IV Trailer

We uploaded the video to Elena's brothers Vimeo account, Vimeo is an easy video sharing site giving us the opportunity to upload videos wherever and whenever .

IV Trailer from Louis Christodoulou on Vimeo.

Filming and editing the focus group.

Monday 8th February 2010

People present: Thegla Savvides, Elena Christodoulou, Natalie Michael

We decided to film a focus group's responses to our trailer. We selected a group of people within our target audience and showed them our trailer. After doing this, we set the camera up in a quiet corridor and asked three questions to them:

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?"
   "Does the timing of the soap affect anything else you usually watch?"

We then ingested this footage onto Imovie HD on the macs and began editing what we had filmed. This was harder than we had originally thought because we did not know how to use this software. Elena had done the editing on Final Cut Pro which she was familiar with. We eventually got the hang of this and began editing. We added titles and fades and parts where a black screen comes up which shows the question asked followed by the people's responses.

The creation of the website

In order to create the website, we used a programme called iWeb on a Mac computer. The whole process of making the website took a long time, but we are happy with the end result. The rest of my group had previous experience on this programme when they went to the CLC, however as I was unable to go i was not as experienced as them. However, i managed to teach myself how to use this through much determination and dedication.

As a group, we sat together and planned what we wanted on each page, using what we had found to have been successful from our research on current soap websites.

Natalie Michael and Thegla Savvides began with the basic outline of the website with inputs from the other group members.

I then added most of the things we had put onto our plan to the website. I did this is in a basic way which later we could edit to how we wanted. I filled up most of the pages, taking photos of other people available who could pose as being extras in our soap. These people's pictures were featured on our character's page but they did not have have their own character biography pages. Only our characters have biography pages.

Once this was mainly done, me and Elena stayed behind after school and went through the basic I had done. We changed fonts and colours making the website clearer and more attractive to our target audience. We changed the white font to red on the character profile pages making it much clearer and eye-catching for the audience to read. The fonts were changed throughout most of the pages as through feedback from peers, we found that the original one wasn't as good as the new one. We also hyperlinked the pages together making pictures and text link to the appropriate pages.

On the page for 'Andrea's Diary', we added stars to the corner of the pages as we thought that the page looked a little bare. This made the page seem more fun and girly and should make the viewer feel comfortable visiting the page. We were unable to change the colour of this stars from white. After some more exploration, Thegla realised that this was indeed possible and we changed them to a calming pink and yellow colour. This fitted with the feel of a diary page. we added shadows to the text boxes, images and text as without the shadow, these aspects looked flat on the page.

After we had filmed the focus group and edited this, we added it to our website onto the interview page. we also added some footage of this onto the out-takes page.

Our website plans.

The mac computer with iweb and the creation of our website.

Filming - Day 3

Sunday 31st January 2010

Today we finished the filming for the trailer. We all met up and began setting up the first setting for the first note. This note was to be received through the post with all the post. We set the camera up on the tripod and positioned it at an angle to the front door. The camera was positioned next to a plant and in some shots we had a leaf from the plant in front of part of the camera. this created a nice effect. Natalie N posted the letters through the door and we filmed Thegla walking past the camera and picking up the letters. The note flies out from the main pack of letters and we got a selection of close up shots to show the audience the notes. We encountered a problem with the lighting in this scene, too much sunlight was coming through the window in the door so we had to cover it up with a dark coloured piece of card. This prevented most of the bright sunlight from coming through. We filmed a selection of these shots including low shots to just show Thegla's feet walking to pick up the post, wide shots of all that was happening and and some close-ups of just the post focusing on the note. We also filmed the scene with the door out of focus and then as the post comes through the door comes into focus. This was a more creative type of shot.

For the next note we decided to film Thegla waking up to the house and once she gets to the front door she takes her keys out of her pocket and finds a note in there too. We shot a selection of wide shots, showing Thegla walk past the camera to the house, shots where the camera followed her to the door and over the shoulder shots showing the note then Thegla looking around before going into the house. Whilst we filmed with the camera following her, we had to make the camera into a Steadicam to allow the shot look more professional and less shaky.

To film the third note being received, Thegla was sat at a table with her folder. As she flicks through her folder she sees a post-it note stuck on one of the pages. To film this we had the camera from a side shot and it pans round to an over-the-shoulder shot as she is flicking through the folder. This turned out to be a relatively easy scene to film as it was one quick camera move to film it. The lighting was a bit dark, but nothing could be done to fix this.

The fourth note was to be found in shopping bags, folded in between an item of clothing. This was filmed using a wide shot, a close up shot and a panning shot. We will select the best ones during the editing stage.

The final note is the one that is received by a text message. We shot a wide shot of Thegla watching television then when she receives the text a close up shot was filmed.

The final part of the trailer to film was the dead body at the end. This was the role I was playing. We found a run-down alley way and a grass area just off this. We filmed close-ups, panning shots, wide shots and low shots. We filmed these when the sun wasnt very bright so the trees could create shadows that would hopefully make the scene look eerie and effective. The best will be selected during editing in order to make this scene look affective and fit in with the contents of the trailer.

Me and Elena fixing the lighting.

Me acting as the dead body.

me filming with the home made steady cam and Elena holding the microphone.

Elena filming, me holding the microphone and Thegla acting.

Filming - Day 2

Saturday 23rd January 2010

Me, Elena and Thegla all met up to begin filming the trailer. We made sure that we were well prepared this time to film. In order to do this, we completed very detailed filming plans (Shooting schedule). Again, Thegla was our actress, and this time round she had to make sense of the notes she had been receiving and look terrified/worried/upset (We will be filming how she receives these notes at a later date). The setting of today's filming was a bedroom. We used natural and artificial lighting (from the window and the bedroom light). We filmed a selection of shots such as:

• over the shoulder shots
• wide shots
• reaction shots

We filmed a selection of these shots so that during the editing stage we can choose the best ones.

We began with the over the shoulder shots so that we could film all the ones showing Theglas face afterwards so that she had time to prepare herself to cry and look scared. The wide shots, reaction shots and close-ups all followed.

Whilst filming, we connected the camera to a TV using a scart lead so that we could all see the shots we were taking and all that was on the screen. This enabled us all to notice different points which turned out to beneficial to our product. For example, Thegla noticed during one of the shots that the microphone had been lowered and was in the shot. We then re filmed this bit.

We did not need to use many props, however, the props we did use were:

• tissues scrunched on the bed (to show the character had been crying)
• a phone (When the character remembers the text she had received)
• the notes

One main problem we encountered was the text on the phone kept coming through too small. To overcome this, we decided to take a photo of the word from a newspaper and leave the picture on widescreen. This looked effective as the image covered the whole screen and looked like a text.

We decided to change around the way the notes were received as this would confuse the audience and create suspicion within the trailer. From the notes forming 'WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID', they first create 'DID YOU KNOW WHAT' then when Thegla finally remebers the text she re-orders them to say 'YOU KNOW WHAT WE DID', then finally 'WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID'.

The camera, microphone and headphones.

The tripod.

Elena filming and me holding the microphone and headphone. The camera is connected to the TV.

Elena filming and the camera and the TV connected.

Elena filming, me holding the microphone and Thegla acting.

Magazine Cover - Final Draft

I have since edited my cover from the image below. I decided to use all original images instead of found images as the one below shows. Below is the FINAL DRAFT of my magazine cover.

This is the final draft of my magazine cover. I am much happier with the outcome of it. I realised that one of the main problems with the drafts was that the main image had the background to it. This is not usually seen on real TV guides. I set about to change this.

I opened a selection of images onto photoshop and practiced with a variety of the tools to erase the background. The first image I edited was the one of Thegla's face. I did this using the 'Elliptical Marquee Tool'. This allowed me to cut Thegla's face into a round shape.

Next to edit the main image I firstly used the magnetic lasso tool which allowed me to cut out the part of the picture I wanted to use. In this case, us. I then used the eraser tool set on a soft brush which allowed me to blur the edges. I had to magnify the image because Elena's curly hair made erasing the background hard. I had to erase it almost pixel by pixel. I then cropped the picture to get rid of the extra white space.

For another image, I used a different method to edit the picture and cut out just the part I wanted. I used the extract tool by highlighting the edges that I wanted to cut and then the programme cut the image out for me. I then tidied the edges with the eraser then used the history brush tool to completely tidy the image.

I chose to use the image I edited with the extract tool as we were all standing closer together. However, once I put the image onto Publisher and tried to make it transparent (so the white background of the picture couldn't be seen) parts of the image went transparent too such as my nose, Elena's hands and the side of Thegla's face. Natalie's silver bracelet and Elena's ring also turned transparent. In order to solve this problem, I had to darken the whiter skin tones and the silver jewellery. I also erased Elena's ring off her finger as it would not darken enough.

Once I was satisfied with my image, I filled up the cover with things seen on successful TV guide covers, such as the straplines and the puff.

I changed the name of the magazine to 'All TV' as I thought 'TV Revealed' was too long, after having researched the lengths of TV magazine titles. Such titles included 'TV Choice'. 'What's on TV' and 'Radio Times'. I used bright, eye-catching colours to draw in the reader. I found that most TV guides use a blue as their background.

Below is the draft which uses found images from the internet.

(OLD ONE!!)

Magazine Cover

To create my first drafts of my magazine cover, I used the programme Microsoft Publisher. I decided to name my magazine 'TV Revealed'. As a group, we had originally decided to base our magazine covers around a magazine such as 'Radio Times'. However, when attempting to do this, I changed my mind and decided to use TV guides such 'TV Choice' and 'Whats on TV'. This ended up being easier.
I started off by placing my chosen image onto the page without editing it in photoshop. I then edited it by cropping down the sides which I did not want. Adding the blue background made the magazine cover look similar to already existing magazines.

I was unhappy with my first few drafts (see below).


Draft 1 - the blue background made the magazine look a bit amateurish and i was unhappy with the layout and the overall look of the magazine. I left this draft unfinished.

Draft 2 - i changed the background from the blue to an off-white as the blue seemed too overpowering. However, this did not make the magazine look much better or like a real TV guide. I also changed the image in the hope it would make the cover seem better. It did not and I was still unhappy with what I had done. I decided to make the magazine a Valentine's Special as the dates on the magazine would cover Valentines Day.

Draft 3 - this draft was still not as good as I had hoped it to be. I moved a few bits around such as the bar code and I removed the TV on the title. These changes still did not make my TV guide look professional.

I will be re-doing my magazine with more changes.