Although the photo is perfect and the positioning of the shot works brilliantly, the shot cannot be used as the lighting of it just isn't right and if it were to be edited to make the shot more visable it would decrease the quality and realness of the shot and therefore wouldn't be as good for my film poster.

The third photograph is the most recent photograph that I took, I like this photograph the most as everything seems to work on it, the lighting is perfect and can be edited to make it look a little bit darker, the positioning of the shot is very similar to the second photograph but is in a different location, and it works well in the context of our film trailer. I believe that this is the photograph that I am going to use for my film poster as it seems to tick every box that I was after. 

First Draft of Film Poster

After looking into different types of film posters, I have put together a first draft of my film poster, this is only a first draft and will no doubt change when I have gained feedback from peers and teachers.

As you can see I have produced the first draft of my poster in a landscape orientation, this was a decision that was made easy to me as I think that it just looks better in this context. I have also used many different codes and conventions on the poster, this is more than some of the posters I looked at but less than others as I didn't want it to be too packed in order for the image to be able to show power, but then I didn't want it to be too bare that the whole poster was going to be relying solely on the image used.

Now that I have got an idea as to what I want my film poster to look like I am now going to go away and take the photograph that will be used for my poster, this will be completed within the next few days.

Research - Film Posters

As part of my media project I have to create a film magazine front cover and I have to create a film poster, I am going to start with the film poster as this looks the most fun and is something different. I am going to start by doing some research into film poster to see the typical codes and conventions behind them.

'The Expendables 2'

I have started by looking at the film poster for the film ‘The Expendable 2’ this is a big Hollywood blockbuster film that has lots of big name actors appearing in the film, this seems to be one of the main points that the distribution company are trying to get across to the audience as they have the names of each of the actors and pictures of each and every one of them. Having seen the film and not entirely liking the film I can to the assumption that the main idea of the film was to get as many big name actors in the film as they were able to and then just give a basic story line that is typical of an action movie, this theme seems to have been carried across to the poster as the image isn't all that powerful as it is just shots of each of the actors with an explosion in the background, this poster doesn't appeal to me and the only reason that they want the people to go and see the film is because of the actors within it.

  

As you can see it does have to typical codes and conventions that are typical of a film poster, these are: the title, the tagline of the film, main photo – the main focus of the poster, the names of the main actors along the top, the names of the supporting actors at the bottom and the release date of the film. I am going to need to think of these when it comes to producing my own film poster. I also like the fact that this poster is landscape rather than portrait.

'Unknown'

This film poster is entirely different from the first, although it has a very well-known actor and is playing off the fact that this is the actors typical role within films, it is still very powerful. It is because of the actor involved that the poster is able to be very bare, with just the powerful shot of the actor, Liam Neeson. This film poster is not displaying the names of every actor or actress involved in the film because it is mainly focussing on the story rather than just the actors and actresses involved. This film poster is very minimalistic which means that the codes and conventions that are in the poster are relied on entirely to make the poster meaning that they need to be very powerful and I believe that this poster has achieved this.

 After looking at both of the film posters, there are things that I like about both, the first poster is very packed and gets all of the codes and conventions onto the poster meaning that the fact that the image isn't one of much power it is still getting the audience enticed through a different mean, in this case the high profiled actors. The second film poster for the film ‘Unknown’ is different entirely and is very minimalistic, I like the image as it conveys the film very well in the fact that just from that one shot the audience is able to tell the genre of the film.

10 Missed Calls Presentation

Possible Soundtrack for Our Trailer

The soundtrack for our movie trailer is something that we have to carefully think about as the music plays a massive role in capturing our audience, if the music for our trailer is rubbish and doesn't tie in with our story line then it could become laughable and our audience would not be enticed to watch it.

After watching the movie Harry Brown, which is a similar genre to our film with the same sort of audience, we started to get a feel for what music we would like to include in our trailer. We then did some research intro the music used in this film and after looking and listening through the whole soundtrack we has three tracks that we really liked. These are “Killing”, “Calm Estate” and “Subway Surveillance”. 

Film Trailer Update

Below is a link to our trailer on YouTube. As you can see we are quite far down the line of production of our trailer and we are beginning to put together a great sequence of shots from our film. The clips that we have used so far have been edited together to make a great sequence that will relate in the ways in which we want it to, to our audience. We currently only have a couple of pieces of sound on our trailer which is some dialogue, but we are currently in the process of adding in some background music that is going to work to enhance the film trailer. We have made the trailer non-linear as we feel that this is going to give our trailer a different feel to other typical action film trailer while still going along with the classic codes and conventions used in a film trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuhf1kdO7tk

Monthly Diary - December

This month has been a very productive month. As a group we have all worked hard into completed assigned tasks. Sadie has focused on constructing a storyboard and using shots that she has produced to incorporate it into the story board. Brandon has been editing our feedback and editing our title sequences. Frankie has been editing our presentation that was performed to the class. Whereas will has been looking at props and soundtracks and possible locations for our filming.