Evaluation Q4

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

Software

My use of software has expanded greatly since AS, both in terms of the software that I use, and the way I use it. Final Cut Pro and Motion have been consistent, and though I haven't used Motion particularly effectively, the way in which I've utilised the features of Final Cut has changed dramatically. Where initially I was using mainly the Trim tool for editing, and the occasional fade to black, I have utilised at A2 the Blade tool, Crop function, Transform function, Ken Burns, Colour Match, Cross Fade, and various other productivity-enhancing features and shortcuts.


Entirely new to me was Photoshop, though I did have some experience in Illustrator and InDesign, both of which come from the same design package (Adobe) as Photoshop, so I had a rough idea of the layout. The learning curve was very steep due to time constraints and lack of base knowledge, but it was fascinating getting to know the ins and outs of the program, from editing the initial RAW photos to the final touches such as billing blocks and prices.


Hardware

At AS, our use of hardware on set was limited to basic lighting and the use of the Panasonic camera and tripod. This allowed us to employ a range of shots and experiment with lighting, but was ultimately a fairly straightforward way of going about things. We took ourselves further this year, using colour filters on large and small lights and using various methods of sound recording to try and ensure the quality of dialogue and diegetic sound. This required more commitment and organisation on set, but produced stronger raw footage than we had at AS.


Following the work on set, we had to use the microtrack to re-dub some of our dialogue, and this was something we were familiar with from our use in AS of a voice-over, recorded post-filming. We also had to use the SLR camera to take RAW images for the magazine cover – allowing use to fundamentally edit the photos to suit our needs.


Online

In terms of online work, we have used a far wider variety of websites and methods this year. Embedding from YouTube and Soundcloud, using blogs such as Art of the Title and InterTitles, and researching using IMDb, Wikipedia, and YouTube have all become integral parts of our use of the internet.


Blogger has remained central to the project, but has been accentuated by other social media such as Twitter and Facebook. These have allowed us to accumulate feedback on the trailer and ancillary tasks, as well as getting a closer look at our audience, and how we target our work in their direction.

Video analysis

Ancillary tasks analysis with regards to technology:

PHOTOSHOP IN ANCILLARY TASKS

AFTER EFFECTS AND SONY VEGAS IN TRAILER

Finished Ancillary Tasks

CM

Editing and Rough Cuts

The editing of the trailer went relatively to plan, however, the original plan of the storyboard was not followed. It was found that especially within the editing of Act 1 the interweaving of the meeting shots and the raid shots worked much better, providing a more stark juxtaposition of equilibrium (In the meeting room) and how that equilibrium was to be broken (The raid). It also served to anchor the narrative with the sound bridges of "This is the bastard that killed my partner" and "He will be in Denmark Hill at 0800 hours" providing a basis for the cutting, and a location and motivation for our protagonists actions.

Moving away from the actual sequence of the shots, which went relatively to plan, our second difficulty came within adhering to the colour and tone aims we had set ourselves. We attempted to go about this through the Final Cut feature 'Colour Match', with examples being shown below as to the various options concerning colouring. Due to our influence within the Chibnall quote concerning the "Dynamic narrative" connoted through the "High Gloss New-London" and Welcome to The Punch's neon gloss, this colouring was a major factor in presenting the stylistics which we had discussed in our research and planning.

As well as the importance of connotations we used this tool to make some shots look more professional, especially due to the mic shadow present within the interrogation scene prior to the darkening of the shot. 

In order to provide an increased dynamism to the narrative of the trailer and properly align the shots in conjunction with the music the backing track was needed, and when sent from our producer Agile, it was found that he had not properly synced to the shot changes as we had asked him to. As such, a manipulation of the sound on the magnetic timeline was necessary in order to prevent awkward cuts and emphasise the growing tension throughout the trailers development. This was also necessary due to the required manipulation of diegetic sound with regards to volume, with the voice overs (Especially during Act 1) being vital in the development of the actual storyline. The sound manipulation on the timeline is shown below.

Finally, we experienced difficulties when syncing our voiceover moments to the shots on screen, especially the moment with the 'news announcement'. This moment was particularly difficult as we wanted it to look and sound professional, especially because it is easy for a news style presentation, as seen in many films, to come across as quite 'amateurish' and so we spent a lot of time recording different voices until we found one that worked with the overall style of our trailer and the one, which sounded most professional. Another difficult moment was in Act 2 whereby we wanted to employ a voiceover of our main protagonist talking about our main antagonist, whilst being overlaid over a shot of the antagonist walking to his car. This was difficult as I had to cut particular moments of speech apart, adjust sound levels and then place each sound bite specifically over the long shot in order to keep with the timing and pace (overall rhythm) of the trailer. Some of the small speech was completely cut out in order to achieve this aim of keeping to the rhythm of the trailer.

A second rough cut can be seen below, with no music attached and incomplete sound.

Feedback

Positive:

- Colouring good

- Editing snappy (but improvable)

- Clear sense of character

Negative:

- No soundtrack

- Dialogue needs work in terms of sound quality and volume (possible re-record?)

- Narrative somewhat unclear (especially with two antagonists)

- Some colour matching or ken burns could improve style?

JL CM

Creating the Poster

The poster was more difficult to start work on than the magazine, as there was a less clearly defined structure that needed to be followed (i.e. no masthead, puffs, et cetera), but the first step was to establish  a strong background, title, and stylistic feature to make the poster clear in its intentions.

Following this, I inserted a shot of the London Eye (from the trailer) behind the stylistic bars to further establish the strength of the urban theme. This was done at about the same time as I was working on the two functional features of the poster; the billing block and certificate.

Then came some of the more noticeable form-related additions, such as actors names and awards. As a film that blends low production values with high ambition and Hollywood story lines, I thought it was appropriate to make the awards and reviews slightly more prominent than the actors names, as they are all relatively unknown.

The next key addition was our actor himself, in another shot taken from the trailer. In a piece of imagery similar to the posters for Looper and Welcome To The Punch, he appears to emerge from the city into a surreal world of smoke and broken glass. This strong central image, and its addition to the poster was the moment when the whole thing appeared to me to be coming together.

Many changes were made to do with rearranging the awards, reviews, actors names, and certification, but I feel like the strongest amalgamation of these aspects can be seen in the final poster. This can be seen at the bottom of the post.

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Creating the Magazine

After finalising the 'The Martini Shot' masthead, it needed a logo, which I designed in Adobe Illustrator and imported into Photoshop. The small martini glass looked a little plain, so I inserted a coloured background, which can be seen in the image below as a polygon. At this stage the puffs had not been completed, as all the text is white and not finished.

Following this, I finished the actual writing of the puffs and attempted to add some depth to the cover by playing the colours of text.

This continued as I changed the sizing and colours of the puffs themselves. However I was still aware that the cover was lacking in some ways, with an empty space below the masthead and no fine details yet inserted.

I thus set about adding the key elements such as barcode, pricing, issue number, and the like. I also added a set of marketing slogans to the bottom of the image and inserted a fourth puff line, in order to better distribute the space on the cover. The word three was changed to a larger and bolder 3, to ensure that the headline maintained its visual strength in the face of the newly input 'Film Festival Special' that fills the formerly problematic empty space towards the top of the cover.

Below is the final cover design for my magazine, which has been tidied up in terms of alignment of text. The other major difference is the removal of the 3D effect, which looked effective onscreen, but did not come through in the printed version, as it caused the cover to look like the result of a printing error. I am pleased with this final look regardless, as what the cover loses in stylistic quality, it gains in sharpness and boldness.

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Influences on the Magazine Cover

The above mood board is a good representation of the ideas that I initially wanted to encapsulate in my magazine cover. The ideas of the 3D images did not come across in the physical copy that we printed, and looked blurred or poorly printed. Thus, the effect that I had applied was rejected in favour of a bolder, clearer image, which fits with the 'Sight & Sound' influences of directors staring intently and disarmingly into the camera. This, and the 3-in-1 idea of the directors has been successful in the cover, to the extent that the 3D effect was in fact superfluous and could be sacrificed in the name of stronger imagery.

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The Martini Shot

Above is a working masthead for my magazine, The Martini Shot. This particular design does not quite work, as changing the final T into a martini glass and O into an olive has made it look like the magazine is called The Martini Shoy.

As far as the name goes, the last shot of a filming day is called the Martini shot, as the next shot of the day will be in a Martini glass. This is something of an inside joke in the industry, and thus denotes the magazine as one for people who take cinema and filmmaking seriously, but also want to have fun and enjoy it. The strap line 'THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE FOR QUALITY CINEMA' shows the subject of the magazine more clearly than the title, and thus makes the magazine a little more accessible. As I am sure all this makes clear, I intend to produce a magazine cover that is firmly in the vein of Sight and Sound.

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