Final Product

Here is where you can watch the final cut of the trailer for "Playing With Fire"





Playing With Fire Final Cut Trailer Click Here

Evaluation Pt. 4

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

Research

For my research I used ‘YouTube’ in order to look at different trailers that were of the similar genre of the one of my trailer. This was particularly beneficial because through this method I was able to see the usual conventions for the type of genre I am trying to portray. I even looked at trailers which were a different genre to the one I am doing to see what conventions I should avoid.

YouTube

Planning

For the majority of my planning I used Microsoft Word. I used word when I wasn’t drawing story boards or plans for the magazine cover or poster. I used Word when I wanted to plan a scene and this helped me a great deal because it allowed me to quickly process my thoughts and correct any spelling or grammatical errors before I put it on blogger. Blogger is also another technology I used during the planning stage; I used it to put all my work in one place. This helped me because it made it easier to see my project as a whole when everything is in one place.

Word

Blogger

Construction

The construction of the media product was done largely on a camera, Photoshop Paint.Net and iMovieHD. I used Paint.Net to edit the images I used on my poster and magazine. Paint.Net is a free image editing software I downloaded at home, this was very beneficial for me because it helped me do things I was not quite able to do in Photoshop. After editing the images on Paint.Net I then copied them over to Photoshop and then used it to create the final products for magazine cover and poster. Photoshop was especially useful because it is quite complex and very detailed so if you know what you are doing you can make a semi-professional looking product I used Photoshop with a combination of YouTube tutorials to get my finished products to look the way they do. Obviously this was beneficial to me because it made my products overall look better. I also used a camera and iMovieHD to actually produce my media product. The camera I used to film the scenes for my trailer. I then used iMovieHD to edit the footage and put the trailer together. This was beneficial for me because it allowed me to create my media product.
During the product I used “Twitter” slightly. I used it to promote the film via social networking and this was beneficial to me because it helped advertise the film trailer for free.

Camera

iMovieHD

Paint.Net

Photoshop





YouTube

Twitter



Evaluation

For the evaluation I used ‘Word’ and ‘Blogger’. I used word to type up the audience feedback. Once I typed the feedback I was able to look at what needed to be done and how to change it. Also I typed up everything I needed to blog on word first to make sure I didn’t make any grammatical or spelling errors. This was very helpful to me to see the whole of my project as a whole. I used blogger to put up all my work so it could be seen in a coherent manner.

Word



Blogger



Evaluation Pt.3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

For my audience feedback I used a focus group of people with different tastes in order to decide what needed to be changed about the trailer and what could be done to make it better.

My audience for this product were 18 year olds, to people in their mid 20s; this age group is represented by the main character.

This is the main character from the product. He represents the aforementioned age group. The way this character was made was so that he could be universally applied to many different social groups in the sense that he is from a less privilege background and has to work to achieve his goals. Although he goes about achieving these goals in the wrong way, the goals are still prevalent.

This represents my target audience because the vast majority of my audience if not all will have had to work for at least something in their lives. This will be especially true of older people because they’ll either be in employment or studying at university or trying to get into university.

One of the biggest similarities between the two in terms of costume and appearance is that they are both well dressed in suits. The suits could connote wealth and power or the acquisition of both through the course of the film. The suits could also connote that they are important character in the product, both being main characters. The tilted look of both characters makes them both look more dramatic especially on the picture of Gerard Butler who plays “One Two”. These two have a similar role in their respective films in the sense that ‘One Two’ is mainly known as a petty criminal who gets hired for a very big job that could make him and his friends rich for life. Similarly, ‘Joel’ in his film starts of needing money and ends up owing a lot of money to people so he has to start paying it back by committing petty crimes and then moves his way up to bigger things and eventually robbing banks. So in this sense the two characters have a similar role in their films; they both take orders from other people and commit crimes for their benefit.

This is the male equivalent of my target audience. The kind of music my target audience is varied, because not many people just listen to one type of music, people tend to associate largely with one or two types of music but as a whole people listen to different types of music. So I chose ‘POWER’ which is a song that has had critical acclaim from critics and most people enjoy the song so this will play towards my target audience. The target audience will also be the type to shops they would shop at would most likely be River Island, Topman, H&M and Blue Inc. as represented by the target audience. The type of TV programme my target audience would watch would most likely be “The Wire” or other shows to that nature.

 My target audience will like my product because the costumes I used in the trailer were mainly from Topman, River Island & Blue Inc. so the audience will be able to identify the clothes if not the actual clothes then the style will be very familiar for them. Also my trailer shows crime, violence & drugs things typically found in the show “The Wire” and it shows scenes of action and in places the editing is rapid enough for it not to get boring or too slow so it should keep my target audience entertained ands they should the film/trailer.

Focus Group  

For our audience feedback we decided to form a focus group comprised of 5 people.
After forming a focus group of 5 people to watch our trailer then give us feedback about what works and what doesn’t we got the feedback and we knew what to change about the trailer.

From initial audience feedback the beginning of the trailer seemed too much like the beginning of a film and less like a trailer. So it needed to be reedited, this presented a bit of a challenge in the sense that if we were cut/ alter the beginning of the trailer we would essentially have to redo most of it. This would have been needed to be done because the trailer was edited together so that the timing of the elements from the footage and the music fit in together along with the voice overs to create a certain atmosphere. This obviously posed a challenge to try and recreate a similar atmosphere with less footage. So instead of trying to cut part of the trailer and moving a couple things around, we decided to just redo the entire trailer with the footage we had shot previously. In the end we had an entirely different trailer but once we got the focus group together again and we got feedback for the revised product and the feedback this time was a lot more positive, the comments were as follows; 

• It feels a lot more like a trailer and less like an independent film
• It’s a lot shorter and doesn’t drag on anymore
• It flows better
• It doesn’t reveal as much information as before and makes me want to find out more
• As a whole the product flows and feels better than before.

From the feedback I learnt that my first draft of the product didn’t really feel like a ‘real’ product and had to be edited down to be shorter and flow better in order to feel like a ‘real’ media text. The audience feedback helped me evaluate my media product because if I hadn’t gotten people who were outside the creation of the media product you are bound to get some bias towards your product so getting an outside perspective to get a fresh look and unbiased critique of the work. So with the audience feedback I was about to find out which areas exactly needed my attention.

Evaluation Pt. 2

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

The combination of both my ancillary tasks and my main product was used in a very effective way, in the sense that the magazine cover advertises the film and offers many different incitements to draw people in and look at the front cover.

For my film poster I decided to keep it simple. I thought the best way to make this poster would be to use the main catalyst of most of the events in the film. By this I mean of course the poker game, in this film it acts as a catalyst for the vast majority of the film, also this is what the trailer showed the most of so it would make more sense to make it more about the poker game so that the audience could associate better with it instantly. The poster also plays with the title of the film because it shows 3 of the main characters as playing cards in the foreground and in the background is fire. This is a reference to the title because of the “playing” cards and the “fire” in the background it goes with the title of the film “Playing With Fire”.

As for my magazine front cover I decided to go for a similar simple style as the poster. I used the same main character on the magazine cover as I did on the poster wearing just slightly altered clothing as he was on the poster. I made sure to put enticements on the left hand side of the magazine because that will be the side showing on the magazine stand so that is what will be needed to draw people’s attention. I also made the magazine reach its 100^th issue as a milestone and as special issue that might make people more inclined to look at it because it has reached 100 issues.

The image I used for the main character (Farai Ngarande) is a low angle shot looking up. This is to give him the impression of him looking powerful and the prop of the gun also adds to this image I am trying to portray. His card number is the Ace of Spades because in most card games the Ace is a very valuable card to have and this is done to represent that he is the main character. The second character on the shot was taken at a slanted angle to give it a more dramatic look and feel to it. Her card number is the 8 of Hearts this is a little reference that later on in the film there is a bit of a love interest between the main character and the antagonist and since she is put in the middle it hints that she may have to choose between the two at some point in the film. The last character depicted on the poster is the antagonist. He is put at the back because his character in the film typically works behind the scenes and usually has a hidden agenda, this is represented by the way the other two characters are looking towards the front of the poster but he is looking elsewhere as if to say his attention isn’t where you’d expect it to be. In addition to the theme of playing cards the cards Ace of Spades, 8 of Hearts & Ace of Clubs are a reference to the “Dead Man’s Hand” which is a pair of Aces and 8’s which is the hand a character in a film was holding before he was shot to death. The whole poster is a play on the title, the playing cards in the foreground represent the “Playing” part of the title and the background is of fire which is a direct reference of the “fire” in the title. I have also added a hash tag at the bottom of the poster as a marketing scheme, (#PWF) this is so that the film can be discussed on social networking sites and I can see who to advertise to and save money by targeting the people who want to see my film and how to advertise it. Also with social networking my product gets free advertising by word of mouth which is a very powerful form of advertising.

The magazine is called Preview. The magazine is called Preview because in the world of cinema preview is usually when a film is shown to critics before it is released to the general public. This is done so that magazine, newspapers and even blogs can make a general consensus for the film and also this is also done as a sort of free advertising for the film even if the reviews are bad “any publicity is good publicity”.

I made this issue be the 100^th issue for the magazine as a milestone because even if people aren’t usual readers of the magazine they may be drawn in by the thought that it has managed to survive 100 issues and might want to pick it up on a whim. Also this will be a sort of collector’s edition for some people and therefore it is more likely to be bought just for reaching this milestone.
The tag line “The UK’s No.1 Independent Film Magazine” this is to draw people in since it is the number one independent film magazine in the UK so there must be a reason for this so people might be more inclined to pick it up.

The left side of the magazine offer a free poster inside special issues, obviously for those who really want the poster they will buy more than one to get the poster and since its on the left hand side it will most likely be what the audience see first when they look past the magazine rack. Also on this side there is a competition to win 25 Blu-Rays and 50 DVDs this is enough to make people to do a double take at the magazine and then pick it up buy it to enter the competition. Also on the left hand side is the price of the magazine which is cheaper than some of the major film magazines and offers more prizes and competitions, such as magazines like Empire. The main article of this magazine is the “World Exclusive Interview” with the star of “Playing With Fire” since this Interview is world exclusive no one else will have an interview with this person so the only place they will be able to read about it is in this magazine. So if they want to know more about it they will have to buy this magazine. The other cover stories talk about an upcoming film by a well known director “Zack Synder” this is also used as an incentive for people to buy the publication. The main image is of the main character who is also being interviewed for this magazine. His attire is roughly the same as the attire he wears in the poster but it different in the sense that he wears a different shirt and tie but still wears it in a suit style this is done to represent the luxury the protagonist is trying to achieve in the film. The image was taken form a low angle looking up at the protagonist to make him look more powerful since the general theme for him is power. For the smaller images I decided to focus on the film “Playing with Fire” and therefore I created a film reel with scenes from the actual film or rather scenes from the trailer to further advertise the film rather than also advertise other films.

Products similar to mine would usually have a marketing strategy similar to this;

1.      Before the film is ready to be ‘officially’ announced, they will make adverts with minimal information revealed perhaps a single coloured bus ad with the tag line for the film on it and a ‘coming soon’.

2.      Once the film has been officially announced then the company will start doing more detailed advertisements but still nothing substantial they may have the main character/s on the adverts now but not much will be known about the actual film’s plot or much else.

3.      The trailer would be due for release soon after that period of time now that the effect of word of mouth has had a chance to spread and get people’s attention. When the trailer is released it will most likely be released in the cinema first then it will be advertised on the internet most likely YouTube and finally it will be released on TV

4.      Next would be the tie-ins to the product, product placements and promotions. For a film like this would be a cash prize or a holiday to a destination mentioned in the film or if its glamorous enough it will be to the place where the film was shot. This gets more awareness for the film and makes people more likely to want to watch the film.

5.      The next part would be merchandising and copyrighting. This usually involves reserving the name of anything you want associated with the film such as toys, video games or just hand held products a special edition iPhone as a promotion for the film.

6.      The next part of marketing strategy would be the publicity. This will usually involve the stars of the film, going on talk shows and doing interviews for magazines, trying to promote the film as much as they can. Once this is done they film will have reached the hype it will.

7.      The next step would simply be the film being distributed to the cinemas and people would go and watch it.

8.      This would be the final part although the majority of the time this part is out of the hands of the producers or anyone on the film company. This is where the critics either tell people to go see the film or not. Also this is also the part when people who have seen the film will either tell their friends about it and it will either be positive or negative but most companies rely on this if they opening weekend didn’t meet predictions they would then expect the second weekend to bring in more revenue.

There is some obvious strength with marketing your media product like this one of them is that it will attract a lot of attention and will essentially reach everyone you want it to reach. 
However, after a certain point you really have no control over the situation. By this I mean to a certain point you can tell who has seen your advertisements and who hasn’t and therefore you cannot adjust your marketing as it situation develops. Also it is very expensive and if the film isn’t advertised correctly it can be a colossal waste of money. 

For this film I intend to launch it with the trailer being put up on YouTube and create a viral promotion After that release the posters, on the posters I put the hash tag #PWF this is used on twitter and via this I can see who is talking about the film and what is being said. This will also act as a sort of free advertising and let the name of the film spread via word of mouth. After I have released the trailer on YouTube and I have had the posters up for a 3 weeks I will then start advertising the trailer on TV and the cinema before films such as Contraband because they have a similar type of genre. Then finally I will start advertising in film magazines such as “Empire” and “Preview” but I will show a massive emphasize social networking. For distribution it would be in the best interest of the film to be distributed by Harvey Weinstein. He is the co founder of the “Weinstein Company”. I would choose this company to distribute this film because he is famous for turning small budget films or independent films into massive blockbuster successes or cult classics. 
The cost should be kept to a minimum because I am using word of mouth and social networking in order to try and be innovative and break away from normal conventions. Also the adverts in Empire won’t be full page adverts so costs can further be kept down.  

Evaluation Pt. 1

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

My media product doesn’t really challenge forms and conventions of film trailers. It simply develops them in the sense that it follows most of the conventions. I will be comparing my product with a real media product. The product I will be comparing mine to is the trailer for the film “RocknRolla”. I will be using this because this trailer follows the conventions of a film trailer in the same as mine does.

In the trailer for ‘RocknRolla’ it shows key events in the trailer with captions such as this one to reveal crucial details for the film for example this image tells us that “The Painting” is important in some way. This is shown with the way that the only thing with enough lighting for you to be able to tell what it is the painting and the two characters looking at the painting. The character further away from the painting shows to have a look of possession over the painting and the character closest looks like he is admiring the painting. The painting is in the foreground and the characters in the background showing that the painting is the important thing here and the characters have something to do with it also. In the actual film the painting is a catalyst for a lot of the misadventures that happen throughout the film.

In my trailer I used a crucial point in the ‘film’ which was the part where the main character had a gun held to his head. I used this as the opening scene to the trailer to try and make the audience wonder what is going to happen next or wonder how the character got in that situations or just plain and simply wonder what is going on. The lighting of the room and the props used imply death for one character and supremacy for the other. The lighting behind the character sitting down is very dark and continues to get darker implying that the future for the character is about to come to an end. However, the lighting behind the character that is standing up with the gun is very bright almost to say that he has the power and along with the white top he is wearing gives him an almost transcendent look to him as if he is the harbinger of the other characters death.

The next convention followed my trailer and the trailer for “RocknRolla” is the convention that the film title is not shown until the end and this is followed by a release date. For example in the RocknRolla trailer;

And in my film trailer I used the same typical convention;

I used this convention because it’s a typical convention used a lot because if the name of the film was shown at the beginning of the trailer, then the audience might forget it but if it’s the last thing they see then it is much more likely to stay in their mind that is why typically the name of the film is show later in the trailer or just simply at the end of the trailer.  

Trailers usually show you the location where the film will mainly take place.
The trailer for “RocknRolla” shows a scene shot in London which is a shot of a London skyline taken from the Thames. This representation of how the film focuses on the wealth and luxury some of the characters experience. Also at other part the locations chosen for this film show the complete opposite such as the home for one of the main characters. It looks tattered, torn and destroyed. This represents a direct reflection from this character’s personality as he is a drug addict and doesn’t care where he is as long as he gets his fix.

This is the scene taken from the Thames of the London skyline from the film trailer ‘RocknRolla’

This is the opposing scene taken from the ‘RocknRolla’ film trailer of the homes of one of the main characters.

I incorporated the use of locations to describe the background of my main character. The areas he’s mainly seen in are sketchy looking areas. This represents the characters less privileged upbringing. This also explains his desperate bid to make money at any costs to get out of that environment. For example in this scene he is seen exchanging drugs for money as he continues to accumulate wealth to pay back his debts.

In my media product I used props and costume to emphasize points throughout my trailer. For example in regards to costume in the scene where the ‘crime bosses’ entered the poker room they were all wearing suits and expensive looking clothing however the main character was not, he was simply wearing a t-shirt and a hoodie. This represents just how out of place he is and how really doesn’t belong with those types of characters. Also this was to make him feel isolated and segregated.
The props used were to emphasize luxury and danger for example the gun. This gun used a lot in the trailer because of its silver metallic appearance it looks expensive but this fact doesn’t distract from the truth being that it still is a gun which is a weapon used to kill people. The fact that it is just left idly on the side is to represent how little the characters in this are concerned with human life and to also emphasize just how dangerous they are.

Creation of Poster

Creation of Poster

First I wanted to make a fire background.
So to begin with I used the rendering cloud tool to make, black and white clouds.

Then I used the curves to alter the colour precisely and so I can have more control overt he colours rather than the set colours.

This was the result.

I had previously made the 3 of the main character into playing cards and I put them all on this poster.

Then it was time to add the text. I went with a house style of red and white text.

Creation of Magazine Cover

Creation of Magazine cover

At first I decided to put up a gradient of white and blue. This was so that the background didn’t take too much from the front cover seeing as they are both fairly soft colours.

Then I decided where I was going to put all of my text after refereeing to my plan.

With the film reel I decided to use the empty parts in it and take screen shots of my trailer and warp them to fit into the empty spots.

Then I added the last parts. Which was deciding where to put the main image, my first image I used did not show enough of the main characters face so I had to take a different image that showed more of the main character.

I took a different picture and used that as my main image.

Production Diary

Production

The production of the film trailer was decided to be done over the course of 4 days, (not consecutively) I will be keeping this production diary in order to keep a record of what I have done and what still needs to be done.

Day 1: Today we filmed the last scene of the trailer which will be the scene where I am tied up and have a gun pointed at my head. Everything went according to plan but there was a small problem in that the room we chose to film the scene the window didn’t have a curtain or a way to cover up the window so to remedy this we had get a lot of bags and coats to completely cover the window and make it look darker, but other than that everything went according to plan. 

Day 2: Today was the day we started filming the opening scene and the confrontation scene. Since we were filming school after hours, we wanted to wait till it got dark before we started to film and since the school has to be closed by 6 we were a bit constrained for time. We felt a bit rushed but we still got it filmed nonetheless. However the time constrained was felt even more when we decided to film the confrontation scene whilst we were there anyway. There was a problem in addition to the time constrain both the protagonist and the antagonist were both still wearing the same clothes so we had to make one of them wear a jacket from someone else and the other one turn his clothes inside out. But we overcame that predicament and kept the continuity in the film.

Day 3: Today we decided it would be good to film the poker scene. We gave this scene the whole day because it was the longest scene we were filming and a lot of preparation was going to need to go into it. We needed to put together a realistic looking poker table and get the room empty and get everybody ready for it. For the most part everything went according to plan and there were no major complications.

Day 4: We waited a week later to film this because there was a lot of other stuff we had to do for various parts of the production piece and also we couldn’t get a free time when all of us were available till a week later. This day we filmed the crime scenes/montage. Besides a few outtakes the filming went as planned before.

The next part of the production was the editing of the film trailer. During the editing process we had to take out a couple of extra scenes and cut down a lot of scenes to makes it much shorter. There were two different versions of the trailer the first edited version was scrapped because the timing was off on some of the scenes and the wrong footage was used in a lot of places. So instead of taking a few steps back we thought it might be a better idea if we were to start the whole process again.

During the editing we had to think of a soundtrack to add to the trailer we made a mind map of different ideas but when it came down to it we chose the song “POWER” by Kanye West. Then after that we had to decide on the name for the film, we basically did a brainstorm of what the film was about and different titles and finally decided that the best name for it would be “Playing with Fire” because it hinted to a less than literal reference and more to the connotation behind it. When you play with fire nothing good comes from it and in this the protagonist plays around with a lot of things he shouldn’t be playing with and messes with the wrong people, so in a metaphorical sense he is in fact playing with fire.

Ancillary Task Production

For my Ancillary Tasks I decided to produce a film poster and the front cover of a film magazine advertising the film.

I decided to start with the magazine. Firstly I had to come up with a name for the magazine. After making a brainstorm of different names that related to cinema in some way I came up with ‘Preview’ I decided this would be a good name because it was simple and it related to the showing of a film before its official opening which is what the magazine focuses on, reviews before film come out officially. I then decided to make some enticements. Not only did I do a couple of giveaways but I made it so that this issue was the 100^th and some people will look at a magazine which has reached a milestone and buy it anyway not because they read it but simply because the fact it has reached a milestone is reason enough to pick it up.

For the poster I decided to have 3 of the main characters displayed as if they were playing cards on a backdrop of what is meant to look like fire. As a play on words for the title “Playing with fire”. At the bottom of the poster I put hash tag #PWF to advertise the film on Twitter. The images of Josh and I were taken at a low angle shot to make us both look powerful.