Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 3

What have we learnt from Audience Feedback?

Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Questions Summary

For the A2 course there are 4 evaluation questions that we need to respond to: 

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

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

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

OFFICIAL TRAILER

Below you can find our most recent cut of our trailer 'Azure'.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR WEBSITE or click on the photos below to visit the direct pages.

New Storyboard Animatic

OFFICIAL POSTER (2)

CLICK ON THE POSTER ABOVE TO SEE IT FULL SCREEN

Since posting our Film Poster on Instagram, it was brought to our attention by an audience member that our poster was missing a certificate rating.

This audience feedback has allowed us to make a small yet significant improvement to our poster, informing our audience the rating of our film whilst adding to the posters professional look and feel.

Storyboard Comparison

FILM POSTER (1)

Second Official Draft

We have created a second draft of our trailer in preparation for our deadline on Tuesday 10th March. We reviewed the direction and comments from our first draft feedback and made improvements and corrections. 

Implications - End Shots

During the editing process we constantly discussed the narrative of the entire film, even though we would not be making the entire film we wanted to have a storyline that was as detailed as possible.

When researching trailers we noticed that they will often hint towards the dramatic twist without giving too much away. We felt within our film we would reveal at the end that the step-dad was in fact the kidnapper who was involved in the abduction Esther.

To hint toward this, without being too obvious or specific, we created an end sequence of the below three shots, the dad with his eyes closed, cut to a black and white 'memory' of Esther in her bedroom looking up at him, implying a memory of before he kidnapped her, and cut back to the step-dad opening his eyes.

This shot was not too obvious as we didn't literally show the step-dad kidnapping her, it could just be seen or interpreted as a memory of his daughter. We also created mystery surrounding the subject with shots of the step dad being chased by a masked villain.

Alan Smithee

Our Trailer Ending

We decided to have four end titles:

• The film title (AZURE)
• 'COMING SOON'
• LENS PRODUCTION PRESENTS with Actors Names
• Written, Produced, Directed by

We also wanted to insert our end clip in the middle of these four clips of the Step-Dad Thomas Cutler opening his eyes with a vision of Esther looking up at him.

I created the end titles simply using PowerPoint as they had the font that we will be using throughout our production: Avenir Light

We took inspiration from other trailers which can be found here









Our finalised ending can be watched here:

Want to know who Alan Smithy is? Click here

Film Title - AZURE

Trailer Endings

Taken

Taken 2

Gravity

Feedback Session 1

What genre do you think this opening falls into?

Constructive Criticism?

"Speech needs to last longer"

“Speech sounds too scripted”

"Ending doesn't feel complete"

"Too much running, no climax"

"Logo is poor"

"Continuity issues on the running"

OFFICIAL LOGO

Filming Checklist

As a follow up from my previous posts about Broadchurch and Gracepoint trailer inspiriation, below you can find a checklist which we will be bringing with us on our next filming session to ensure we get all the shots we need and we manage our time effectively.

If you missed my last post about these shots, or are unsure what each shot means, click here

Trailer Inspiration (3) - Broadchurch Series 1

Trailer Inspiration (2) - Gracepoint Trailer

Another source we drew from for inspiration included the American version of Broadchurch, Gracepoint.








Two shots we were particularly inspired by within Gracepoint included an over the shoulder shot of the villain looking upon the victim, and empty playground shot

Trailer Inspiration (1) - Broadchurch Series 2 Trailer

After taking a step back from the footage we have now edited, we felt it was necessary to draw from our main inspiration, the television drama Broadchurch.

Both the series one and two trailers we found to be particularly influential and below you can find a selection of shots from the series two trailer that we decided that we'd like to recreate.

Broadchurch 
Series 2 Trailer

Watch the Full Series 2 Trailer here:

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Firstly, we noticed a key motif in the Broadchurch Series 2 Trailer, and also in the Series 1 trailer and the episodes themselves, a lot of establishing shots were used, often with the characters in the shot. They were so beautifully shot and of such stunning scenery, which we felt amplified the tragic storyline by having it in a juxtaposing setting. Since Nick's house is located in the countryside it seemed only logical to use the green landscapes available to us there.

These establishing shots were often used to overlay text so that the trailer flowed and the narrative was clear.

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This next shot we felt was particularly powerful. It used three quick one second clips, the first of policeman Alec with his eyes closed. It quickly cut to a clip of the girl who we know was murdered, and then cut back to Alec opening his eyes. We felt this clip portrayed Alec's constant thoughts of the girl's murder and his inability to stop thinking about the events of her death. Since we wanted more clips that made direct links to our storyline we felt this would be a perfect one to recreate.

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This clip was particularly hard for me to capture as it lasted about second. It was inserted just after another clip of violence and is of a point of view shot of a man punching towards the camera. He is hard to make out as the sun is pointed towards the camera, overexposing the shot. We felt it was such a simple shot to portray some drama and violence within our trailer and could easily be recreated with Nick's character wearing a balaclava. It was a perfect clip to give the audience a feel for our genre without giving too much of the detailed storyline away.

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One final pair of shots we'd like to recreate, is the family being hounded by paparazzi. Since we currently had no police or news/paparazzi shots to imply the outside world was also involved with Esther's disappearance, we thought this would be an easy one to portray this, as police interviews are much harder to recreate and uniforms are much harder to obtain, and to look realistic.

We may not use every single shot we were inspired by, and we may not take it literally. During our filming session we may be inspired to try shooting something in a different way, these shots were simply to inspire us to enrich our story-line as we were lacking that boost of creativity. Once the session is complete I will be writing a follow up of how these shots turned out, and if/how we are going to incorporate them into our trailer.

Character Profile - Mother

The Mother, Carrie, is played by Annie who was a friend of Lily's. She is an experienced Actress which was important to us as the character needed to portray strong, convincing emotions due to the loss of her child.

Character Profile - Step-Dad

Meet Thomas Cutler, the step-dad to our protagonist Esther.

We cast Michael Curran, Nick's dad which meant it was much easier for us to contact him for filming.

We have created a back story surrounding this character which involves him meeting his wife Carrie at his job at Lazarus Packaging in early 2008. He is a stay at home dad and has become a close father figure to Esther.

We dressed him in every day clothing to portray normality and kept colours muted/in fitting with our colour motif of blue. The darker colours hinted toward connotations of darkness, mystery and danger which we wanted to keep subtle as it may hint towards a twist in the storyline.

Character Profile - Esther

CHILD, FEMALE, 10 YEARS OLD

Played by Esther Payne

Here is our main character, the young girl. She is aged 10 and is played by Esther who is also 10 years of age.

In our trailer she wears everyday clothing such as jeans and converse (as above) which is what she wears when kidnapped. 

We kept her costumes in keeping with our colour scheme of blue as we wanted blue to have significance in relation to her character. We wanted her room and costume to be part of this colour motif so that when she is missing blue stands for character. 

Click here to see why we chose to use blue

Character Profile - Kidnapper

KIDNAPPER 1, MALE, LATE 20s

Played by Nick Curran

The role of the kidnapper is played by a member of our group, Nick Curran.

We cast him as being a part of our group he was always present in our filming sessions anyway. 

His costume is all black clothing with a balaclava to fit the conventions of a stereotypical kidnapper, conforming to the audience's expectations of a violent figure.

Esther's Bedroom

These are the photos of Esther's bedroom which we chose for its blue decor. We filled the room with other blue items so that is was in keeping with our chosen colour motif of blue.

Filming Session 3 - Plan

Our upcoming filming session is our most significant so far as it is our first filming session with the Mum, Annie, the Step-Dad, Mick, and the Child, Esther. As our only booked session with every character we wanted to ensure it ran a smoothly as possible, so set out the following basic schedule for the day. 

11.00-11.20: Arrive at the location and get set up
                         Ensure camera's are charged
                         Check locations are set up how we want them
                         Discuss our plans for the day

11.20-12.00: Shots with Esther on her own - Filmed with Go-Pro
                         Sounds of Esther being taken 
                         The beginning shots with Esther's hands 
                         Shots of her around the house 
                                      Playing on trampoline
                                      Reading 
                                      Doing crafts that are in her room

12.00-12.20: Annie Arrives 
                          Greet Annie and explain the plans for the day 
                          Take photos of the family, and individual actors for the blog 

12.20-13.00: The shots of the whole family 
                          Esther playing as the parents look happy 
                          The parents arguing without Esther 
                          Record sound of parents arguing

13.00-13.30: Contingency Time 
                          Re-film anything we don't like
                          Catch up on time
                          Esther can leave
                          Group break

13.30-14.00: Shots of Mum
                          Filming from behind her, typing and working
                          Take photo's of location for Blog

14.00-15.00: Shots of Parents 
                          Scene with Hot Drink, Step-Dad taking it into Mum, shaking and nervous

15.00-15.30: Final shot of parents
                           Walking into the bedroom of the child
                           Tracking shot

15.30-16.00: Contingency Time 

Scripting Part 2

For one of the shots in our trailer the parents are in their car and a radio-broadcast announcing their child's disappearance comes on the radio. 

We used our actress who played the Mum to also play the voice of the broadcaster.

We tried to base our script on other news broadcasts. In our research we made a note of the basic information included.

The announcement states:

News just in a 10 year old girl has gone missing from her home in the South of England. Officers responded to a call from her mother yesterday, and are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. A spokesperson for the police said that the case was being treated as suspicious.

Bridge Scene

Below you can find pictures of our second filming session. After finding our location we tried a selection of shots with our two actors Nick and Mick.