Critical Studies

The Mac - its versatile, easy to use, has a friendly interface and therefore is an excellent computer to run the software I have chosen to create professional media productions.  

FCPx - Editing on final cut pro - used previously in As (known programme) _ shown through my As preliminary task, opening sequence (Alone), and preliminary teaser trailer (The Doll). As i am well versed in the programme this will help to create a professional looking teaser trailer in the post-production stage. 

FCPx - Also felt it was best to use as fcpX is some of the most up to date editiing software on the market, and therefore will alow me to attain a very professiona standard of production

FCPx - Also _ powerful software allowing myself freedom in editting with text, transitions, animation, or sound.

ident - colour correction - transition - shot type - stop motion sequence - lighting - duration - cuts - text - diegetic/non-diegetic sound

Ident - after researching company idents I decided using fcpX to create one ident using some left over footage from recording days using the canon 550 D SLR camera. We cropped a peice of unused footage getting a flurry of moving light and added text accordingly creating one ident.  We used the animation on fcpX with different text to create the other, firstly justifying the usefulness of the programme slected, as by utilising its tools we have created to unique idents for our teaser. Then secondly displaying how using these techniques have given the desired professional aesthetic, as the teaser needs to keep with some conventions of teaser trailers (e.g. idents), so the audience has some anchorage. We used this kind of animation on our As ident T.R.I.C productions, as this worked well previously.

Animation - colour correction on different shots - theme of red present throughout (e.g. the end POV shot), as well as distorted vision (POV running down hall) - connoting anger, and confusion, which is what we wanted. Lens flare animations at the beginning as well as lighting/shadowing effects throughout also helped in pushing our themes of confusion and some illusion - all revoloving around the word delirium.

Lighting - There is difference in lighting effect where Adam is talking to his therapist in contrast to flashbacks. Theapist - clear light colourway, focused camera - shows adam is in control. Flashbacks - distorted, dark colourway highlighting the colour red - shows he is out of control and point of highlighting red is to demonstrate these changes, and is apart of our general marketing scheme - shown at the end through text.

Differs from As' alone, as we were not focusing on themes that spanned over a marketing scheme, rather ones that connoted the opening sequence of a film, which is dependent like the teaser trailer on conventions of the genre and the type of media text we were creating. For exmple, where Delirium's text comes in right at the end, Alone's text is faded in from the beginning to the middle, trying to blend with its background and bring focus on what is going on. Both try to give context quickly and efficiently by using mise en scene and setting. For example, we began editing alone with the desire to give the audience an idea of the character by giving them a pan shot of a large house, the time of day, and a first look at our character. 

We filmed it in a way to stop the audience form seeing her face properly till the end of the sequence, as that was the signifier to the audience that our lead character was not happy and would lead to the rest of the film.

Delirium did the same, but in a much shorter duration, meaning we had to use much more anchorage in mise en scene and setting for the audience to get more context of the film than in Alone's sequence in the shorter period of time of Delirium. 

This is a good contrast of the significance in decision making when it came to post-production in both As and A2, as each production was done differently dependant on the conventions that applied to the footage.

BOTH AS AND A2 use fast cuts (more in Delirium than Alone), but this is also done to give more context. As delved into montage sequencing for this reason, whereas Delirium did the same, but the 'flashbacks' were integrated throughout the trailer to keep to conventions of the genre, and to the themes of the film - confused, fast pace, paranoia, illusion. Alone also uses longer scenes as the conventions of a opening sequence needed to be captured.

Delirium's post-production also centred around trying to make the teaser unique. This was done by cutting together shots to make a stop motion sequence. This was where Delirium tried to differ in teaser conventions. Through all the teaser analysis I had done, I had not come across one triailer to use this technique, and although it is unconventional, I feel this choice in post-production works in conjunction with our themes of cunfusion, etc, as it portrays the character like the shot sequence, as disjointed. 

Transition - by using a fade from black into a POV mid shot from adams perspective in the beginning, it signifies to the audience that the trailer has begun, and the surreal haze experienced before was experienced by the character adam. The opening scene in Alone also faded in from black and provides some pan shots from a long shot perspective. These have both been edited like this to give the audience context to what they are about to watch.

Diegetic/non diegetic sound - We used Ableton Live 9 to create a unique backing track for Delirium, so to really capture the mood of the teaser, and to get precise mood changes through visual and audio elements of the media text. This was all done during the post-production stage, as this had to happen during/after all editting of the footage/diegetic sound (e.g. dialogue). It was also done to make the audience feel and understand what the lead character is dealing with, and the genre of the film. As the music reflects the themes of the film (serious, agitated, tense). In As the music had undertones also connoting to the theme (isolation, depression, hoplessness), it picks up just before the montage, to then build in tempo connoting the furatious tendencies of her partner and intense emotion, and then dips out after the montage it begins to sound more forgiving and less ominous, until the big reveal of her face, where it the non-diegetic music and visual elements fade out. 

There is diegetic audio in Delirium, but not in Alone. This is because of the conventions placed upon each production. A teaser trailer does'nt necesarrily need dialogue, but it helps in filling context where yyou only have a small amount of time to fill it, whereas the opening sequence needs no dialogue (it may have some though), as it is the beginning of the film, and due to the themes of Alone the story is slow to unflod at the beginning, but builds in momentum towards the end - like recovering from grief, tragedy, depression.

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Unlike Alone in As, Deliruim A2 had a marketing scheme. A teaser, poster, and magazine cover. As we had previous experince with fcpX there was not much issue in editting, just earning new conventions of teaser trailers through researching and analysing teaser trailers (some specific to my genre). However, we had no expeirence in creating a poster or magazine cover, let alone a marketing scheme that intertwines all three. I used videos on youtube to help me understand the  Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator software to then edit the two photos we had decided on. For the poster we used the same text used in each marketing product for consistency. Added a slogan and kept consistent with housestyle (white, red, black) to help people remember the brand. Added awards, star ratings and quotes to make the audience want to see it, and a billing block. All these elements go towards making a professional looking poster. We also increased shadowing around the character, used mise en scene so neither the picture of the character nor the writing is overpowering one another. This was done in Photoshop, whereas the text was made using illustrator.

The photo for the magazine cover came out well, but I decided to saturate the image further and play around with contrasts to get the deepest colours and and perfect gradient/shadowing of the image. Done by using the colour tool to highlight shadowed areas. Decided to use Sight and sound as our template, as felt it was most suited towards our branding - indie film, niche genre. Cropped our final image to fit a template we cut out of another magazine using photoshop. We then imported it to illustrator where we used the correct house style for our film _ consistency.

Importance of research and planning to my media production

Without researching and planning my productions there would be no methodology in creating the media text.

Allowed for an understanding of the conventions of genre and of a teaser trailer. We produced 'Alone' in As, and Delirium in A2. 

A2 - textual analysis of teaser tailers - GWTDT - ATTLG - Trailer conventions 

Firstly create the Doll as a trial teaser trailer - chose horror for a change from As' Alone, which focused on hybrid genre of phychological drama. Decided liked the conventions of a horror/thriller from creating the doll and alone. 

For both A2 and As I used other films as my basis to create my own media production. 

As I used Arlington road, James Bond, and Hot Fuzz to look at montage editing, and tried to recreate arligtons road for practice. I then used Scott Pilgrim Vs. the world to analyse for an opening sequence. Once I understood the general conventions of these, I could begin creating the idea and concepts behind Alone.