Genre and my product

Genre and my product

The genre of my product is war, but also has aspects of thriller within it.

he genre of war is clear through the use of mise-en-scene and sound. It is clear with the mise-en-scene as I have conformed to the typical conventions associated with the war genre.
Steve Neale says that 'Genre is the instance of repetition' this is relatable to my product as my product repeats those conventions of the typical war genre, which makes my product original.
by conforming to the conventions it makes my product's genre easy to identify and also recognise. Having the genre easily recognisable it means that people who like the war genre will be interested in my product as it is more of a conventional sort of war film, opposed to one that covers many other aspects and genres.

Trailer (Draft)

Trailer (Draft) 

This is the draft of my trailer, there are a few things that I will need to tweak in order to make my product look more professional and to improve the quality. 
One of the things is the overlapping of cuts, as some repeat due to the inaccuracy of cutting the scenes, but it will be easy to fix by fine-editing the overlapping cuts out. 
The main thing that I need to improve are the minor details and other things that decrease the overall quality of the product. These improvements will make my product seem a lot more professional and will improve the quality overall. 

Editing - Software

Editing - Software

Within my product i used a lot of editing techniques to achieve  the final product.
I also used a variety of different software in order to complete my product, by using these different softwares it enabled me to achieve a variety of effects, definitions and also allowed me to create a realistic looking product.

iMovie
I used imovie to achieve a basic edit and allow me to piece together the main parts of my trailer to be able to see the basic layout and timing of the product. I would then use other software in order to refine my editing and to add effects to the footage, such as muzzle flash.
In imovie I placed sound over the footage to see the different effects that each different music had on the basic product. by dong this I was able to find music that suited the genre and the tempo of the trailer and was able to use movie to place it over the footage.

Premiere pro

I used premiere to refine my editing and also achieve a higher quality of footage as it improved the definition of the footage, this made it look more professional. Using premiere also allowed me to fine edit the footage so that the cuts looked better and also improved the overall look of my product.

After effects
In after effects i was able to add more effects to my product and I was also able to add muzzle flashes over the end of the guns as they 'fired' this made my product look a lot better and even more realistic as without the muzzle flashes my product did not realistic, and it was easy to tell that the weapons were not real. With the muzzle flashes it makes look much more realistic and as if it is a more professional product.

Ancillary 2 Feedback (unfinished)

Ancillary 2 Feedback

I gained feedback on my second ancillary product, which is a film magazine front cover. I gained feedback from a range of people and from different age ranges in order to gain a varied response to my product.

I gained feedback by showing an audience my product and then asked questions in the form of a questionnaire, by gaining written feedback it allows me to see what has been said and it also makes it easier to recognise what to improve. Questionnaires are also a good way of receiving feedback as they are easy to produce and hand out to people, the data collected from them is also qualitative meaning that I am able to see and interpret what has been suggested.

The overall feedback was quite positive and it was said that my product looked well put-together and also professional. The audience feedback has helped me in seeing what needed to be improved, or what I could do to make sure that the product looks like a real example of a film magazine front cover. My film magazine front cover was seen to be effective at catching the audience's attention and also that it makes them want to see the actual film/product. I made my film magazine front cover make the audience want to see the product by having an 'action shot' of the main actor running as the front cover image, I did this as I thought by adding an element of action, it would make the audience intrigued as to what is happening and then they will want to see the product in order to see what is happening in the film product.

Ancillary 1 Feedback (unfinished)

Ancillary 1 Feedback

I gained feedback on my first ancillary product, which is my poster. I gained feedback from a range of people and from different age ranges in order to gain a varied response to my product.

I gained feedback by showing an audience my product and then asked questions in the form of a questionnaire, by gaining written feedback it allows me to see what has been said and it also makes it easier to recognise what to improve. Questionnaires are also a good way of receiving feedback as they are easy to produce and hand out to people, the data collected from them is also qualitative meaning that I am able to see and interpret what has been suggested.

The overall feedback was positive and it was said that my product looked well put-together. The audience feedback has helped me in seeing what needed to be improved, or what I could do to make sure that it catches the audience's attention as a poster is supposed to do. My poster was seen to be effective at catching the audience's attention and also that it makes them want to see the actual film/product. I made my poster make the audience want to see the product by adding an element of enigma, I did this by having the main character face away, which means the audience cannot see his face and adds enigma.

Editing

Editing

Within my product I have conducted a lot of post-production editing in order to make my product finalised, by adding the clips together and also adding effects to my product in order to make it more professional and realistic.

One editing technique that I used was just basic cutting and editing in order to create the basic layout for my product and to place the clips that I wanted into a certain order to get a sense of the layout of my trailer and what clips would go where.By doing this it allowed me to set the main part of my trailer up, so that I could then focus on the more detailed editing of filters, transitions and visual and audio effects.
Another editing technique that I used was by using a filter called 'camo' in order to dull-down the colours of the footage and make it look aged to conform to the conventions of the genre I chose, war. I also desaturated the footage to dull-down the colour and to make the colours of each frame match in order to make my product look professional otherwise it wold not fit together visually and he images would look different.
Within my product I edited in some transitions between shots, such as fade to black and fade from black. For example at the beginning of m trailer, it fades in from black to show a close up of the main character walking, and the camera following them, so that the character is walking, but he also stays in frame so that the audience are able to see facial expressions of the character and determine how he feels and his emotions.
For added effect, I added muzzle flash and the sounds of gunshots in order to add another sense of realism, as without the muzzle flashes it makes my product seem low quality and unprofessional. To add the muzzle flashes I found a short video of a muzzle flash, which i then saved. To add the muzzle flash to my product, I imported the video to After Effects and removed the background, so that only the muzzle flash is visible. I then overlaid the short video over the main video in order to make it look as if the character was actually shooting when pulling the trigger. To make it even more realistic, I synced the muzzle flash with the audio of the gunshots, so that when there was a 'bang' in the audio, a muzzle flash appeared that was in sync with the 'bang.

Trailer Feedback

Feedback

I gained feedback on my trailer by showing it to the class and getting feedback which was recorded. This feedback is vital as it means that I am able to make necessary improvements in order to make my product more realistic and authentic. The feedback I gained also means that I have tested it with an audience and got real feedback that can have an effect on what I am going to change as it was only a draft, so was not fully finalised.
An issue that came up in the feedback was sound and titles, it was said that towards the end of the trailer the sound cuts out quite soon, and to have a greater effect on the audience it would be better for the sound to carry on longer to build up the suspense and tension between the characters. The titles were brought up also to be improved as the font does not really match the genre and also it was not easily visible in some of the shots where it was lighter, due to the text blending in with the background image.  I will use my audience feedback to make improvements and to make sure that  in the end my product will be effective and will grab the audiences attention.

Some good points that were brought up was the continuity of the trailer and the way in which the shots are not varied. The continuity of my product is vital, and with the positive feedback it means that I have been able to do that well enough that the audience can understand the narrative of my film.  It was also apparent that the tank part of my trailer worked well due to the reaction of the audience. Another factor that was complimented was that the lighting was  consistent throughout my trailer which is good as it was all natural lighting.