Our Media Project

Teaser Trailer

Website frontpage

Poster & Promotional material

Magazine cover

Evaluation...

- Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions on real media products?


Using media conventions.

The trailer incorporates several key elements of a disparaging storytelling technique. For the most part, the trailer uses a series of relevant images that explains and suggests a story; for example, in a brief frame, we notice Mr. Day sprawled on the floor covered in blood with the camera looking over the shoulder of Tyrone. The next frame shows Tyrone 'accusing' Alex of the crime. However, there is no explanation of how Mr. Day was murdered or any proof Alex murdered him. The only viable theory that links the murder of Mr. Day with how he was murdered is the gunshots right at the end of the trailer. The gunshots are obscured with the 'SCHEMATA' logo thus, not telling the audience who actually murdered him.

Another convention the trailer uses extensively, is the element of 'fast, paced action', i.e. quick, successive cuts with themes related to fast movement. The key principle of any teaser trailer is to provide the viewer with a brief glimpse of the motifs possibly relevant to the film, without divulging an explicit storyline. One technique which is prevalent in the film industry is to merge several images with succinct durations, thereby evoking a vast array of definitions to the viewer. These media images can mean anything, which is the sole purpose of teaser trailers, due to the fact that the audience make their own minds up about what the film may be about. For example, in our teaser trailer, the class are seen in a restaurant with Mr. Day speaking casually. If you juxtapose this with the clip where Alex protests his innocence, the viewer may draw conflicting parallels in terms of definitions. The cinematography in both (the restaurant is a warm, vibrant atmosphere - the classroom a harsh and ominous shade of black and blue) do not match up, meaning this film could probably serve to reflect media images of success or sincere failure. Taking these points into account, it is safe to argue that we used the 'fast, paced action' media convention effectively to highlight the point in which the viewers perceptions of media images determine their personal response of what the film's plot is.

Another, almost mandatory method utilised in many teaser trailers are the final titles that dictate the title and release date of the said film. Perhaps the basis of the titles at the end of the trailer is to fulfill one purpose. Teaser trailers usually begin with the title of the distributor(s) and/or producer(s), but don't necessarily begin with the title of the actual film. Upon reaching the end, the audience finally see the title of the film. The aim of this may be that it increases the tension aspect or watchable factor i.e. What is the name of this film? Who directed it? What is it about? In our final title, we began with the 'Schemata' title, then the much-used cliche 'Coming Soon'. Since the teaser is exciting to watch, the viewers are possibly influenced to watch it again. This increases the likeliness of word-of-mouth, an aim of teaser trailers.

Developing media conventions.

- Discuss the 'evolution of the teaser'.

- Using 'Amerika'.

Teaser trailers are known for their complex, cinematic storytelling narrative that provides the viewer with a distinct take on the film. Have a look below at the official Hulk (2003) teaser trailer (duration 1:02).

Interestingly enough, 

From the video, we can observe several elements which make this film watchable. The background information of the fictional character Hulk is not present, and the studio already assumes that the audience know a little bit about the fictional character.

Challenging media conventions.

Our soundtrack choice aimed to step away from the mainstream and fall into a completely new category of the teaser trailer. As a group, having watched a vast array of teaser trailers, some that fall within the psychological thriller territory and some not, we have noticed a pattern amongst the majority of trailers. To begin with, the majority of trailers we have viewed, predominantly Hollywood-produced trailers, use a selection and varying technique of the symphonic orchestra. The 'symphonic orchestra' is a base that films use to fill in the gap and enrich the sound sense, thereby allowing the viewer to experience an almost revolutionary take to the sequence. 

 As much as we appreciated this method, we decided to avoid this media convention. Yousif discovered a track that he believes fits into one of the themes of the film ('Amerika' by Rammstein) and we discussed how we can develop this and incorporate it into the trailer. We chose to have numerous images playing in succession with the track, and the accompanying track would fulfill the role of instantly immersing the audience into the world of 'Schemata'. 

 This has achieved a significant factor. We used a heavier and more aggressive track as opposed to a delicate and consistent one. Our feedback from colleagues and professionals were thrilled at the fact that we used such a track to the best of our ability, and were impressed that it functioned well with the images. Another significant factor is that upon discovering the name of the musicians and the name of the track, viewers were susceptible to interest of the song. People have noticed the extent to which the subject matter of the track bodes well with the theme Yousif had originally evoked.

 We challenged the media convention of the symphonic orchestra to accomplish and develop a trailer that aims to avoid the mainstream, and experiment with a track that has no correlation to the symphonic orchestra, thereby challenging a cliche' of the overused media convention. Our use of the said track exemplifies the trailer and adds as well as intensifies a thrilling element.

We noticed how Final Cut Pro (FCP) is used to edit the majority of teaser trailers. FCP delivers an exceptional service to the viewer, using tools such as 'rendering'. According to our media studies teacher, FCP is industry-standard, meaning it is prevalent in the film industry in post-production. We did have intentions to create the teaser trailer on FCP, however, we were limited from using it due to the fact that FCP requires the user to place an entire clip on the hard drive of the system. Since the Macs we used at school are limited in data quantity, we were set to use different video editing software.

 As discussed earlier, Premiere Pro only uses the image of the data, extracting only the necessary elements to enable ease of use. Premiere Pro contains many, if not all of the tools FCP possesses, meaning we didn't lose out on things like 'rendering' and 'merging'. Jeremy Thomas automatically assumed we had edited the 'Schemata' trailer on FCP, but when we informed him about what we had actually used, he was surprised and praised our 'professional outlook'.

 We challenged the media convention of using FCP as a software that is necessary for all video editing usage. Instead, we used Premiere Pro to complete our task which delivered an exceptional service and provided us with the same tools as FCP meaning that we had no reduction in video quality or services.

- Question 2 : How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

We believe that the combination of our ancillary texts and our main products are both effective and successful in such that each individual product made by the group is linked to another, sharing a relationship with one another to some degree. When we set about creating the main task alongside the ancillary texts, we wanted there to be a clear and distinct theme that ran throughout them that we had hoped that the audience would also see between the three products, these being; the website, teaser trailer and the promotional posters. Having this clear distinction is vital as the target audience may only see the group trailer and this, we oped would make them want to more about the film, we hoped that the promotional posters had the same affect.

The predominant colour used throughout all three product is black, which ca be thought f the as the main theme. I decided upon this as the colour represents shadows, ambiguity and lurking danger which reflects the lurking danger that the characters are faced with in the trailer and the ambiguity of who there enemy truly is, and it is these messages that we wanted, as a group to get across to the audience without however giving away the majority of the storyline. In the trailer we showed this with scenes shot in the dark partially showing the characters behaving erratically and for the most art in fear once again  treading of the theme or ideology of lurking danger. We also adapted the colour of black into our website design and opted for it o be the main colour for the background throughout the multiple interactive pages. For the website we used the same font that we used during the trailer for the header on all the pages of the website and the two promotional posters that we produced to make sure that the products were recognisable and flowed well, following the codes and conventions of media texts. The posters however incorporate pictures stills taken whilst filming and have been edited to be used for the posters. We used quite a wide selection of images, the primary poster uses only one cast member sat down in what appears to be protective position, once again the treads on the idea of an unknown danger which is what we hope that the audience will also make this connection. the secondary poster incorporates almost all main cast members minus they're mysterious but wonderful teacher Mr. Day, we decided on this as it reflects the notion of numerous enemies, a class which have turned on each other, were no one is sure of who they can trust.

We believe that overall it is this combination of all of these decisions made during the editing and construction of our main product and ancillary texts to work alongside each other so effectively in advertising the product (the film) as a whole so well as a clear relationship link can be established by the audience through the similarity in the themes that they carry and the conventions that were used, and we believe that it is all of this that aids the audience in establishing it as one in the same.

- Question 3. What have you learnt from audience feedback?

The Teaser

After editing the first trailer, it was shown to a number of colleagues and teachers. The purpose of the trailer was to provide the audience with an enigma surrounding the events of the storyline. The concept, according to some of the colleagues and teachers, was an interesting one. The execution however wasn't solid. A media studies teacher suggested that overall, the trailer was 'good' but was mainly 'substance over flash' and 'probably wouldn't sell the film'. This feedback was also echoed by our colleagues who didn't find the trailer appealing.

Both our media studies teachers outlined several flaws:-

- The trailer was far too long for it to be considered a teaser trailer.

- Far too many titles. This exhausted the viewers and took them out of the story of the teaser.

- The font accompanying the trailer wasn't appealing.

- 'Too much black'. The teachers advised the spaces between each image to be tightened because it felt too slow.

- The trailer didn't hint at any story. Opposed to hinting at a story, it was a series of images of an event that didn't make sense to anybody.

- All the clips were isolated in the classroom. There should be variety.

Furthermore, Youtube users were also less enthusiastic about the teaser with the above comments.

 However, the trailer was met with positive feedback in some respects.

- The music that accompanied the trailer suited the atmosphere.

- The images, the actions and sound effects all fitted well with the synchronicity of the soundtrack.

- The flashing title of the word 'Schemata' proved popular.

- The clips chosen were relevant. They all felt consistent.

Overall, we felt the negatives outweighed the positives and we set out to make a brand new teaser trailer from scratch. Over time, not only did we get away from the conventions of the first trailer, but produced a completely different teaser that was appealing to all.

The Final Teaser


We had shown the trailer to the original cast who had come in for a test screening of the feature film. After the feature film, they viewed the teaser and we received a universally acclaimed response. They enjoyed the trailer, citing it different to the other trailers in that Yousif's one was 'more of a thriller'.


Layla Rawlins, a developing executive from Film4, viewed the trailer in our school during a visit and also believed the trailer to be 'aspiring to other students'. She liked how the trailer was constructed and 'felt like a teaser trailer'.


Finally, Jeremy Thomas, an Oscar-winning producer and founder of the Recorded Picture Company, noticed the trailer would be 'a brilliant opportunity to market the film'. 


The Website


Our initial idea for a website was to produce a very subtle yet effective webpage that provided an aesthetically pleasing base for the film. We drew an effective layout that we believed was, simultaneously, user-friendly and professional.


Upon completion, several prestigious individuals viewed the website and gave favorable reviews.

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

Media technologies were used effectively in every aspect of our production of the media text , we believe without these we couldn't have created a piece with as much out-reach and diversity in terms of the conventions it tackles and the inspiration incorporated for the piece.
In the research and planning stage we utilized online video tutorials to get to grasps with various softwares. On our initial idea for filming and the ancillary task we knew that to produce a product greater than our first portfolio we must get to grips with newer software and tools to make our piece reflect something that of a high level. We knew we couldn't get away using software such as imovie anymore as it was no-where near the crispness and quality editing we needed to execute our piece to a high standard. This is why we stepped up to softwares such as Final Cut Pro (FCP) and Adobe Premiere. Our research has told us that these are used on a professional level, and since our school recently started offering these software packages to use, we would be stupid not to use them. On initial sight these seemed daunting to use , however tutorials on youtube helped us to get to grips with these and in turn create a trailer to a great standard.
The internet was central to the success of our piece, blogger allowed us (as you can see now) a platform to vent our creativity , share and receive comments from other groups and keep documented our progress so we know what we need to add / work on. Youtube allowed us to learn by watching many clips of a simmilar scope as ours, it allowed us to research connotations within the genre and expectations of the audience. We learned camera techniques from this , how to use software and even obtain royalty free tracks for our clips. It also gave us a platform in which to share our footage / media texts. The commenting system enables people to give constructive criticism in which we refined and adapted our work. I believe this is the key to success within a media text as it is our piece we can hold a bias view towards it , however other peoples opinions can open our eyes to other avenues of thought in which will ultimately improve our work.
Our ancillary task which was the website required much research, a lot of designing and note taking went by looking at an array of other websites, however this wasn't the hard part. We had to master the use of a chosen web designing tools such as dreamweaver and wix in order to create a proffessional looking website to complement our media package. We opted to use the online web designer wix.com as apposed to Dreamweaver, this is because Dreamweaver worked mainly on using html (coding) to produce results which we decided with our time limit was not reasonable so we chose the more user friendly wix.


We had to create images from the footage we took, requiring us to use software such as VLC and quicktime for high-res screencaps. We took these and then used photoshop CS5 to create an array of items, pictures for the website, posters and user wallpapers. 

Premiere Pro:-

Imovie was the application the team used to edit our interviews that were conducted with members involved in the film such as Ravnit Hunjan and Leon Hady. It proved very useful when it came to editing, cutting, adding transitions and also adding text which explained who the interview was being conducted of and who was conducting it. It is set out in an organised way and is fairly simple to manoeuvre. Clips are easily moved from the camera to the mac and are automatically available to upload when on the Imovie application

Final website design

This is the final design of the websites main page. As you can see it loosely follows the design presented in the modified design. We added a release to the page to add a more authentic feel to it. The social network links at the bottom are fully functional and transfer you to the related site.

For the website we used a size 10 Ariel font coloured white and red to keep in theme with the psychological thriller genre using the red and white to contrast with black background. We used a bold white size 17 Ariel font for the caption 'its all in the mind' underneath the header which was in the film inspired font '28 Days Later' downloaded from www.urbafonts.com alondside the release date which was placed underneath teh images.

We used the Ariel font becasue of its simplicity, easiness to read, and professional feel to it which is why it was used predominantly on the page. The use of 28 Days Later was used however to give it a more personliasd feel.

In the centre of the page we displayed the 12 images from the film on a slider moving from right-to-left as discussed on the redesigned sketch.

Updated twitter page

The development in the twitter and the facebook pages, as you can see the number of followers we have has increased dramatically

Magazine cover feature

Our group started working on a magazine cover, we implemented our knowledge of magazines , of which types they are and what generally is included on the front page.

Looking at various magazine covers from films which were available on online archives and through google searches - we found that there are different fonts used to show diversity and draw attention to different parts of the page. It also emphasises various points , like freebies or interviews.

Photoshop CS5 was used to create a base,  we used an image of the teacher in our trailer as the base for the magazine covers,  film covers usually have a man taking a powerful / gentalman / sleek & suave look which represents the movie. We felt the image chosen replicated this. Examples of this are

 

^ Above is the base image we used for the magazine cover.

Below are the stages of creation using photoshop CS5 and various fonts which I thought were suitable.

Initially the magazine was called horror mag , but we decided to change this to thriller mag as it is more suitable for our target audience - as we are not essentially a horror. The image features the conventional strong man. We also added a barcode to make it look authentic. The effects on the text were created by using blending options such as "light" "dissolve" "Overlay" etc.

The Final Magazine Cover

Promotional material - Wallpapers & Utilising social networks

We created some images using photoshop which we will offer as freebies to our twitter and facebook followers. This in essence should gain us more viewers & gain a fan base for the characters involved. Many distribution companies utilise this technique to spread word about the film and gain a loyal following. Social networking will allow us to distribute these for free and allow people to "retweet" or "share" these with their friends on social networking sites.  One features our tagline , "It's all in the mind" and another features the Film name . We added just the tagline to one so people can build an association between the two.
The images were created in a widescreen format , enabling compatibility with the latest desktops. As these images are huge (1599x913) they can be scaled down to suit smaller screens as well.
When deciding to upload these to twitter , we "tweeted" this first "Follow us for the latest info/news & updates. Releasing a poster exclusive to twitter with the next 10 followers" This is a technique used by many musicians / actors / film & movie companies to ensure more followers in exchange for exclusive content. People will tell their friends to follow so the required number is met, and in return they gain the content which they can't get anywhere else, in this case a poster. The second poster is going to be released in a similar way on facebook, however with 10 page likes.

Finding a font...

Today we began searching online for new and more appropriate fonts for the main heading 'Schemata' on the website home page. Our primary aim was to look for a font that suited the conventional theme of 'Schemata' i.e. psychological thriller. We used a multitude of websites (such as dafont.com, 1001fonts.com, urbanfonts.com, etc.) with a wide selection of user contributed fonts that all offered these fonts for personal and commercial use. Our search consisted of two very brief ideologies:

- Distorted - this theme is largely a cliche in the film industry. Death Proof (2007) is an example of a distorted font.

Tarantino has used this font extensively in conjunction with the posters subject matter. A lack of colour means a lack of emotion. The viewer expects to see a thriller since the skull and (lightening) bones is placed at the centre of the image and corresponds with the car dominates much of the image and drives towards the viewer. To enhance the overall theme, the title, 'Death Proof', and the design of the font signify a film that deals with harsh subject matter.

This font is relevant to our interests and we will take this into consideration upon constructing our poster.

- Contrast -  By this, we mean the font and poster details will correlate with each other moderately.

Oldboy (2003), a South Korean psychological thriller, features a very coarse and rugged font that stands out with the black background. The differences between the simple tone of the background and the different effects the font uses draws the viewer's attention towards the font. The font itself appears to be worn and gruff, which can be interpreted as reflecting the story of the film. Essentially, the viewer will expect to see a film that deals with dark and obscure subject matter.

We came across a font that that we could all agree on. Our chosen font for the header on the homepage of the website is 28 Days Later and is the same font that was used for the movie 28 Days Later. We thought that the font should be coloured in with a silvery blue instead of the white we were using on top of a black background as we thought that the white too 'bright' and this silvery blue gave the header a more 'dirty' effect.

Below is the chosen font along with a few other fonts that were reviewed when we were deciding on what font was suitable.

28 Days Later

The reason we chose this font is that the combination of scratches and bold letters means we can experiment with various techniques. For example, we can invert the colour so the text can be white and the background can be black. This is useful in that we can place this text on a black background and use the same effects as the Oldboy posters.

Here are the initial fonts we chose:

Alias

Base 02

Bladerunner

Road Movie

Star Jedi

Website Layout

Our site has gone through a big - change in terms of layout. Looking at various movie sites it was apparent that when going on a film site, the trailer isn't on the first page. Which is what was on our initial idea, and essentially where we went wrong. The first page should contain the movie name, names of cast and an image representing the film with a link to enter the main site.
We have decided that this is what we should do with our first page, however instead of one linear image for the main page we have included a slide show of the high quality screen captures from the footage. The quality makes the page look slick , along side the smooth auto-transition of the slide-show. Image links to the facebook and twitter account are included in the main page. Some images have also been manipulated in photoshop to take a dark scheme , for the backgrounds of the other pages. We did this by smudging and erasing the sides of the images we wants so it blends into the black background.
Alongside the site name with a film-grain effect and the slide-show , we also included cast names in the fonts we have selected and a flash enter button.
Previous design:

High quality Snap-shots.

Continuing production of the website the basic layout has been decided , however no movie-website is complete without full high-quality images from the film it-self. It was quite some trouble finding a way to capture these HD images from the footage , however a member of our group suggested we use a programme called VLC. With this it comes inbuilt with a screen-cap tool, to rip an image directly from a video file. With quality in full tact , each image comes to about 4-8mb. Which is the standard for a DSLR jpeg file.
This is a useful tool as we can now get any images we need for gallery, characters, posters ,wallpapers etc. These images can be manipulated in any way in photoshop CS5 , such as colour ,size , contour . The site uses a dark theme , so many images used on the site will be altered in photoshop to seem dark/suspenseful. The altering of the images is done by group member Amin who has previous experience in photoshop.

^ Snapshot button in VLC media player.

Facebook and Twitter pages

Twitter and Facebook accounts were created under the filml name in a bid to give the film a greater coverage over various platforms of media. n order for the accounts to be succesful in generateing a buzz around the product, they will have to be updated frequently to keep fans informed and interested, we intend to do this with the addition of inside information e.g. what happened behind the scenes, secret information on the cast and crew members etc. Links to the social network pages will be will be created and added onto the websites main page.

Our Twitter page at the moment, currently we only have 1 folowers, however we hope to gain more over the course of time. we opted for the background to be black, thus keeping to the conventions of a psychological thriller in theme, black, ambiguity, fera, lurking danger etc.

Our Facebook page, at the moment we have a fan base of 2, however, just like the Twitter page we hope to generate a buzz around the product and hope that the number of followers will increase over a period of time. We will update the Facebook page regularly, this will include uploading pictures, trailers, interviews etc.

Format change

The group decided that we would create the website on a hosted site instead of using Dreamweaver. In the end we opted to use the hosted site wix.com this is because by using Dreamweaver the files could not........and by using wix.com we can even edit the site from home which is helpful during the half term period.

First preliminary page design (getting to grips with the design tools) with Facebook fan page and Twitter link

Second attempt of the main page. Links to Facebook, Twitter an other social networking sites e.g. Myspace need to be added to the page

Redesigned website design

After a peer review of our website and establishing that our website did not really give of the feel of a psychological thriller of which we intended, we began a more extensive research into the main pages of blockbuster thrillers such as 2012 and Inception. From these, and the feedback we received we established what we needed to add and remove from our own websites main page to produce a truly successful main page. 

We then proceeded to create a new design for the main page (above) on paper which we hoped to produce on our on-line web designer wix.com. Whilst in the process of designing the new website designer, we had to consider all aspects of the page such as the background and font colour, the sizes and the type of font that would be used around the page, the placement of the images used if any, the colour theme we would incorporate, and whether or not we would use any effects on the page.

Website research

Before we started on our own main page for our website we first reseached into wbsites of blockbuster films such as 2012 and Devil.

2012 has a motre minimalist approach to its overall design, with a simple picture relating to teh film (maybe a screenshot from the trailer/film) takling teh most part of teh screen with navigational bars centralised at the top of screen with films social networking sites centralised at the bottom of the page. Devil takes a different approach. it incorporates a black background colour (consistent with most thrillers) as opposed to an image like what 2012 uses instead replacing it with the films trailer instead. Like 2012 social networking sites are centralised at the bottom of the screen in the form of their icons with more on either top end of the page. Both pages use a white font for their main page. however Devil do use an animated .gif in their header.

From all this research we hope that we can take the relevant information from both media productions and incorporate the information into our own media.

Twitter

Twitter is another form of social networking in which short but timely notes can be shared across the world with family / friends / fans. Alot of celebrities use twitter to keep fans updated, however there has been an increase in the use of this site with films, games, businesses all to keep their customers/viewers updated. For example films will use twitter to inform of release dates / news or hidden codes.
Examples of film twitters are here;
http://twitter.com/inceptionfilm
http://twitter.com/devilthemovie
http://twitter.com/scottpilgrim

Facebook like button.

Facebook is todays worlds most used social networking site , with millions of active users from around the world. It is used to keep people in touch with one another, and a great feature of facebook is to share links and "groups" to each friend. It also has a feature called a "like" button , which if a user "likes" it will appear on their profile, this will show the link to every person on that persons friends list, so if people like it, it triggers off a chain of "likes". Social networking has been used succesfully in the past to tap into advertising and spreading a movie/brand. Nearly every movie made today has a facebook group / like page. Introducing this facebook like button to our website will help maximize our coverage and give an outreach to people on facebook for absolutely free.

Here is the code that will be implemented on the Schemata site.

Collecting content

As a group we decided that before we even begin to create the website we should collect all the content that will be added to the website e.g. the wallpapers, the icons ( that can be used as Windows messenger display pictures etc.) which will need to be shot and resized. This way when we begin on the construction of the website all the content is ready for use and we wont have to look for/have to make it making this a more structured course of plan.

The pros and cons of Dreamweaver

As creating a front page for the website is our ancillary task we had to conduct research into appropriate software as a platform in which to create it. While browsing the internet on website building software we came across various software options for web design such as Web Studio 5.0 , Coffee cup , Adobe Dreamweaver and many more. We decided as a group we would  use Adobe Dreamweaver to create our website because firstly our school offers this currently within it's creative media package (latest version) so no additional charges would incur - and it's advantages over other the other creative software's we have looked at - such as it's wide use with professional web designers , it's wealth of resources available online & it's help and tutorial documents. We also decided to weigh up the pro's and con's of this software package to finalise our decision.

PROS

• Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG editor (What you see is what you get)
• The user interface is easy to understand, and graphical. So functions are easily identifyable.
• Advanced tools.
• Drag and drop HTML creator, so complex HTML code doesn't need to be learned.
• Custom templates can be enabled to change multiple pages in one go.
• Being an Adobe package it works well in unison with other web packages i.e flash.
• Dreamweaver coding works perfectly with the latest web browsers.

CONS

• May look intimidating to new users.
• Lack of beginner tools.
• Coding can be messy/complicated if needed to edit other than the drag & drop feature.
• Entering double style attribute scripts can ruin the web page.

After looking at the pros and cons it is apparent that this software package has indeed a lot to offer in terms of creating a professional web page and it's use of templates to edit multiple pages as well as it's compatibility with all web browsers. However while using the package it is apparent that some HTML knowledge is necessary, the learning curve is steep and taking into consideration the time we must produce this & the main task we have decided not to use this software package to create our web page. Instead we shall seek to find an alternate web designing package which will allow us to produce a page to a professional standard but less time-consuming to learn.

Looking at current website designs

As the group will be creating a website for the trailer we looked at websites of blockbuster movies such as Inception, Saw VI and Devil.

All the sites had links to mass social networking sites such as Twitter, Myspace and a 'like' button for Facebook all of which we will try to incorporate our own.We will also be looking into a 'cool' element in our title similar to Devils.

Other elements we will be looking into for our website will be;

• Flash animation somewhere on the site
• A making of video, Television/Commercial trailer
• Video interview with director, scriptwriter and main actors
• Gallery (wallpapers, icons, OST?)
• Crew and cast information
• Bottom bar with links to social networking sites e.g. Facebook like links

Fonts.

Today we were looking at fonts we could use for the website. Using a standard font for the website wouldn't be professional or appealing to the eye at all. We decided to use an array of fonts which would appeal to the kind look we were going for. We looked over many fonts online to use. Mainly for the banner and main page texts. There were many to choose from , too many for our group to decide so we re-evaluated our approach and decided we need an overall theme for our website. A simple yet sophisticated look is what we decided to go for ,and what we should search for in our fonts. Anything over the top or cheesy would not be used , our approach was decided on the fact that this is indeed a psychological film and so the site should also be replicating that.
The image at the top was one of our mock banners, we saw this as a strong and bold text,simple and symbolic of school life. The fonts we found were mainly on "DaFont.com" it is categorized with thousands of free fonts , which made our search easier.
I will post up images of the chosen fonts in a later post.

Key aspects of media studies map // Research

I came across this map of key concepts which shows the various perspectives in which media can be observed and also shows an approach to the various integral aspects within media such as language , narritive,representation , the link between audience & institutions , technology and medias view within society. These are all interlinked, this concept map can help our group in many ways as it opens our eyes to interesting ways in which media can be utilized and the importance of each of these aspects when creating a media text. Hopefully we can utilise these key aspects to our advantage , with this map as a tool of understanding, for our text as well as our exams.