Question 4:
THE MEDIA ZONE
During the production of our media project 'When The Moonlight Falls', there was a heavy emphasis on using both contemporary and classic technologies to give our trailer the intended emphasis. From in-suite software like Final Cut and Audacity to Photoshop (for digital compositing of scenery) all the way over to on-site shooting kit like professional full frame cameras, a variety of perception altering lenses providing a very distinct set of visual principles for the project, Fly-Cams and Sliders for the dolly shots with added stabilization in post production and a standard of 4 stage-lights with their own soft-boxes to boot.
From the planning stages, it was clear that a reliance on some of the latest technology would aid us in our creation with industry standards like digital concept art providing a higher fidelity render of our planned concepts; weaponry, masks and character outfits were all drafted in paper form before being taken away and made up through a Cintiq 13HD. By storing our concepts as digital copies, they were not only more secured and transferable but could be routinely updated and iterated upon without downgrading the original version as would have happened if it was contained purely to a physical format.
YouTube
Prezzi
Facebook
Photoshop - Editing
Photoshop - Drawing
Camera + equipment
Green Screen
Final Cut Pro
YOUTUBE
YouTube is a free social media platform upon which almost anyone can upload content within legal guideline with those that abide by copyright law actually available for ad-revenue; since it's launch in 2005, it has completely changed the media landscape, affecting popular culture, industry and production in a greater way matched only by Facebook. By providing the general public with a heavily moderated medium, a whole new way to recruit, showcase and share talent with famous cases being Justin Bieber or Ramona Falls who came into the collective conscience after reaching a critical viewer count, earning them hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as mainstream deals.
We used YouTube as a way of promoting our content to a wide audience through a free, relatively uncensored platform that is easily plugged into other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This cross-market pollination allows existing fans to open the door to a more general audience, using their profile as a way of sharing content amongst their own groups in a modern version of word of mouth.
We also used YouTube to source inspiration and media for When The Moonlight Falls, simultaneously allowing us to gage to popularity of what the market was offering as well as what criticisms these same titles were levying. Were they not scary enough? Did people not like the score? Did certain actors garner attention? All of this came together from user comments instead of from authored work like IMDB or MetaCritic where listings can sometimes display opinions unrepresentative of the public opinion. Thanks to YouTube having such widespread appeal, it also acted as a way of finding popular sound effects or visual styles to incorporate into our own trailer, the main theme at the end for example being a highlight of popular genre Witchhouse who's own set of fans would be more inclined to enjoy the trailer thanks to it's featuring.
We used YouTube as a way of promoting our content to a wide audience through a free, relatively uncensored platform that is easily plugged into other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This cross-market pollination allows existing fans to open the door to a more general audience, using their profile as a way of sharing content amongst their own groups in a modern version of word of mouth.
We also used YouTube to source inspiration and media for When The Moonlight Falls, simultaneously allowing us to gage to popularity of what the market was offering as well as what criticisms these same titles were levying. Were they not scary enough? Did people not like the score? Did certain actors garner attention? All of this came together from user comments instead of from authored work like IMDB or MetaCritic where listings can sometimes display opinions unrepresentative of the public opinion. Thanks to YouTube having such widespread appeal, it also acted as a way of finding popular sound effects or visual styles to incorporate into our own trailer, the main theme at the end for example being a highlight of popular genre Witchhouse who's own set of fans would be more inclined to enjoy the trailer thanks to it's featuring.
Prezzi
Prezzi is an easily usable but aesthetically sumptuous platform that allows for kinetic presentations to be made, engaging the audience more than your typical slideshow affair from powerpoint whilst still conveying the necessary information cleanly. Since Prezi is free, there is a wealth of users producing content in all fields from which ideas can be taken and expanded from. For example, to get a better reading of how other students were handling the audience research, we scanned over a list of Prezzi's that offered similar explorations and used the culmination of their efforts to create our own, making it an invaluable asset to the production of our trailer through it's reliability although it is worth noting that existing Prezzi's aren't certified for their information and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The main role of Prezi in our campaign was to mind map and plan every element from the shooting schedule to task allocation all the way over to this evaluation process. The linear, point-to-point layout of Prezi guides it's user on a journey of sorts, the author curating the way in which the user receives their information to convey a meaning, message or understanding which made it ideal for walking each other through exactly how we would be approach our task; every 'slide' of sorts ordered for efficiency. Although there are definitely other applications available, none we found performed as well as Prezzi for free, making it the optimal choice for 'When The Moonlight Falls'.
The main role of Prezi in our campaign was to mind map and plan every element from the shooting schedule to task allocation all the way over to this evaluation process. The linear, point-to-point layout of Prezi guides it's user on a journey of sorts, the author curating the way in which the user receives their information to convey a meaning, message or understanding which made it ideal for walking each other through exactly how we would be approach our task; every 'slide' of sorts ordered for efficiency. Although there are definitely other applications available, none we found performed as well as Prezzi for free, making it the optimal choice for 'When The Moonlight Falls'.
Facebook (and general Social Media)
You can't go far nowadays without seeing a social media presence attached to this, that and the other. Billboards, posters, trailers, buses, sign flippers - they all peddle the digital side of the marketing campaign as social media in the right hands can create a viral sense of public awareness for next to nothing in cost. By having a Facebook page that you've liked or shared, you're opening the door for everyone you're connected to to do the same, and they their friends, and they theirs. The effect snowballs with repost after repost spreading to each others walls and the brand becomes more and more prominent, take recent films like Deadpool that had tailored online adverts for each country that were short, funny and easily embedded, making the film more hyped than ever before as peopled linked one another the shorts.
To a similar effect, we used Facebook as a way of sharing our video to our online community and used the feedback to make 'When The Moonlight Falls' closer to the public expectancy and by extension, more likely to be popular. By sharing the video to facebook and inviting people to like and comment, you encourage this type of virality to start with the majority of the work done once a notable figure within a community reposts it, hence the arrival of groups like LADBible which essentially dish out noteworthy videos to their followings. Although other platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are available, we decided that given the academic nature we were working under we should contain it to one large platform, if only for the sake of moderation.
To a similar effect, we used Facebook as a way of sharing our video to our online community and used the feedback to make 'When The Moonlight Falls' closer to the public expectancy and by extension, more likely to be popular. By sharing the video to facebook and inviting people to like and comment, you encourage this type of virality to start with the majority of the work done once a notable figure within a community reposts it, hence the arrival of groups like LADBible which essentially dish out noteworthy videos to their followings. Although other platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest are available, we decided that given the academic nature we were working under we should contain it to one large platform, if only for the sake of moderation.
Photoshop (For Editing and Drawing)
While I personally believe that the entire adobe creative suite is simply marvelous, Photoshop has stood as the flagship of their products and the industry standard for a long time for a reason. The flexibility in the toolset, the combination of presets and customisable options and the sheer volume of online support makes the Creative Cloud's proudest outing an easy go to, especially when put up against other alternatives.
When we created the main poster for 'When The Moonlight Falls', Photoshop CS6 was the standard and without it, our effort would have been doubled for half the return as our ability to retreat back and redo certain layers was one of the single most useful features. By having such extensive control over how the image can be manipulated and safeguards built in to specifically accommodate that (such as the scaling and anti-aliasing), we were able to revise the design from simple sketches into a professional standard A3 poster complete with proper texturing, edited typography and roughly 30 layers worth of assets.
Photoshop also supports tablets such as the Wacom Bamboo or Cintiq and as such made it a valuable asset to the conceptual stages of our production, although traditional pen and paper is still key, being able to mock up rough designs for the killer masks as natively digital meant we could share and distribute them amongst our network without the necessary physical component, in turning leading to a much faster pipeline for content creation. Photoshop's huge suite of output options also meant that higher resolution work (like the poster) could be rendered in full at A3 sized .PNG files whereas basic etches or graphics could be low-storage JPEG files without the need for 3rd party compression software.
When we created the main poster for 'When The Moonlight Falls', Photoshop CS6 was the standard and without it, our effort would have been doubled for half the return as our ability to retreat back and redo certain layers was one of the single most useful features. By having such extensive control over how the image can be manipulated and safeguards built in to specifically accommodate that (such as the scaling and anti-aliasing), we were able to revise the design from simple sketches into a professional standard A3 poster complete with proper texturing, edited typography and roughly 30 layers worth of assets.
Photoshop also supports tablets such as the Wacom Bamboo or Cintiq and as such made it a valuable asset to the conceptual stages of our production, although traditional pen and paper is still key, being able to mock up rough designs for the killer masks as natively digital meant we could share and distribute them amongst our network without the necessary physical component, in turning leading to a much faster pipeline for content creation. Photoshop's huge suite of output options also meant that higher resolution work (like the poster) could be rendered in full at A3 sized .PNG files whereas basic etches or graphics could be low-storage JPEG files without the need for 3rd party compression software.
Camera and Equipment
Unlike the majority of the class that shot on an A58 Sony Camera, the majority of our shots came at the hands of a it's big brother the Sony A7, my personal camera, as a result of it's beautiful full frame, better low-light supports and faster lenses. Full frame is of course what professional films are shot at due to the greater amount of detail let into the sensor, smaller features like pores, eyes and patterned fabric are especially notable when for their fleshed out detail. The A7 also sports more dynamic post-production control such as the vivid colour pallet and the low-noise count when firing with the added benefit of being able to directly upload to the web via the camera and a smart phone app, meaning that we could again archive a lot of images without having to return to a computer every single time.
We also heavily adopted the use of a ball head tripod as the omni-directional mount coupled with the lightweight nature of the camera meant we could get shots from very precarious angles safely. Although a few shots did use a slider (such as the pan between screens) the majority was done either using my spider rig for its free hand stability or with this particular tripod, reducing the need for post production stabilisation greatly and giving us a cleaner end image. As far as additional equipment was concerned, we also made extensive use of a Rode Videomic Pro mounted directly to the camera running at -10 dB with the added shock mount set up, meaning that for the majority of our shots, the audio was clean, malleable and clear unlike the built in microphone even if it did limit us to closer shots for the sake of audio recording.
Green Screen
Cinema has often relied on its tricks of the eye to wow audiences and the green screen is merely another weapon in this arsenal, allowing for the complete removal of a background whilst actors remain in place; in the right hands this allows you to completely substitute entire sets for digital replicas. Need your character in a space station on a budget? Green screen. Need a deadly lava flow in your basement? Green screen. Almost anything can be created through the right manipulation software as you will have seen during our poster development page where each of our killers was posed against a lit edit stage and photographed to make it easier to remove them from the background and place them onto our poster. There weren't many other times that the green screen came into use throughout 'When The Moonlight Falls' as the majority of the sets for the trailer were available physically and despite the usefulness of a green screen, they can give a decidedly flat look to certain shots and do a terrible job with depth of field.
Final Cut Pro
Finally, there's our editing suite, Final Cut Pro, manned by all of us at one point in time but predominantly by Gabriella Marriott. This industry standard piece of software offers a huge range of editing tools with the usability you'd come to expect from Apple as complex editing practices are boiled down to easy-yet-powerful sliders and presets; the layer system in particular proving particularly helpful with extensive cuts and adjustments later into the development cycle.