Media Theorists

When producing our promotional package, we didn't think about any theorys or how our film applied to them, but in post-production, we realised that our film does indeed agree with several theorys.

"A theory that our film agrees with strongly is the Male Gaze theory by Laura Mulvey, a feminist theorist who describes how films are often through a male's perspective, often showing the woman as inferior or an object. Our film definatly agrees with this as the main character is abused by her husband and is clearly inferior to him.

"Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives that occur in film which serve to sexually objectify women. The first is the perspective of the male character on screen and how he perceives the female character. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen. The third "look" joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience member's perspective of the male character in the film. This third perspective allows the male audience to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate himself, through looking, to the male character in the film."(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_film_theory#The_gaze_and_the_female_spectator)

This quote from Wikipedia explains Mulvey's theorey and how males often seem superior in films.

Editing

Any decisions that we made throughout the whole process of editing our entire promotional package was made as a team, voting to see who agreed and allowing any group member to give an opinion or idea without judgement.

When editing our teaser trailer we had several decisons to make, such as in what order to place the shots and what transitions to use, but luckily we had the storyboard to help us out, and we generally followed it. The music was downloaded from a copyright free website, audio.lgfl.org.uk, and edited so that it fitted in well with the trailer, including lowering the volume to make it softer, creating a more emotional feel to the video.

All of the editing of our trailer was done within Pinnacle Studios, which was easy to use, as its controls were simple and user-friendly, as well as allowing uploads straight from the video camera. The issue with Pinnacle was that it was extremely unreliable and often crashed or froze, making time-efficient editting difficult. Our magazine cover and film poster were edited using Adobe Photoshop, however this caused an issue because some members of my group prefered to use a different version of Photoshop to me, which lead to some files being lost or unable to open in other versions.

Overall I feel that my editing skills have improved greatly, particularly in Pinnacle Studios, but not somuch in Photoshop, as I was already comfortable with that software.

Titles and Font Analysis

Throughout the editing of our complete promtional package we used several fonts for our film titles, magazine cover and film poster.

For the film titles, we wanted to keep the font plain and easily readable, like other drama films. After some research we established that the conventional and most proffesional looking way to do the titles is a white, plain font on a black background. While editing the poster in Adobe Photoshop, the group asked if Iwould be able to create a more interesting title, so I downloaded a set of flower bushes online and began to create a flower-filled boarder; when showing the group they disagreed with what I had done, and in deleting the flowers I accidently placed a flower over the writing and it was what we went with.

For the film poster we kept the font simple but had separate words white and black; at first only to make them stand out from Emma's dark hair, but then we agreed it looked good. We also used some curly font at the top of the poster for our tagline - this was the font we were considering using for the title at first.

Our magazine cover consisted of only three fonts: a plain font, Arial, which we used for all of the writing across the whole magazine, except for the Total Film title, as we wanted to use the same font as the actual magazine to make it look more proffesional - luckily we found the perfect font, named Motor Oil, which we downloaded from Dafont.com. The third was the curly font that we used at the top of the film poster - we used this for the 'For Better For Worse' title so that it stood out.

Filming Evaluation

Were there any fast cuts like in the Harry Potter teaser trailer? (45 Cuts in 1 minute)

I feel that we struggled to stick to this convention of teaser trailers, as it was hard to show what we wanted in quick cuts - however I feel like the longer shots in our trailer created a slow and errie pace that worked well for the film and drama genre.

Was there an extremely long take like The Omen teaser trailer?

No, as this would not have worked for our trailer, however I like to imagine the church scene as one long running shot with the bathroom shots interupting.

Were there expectations for the film to reveal itself slowly?

The initial idea for our trailer was to reveal the bruises slowly and end with a shot showing all of them on the face, hopefully shocking the audience, and we stuck with this in our first few attempts, but decided that the idea was not coming across to the audience, so in the last attempt we decided to scrap this idea and show all the bruises straight away.

Was there material that was filmed especially for the teaser trailer like Toy Story?

Yes, the footage we used was filmed specifically for our teaser trailer as it is only to entice the audience to want to see the film.

Is there an introduction to the main characters?

Our teaser trailer inrouduces the main character, but only her emotional side, nothing about her character or personality as the trailer is aimed to make you feel sorry for the main chararcter without getting to know her - the trailer suggests domestic abuse or self harm but leaves the audience to think themselves about who could be hurting her.

Were there any introductions to clues to the stroyline?

The trailer gives some clues away about the storyline, suggesting self harm or domestic abuse, but invites the audience to wonder more about what could happen; the church scene especially leaves the audience to think about the storyline as it is a very mysterious scene.
I feel that the trailer does enough to show that it is a drama film through the music and themes involved.

Were there conventional transitions?

I feel that we used very conventional transitions in our trailer, as through our research we discovered that drama films use short, quick cuts and possibly fades at the end or start; we made sure we followed these conventions and kept our trailer looking professional and conventional.

Were there elements of intrigue?

At first, with the slowly revealed bruising, but in the final product we decided to remove this element of intrigue as didn't feel that the message was coming across well.

Was there sound or music?

We used a range of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds in our trailer, the diagetic sounds being the running tap, and possibly the voice over, as the church shots are supposed to be flashbacks, so theoretically she might be able to hear the priest reading out the vows, so the audience would have to interpret this in their own way. The non-diagetic sound was the slow music in the background, named 'Sad Slow'. When editting our trailer we made sure that the music volume was low so that the voice over could be unerstood clearly and too create the effect of a soft, emotional trailer.

Were there a variety of of camera angles/movements to demonstrate skill?

In my opinion, the trailer has too many similar shots, as they are all mid-sots and close-ups with the only camera movement being a zoom, however I still feel that this shows skill as it shows that we have conducted research and understand our audience, keeping to conventions of giving our trailer a plain and mature feeling that would please our audience.

I feel that overall our filming didn't go as well as we'd hoped; the filming took several attempts before we eventually settled on a forth attempt, still not being entirely happy with it.
Although it took us several attempts to reach our final product, I feel that each time we followed the conventions of a teaser trailer well, not revealing much and keeping the shots short and quick, however, some of the shots were still a bit too long and our final piece ended up being slightly too long.

Final Evaluation
I feel that we stuck to the conventions of the genre well, as we kept the font and transitions plain, trying to impose that the film has a very serious approach, as this would appeal to our older audience more. I feel that the mature theme that we went with worked well, as it allowed us to keep things plain, saving time in editting our trailer and magazine cover, which also stuck the to plain, mature theme.I feel that overall our filming didn't go as well as we'd hoped; the filming took several attempts before we eventually settled on a forth attempt, still not being entirely happy with it.
Although it took us several attempts to reach our final product, I feel that each time we followed the conventions of a teaser trailer well, not revealing much and keeping the shots short and quick, however, some of the shots were still a bit too long and our final piece ended up being slightly too long.

Filming Scedule

Here is our filming scedule, displaying the dates of all the activities we need to do, including all the equipment and props we need to remember for filming. This will be useful when it comes to filming as everything we need to remember will be noted here, and if we stick to this scedule, we will be fine time-wise.

Here is the email we sent to the church, asking for permission to film. This was helpful as it gave us the ability to make the trailer look more realistic, with a real setting. This new form of media has allowed us the contact the church quickly and convientiently, forming a friendly relationship with the church, that made arranging a date easy.

Animatic

The anamatic took time, as we had to draw out all of the shots, however when it comes to actual filming we will be better off than if we had not, as it allowed us to see what each shot would look like, especially with the camera work.

This new form of a storyboard, filmed with the Edirol, showed us how valuable new technology when creating pieces of media, both in planning and production of the film.

New Media Technology

I feel that we used new media technology very well within our research and planning stages, particularly research, as we used the Internet very often, finding out about films of the same theme, age ratings, magazine and trailer conventions - the basis of our film was built on new media technology.

The internet was very useful in discovering how teaser trailers varied from full length trailers, which was very important to us, as if we do not follow the conventions, then the audience may confuse it as a full length trailer, so we must be sure to keep our trailer short, with many quick cuts. The internet has also been useful in keeping up to date and noting down all of our research and planning through these blogs - this has given us the idea to use the internet, after we have finished filming and editing, to gain audience feedback, purhaps through YouTube.

Another key piece of equipment was the camera, which we were used to from last year, but still needed to gain some practice with them again. Having access to the camera before we started actual filming was extremely useful as we were able to see what certain shots would look like - an example of this is when we went to the church and were offered a trolley for the tracking shot. Being able to record a test shot allowed us to see that the trolley and location would be suitable.

Having used the equipment last year, we were able to plan what technology we would be using for our actual filming. We plan to use an Edirol for our anamatic filming and microhone for recording voiceovers. All of the film editing will be done on Pinnacle Studios.

Storyboard Planning Process

Storyboarding was a useful process for planning as we were able to seewhat shots we wanted to do, the timing and how well the shots would work together - this process also forced us to work together in a team, discussing ideas and making team decisions. we decided to work as a democracy, sticking with the idea that most of the team liked, despite if another member hated it.


I feel that the storyboard helped mostly in allowing us to plan how long we wanted each shot, as we wanted to stick with the teaser trailer conventions and keep our shots short.

Target Audience Research

After deciding that we wanted to go down a different route to last year, and create a mature drama film. We decided that the ideal audience for the film would be 28-45 year old women, as they would be able to relate to our character, not through the abuse, but the stress of life.

To be sure that we met the needs of our target audience, we handed out a questionnaire to our specified age range, gaining their opinoin on details about the film, magazine cover and poster - this allowed us to gain all of the information we required about our target audience and compare their opinions to those of our age.

I feel that our film agrees with Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze Theorey'; this theorey explains how films are shot through a male's perspective, showing women as an object and often inferior to males. Our film agrees with this as the main character is a woman, clearly being inferior as she is beaten by the man.

We decided to give our film an 18 age rating as after research we realised that our film shows great deal of violence and abusive language as well as a very adult related theme - this age rating also helps us to aim out film at an older audience.

Magazine Initial Ideas

We decided to use Total Film as our magazine design because it is a simple design that often deals with big films coming out soon.

Our initail idea was a simple image of our beaten character in her wedding dress, as we thought that this would attract the audience, as the contrast in the wedding dress and bruises would intrigue them and make them want to find out more.

The colour theme that we chose was dark red and black font with a white background - we felt that this was a mature colour theme that would appeal to our audience, as it made the magazine look quite stylish; having a three-colour theme also sticks to the conventions of a magazine cover.

We made sure that the top stories were on the left as this is also a convention, as magazines are stacked with the left side showing, so the top stories must be on that side to attract the audience.

Features of a Film Magazine

Film magazines usually follow giudlines and stick to using the same features each issue.

This magazine example is missing a tagline - this is similar to a slogan for the magazine and is intended to attract the audience more; this is why Total Film magzine uses the tagline "The Ultimate Movie Magazine".

Institutions

Deciding the institutions for our film was very important, as the institutions are the companies who promote and produce the film; institutions also have their own style or specialty, so we had to decide on the right one.

As our major Distributor, we decided to use Warner Bros. Pictures, as they are giants in the film industry and have been involved with great drama films - Warner Bros. also have the ability to distribute worldwide, dispite our film being aimed at such a niche audience.

A secondary institution we chose was Film4 Productions, as they are a British institution that specialises in drama films and backs British films often.

Planning Our Teaser Trailer

For our teaser trailer this year, we created a story that deals with domestic abuse and wanted the trailer to reveal a sense of danger, but not give away too much information about the abusive relationship storyline.

Firstly, we needed to understand our genre, so we researched some films with similar themes to ours, such as 'Dangerous Intentions' and 'When No One Would Listen' which both deal with domestic violence.

Through researching these films, we discovered that it is the female that is always abused, as this works well with the stereotype of women being more vulnerable than men. We also learnt that in these films, the woman always reacs in a way that creates a dramatic storyline, whether it is running away or fighting back, so we must find a way to create a similar type of drama in our film.

Being a British film, we should also take notice of Nil By Mouth - a successful British drama film, that deals with domestic violence in a working class household - in the synopsis which we read of this film, it emphasised that the family is working class, which we took on board, realising that films about domestic violence are usually set in working class households, except for a few exceptions, like 'Sleeping With The Devil'.

Film Poster Analysis

This poster is for a film named 'Sleeping With the Enemy', staring Julia Roberts as a wife being abused, much like in our film, which is why i thought this would be a good poster to analyse.

This was an odd film poster as it defied some conventions, such as not having a release date, which indicated that it must be a teaser poster; the poster also has an unusual tag line, as it is rather long, compared to usual short and witty ones.

Conventions of a Teaser Trailer

Length:

Teaser trailers are often easily distinguished from full trailers through length, as teaser trailers are often much shorter, showing a lot less footage than a full trailer, but enough to draw in the intended audience using themes and hints that hat target audience react to - this also creates a sense of mystery within the trailer that intices the audince to see the film more.

Broad Release Dates:

Teaser trailers are also easily recognised through the release date that they reveal, often only showing the month or even season. This gives the producer time to decide on an official release date and allows them to excite the audience without having to work towards a strict deadline.

Time of Release:

Teaser trailers are often released a long time before the release of the film, as this allows them lots of time to finish the film, yet keeping the audience excited; teaser trailers also start of discussions on forums which the Director could gain help from.