QUESTION- IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL LIFE MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Fowler’s 1989 theory that ‘An individual text within a genre rarely if ever has all of the characteristic features of the genre’ is a theory by which our text fully supports. Our teaser conforms to the conventions of the social realism genre in some instances: the use of wider social issues explored via emotional and dramatic individual stories such as the issue of child prostitution found within 'London to Brighton' or heroine addiction portrayed in 'Trainspotting' this issue in ours being the social issue of sexual assault. This issue is the primary focus also of the music video 'Til it Happens To You' by Lady Gaga which we use as a comparison at the end of the video above. Characters being normally young adults between the age of 13 and 25, whom are cast by non professional actors that add to the realistic look such as Sean in 'This is England', our actress is unknown whilst also being aged 18 thus conforms to this convention also. Tracking shots of the main protagonist especially with the use of a handheld camera, used throughout 'Fishtank' with the shots of Mia, that is illustrated through our text with the tracking shots of our protagonist on public transport. Lastly, the use of location scouting evident within the Yorkshire country and industry of 'The Selfish Giant' we replicate with the use of the Oxleas woodland to use as the location where the sexual assault occurred in contrast to her domesticated bedroom this is illustrated within our shot used above of our graphic match where the protagonist is found in both locations.

Furthermore we develop the use of wide angle shots instead focussing primarily on extreme close ups, this proves better for characterisation as these shots help evoke sympathy from the viewer, this is highlighted in the video above through the extreme close ups of the subliminal rape: this technique despite not being a convention of the genre, has been used widely in real media texts of our genre namely 'London to Brighton' and 'Fishtank' and 'Til It Happens To You', as this is technique is proved more effective with female characters. In development of our tracking shots also, there are shots of our protagonist on public transport through a window shot that is mirrored in real media texts such as 'Fishtank'; 'Bullet Boy'; 'London to Brighton'.

However, as Fowler highlighted it would ‘rarely if ever [have] all of the characteristic features’, therefore we have subverted some of the known conventions such as the use of semi- improvised scripts to achieve life-like conversations; instead of using dialogue as a technique to illustrate narrative we instead focussed on symbolism as a key means to portray the protagonist’s emotions and feelings, whilst also being an experimental means of editing that moves away from realism. We captured extreme close ups of pomegranates being sliced to represent fertility and reproduction, due to its seeds. Coupled with another symbol of fertility being an egg, we utilised a close up high angle stop motion, its shell intended to highlight the fragile vulnerability of the female protagonist’s psyche, and produce tension from the outset. The post-production blue tint to the egg was in keeping with our intended cobalt colour palette, a symbol of her psychologically drowning. The finality of the piece where the white liquid reveals the title sequence was achieved by gradually pouring milk within a box so that it separated in the water due to their different densities. This extreme close up eye level shot proved highly effective since the intended symbolism of the milk representing purity and fertility. Symbols however are also used in other real media texts such as the horses within 'Fishtank' and 'Selfish Giant' that represents the strived freedom of both Mia's and Swifty; the heroin in 'Trainspotting' to demonstrate their isolation and the gun in 'Bulletboy' to highlight corrupted childhood. 

QUESTION- HOW EFFECTIVE WAS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCTS AND ANCILLARY TEXTS

Insert link to website
Insert poster
Insert screenshots to website

Our main product was a 70 second teaser trailer that introduced our full length feature film piece. Combined with this, we created an advertisement poster and a website that provides all the needed information, with links to a Facebook account where our teaser trailer was posted in order to gain feedback.

Our main product is effective due to the gritty, realistic tone that we attributed to it. The opening sequence of the piece is a combination of shots from the sexual assault scene cut against the POV shots of the aftermath in the woods. This set of shots were particularly effective as they made our trailer hard to watch, with many audience members feeling discomfort however

Demonstration of how the three texts achieved their effect together (made on Piktochart).

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/21801118-grace-the-movie

Todorov's theory of equilibrium explains that a piece follows the generic narrative arc of its genre and that there can be a new equilibrium reached concerning certain characters that cannot be returned from. Our trailer starts with scenes from a rape and our protagonist follows the narrative arc until the climax under the assumption that her attack was her fault. It is not till the climax of the piece (seen through a close up shot of Grace breaking the fourth wall at the end of the teaser) that a new equilibrium is reached when she understands that the attack is not her fault and she did not cause it. Our poster also helps support this theory as our tagline is split into two statements, one from before the climax and one after wherein Grace emerges from her attack with her new understanding and the focus is then on her recovery. Adding to this our website also contains our tag line and has reviews, one of the longer more detailed reviews talks about "the victims of sexual assault". The equilibrium reached in this quote focuses in on the victims inability to forget what hasn't happened and emphasises that they are victims, not at fault.

The combination of our texts is effective in matching the conventions of the social realism genre

QUESTION- HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

Final Cut Pro would be the element of technology most imperative to the construction of our teaser trailer, as not only did it comprise our footage together to create our teaser trailer but was fundamental in all elements of our post production. Examples include the post production of our sound which included the layering of sounds: the non diegetic soundtrack, underlying wind recording and record player needle that is layered at the start and finish. In the video above it illustrates how we composed a compound clip of our music, since the conventions of a teaser is to be between 60- 90 seconds, our 3 minute soundtrack would be too long for it all to be included, therefore, to make it appear like a non- diegetic record player skipping we bladed the last 0.5 seconds of soundtrack in the middle of the 'ooo' sound, and repeated it 3 times layering them on top of one another: the repetition imitating a skipping record. Furthermore, to instil our colour scheme within our teaser trailer it allowed us to add tints to elements of our teaser trailer examples being the stop  motion of our egg which had a cobalt blue tint overlaid to fit into our teaser, in order to create the stop motion itself we had to create a compound clip. Within this compound clip, we had two clips of the egg in the same position (one with a crack the other without), utilising a straight cut edit between the two, it made the egg appear as if it broke itself which was our intended effect. Moreover, we to make the protagonist appear disorientated, within post- production using Final Cut Pro, we duplicated the footage four times, then layered them on top of another having each start consecutively after the other; reducing the opacity of each clip, their transparency ensured you could see all four clips at one. This created through post- production the effect of her feeling faint from understanding what has happened, as each clip lacked clarity and each moment appeared to extend slower. Not only this, but we had to incorporate text into our piece wit the use of reviews, titles and cast, therefore to have our piece correspond to the ancillary texts we used the same font (refer to separate blog post on ancillary texts). What was important however was the placement of text, being in shots to reduce wasted space, or to fade in with corresponding footages (such as when the milk is poured into the water, the 'Grace title fades in with it.)


Aurasma was incorporated additionally to give our promotional poster an edge, whilst also combining our ancillary text with the teaser itself. In the video above is the process of creating the Aura and also the final effect, which as a promotional package is more inviting and targeted towards our target audience aged from 18-35. We had to upload a trigger image which in our case was our film poster, this is the image that the audience hover over with their phone, then we had to upload an overlay that from the above footage is obviously our teaser trailer.

In order to produce our website we had to construct a website which was produced using Wix.com. Researching into possible templates associated with creative careers (art portfolios etc) until we found our appropriate template. From this we manipulated and changed the template incorporating fades, text and moving backgrounds. Not only this, we created additional tabs for extra information such as: statistics, crew etc. One of the strengths of Wix is that they allow you to time when certain aspects of the website appear on screen, therefore, the screen is just an emotive image of our protagonist, until 3 seconds later our teaser trailer, tagline, title and reviews all appear at once within a fade. Wix tools, also, allowed us to create a slideshow of reviews so they appeared consecutively after one another- this was because we did not want all our reviews on the website at once since we felt it would make the website appear cluttered and distract from the emotive footage of our protagonist.

Utilising Adobe Photoshop we created our promotional poster focussing especially on layering so that we incorporated the protagonist, reviews, tagline, and location. The tools used especially were elements such as the eraser tool, but also tints to incorporate our colour scheme as we did with the egg. Layers are paramount to the construction of our poster, as we had to layer a number of aspects: images of the woodland; the outline of the males face; the photograph of our protagonist; images of the feathered bedroom; the title; tagline; reviews; social media components and website.

Blogger was of equal importance to Final Cut Pro, being crucial to our research and planning of our product and ancillary texts. This was through deconstructions of teaser trailers, film posters and websites to be influenced by real media texts of our genre and also understand the conventions of our genre also that we were willing to conform to and subvert. Furthermore, through blogger we illustrated audience feedback from elements such as pitches, surveys and questionnaires to manipulate and change our text according to their feedback. Not only this but we could evaluate our construction stages throughout, finding strengths and weaknesses within each stage and changing our products accordingly. Research was also undertaken of similar media texts such as their narrative, plot, characterisation, music, colour schemes and cinematography.  Planning stages were posted and discussed such as our story boards, pitches and narrative arc to produce our ideas within a more concrete format.

QUESTION - WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

https://prezi.com/view/O6II6YkAe2Ljl6c8bka4/ 

Deconstruction of London to Brighton teaser trailer

The London to Brighton teaser trailer starts off with a slow, melodic non diegetic soundtrack that mirrors against the diegesis of the three main characters of the film discussing the details of a young girls life and how she has come to live on the streets. This is immediately identifiable as a social realism piece focused on homelessness and prostitution, Joanne is an 11 year old girl who has been hired to perform sexual acts with an older male.  The trailer highlights the issues of child prostitution and as the piano track builds tension against the on screen diegetic discussions, it makes way for a much faster, techno beat non-diegesis that is coupled with a faster pace of editing as we see shots of Kelly and Joanne on the run from the police and the Pimps. This trailer is able to make the audience sympathise with the young girl and the female prostitute whilst being repelled by the acts of the male leads in the piece. The fast paced non diegetic track alongside the sounds of the girls screaming/crying builds a very high rate of suspense and makes the piece gritty and real. By naming famous places i.e.: Brighton the audience are encouraged to realise that the violence and criminal acts happen all around them and are not an isolated incident as it covers England from London to Brighton.  The teaser trailer ends with the off screen diegetic sound of a shotgun blast against a black screen with white title logo.

Deconstruction of transpotting teaser trailer

The teaser trailer for Trainspotting features a childish group of boys running down a railway track, revealing that they have tied up one of their friends to the tracks, shortly before the train is due to arrive, "That is, if its not late!". Seen in the trailer, there is a close up shot sequence of the main character (Renton) tied to the tracks and offering advice to the audience (thus breaking the fourth wall), this advice is countered by the narrative of the film and offers a cheeky view on life.  Renton is still laughing as he explains that the most important rule is, "don't let your mates tie you to the railway track!" Trainspotting revolves around how Renton's life is troubled by the social group he is a part of and by tying him to the railway tracks, they have condemned him to his death and allowed him to be run over by the train. This isn't something that would be seen as what a friend would do for you and therefore from the onset of the trailer we know that Renton is different from the others. This difference leads him to be tied up in this situation and then the inevitable happens as the off screen diegetic sound of a train approaching coupled with a POV shot of the train facing Renton makes up the climax of the trailer.

This climax finishes with a black screen with a scrolling title of 'Trainspotting' panning across the screen at high speed, synchronous to the sound of the train. This lets the audience know that Renton has been hit by the train and wasn't saved by his social group. Trainspotting is Danny Boyle's commentary on the lack of social mobility that Scottish working class youths felt in the 90's and this is particularly relevant as Renton can't escape this situation that his friends have got him into.

Inspiration- A girl like her

A girl like her takes on a completely different style of filming. By reflecting the styles of a POV camera piece it showcases the private and public lifestyles of two girls, providing insight into a girl who bullies someone who ends up committing suicide. This piece gave us inspiration as our narrative involves our actress attempting suicide and in our shooting script we planned to have a variety of POV shots of Grace coming out of the woods after she has been attacked.

The film makes a statement on how everyone around the girl who commits suicide has some part to play in her act and this helped us when we were planning what shots to include in our main product due to our commentary on how society fails victims of sexual assault.
A Girl Like Her also helped to influence our piece as the film focuses in around the mental health of teenage girls, this helped us with our piece as we were aiming to represent this age group as realistically as we possibly could. Some of our original shot ideas were taken in school and we had similar shots of bullying from other students as seen above.

We were able to use this idea of POV filming to connect more with the audience in a disorientating sequence of clips that are cut against shots of the rape occurring. We decided that this would be particularly effective as watching A Girl Like Her puts you in the place of the suicide victim and therefore by having the same camera shots were were able to utilise this idea of bringing the audience in and get them to feel the same way.