Sammi Wilde's A2 Media Coursework Blog: 2011

Thursday 15 December 2011

BAMFORD FINAL TRAILER

I have now completed my trailer! I have changed the title cards to match the E4 branding and I have changed the time to coordinate with the billboard.

Here is the third draft of the billboard for BAMFORD! We have added the correct branding and colours. We have also added a slogan - which was originally used in the soap 'Cheers' - to show that all of the characters know each other, and their business.

Final Draft of Ancillary: Magazine

This is the final draft of the ancillay magazine: Love Soap. I have given the title a black shadow, and a black line (transperency 51%) to make it stand out even more. Through looking at TV Choice magazine, a majority of the text has an outline on it, or has a block colour background to make it stand out.

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1: Part 1

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Evaluation Question 1: Part 2

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Evaluation Question 1: Part 3

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Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

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Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

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Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

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Tuesday 13 December 2011

Third Rough Cut of BAMFORD

Since the second rough cut, I have:

Added new title cards - in the 2nd RC they were black and oddly spaced apart, so to make sure they really caught the audiences eye, I have made them red and very bold. they are also placed at regular intervals to help the audience keep track
Looped the soundtrack using GarageBand to ensure that there were not any jumps in the music when I originally cut it so there were no lyrics playing
Edited the ending - in the first RC, there was no ending, in the 2nd there was but very badly edited. I have deleated many of the 'cross-blurs' because they were cutting into the dialogue which made it very hard to hear what the actors were saying
Since the 2nd RC, we have filmed new scenes in better lighting which have replaced the old footage. But because of the location being next to an extremely busy, noisy road (A6) there is still the problem of hearing the actors when they talk. In the editing process, I tried to dub the background noise but all this just made the dialogue sound hollow and unreal. I also tried to raise the level of volume but that also increased the volume of the trucks driving past. The location was next to a crossroads so there was an opportunity to shoot when the traffic lights were on red, but timing this would've had to have been impecable and the schedule we were on was very tight so the oppurtunity never arose
We have refilmed the fight sequence between Rav, Johnny and Mason because the original footage shot in the evening and turned out to be too dark to get a proper view of the action taking place. We re-shot the sequence in the late afternoon so it was still slightly dark but not too dark; this has ensured that we can get the most out of this sequence.

We did come across a few implications along the way however:

Our second camera, was one I had brought from home, was a SONY camera, the footage had been burned onto a mini-disk which will only transfer with SONY technology, and wouldn't transfer the footage onto the Mac's. So I had to take it home with me, convert it into a file that would be accepted by the Mac's to bring my pendrive back the next day to be transfered. The footage was also a lesser quality to that which was on the college's cameras, but it suited the genre because it made the audience feel as though they were no better off than the characters they were watching.
On the second day of filming, we had limited time on the camera because the battery was running out and there was limited space on the memory; we knew we would have to get it right now, or not at all. The two cameras we had were placed at different angles to get the best view, unfortunately, when we returned from filming and tried to put it on the Mac's, the footage on one camera was not compatible. Luckily, the footage on the other camera was adequate.

I have also collected some audience feedback from this (third) version (Q3):

there should be a question on every title slide to keep the audience guessing as to what is going to happen
it is very hard to hear what the actors are saying in the scenes on location at the pub (Bamford Arms - next to the A6)
The close-up/slow-motion turn of my character Sasha towards the end whilst Rav is getting beaten up by Johnny and Mason should be removed because it interferes with the action which should be getting to a climax, not an anti-climax
I should make the fight sequence progressivly worse so the audience can feel the tension between the characters
The title card and the hash tag/facebook address at the end should be purple and white to correspond with E4 branding (Font: American Typewriter).

Monday 12 December 2011

Planning for TV Magazine: LOVE SOAP

This was our initial plan for the magazine front cover: we wanted Kate and Mason on the front, with the headline 'Vows and Rows'.

Going off the layout for TV QUICK, we drew out where we wanted the content to appear. From this point of view, the title box is too close to Kate's eyeline, so we made that smaller, and made other adjustments along the way.

Creating the title was easy enough, we went into WordArt and created one from there. TV Quick use a very bold font, with bright colours; so we chose the font 'IMPACT' and chose a soft pink and dark purple to create our brand identity. We realised that the pink background blended in with the characters hair, so we changed the colour to a soft blue insteas.

In this image, we have now Photoshopped all the image, deleating all of the 'green screen' background and placing them in their appropriate places. We went along with the theme of E4 branding by creating banners for the soaps' names and tilting them at angles. The target audience, we decided, was women 15-30 so we knew that we wouldhave to use colours and images that they could relate to.

(Q3) This is the latest version. Through audience feedback we have changed the font, the colour of the unique selling points and moved the barcode to the bottom right.

Billboard Poster Second Draft

Here is our second draft of the billboard poster. We have now added the rest of the cast at the sides surrounding the main character Rav. The characters are dressed in their most significant costumes, and are purposely put in their places according to their character storylines and their relationships with one another. All we need to do now is add the name and airing dates of the show, with the E4 branding. here is an example of it:

2nd Draft of Ancillary

Putting into account the comments made on the last post, I have:

Changed the universal font to 'Euphemia', it is v.simple but makes an impact.
I have also changed the unique selling points to red so they stand out and will catch the potential reader's eye. The main headline is also now in red which will attract attention - it also says that the story is an exclusive so readers will buy this magazine because it is the only one with the story featured in it.
I have moved the barcode from the centre to the bottom right, whilst also changing the date and issue number to white so the reader can see which dates the issue covers.

Sunday 11 December 2011

First Draft of TV Magazine: Formal Version

Here is the first draft of the TV magazine that Phil, Liam and Haseeb designed.

They have followed the conventions of TV and Satellite Week - their target audience is older than 'Love Soap' and will attract the attention of the male viewers rather than the female viewers. Also, they have used the actor's name to attract a wider audience - fans of the actor will be interested in what they are doing next, they necessairily need to be fans of the show to read it.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Evaluation Question 1: Prep for Interview

Here is my preparation for my answer to question one of the evaluation questions: Evaluation Question 1: Prep for Interview

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Billboard Poster First Draft

Here is the planning we made as a team as to what our billboard poster would look like. We knew we wanted the whole cast featured, and a brick wall background to represent the working class background the cahracters came from.

This is the first draft of the billboard poster for BAMFORD. The boys have been working on this whilst the girls and I have been working on the tv magazine. We all discussed what we wanted the magazine/poster to look like, and decided to delagate the jobs so we could all have a say in their design.

It shows (L-R) Johnny, Rav and Mason against a brick wall which implies that they live in a very urban area, it is also making a connection with the trailer because Mason and Johnny swap money for drugs next to a brick wall. The poster will, in time, have a full cast layout showing each of us in our character's poses and in certain places to show our relationships with each other.

Here are some comments I made on the first draft of the billboard poster:

BAMFORD Final Script

Here is the final script for BAMFORD. Originally there were alot more scenes in it, but as we got closer to the actual filming day, we realised that it was more like a script for an episode rather than a trailer. As well as this, on the actual filming day we combined some of the scenes between Kate and Mason ("Kate...?", "Mason..." and "Kate, I can change!", "Mason, I don't love you anymore") due to scheduling difficulties and weather implications. We also deleated some scenes from the script, including the scene between Dylan and Sasha, and we deleated some dialogue - particularly in the fight sequence because we felt that the action spoke loader than the words.

In the end, however, I feel that it worked out better then when they were two separate scenes. Bamford Script

Song Choices for BAMFORD

(Q4)
Thom Yorke - Hearing Damage.

This song is about hearing lies and being decieved, but the idea was not to use the lyrics, just the intro which I looped to play throughout. It is a modern sounding soundtrack that uses a lot of beats and rhythms which correspond with the trailer - the characters are hearing lies and being decieved, in other words they are being told different things and don't know what to believe.

Muse - Hysteria

The title of this song speaks for itself - this song is about breaking out of control. I wasn't intending to use the lyrics, but the backing track; it has a good beat so it fit in with the clips I had already moved into the trailer. Unfortunately there wasn't a recorded version of this song available to embed.

In the end, I decided to use 'Hearing Damage' because I felt that the Muse song was too 'chaotic', it had too many beats and texture so it clashed with the trailer. Hearing Damage fit really well and it was easy enough to fit the editing to it.

Friday 9 December 2011

Storyboard Planning: BAMFORD

Here is the original planing we did as a group for the trailer. We wanted to start off the trailer with Mason arriving back in town and the character's reactions to it. Next we wanted to introduce Johnny and Bree and the pregnancy scare - with Rav's reaction.Rav's reaction was to fight with Johnny, and then Mason butts in making the situation worse. We all felt that using summary slow-motion shots of all the characters at the end of the trailer would work realy well.

First Draft of Ancillary - Magazine

Corina, Lucy, Ellie and I have worked on this magazinie front cover together: Lucy on pictures, Ellie on background and colours, Corina on text and branding, and me on layout and editing. Initially, we chose to imitate TV Quick magazine - to be specific, an issue concerning Becky and Steve in Coronation Street, unfortunately, this magazine is now closed and no longer in production. Here is a link to an article about the closure: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/12/tv-quick-faces-closure

We chose to make a trashy magazine because it would be able to reach a wider market; the colours are bright and colourful so it will catch the potential readers' eye as they walk past the magazine stand. We chose to use the colours: pink, purple, white and blue because they are widely known for being a women's choice of colours, through research we found that soap operas are ultimately for working women who come home and want to forget about their lives through watching others'.

I chose to make the layout appeal to a younger market - whilst older audiences do watch soaps - of around the ages of 15-30. I have used white banners which correspond with the purple banners that E4 - where most of the featured programmes are aired - use and the banners that were also used on the original TV Quick front cover. I also used the same font throughout the magazine front cover (Berlin Sans FB) to create a brand identity so when potential readers see it they will recognise it.

(Q3) Here are some audience feedback comments I have recieved concerning the FC:

Make barcode smaller and needs to be in bottom right corner, it’s never in the centre of the page. That’s prime space for text.
Change the Berlin font, it doesn’t look like anything used in existing texts. You need something simpler, but also sans serif. Maybe use the same font you used for “vows and rows” but play around with size, boldness, colour?
And needs one really bright accent colour to make unique selling points stand out.

I will take these comments into account, 2nd draft on it's way :)

Sunday 4 December 2011

Facebook Chat: Printscreens

Over the weekend, the group and I have been discussing the Tv magazine and Billboard, here are some printscreens of our convosations. This also shows how Facebook allows us to communicate from any distance and at any time, thanks to tecnological proliferation. Print Screens off Facebook Chat

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Wednesday 23 November 2011

Facebook page for BAMFORD!

I created a Facebook page for BAMFORD, with the understanding that a majority of the nation, albeit the world's population will have their own personal page. Social networking is a tecnological phenomena that has engrossed the teenage generation of the 21st Century. This allows BAMFORD to be seen and heard the world over thanks to technological proliferation - this page can be viewed from laptops, computers, phones, iPods, iPads and many other gadgets which will set off a chain reaction and thus a wider audience will be reached.
Twitter is also a technological phenomena, people can 'tweet' on-the-go and on the same gadgets they would use for Facebook. Through these means, fans can be updated 24/7 about the show and even begin trends using the infamous 'hash-tag' (#) so, again, a wider audience can be reached.

2ND DRAFT OF BAMFORD!(:

Here is the 2ND DRAFT of my BAMFORD trailer :). I have:

Added more scenes, including a fight sequence between the three lads, creating a climax to the video
Added title cards to keep the audience guessing what is going to happen in the programs to come
Added a voiceover at the beginning to add a little humanity to the trailer - the audience will hear it and feel that they are involved in the program.

Monday 21 November 2011

BAMFORD RC1 :)

This the first ever rough cut of my BAMFORD trailer! First off, I should begin by explaining what is happening; At the beginning it is an establishing shot of the central pub - which is what the soap is named after. Next, each character is introduced:

Sasha Blake (Me): The 'Bitch',
Mason O'Conor (Liam): The Guy who leaves Kate at the alter,
Rav Valentine (Phil): The Overprotective brother,
Bree Valentine (Corina): Damaged Goods,
Johnny Foster (Haseeb): The Jerk,
Kate Spencer (Ellie): High Strung,
Dylan Salvatore (Lucy): The Peacemaker.

Each of these characters are interconnected:

Sasha knows everything that happens, and sticks her nose into it,
Mason left Kate at the alter and is now back to get Rav who is having a secret affair with her,
Rav is Bree's older brother and is overprotective of her because she is in an 'on/off' relationship with Johnny,
Bree is pregnant with Johnny's baby and doesn't know what to do, at the end of the trailer, the audience is left with a cliffhanger because Sasha comes running in, saving Rav in the process, shouting that something has happened to her (this isn't in the trailer yet)
Johnny is dealing drugs to Mason who in the event makes a deal with Johnny to beat Rav at the Bamford Arms that night,
Dylan is best friends with Kate and is trying to keep the peace, but fails to do so in the end.

(Q3) After getting audience feedback for this version - I found I needed to remove some of the edit 'cross-blurs' because they cut into the dialogue, and add some title cards to allow the audience to keep track.

Friday 18 November 2011

Update :)

My group and I have now, very possibly FINISHED filming our TV Soap Trailer, which coincidently - because the main events happen at the pub - is now called BAMFORD...

All that's left now to do is edit all the various clips together and hope that what we've got is good enough for an awesome grade! There are many new versions of the script, with bits cut out and new bits put in, but all in all we have created some ace footage even cith a few complications along the way.

Till next time S :)

Saturday 12 November 2011

E4 Style Guide: Branding

(Q2) This is the E4 Style guide, which can be found at http://www.channel4.com/about_c4/styleguide/e4styleguide/e4-brand-guidelines.pdf
It allows my posters and trailer to look as professional as possible because it tells me the exact location, size, colour and font I need to use.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

CLASH: Possible Logo

This is the possible logo/title image of CLASH. The red colour implies danger, rage, love, passion - all of the things that are embeded into our soap opera. The lightning bolt at the end of the title implies that the characters are always on edge with each other, they are always up to something whether it be bad or good.

In the end, the group and I decided not to go for this name because it didn't match the conventions of the soap genre. The name for our soap opera is: BAMFORD, because the vital scenes take place in and around the pub called the Bamford Arms, and the town of Stockport. We chose to make the pub the central point of all storylines because all the regular British soaps have a central pub; Coronation St - Rovers Return, EastEnders - Queen Vic etc.
the pub has a modern decor so it is the perfect setting for a modern soap oopera.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Costume Design

Costume design for Sasha Blake
Here is the costume design for my character Sasha Blake S :)

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CLASH Script - Full with Directors

CLASH script
Here is the full script with Directors. S :)

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Monday 31 October 2011

Script for Soap Opera Trailer

Here is the script for our Soap Opera Trailer S :)

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Here is my ancillary product for EastEnders. We were told to take a screen shot from a popular soap opera (eg. Coronation St, EastEnders) and create a poster advertising the current storylines. Here we see the characters in a suspicious light because of the facial expressions on the actors faces. It is a vitall point in the program so I thought it would be a good poster image for advertising.