Voiceover Evaluation Task- Alex Cox

This is a short clip of me discussing some of the elements that we brought together to create our production. It is also an evaluation of the campaign in general.

Final Post of my Thoughts (Post Production)

Through what people have told us I am satisfied that the end product is a successful one. I am also aware of the improvements that could have been made to our work, and can take these factors on board before next starting a project of this scale.

Due to the time limit that we were working to, and the fact we taking multiple shots of each shot so we could later pick which one was most effective, we were a little rushed to say the least. On top of this with it being a teaser trailer we had to include much more shots than we were used to, as apposed to fewer, more extended shots, as with previous projects. It did at times become challenging to fit this all in and focus on aspects such as lighting and scenery at all times, so i can appreciate and accept the points being raised. We do not feel this slight lack of concentration however damaged our overall production too severly as we are extremely pleased with the quality of the shots we dedicated so much time and effort to, and we feel this reflects our commitment to the teaser trailer.

I have learned a lot about the technology used to create media films and other products and enjoyed how interactive the blog is. I have watched many other groups teaser trailers and made comments on what I think their strengths and weaknesses are and am pleased to see other people take the time to evaluate our own, as this all helps in the long run. I feel my personal level of creativity has progressed since the beginning of the coursework, and am looking forward to expanding on these ideas at higher education.

The university course i have applied for uses media and representations as it is largely based around television, radio, and newspapers. Therefor the skills that I have learned over the last two years are going to be of great importance as I go into university, with the vision of a career in the media industry becoming ever more clearer.

Further Audience Feedback (Post Production)

First of all one of our external actors, Rafid Valenciano uploaded the video onto facebook, a popular social networking website. This came up on Matt Rayburn's page, where friends and fellow students could easily share their comments and opinions.

Next i went a step further and asked for people's views on my status, as a way of gaining extra audience feedback, as my print screen above shows. My friend Markus who is also a media studies student at another school was kind enough to share his opinion on our work. This form of media convergance is a good way of getting broader ideas and displaying them on my blog. It is interesting to see how the different platforms and technologies can be interlinked to our advantage.

The Marketing Campaign (Post Production)

The three pieces of work that we produced ultimately all work as one when you consider how they advertise the film. Marketing is about reaching out and grabbing as many customers as possible, and we believe we have achieved this by applying our film to different forms of media. The teaser trailer would feature in cinemas, on the internet and possibly some television channels, meaning it would mainly be seen by a younger audience. The film poster would be seen on buses and phone boxes, and so available to all members of the public. The magazine we used was 'gentleman's quarterly,' meaning males of varied class and different interests would find out about the film. So despite aiming our film at a specific audience, it would in theory make itself known to just about everyone, and word of mouth is a great way of creating hype, whatever the subject matter.

The teaser trailer gives the audience indicators of the narrative and characters as a build up but never really gives away an end result. This would spark interest from the audience who would want to research into the film to find out a more detailed account of what it's about.
The three main characters introduced here also appear on the magazine front cover and poster. The poster is very discreet but holds a firm ground in how it reflects the attitude and sincerity of the trailer. The name and slogan of the film are established most effectively through this as they are the only pieces of text that appear on the poster.
Meanwhile the magazine front cover shows it as an exciting upcoming cinematic event of great importance, just through the fact it dominates a highly respected magazine's front page. The way the cameraman/director is included in the shot as well as the actors, and also Rafid Valenciano's thoughtful pose suggests a more behind the scenes look at the film. The exclusive interviews that are adveritsed adds a very personal touch between viewer and actor as they can find out more about the opinions and inspirations behind the characters and narrative through this.

The way in which we linked these three pieces was by no means a coincedence. Each one gives away something slightly different about the film despite all selling the same product. Similarities can particularly be drawn between the poster and magazine front cover which correspond each other well in two ways. We purposely chose the same grafitti backdrop for the images as this not only sets up the film as very urban, but can also be easily recognised by the audience who would instantly think of 'West 10 Reloaded' whenever they saw either of the pieces. This location is also included in the trailer itself which would remind them of the poster/ magazine and vice versa, keeping it in their minds. The way in which the same 3 characters feature in all 3 is another example of this, and this would mean they would quickly become familiar faces in the world of cinema. Therefor we feel the campaign works well as each product compliments the other whilst offering something different; thus generating maximum interest and imposing itself upon a variety of audiences.

Overall Evaluation

I feel that in general we have met every aspect of a teser campaign. Each of our texts is reliant on another and we dont give much of the narrative away but just enough to create interest in the rest. We didnt base our magazine front cover on that of film magazine such as empire because we felt that that was to much of a niche market. We therefore considered a more general brand as this would reach a wider audience and not limit the potential sucsess of the production.

There are elements we would improve aswell such as the quality of our editing and the use of greater effects on the teaser poster. However we ran out of time to imrove these and therefore there is still room for improvement but on a whole i believe our campaign to have been a successful one.

Evaluation of costume props and mise en scene

These elments are all integral to the reality of a production. It is generally thought to be important to simulate the situation you are producing realistically and make the audience believe that it really has happened. This is why we believed that we should dress our characters in a normal way but still maintain the link to genre. I feel we did this very effectively and what is happening on screen looks as if it really would happen on streets just like the ones the viewers would live on.

In terms of props we tried to limit this to the very minimum you would expect a youth in todays society to possess such as a mobil again to add to the reality. We did use a knife to provoke the thought of violence in the audiences mind and this then lead us to simulated aggression later in the trailer. We felt it important not to advertise actually using the knife as this is a very tender issue in Britain currently.

In terms of the chosen scenery we tried to ensure that each shot had a different location to create a sense of large scale drama that we desired. We have since been told that this is exactly what the trailer put across and that maybe we should alter the type of scene we base some of our shots in. To improve, this is what we would do.

Every Product In Our Campaign

One of the great things about our overall campaign is that every product compliments the other two. None make sense unless you have seen the other two. This technique was purposly done to raise the profile of our campaign in general. Therefore in a sense our ancillary tasks are just as important as the the main production task.

Each and every part of the campaign has been planned carefully to produce a domino effect that ultimatly leads to anyone who has viewed all three products beeing drawn into watching the film when it is released. We believed this to be quite a unique technique and havent seen any other group produce the same effect in the audience feedback tasks we have participated in.