Interviews

We set up the camera so we could record a few members of the class watching our trailer and their reactions. After they watched, we took 3 students and asked them their opinion about the soap trailer and if they would watch it.
Our questions were;
1. Our target audience are people aged between 16-25, do you think this trailer would attract
our target audience, if so how?
2. What is your opinion of our trailer and what worked well/didn't work well?
3. The soap will be aired on Tuesdays at 8pm, would you be willing to watch it?
4. Does the timing of the soap affect anything else you usually watch?

We edited this to make it look like an interview that you would see after you had watched a movie premier. This was in different quality to our trailer itself, but this was due to the use of a different camera. We edited the footage with iMovie HD on the Macs. We put this interview onto our website to make it look more professional.

From this task, I found that our audience did like our trailer as a whole, they found the mystery of the notes and what the character may or may not have done intrigued them and made them keep watching. The feedback recorded showed that the audience we were trying to target were reached and they believe others their age would watch the soap.

Website Development & Completion

After the problems we encountered previously to trying to edit the website we made at the CLC, circumstances led to us making a new blog. We were unaware about the saving process because when we chose to save on the Macs, there was no "save as" option. After a while we discovered that when we saved, it was saved onto the programme of the account that was logged in.
We chose bright, vibrant colours to attract a certain age range of audience. We were in fact armatures whilst using this programme but picked up certain skills along the way. Firstly, we added all the pages we would be needing for our layout and our navigation pages. With this programme we are unable to hide these navigation pages so we had to call the pages a new name, such as "...." to have at the top to hide the name "Andrea's Diary". We could not overcome this problem so we dealt with it by using the "dot's system". The hyperlinks we used were all successful and linked to the right pages using the 'inspector' tool.
We took many pictures of our friends to add onto the characters page to fill it up and add so-called cast. Many of the pictures used were of the main characters of the trailer/1st episode because the website would appear new and to focus on recent events.
At some point during the production, we added in some shapes and we were unaware of how to change the colour from white. I, however, after much exploration managed to find the correct tool and changed the stars from white to gradient pink and yellow.
My research into other soap websites helped me generously because it gave me a foreground of what I would need to include, what kind of colour scheme I would be needing, the amount of navigation's I would and wouldn't be needing, and the amount of external links. I applied this to the group's idea of who we were aiming to grab and what we wanted to achieve for our website, and we have finally finished our website.

Filming - Day 3.

Day 3: Group members present were; Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael, Elena Christodoulou & Natalie Nicolaides.

By the end of the day we aimed to finish off the shots for the trailer.

We started off by filming the ways in which the character finds the notes. The first was through the post. We shot the post coming through the letter box and the actress picking it up and taking it away. We took many shots for this scene so we could pick from a variety during editing. One of the favoured shots included the shot from behind a plant pot. The scene starts with the leaves in focus and the door/post box unfocused. It then faded focus from the leaves to the post box as the letters and note comes through. We ten shot numerous clips of the note on the floor in and out of focus to show that the note has been acknowledged.

The next shot was finding the note in the folder. This shot included props such as a fruit bowl, a laptop, pens and paper. The Mise-en-Scene enabled the scene to look casual and realistic.

The 3rd consisted of me walking up the path with shopping bags, looking for my keys to open the door and finding another note in my pocket, I look around in suspicion and finally entering the house. This shows that the actress was not aware that she had the note previous to leaving the house, adding to the mystery. We also took around 10 different shots of each part of this scene, including the walking up the path, the bags swinging over the camera, a tracking shot, and also a close-up of me taking the note out of my pocket.

The 4th was found inside my shopping bag with the top I just bought, it falls out the top when I get it out of my bag, but on one occasion the note falls to the floor. This was shot many times due to the note falling at different angles and positions, it was unpredictable where it would land so our camera-man had to be on guard.

The final note is received via text message while my character is watching television. This gave us difficulties because we aimed to capture the sound and vibration of the phone. This was hard because the microphone could only get so close without getting in view. We also had to play the television in the background but without interfering with the sound of the phone. We hid the microphone on the sofa behind a pillow but still pointing towards the phone. Also the sending of the message was difficult. The time during sending was unpredictable and could take from 3-10 seconds to send. This was a difficult scene and was not used during editing for reasons already mentioned, but also because of the length of our trailer.

The last scene we filmed was the finale of our trailer, the dead body. We went to an alleyway and Natalie M lay on the floor in mud and dirt to show that she had been thrown in a ditch. We experimented with many different shots including; long shots, panning shots, and close-ups. The darkness surrounding the alley and the sound of birds, twigs breaking, and other natural sounds added a tense and awkward atmosphere.

This whole process took 5 hours. This was a very successful day, much planning and consideration was used and it helped us finish our filming quickly and efficiently. Many different shots and effects were used for each scene and editing this should be a great experience with a wide variety of material to chose from.

Filming - Day 2.

The second day of filming was done at Natalie Michael's house. The members of the group present were; Thegla Savvides, Natalie Michael and Elena Christodoulou.

What we aimed to achieve by the end of the day was half of the trailer completed which included the actress (Me) sitting, crying on the bed and trying to organise the notes in an order to make sense. I had dressed down in plain black and grey clothing with unwashed hair to give the sense that I have been isolating myself at home, not taking care of my appearance.

We had all the equipment previously used present, with and added wire so we could film and watch it on a television screen at the same time. Although the screen only showed us black and white feed, the set-up was successful. It also helped us eliminate faults, for example, during the play-back I noticed that the microphone had come into shot from the corner.

We used many shots such as over the shoulder, mid-shot and close up shots. We filmed the same scene with different shots to add variety to our choice during editing.

The over-the-shoulder shots were the hardest to film because the camera was placed behind the bed without a tripod, so it was harder to get a clear steady shot.

To make my character cry, I used olbas oil which I rubbed under my eyes to make my eyes water and make my make-up run.

Natalie and Elena both took it in turns to use the microphone and camera. The microphone was connected to a pole so it could be extended enough to pick up sound without being detected by the camera.

The notes we used were from paper, a sticky note, and one received via text message. The note from the phone was the hardest to achieve. The text message came up small, so eliminate this we re-thought our idea and turned the text message into a picture message so the 'note' came up big enough for the camera to see.

The whole process took around 4 hours to film. Overall, the day was successful and did not run as long as the previous filming day. We learned that the more organised we were the easier our schedule became. The extra concentration put into the organisation of the script enabled both actress and behind-the-scene's individuals to easily work together quickly and efficiently. We did, however, encounter some problems which we were able to sort out without issue.

Magazine Cover - Revisited

Due to the size of the photo for my previous magazine cover, the idea of using a "Radio Times" type of cover was unable to be created without severe difficulty and an odd-sized magazine being formed. So I have been forced to reconsider my options and I've returned to the traditional looking soap magazine, such as the one you would get free with 'The Sun' or 'The Mirror'.

For this I didn't use 'Picasa' which I had used for my previous idea, but I used 'PhotoImpact 10' which I am familiar with. I added my desired picture and cut around the image and placed it in the centre and decided to place everything around this picture. Unlike the other picture I did not have to add in a banner to fill space because the size of the page I had chosen was A4. This program was much easier to use than 'Picasa' or 'Photoshop' and I am quietly confident that my Magazine cover looks near-professional. The only problem I encountered was the size of the main picture compared to other already-existing covers' pictures. I was unable to make it big enough to fill the height of the page because by doing so, my picture would prove too wide to fit on the A4 page with a margin for advertisements.

I used tools to rotate simple images and add shadows to text and pictures to add to the authenticity of my magazine. The part of my cover that took the longest was defiantly my main picture because I had to cut around the edges of the characters without cutting off parts of hair that would be noticeable and make my picture look odd. Also the bubbles around the additional pictures took a long time because I had to use precise measurements and disable the merge tools so I could do the precise measurements accurately. The part of the cover I dislike is the top right with the 'Dancing on Ice' image. I would have prefered a long banner-like image to be placed there but I could not find one that would fit precisely and not look odd or squashed. I also used 'Microsoft Publisher' to help get my pugs/puffs on to the cover.


After showing my final piece to the people/audience around me, I found that everyone who looked at it thought that I had actually brought in a real soap magazine. This boosted my confidence that the research I had used to complete this task had helped me in all the right ways and that my magazine cover was a success.

09/03/2010

After finding out some of the pictures on my previous magazine would be breaching copyright laws, I was forced to make a new one. I took this as an opportunity to change my main picture to the murdered character in my soap. I used the same programme as before (PhotoImpact) and used the same effects (shadows) but i changed the contents of the page. Instead of using already existing soap and drama pictures, I looked through my own files and found pictures of family and friends and added them to a random storyline. I'm not as happy with this final piece as I was for the previous piece, but I am unable to make the cover look more professional without breaching some copyright laws.

Magazine Cover

As a group we decided that we should all pick a different picture to use on our individual magazines. We have also decided to use different names. For example, my magazine will be called 'Television Times' whilst Elena's magazine will be called 'Television Weekly'.

I started off by picking the picture I want and opening it on Photoshop. I do not feel confident on Photoshop, so when I got home I used a programme called Picasa to edit my picture. It was a excellent programme and I found it much easier to use and I created different versions of the basic layout of my magazine.

This picture was made black and white, but the red still showing on the characters to symbolise danger. I placed my magazine name at the top and other soap related stories around teh edges. I completed my cover with a barcode, date and price.

This is a colour version of the cover. I moved around date and price and i was also considering puting a christmas special banner on the bottom because of the date I had entered.
I have acknowledged that my picture was taken as a landscape photo so my cover could not be A4 sized. I have worked around this fault and made my cover look A5 sized.

This is my christmas special edition of the magazine. I may later add a border to the banner at the bottom of my page.

Website Development

On Tuesday 24th November we as a class visited the CLC to learn how to use a programme called iWeb, which is used to make website layouts and pages. There were only 3 members of our group present but we managed to do an individual site each, using the same template. Some of us were more comfortable with the software than others, but as a group I can say we are confident with using iWeb.

On Tuesday 1st December when my whole media class were trying to edit their work at school, we all encountered problems. We could preview our work but not change anything. One group will soon return to the CLC to gain information to share with the class on how we should overcome this problem, but until then work on our website is on standby.