Evaluation

Question 1:

1) (TIMING: 0:00 - 0:03)
The trailer starts with the production companies logo flashing on screen, there is a slight boom sound effect and the screen becomes very bright as and flashes as the boom sound can be heard. The logo fades out but the music continues to play into the trailer.

2) (TIMING: 0:33 - 1:00)
In this taken 2 trailer we see the protagonist living his normal life and being happy with his family and enjoying his time in the films setting, Istanbul. At the start of most modern trailers we see the character's normality before anything goes wrong and happens to the characters. The pace of the trailer at this point is quite slow as it is near the start but due to the genre the pace is still quicker than a comedy or romance film to show how things are constantly changing in the film and the overall pace of the film itself. Before this, there was a scene which explained what had happened in the previous film, s this is a sequel, but that isn't relevant as our film is not a sequel and doesn't have to explain a previous film.

3) (TIMING: 0:50 - 0:51)
During this time of equilibrium, we see an establishing shot of the location that the film is set in. The establishing shot is only there for a very short time but the subject of the shot is usually easily recognizable so that it doesn't have to be on screen for long to establish the location. Also, slightly earlier in the film, the protagonist says 'Welcome to Istanbul'.

4) (TIMING: 1:00 - 1:21)
This is the turning point of the trailer. We see the protagonist's family being taken and this sets up the protagonist's goal for the rest of the film, to get his family back. The pace starts to pick up here and the music gets more intense, this is when we start to see the genre and tone of the film. The music and the shots on screen are very dark and quick.

5) (TIMING: 1:21 - 1:26)
We see a couple shots of the woman who has been Taken and her kidnapper, the setting is very dark and grimy and is something you would see in a thriller. Action shots before this show the action part of the genre of the film. It further establishes who the antagonist of the film is so that it is clear to the audience, he isn't on screen for very long but its enough that we recognize who he is.

6) (TIMING: 1:26 - 1:31)
This is the start of the main bulk of the action shots, the pace becomes quite fast now and the music that can be heard in the background is intense and suits the fast paced action that can be seen on screen at this time. Clips are cut very quickly and one shot is only on screen for about one second at a time and never that much more so there are lots of scenes that are featured at this point. The action at this point is quite basic, such as punches and people running, the pace is still quick but the more extreme violence doesn't come into the trailer till right near the end.

7) (TIMING: 1:31 - 1:59)
Some more intense action shots can be seen on screen such as an exploding car and the protagonist in a gun fight with the antagonist's henchmen. The pace continues to build before slowing right down again in order to show a really intense and creepy clip of the main character walking through double doors. The clip and the music builds the suspense and adds to the thriller genre conventions that can be seen through out the trailer. The shot then cuts to black and the music becomes silent on the cut to add to the suspense, this is something which would be seen a lot in a film of the thriller genre.

8) (TIMING: 1:59 - 2:03)
This is when the main title of the film is shown, the music comes back in very softly and the title animates in as the music becomes louder and then slowly fades away. The main title uses the colour red as this again is a colour which signifies either a horror or a thriller, but I know in this case it is thriller. The text is grimy and shots that there will be action and fighting as the letters are dirty and look beat up just like our protagonist is by the end of the trailer. The little sting of music fades out slowly and as this does the title fades out.

9) (TIMING: 2:03 - 2:13)
The trailer ends as we hear another soft sting of music and we see the coming soon screen with all the information about the actors and the companies who created and distributed the movie. Then to end the trailer we get all the text about the main crew members and some of the main companies who worked on the film, still in the same font as the main title screen and still in the same white colour that is used for the other text. There are three screens and they cycle through quickly as they are only pieces of legal text and then at the very end in a plain font on a black screen there is copyright information for the trailer by 20th Century Fox.

1) (TIMING: 0:00 - 0:07)
The timing is different for our trailer as compared to our influential film, this is because we added a preview approved by the MPAA screen, which wasn't found in the Taken 2 Trailer. However, our production logo appears for three seconds and has a loud boom sound which carries into the trailer, there is also a flash as the boom sound comes in. I followed our influential film very closely to start the trailer.

2) (TIMING: 0:07 - 0:30)
Our trailer starts with our character in her normal life, showing her leaving her job and going to London to start a new job. The pace at this part of the trailer is quite slow with no action shots, this means shots will be on screen for four to five seconds at a time, just like Taken 2. This use of showing the character's equilibrium is what happens at the start of the Taken 2 trailer, keeping the structure the same and keeping the pace the same meant that we could follow the conventions of a trailer for a film of this kind.

3) (TIMING: 0:21 - 0:23)
Our establishing shot is also during the middle of our equilibrium, a shot of the river Thames is on screen for two seconds in order to establish that the majority of the film will be set in London. The river Thames is easily recognizable and so, just like the Taken 2 trailer, it doesn't have to be on screen long. I tried to take as many influences as I could when editing the trailer in terms of the structure of the trailer and how the pace changes.

4) (TIMING: 0:30 - 0:42)
This is also where we had the turning point of our film, we see our protagonist get taken and we learn that her motive of the film would be to escape and take her kidnapper down. This is reinforced by the action shots as we see her shooting at the antagonist and trying to run from him. At this point the music becomes much louder and faster, lots more boom sounds increase the pace of the trailer at this point, just like Taken 2. The genre is also established more at this point as the dark theme of being kidnapped is definitely something that would be found in a thriller and the use of action later on makes it an action thriller. 

5) (TIMING: 0:42 - 0:51)
We also show the protagonist after she has been captured in a dark and grimy place. The antagonist is also there as he is pointing a gun at the protagonist, we used this scene so that it was clear who the protagonist and who the antagonist was in our film. In the Taken 2 trailer, the characters are already established before this, that is why we have this scene on screen for a much longer time. The pace really starts to pick up here just like it does in the Taken 2 trailer, our pace is a lot slower at this point compared to Taken. The fact that we show the gun this early establishes the action part of our genre.

6) (TIMING: 0:51 - 1:06)
This is when our action shots start. Just like the Taken 2 trailer, after we see what has happened to the main character we start to see action shots from the protagonist journey to achieve their goal for the film. We also used very simple action shots for this section like running and punching to start of the action shots while I started to build the pace even more for the trailer at this point, just like in the Taken 2. The music at this point is very intense with lots of loud boom sounds and stings that the clips and action are synced to in order to make each clip and impact more intense and have a bigger impact on the audience, this is a technique used in the Taken 2 trailer as well as I used the trailer as my influence.

7) (TIMING: 1:06 - 1:20)
This is where the pace of our trailer is at its quickest and continues to build, the types of action shots that can be seen in the trailer become much more violent and extreme such as gun shots and a chase scene while shooting. The length of each clip becomes much shorter at this point as well as some clips towards the end are only on screen for about one second at a time. The Taken 2 trailer does this much earlier on and at this point it slows down in order to tell some more of the plot and then have a suspenseful finish. In our trailer we kept building the pace until the very last clip in which we build our suspense. The clips cut between each other very quickly but then the final clip is on screen for about 3 seconds as our antagonist walks up to a crack in the door and stairs into what is meant to be the protagonist's eyes. The clip builds suspense as we wonder what is going to happen and we hope that the protagonist does not get caught, just like in the Taken 2 trailer, we wonder what he is walking into and what he is looking at as he goes through the double doors. The music cuts to silence as the clip fades to black very quickly and we see a black screen with no music playing for two seconds to keep the audience on a cliff hanger before showing the title, just like in Taken 2. I used Taken 2 as a basis for the structure of our trailer and used it in order to get influence for the style of editing that is used, the pace however I set on my own based on the piece of music I had chosen for our trailer.

8) (TIMING: 1:20 - 1:27)
This is where the main title of the film comes in, it animates in very quickly in time to the soft piece of piano which can be heard alongside a boom sound that I added to the soundtrack. The text is red as this is a conventional colour for a thriller film and was used for the '2' in the Taken 2 title. I used red for all of our text because it makes the genre clearer to the audience, the use of this very bold font is something you would see in an action film and so the title fits the genre of this film well. The text then fades out as the piece of piano comes to a stop again, just like with the soft sting in the Taken 2 trailer.

9) (TIMING: 1:27 - 1:50)
The trailer ends with the 'Coming soon' screen and I made a similar background to the text as the Taken 2 trailer, all the end title credits in our trailer were influenced and took a lot of influences from the Taken 2 trailer as it was the only film of this kind that we could find and so I needed something to base the text at the end of the trailer off of. After the 'Coming soon' screen we also get all of the crew text, just like in the Taken 2 trailer. These three pieces of text contain all of the information about who starred in the film, who created it, who distributed it and who wrote the music for the trailer. The very last thing that can be seen is a copyright screen for the trailer, which is identical to the Taken 2 one, but I changed the text so that it contained the name of my production company instead of it saying Fox.

Question 2:

Question 3:

A short video explaining how our audience feedback influenced our film and my ancillaries and what I learned from all of the feedback:

Question 4:

(Top, Left):
This is the camera that we used in order to film our trailer and take the photos for our ancillary tasks, it is my camera and it is a Canon 1200D. We shot our trailer in 1080p at 24 frames per second, just like a real film would be shot. As I also take photography, I knew my way around the camera well and knew how to set up the camera in order to get the shot that we wanted both for video and ancillary purposes. This camera was great to use for this project as it a high quality DSLR and immediately adds visual quality to our production, making it easier to get a more professional final outcome.

(Top, Middle):
A mouse was very useful to me during this project as I was using computers a lot in my role as editor and so a mouse was important to me as I needed to use for nearly everything that I had to do with this project.

(Top, Right):
Adobe After Effects CC 2015 is the program that I used in order to edit our actual trailer, I used this program in order to edit all of my AS work and it is a program I have used for a number of years to edit personal projects. The program has a range of effects and plugins available for it which means that there are a lot of potential effects that we can put into our trailer. Also, there are much more tutorials for AAE as it is a commonly used program and it is more advanced than any other editing program and it has a lot more features, this means that if I get stuck there are plenty of videos online to help me.

(Middle, Left):
Photoshop CC 2015 is the program that I used in order to edit my ancillary tasks, I used this program as I am very familiar with it, again from photography, and it is a program which will give a professional look to my ancillaries. In this program I was able to edit the original photos themselves in order to bring out the colour and details in the image, it also allowed me to put all the text and other photos on top of my original image in order to create both a teaser poster and a magazine front cover.

(Middle, Middle):
This is the memory stick that I used to hold all our video clips and images, I also used it in order to save our edited trailer and the project files from all the programs I used in order to edit my ancillaries and the trailer itself. It allowed me to transport all the resources we needed so that I could edit or make a adjustments on any computer that had the correct programs on it, as it is a memory stick it is very portable and could easily fit in my pocket. It has lots of storage space so we didn't have to worry about running out of space on it, we were able to store everything we needed on here and we had backups of these resources on different computers and hard drives just in case.

(Middle/Bottom, Right):
Obvious, but important. The monitor was very important in order to allow me to see what I was editing and what I was writing on the blog. The computer as a whole was my most important piece of technology, this is because my role as an editor relies entirely on the computer in order to put the trailer together and create the finished product.

(Bottom, Left):
Again, a keyboard is a very simple piece of technology but is very important during this project in order to add all the text to my ancillary tasks. It was also very useful while editing the trailer itself in order to add the title text and in order to use keyboard shortcuts to save time while editing the trailer. Using a keyboard was very important in order to complete all of my blog posts, it seems like a very obvious piece of technology but it was very important in the production of the trailer and the blog itself.

(Bottom, Middle):
Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 is the editing program that I used in order to edit together our animatic storyboard. I was completely new t this program before I started editing our animatic, I used this program as the computer that I started editing the animatic on did not have after effects at the time and this program was the only one available. Even though I did not know how to use this program at first I watched a number of videos on how to use premiere pro so that I could edit together the animatic to the same standard that I would in adobe after effects.

Main - Task - Rough Cut - Audience Feedback

Main Task - Audience Feedback:

The audience liked the variation in the shot types and in the plot itself, they found that the trailer made the film seem really interesting. They said that the trailer seemed really realistic and professional, especially the title text and all the crew information seemed like it was in a trailer for a real feature film. The sound effects used sounded good and fitted with what was happening on screen, the action on screen was synced with the music and the soundtrack sounded professional. It was said that the fact that we used a number of locations was good and made it seem realistic, as if we had taken clips from multiple points from throughout a film and not just filmed it all in one location. Two of the audience members are not in our normal class so they had no idea what the film was about before seeing the trailer, despite this they were still able to identify our plot and the characters that are in the film. They were also able correctly identify the genre, which means we followed the conventions of the action thriller genre well. They said that the order of the clips could have been changed slightly in order to get a better idea of the narrative and so that the locations don't skip around as randomly in the earlier stages of the trailer. Also, Some of the actions shots need to be reorder in order to build up the pace as some of the shots are slower than some of the others but are later on in the trailer and so it kills the pace slightly, which is not what we want. In order to give a better idea as to who the antagonist is it was suggested that we show a clip at the very start of the trailer of a case file with a photo of the character and information about what he did and who he is.


In order to improve our trailer we will film a short clip of a case file and add it into the start of the trailer. Then I will re edit the order of some of the clips in order to make the narrative clearer and keep the pace consistent. Other than these minor changes, our trailer was complimented on its professionalism and realistic look and feel to it.

Construction

List of shots recorded to put into our trailer (in order of recording):

- Medium shot of the protagonist as she is logging off of her computer.
- Another medium shot of the main character as she packs up her belongings from her desk.
- Close up of her lanyard as the protagonist looks at it for a while and then places it in her box.
- Medium close up of the protagonist's draw as she locks it, shot through her desk chair in order to add some artistic flare to the shot.
- Establishing shot of the now empty office, the camera tracks along the length of the desk.
- Shot of a mirror and in the reflection we can see the main character carrying her box of belongings out of the building.
- Medium shot into long shot as the protagonist leaves the building again, this time shot from directly behind her as she walks away from camera.
- Close up of the Kent Police sign in order to show where she has just left from and where she used to work.
- Long shot from outside of the protagonist leaving the building in order to create a match-on-action in the edited trailer.
- Another long shot of the protagonist walking towards the camera, it is shot as a point of view as it is meant to represent the antagonist peering around the corner and watching the protagonist.
- High angle shot of the protagonist walking by, again designed to be a point of view and is shot from up high.
- The antagonist jumps out from behind a wall and grabs the protagonist, he covers her mouth and starts to drag her away, it is shot in a medium shot.
- Longshot of antagonist struggling to drag the main character towards the boot of his car, he opens the boot and then puts her in. The car is in the centre of the frame and is shot from down the alley way where our protagonist was just walking.
- Another longshot of the antagonist struggling to take our main character to the boot of his car, the same thing happens in this shot and the last shot, but it is filmed from a different position. The camera is placed where the antagonist was waiting behind the wall but still keeps the car in the centre of the frame.
- High angle shot from the balcony that one of the previous clips was shot from. We see the car that our protagonist has just been put in driving away, the black bars from the balcony can be seen in the shot to give the sense of being trapped and imprisoned.
- Extreme long shot of our main character running towards camera after running around a corner, it is meant to be her trying to escape from the antagonist.
- Then, we filmed a medium shot of Jess, our main character, banging on someone's gate and trying to get in so that she can get away from and be safe from the antagonist that is out to get her.
- Close up of a gun as the magazine is being loaded into it by the antagonist.
- Another close up, but shot from the other side of the gun, as the antagonist pulls back on the barrel of the gun so that it is ready to fire.
- Close up of the gun from the side as it fires to show the recoil and have some effects to make it look real in the edit.
- Over the shoulder shot of the antagonist as he is shooting at the protagonist, Jess, who can be seen running away in the background.
- The same over the shoulder shot as before with the antagonist shooting at Jess, but this time the antagonist is walking and shoot and the camera is following him and trying to keep the same framing on the antagonist, by following him it makes the shot more intense.
- Medium shot of Jess disarming the antagonist as he points a gun at her, she grabs it o0ut of his hand, knees him in the lower torso and then throws the gun away.
- Close up of Jess as she falls into frame and onto the fall its meant to be as if she has been punched or shot and she is down on the ground.
- Low angle longshot of Jess walking across a bridge in London.
- High angle filmed from the bridge of Jess waiting by the riving bank, looking around at the sights and taking in the scenery, as if it is just a normal day.
- Establishing shot from the river bank of a boat going by and the bridge in the background, this should set the scene that it is in London and help to establish location.
-Medium shot through a slightly open door of a figure walking towards camera, the shot ends in a big close up of the antagonist's face.
-Low angle close up of protagonist as she is breathing heavily and crying.
-Close up of a gun, the camera arcs around the gun to reveal that it is pointing at the protagonist, the camera stays in the right of the frame.
-Camera tilts up in a POV shot and we see the antagonist pointing the gun at the camera.
-Camera tilts up in a POV shot and we see the antagonist pointing the gun at the camera but this time he hits the camera with the gun as if it was the protagonists and the camera whip pans away.
-Low angle medium shot of Protagonist from the side as she cocks the gun and then holds it out in front of her and shoots.
-Medium longshot from inside an old building, filming through the door as the protagonist walks by.
-Extremely shaky tracking shot of protagonist running, filmed as if it is POV of someone running alongside her.
-Protagonist waiting at the train station for a train into London, filmed in a longshot from the other platform with the subject slightly off centre.
-Establishing shot down the tracks with some of the station in, to represent that she has already left on the train and gone to London.
-Close up of a puddle as we see the protagonist foot stepping in the puddle as she walks through the puddle.
-Over the shoulder (OTS) of the antagonist as he walks towards the protagonist and the camera follows him. He grabs her next and slams her into a garage door and the camera moves round slightly to get more of the protagonist's face in but it is still an OTS.
-Medium shot of the protagonist sitting on the ground up against a garage door as the antagonist grabs her hair and slams her head into the garage door.

END

Main Task

Rough Cut:

Final Edit:

Animatic Storyboard - Audience Feedback

First Arrest - Animatic Feedback:

The first bit of feedback that we received for our animatic was that the music fitted the genre we were hoping for and fitted with the conventions of a trailer for a feature film. It was said that the titles at the end of the trailer were very professional and very polished, this means that the titles will be okay to put into our actual trailer and wont need to be changed. The audience liked our variety of camera shots, they liked that we didn't stick with the same shots and shot styles, we used a variety of artistic compositions and the audience liked our use of this. Pacing was not a problem in our animatic as it was said that it was paced well for the genre and the pace picked up and slowed down where it was conventional to, this means if I edit the real trailer the same way, the pace won't have to change. The fact that I used found images when editing the animatic was brought up but we explained that it was a case of we didn't have time to take images for the action shots and we had to get on with filming the real trailer, so I used found images just to fill in the last few seconds at the end of the animatic. The audience got the general idea about what had happened in the trailer and the narrative of the film, but, to help it along even more, the audience suggested that we use dialogue in our trailer or even a voiceover. I think we will use dialogue and tie it into the shots we have already planned to use. The main thing that we need to remember with out trailer is to add some kind of narrative device, like dialogue, in order to help the audience understand more. Other than that, if we make the trailer the same as how we planned in the animatic then there will be no problems with trailer.

Planning - Animatic Storyboard

This is the animatic for our trailer, the photos in this animatic represent the kinds of shots and scenes that we will feature in our actual trailer such as fight scenes and guns fights. The music is the score that we will also use in our actual trailer and all audio is how it will be other than the addition of some sound effects that will be in our trailer but it is hard to put them into the animatic as I would need the video clips themselves to know where to sync the sound effects with the on screen action. Some sound effects such as punch sounds and gun shots are too specific to put into an animatic and they would have to be done for the final product. But, this animatic is still a very accurate representation of how our trailer will look and sound in the end.

Planning - Production Company Logo

How I made the logo for my production company:

The first stage of creating the logo for the production company of mine was to create and animate the 3D text that would be in the introduction logo itself. To do this I used a program called Cinema 4D R17 and I started by creating the text using two motext objects, one would be slightly larger but thin in order to get the red sides to the text and then a smaller, wider one in order to get the chrome front to the text. The font I used is called 'Lund' as I wanted a font that was stylish and wasn't plain like 'Bebas' or 'Calibri'. I animated the text using very basic functions in the program called keyframes, I would change the settings for position and rotation and then add a key frame. Then, Id move to where I want the movement to end or change and change the settings so the text is where I want it to be and then add another key frame. I repeated this throughout the 10 seconds worth of timeline and then rendered out the text. I rendered it as a series of PNG images so that the background would not be in the video, this means once I load the animation into after effects I can add my own unique background much easier.

The next stage of creating my introduction logo was to load the animation into a program called Adobe After Effects CC 2015. I did this by starting a new composition with the same frame rate and for the same length of time as my animation, then I loaded in my images and if I select to load in a series of images, after effects automatically puts them all together back into one smooth video. After this, I started another composition, which would be to edit the actual intro, and I can import the composition that I used to edit the photos together, once imported, I can edit it just like a video file. I loaded in the music that I had chosen to use (Night Lovell - Still Cold), which is copyright free, and then chose what part of the song I wanted to use. The next main step was to add the colour grade to the video to make the colours a little more interesting and I did this using a plug-in called 'Magic Bullet Looks' I just wanted to make the colours a little more interesting and add a red tint to the intro in order to continue the colour scheme of the intro consistent. I added the colour grade to an adjustment layer so that I could add an effect at the start in which the intro turns from black and white into colour as the beat drops. Finally, I added lots of distortion effects using an effect called 'Warp' and I added twitching effects using a plug-in called 'Twitch', I added these effects to the beat of the music in order to make the intro much more interesting and work well with the music, instead of just a plain animation with no sound effects. Once done, I exported the video the by clicking 'File', 'Export' and then 'Add to render queue...', I chose where I wanted to save it and then clicked 'Render', the quality settings are chosen at the start but they can be changed afterwards if necessary.

The final step of creating my introduction logo was to load the file that was rendered out of after effects into movie maker in order to cut down the file size. After effects produces very large file sizes and so in order to upload the video to YouTube and be able to watch it back properly to check for errors, I have to load it into movie maker and then resave the video. To do this I clicked and dragged my intro into movie maker and then clicked 'File', 'Save Movie' and then clicked the option to render out the video with the exact properties it was loaded into the program with so that the quality is the same. After the video is finished saving, the quality is the same, but the file size is much smaller and the video will play much better on my computer so that I can watch it back.

The result is an interesting, colourful and eventful introduction, which I think looks professional and will add a lot to our trailer as it will make it look much more professional to have a 3D animated introduction at the start.