Three Posters for The Human Exchange

Poster 1
My first poster that has conventional features in an unconventional method. This was done to create better feedback.

Poster 2
This poster follows more codes and conventions of movie posters and attracted the slashe/horror target audience that I was aining for.

Poster 3
My final poster following codes and conventions, implmenting feedback from my Market Research and adding an unconventional twist.

 

 

Video / Photoshop Final Evaluation

Market Research
During my Market Research assignment I was able to identify target audiences that may have been a suitable audience for my film. By conducting research, primarily from Facebook and a questionnaire on my blog site, I was able to take on board critique and change the look of my product to attract a different audience. The benefit of doing this is that I am able to implement suggestions and ideas and by making those changes or adding elements to a product tailor it more to the audience I have identified with my film.

For example, my first poster, attracted an almost equal split between men and women, and the age range between 16-24 and 25-34 was what I was aiming for. From this, the feedback I was given about what people liked or disliked about the poster, I was able to change and implement in my second poster that was trying to target a different audience.

From the feedback from my first poster I identified people liked the Masked Man and I was going to use this as a main feature within my second poster. However, as I was attempting to target another audience, to do so I decided that I would reconfigure most parts of the poster using the more familiar codes and conventions although not wholly. I decided to make the poster target the audience for a slasher/horror movie. I used the red text, as this is a typical code and convention for slasher movies and the white background which connotes purity and innocence. This contrast works well together and as the story is in relation to two girls, who are, by social convention, normal, end up in an environment that is sinister. However, I did attempt to attract a more female audience with this poster but it failed to do so as 83% of respondents were male. However, one person, who is female, said that she preferred this poster to the first as “the picture catches her eye”. This person also suggested that I should add a tagline as it tells the audience what the film may be about. What the poster did do however is from the feedback identify people who thought that this film may be a slasher/horror film which was the target audience I was aiming for.

My third poster had elements from the previous two posters in which reflect the comments from the feedback I received from my Market Research. I also decided to make elements of the poster to reflect an unconventional poster in one part, but also following some of the typical codes and conventions. I kept the mask as the main focal point of the poster as peple were drawn to this. I re-introduced from the first poster the black background as it has connotations with vulnerability and insecurity. It also represents the tone of the film. Mostly, the rest of the poster follows traditional codes and conventions of movie posters, apart from two still images from the movie. I have decided to add these because I wanted to create an intrigue for the movie, as well as the film is unconventional, so I felt the poster should reflect that. I also wanted to attract a predominately male audience for this film, as the two cast members are in their under-garments. This worked well as all those that commented or ‘liked’ the poster were male. For the most part I prefer my final poster as this reflects the tone and the content of the movie.

I can see how Market Research is excellent in finding or identifying target audiences. By using Market Research it helps create a media project using codes and conventions that audience of particular genres expect to see. By evaluating the feedback it is possible to change or amend elements of a media project, such as in this case a movie poster, to either increase an audience or to narrow an audience my marketing the project to a niche audience.

It must be said however, that any feedback received during Market Research is purely subjective. The feedback one may receive may not be beneficial and the creator of the media project should bear this in mind before going “gung-ho” on any changes because, in essence, it is only a small number of people’s opinions. For example, comments in my first and final poster had comments from men saying that the girls featuring on the posters “should be topless”. Ah, bless them. How am I supposed to take this type of feedback seriously and incorporate it within my movie – unless I was making “adult entertainment”. With that being said, the media industry is about making money and using Market Research can identify what people want so that changes can be made to attract a wider audience, therefore maximising income, and hopefully for the creators and investors, profits.

I have identified from my Market Research that an audience would use my film project for entertainment purposes. This is in agreement with the Uses and Gratifications Theory in which people use media for the following reasons:

• Information
• Personal Identity
• Integration and Social Interaction
• Entertainment

Photoshop
Prior to starting the course I had minimum knowledge and experience of the Photoshop programme. However, during this course I have been able to identify how powerful this programme is and how it benefits the creator of media projects such as creating a movie poster.

In the creation of my first poster I used tool a Lasso Tool which enabled me to cut around an image. I used this when cutting out the image of a masked man and the image of the girl with her hands tied behind her back. This was an excellent tool as I was able to remove these two smaller images from its original source that I had imported and remove them. I was then abel to transform them so that I could resize and position them parts of the background I wanted. I feel that this was done effectively, however, I had to reduce the harshness of the edges as it was evident that they had been ‘cut’ from one source and ‘pasted’ on another. This did not have a very aesthetically pleasing look. To enable me to reduce the harshness of the edges I used the eraser tool to enable me to “rub out” the edges and blend in the background. I felt that this was the hardest out of the three posters that I created because I was unfamiliar with the programme and with the tools that were available to me. I do feel that in the creation of this unconventional poster I have used these tools effectively.

With the black background it connotes the tone of my movie well as black has connotations with vulnerability and insecurity, in which the female characters face during the story. I do feel however, that the text is boring and does not represent the poster in a positive way. The decision to do this was to gain beneficial feedback from my Market Research as explained above.

My second poster had a more simplistic design and this was because I followed more traditional codes and conventions of a movie poster for the slasher/horror genre. Using the red text and the font connotes danger and violence which is what one would come to expect from this genre of movie. As the Masked Man was proven to be a key feature identified from the Market Research I decided to keep it, but I wanted to add a change to it too. This is why I decided that I would have the mask in the centre of the poster as if it is appearing out of the darkness. This creates a sense of mystery and suspense, which was again recognised through a comment from my Market Research. Because of the simplicity of the poster this was extremely easy to create and I as my Market Research proves; I successfully hit the target audience, in terms of the genre for the movie.

From my third poster I took the elements of the positive feedback from my first and second posters and implemented them into on. The black background was reintroduced, the Mask remained from poster two as did the colour and the font. The third poster also followed, for the most part, more traditional codes and conventions of a movie poster. However, I decided to add an unconventional twist, as my film is unconventional in its plot and story by adding two still images from the film.

It was during the creation of these posters that I found quicker ways to use Photoshop. For example simply by going to File > Save As and then selecting JPEG as the file type was quicker and easier that flattening or merging the numerous layers of the image. I also found it much quicker and simpler to select File > Place when wanting to add another image to edit, as it automatically created a new layer. I’m sure that with further use of the programme I will discover how and why other things can be done in alternative ways and if this is of benefit to me when creating print media projects.

Below I have annotated the decisions I made when creating my poster. For my second poster I decided to annotate a rough draft/design so that one can understand my creative thought process.

Poster 1
I purposefully designed this unconventional poster to gain greater feedback from my Market Research.

Poster 2

This poster was designed to attract a different target audience. This worked well as it attracted the slasher/horror fan base. This is also a rough design of the final poster as it shows my creative thought process.

Poster 3

This follows more conventional codes and conventions movie posters but I have still added and unconventional twist.

Film Production and Post Production

Due to numerous technical and software issues I was unable to edit my film as I had intended I wanted it to look. The film, had it come together as intended, was playing with gender representation, feminist theories, challenged social conventions and also had an ideology running through it which would have supported the Hypodermic Needle Theory in which media slowly injects the audience and the spectator submissively accepts this to be true as they are unable or unwilling to question the message being sent to them.

Because of the issues I faced I had to cut a Teaser Trailer, but I had decided to do so by going against the usual codes and conventions of a movie trailer. Although unconventional movie trailers are not commonplace they have been used to promote popular films. For example, and they are from different genres of movie, including my own; Where the Wild Things Are (2009) and Kill Bill (2003). For these movies they have used numerous shots and sequences from the film and have used music to capture the feeling and emotion. There is either no or little dialogue and sound effects in these trailers, which I have attempted to mirror.

Below are some shots of my Teaser Trailer and I have annotated on the decisions I made during the production and post-production process.

Here we have the POV of the driver of the car watching the two women. In the previous shot we see rope and a Mask on the passenger seat. This tells the audience that something sinister may happen, but also wants the viewer to find out who is doing the watching. I colour corrected this shot with a hint of red to add warmth, as in this part of the trailer [and the final film had it been edited] all is well and lives appear to be normal.

In this shot everything appears to be normal. A boyfriend/girlfriend kiss but the boyfriend is wearing black which connotes a darker side to him and the woman is wearing pink that connotes girly-ness. The cover of the book is that of Poster 1, which tells us that what is contained in the book is not all good.

The Masked Man appears and the way he is framed makes the audience distant from this character. The fact he is wearing a mask and a black jacket tells us that he has sinister intentions. The shot has been colour corrected with a hint of blue to give a coldness to the scene. Again this gives the audience a sense that something is not right and that something bad may be about to happen.

 In this shot the red of the underwear connotes passion and danger. As we can see the danger is imminently behind her. As the story is about human trafficking, this red does not connote passion moralistically. The blood on the hands tells us something bad had happened. As we are low down, we are getting the view as if we are the dog that has been killed. The way the camera, the woman and the masked man are positioned tells us the hierarchy of power. Again I have colour corrected using a hint of blue to create a coldness in the scene. It has not worked too well here as the blue is too evident in the corners of the shot.

 

 

 

The doors represent a barrier preventing the audience to help the woman who is being attacked.

Another POV shot from the woman who is being held captive. As we see through her eyes we are made to feel vulnerable and insecure as the Masked Man moves in closer on us. From this shot we know that he is in power and in control.

With the second woman help captive she is framed in this was to make her appear small. This makes her seem unimportant and weak. As she is beaten we focus on the shadows again adding to the unimportance of her character and her plight. However, as the shadows give us enough of what is happening to her it takes away the barbarity of what is happening and leaves the audience to imagine what is happening. Depending on the spectator this could be as brutal and vile as their imagination lets them create.

From the POV of the second woman being held captive we see the power of the men over the woman. She is framed small, whereas the male characters are standing which represents their dominance. One character, holding a piece of wood which is being used as a phallic symbol connoting that the “penis rules”. Notice that none of the characters are framed in full as they are not real people. With that, I mean had the final film been edited in full, we know that this shot is in a dream and therefore none of the characters are “real”.

Here we see the emergence of womanhood as we find out that this character has killed one of her capturers. She is framed conventionally and from a slightly lower angle to give her a sense of power.

 From another POV of one of the captured women the Masked Man removes his mask to reveal his identity. I attempted to cut the shot so that the removal of his mask was more dramatic, and to follow a code and convention of a horror film, but I was unable to do so as the clip was too short. When I tried this it made it look pathetic so I stayed with the original shot as it was captured. Again, the Masked Man is in power. This tells us that despite the killing of one of the capturers men are still in control. However, again had I been able to edit the full film, we find that it is women who are in control, but you will have to wait until the full version is edited to find out how.

 

I decided with my shots to try and use them to aid the narrative code within visual texts. I could have made many shots more creative, but my argument is, film making is a medium to tell a story. Although having “artistic shots” makes the film engaging aesthetically what is the point if the film maker is unable to tell the story he is trying to get across. Unfortunately, many films now and film makers seem to follow style-over-substance, which maybe a code and convention in film making before long if were are not too careful! I feel music I selected suited the pace and the tone of the film perfectly as it creates they emotive repsonses that were required from the audience.

 

Other Films I Worked On

As well as working on my own film I also worked on the films of two other students. The first film I worked on was the film Darkon written and directed by Tina Dadds. My role as a crew member was the Sound Man where I captured the sound. We filmed in locations such as West Woods in Thundersley, Essex, the street adjacent to West Woods and Coal House Fort in Tilbury. All had variant conditions to capture good sound.

In West Woods there was wind to contend with so using a blimp and a ‘dead-cat’ was essential so that minimum amount of wind and in almost all cases, no wind could be heard on the captured takes.

When we filmed in the street I was able to capture good sound, however the sensitivity of the microphone picked up many sounds from a great distance. At one point a road-sweeper passed and I called for the shooting to cease so that the sound of the road-sweeper could not be heard in when we started to shoot. It was some time until the road-sweeper was out of range for the microphone even though by human ear it couldn’t be heard!

In Coal House Fort the conditions were cramped and cold and in the tunnels and rooms of the underground building had an echo. The sound bounced off the walls and to combat this, the sensitivity was turned down on the audio input settings, and I ensured that I got the microphone as close to the speaking actors as possible at the same time ensuring the boom pole and microphone were out of shot.

I feel that the sound I captured on Darkon was of a high standard as all the dialogue can be heard in the shots where I contributed as a sound man. This enables the viewer to hear what the actors are saying in the film.

Darkon can be seen here: [LINK COMING SOON]

I also worked on the film Angel Freak written and directed by Sarah Shea. For this film I was requested to do the camera work. The director required me to capture some shots to make the opening sequence appear disorientating. To enable me to get this effect I increased the shutter speed of the camera which then made the shot jutted, wobbly and give a slow-motion effect.

Other shots that I was required to take for this alternative film included pointing the camera up at a spinning disco ball and spin round in the opposite direction, to give the sense of disorientation and several shots of murals on walls. Some shots were deliberately not framed properly, were out of focus, and the lighting made poor to get the effect the director was trying to achieve. 

I also, where I could, helped with some of the editing.

Angel Freak can be seen here: [LINK COMING SOON]

The Human Exchange Proposal

The Human Exchange is a short-film based around human trafficking. The genre of this film is a thriller but contains some horror elements. The target audience for this movie is for males between 18-35.

The story starts with two friends Hannah and Marie talking about Hannah’s new boyfriend. During this conversation they challenge social behaviour and social convention when it comes to dating. During this time they are being watched as they walk down the street towards Hannah’s home.

Once inside Hannah talks to Natalie about a book she is reading that she has borrowed from her boyfriend who she has a weekend away planned with the next day. Hannah has been engrossed in this book and when she goes to bed later that night she has a dream. What is unusual about this dream is that she dreams the next chapter of the book before she has even read it.

In this dream Hannah is the “author” of the book of this “real-life story” and her friend Natalie is the other girl held captive by a gang of human traffickers who are made up of other people in Hannah’s life. However, there is a Masked Man and his identity is not revealed – at this moment anyhow.

As Hannah and Natalie are beaten to earn their privileges it takes a moment of bravery and heroism for them to try and escape. However, their heroic attempts are in vain as it appears that they fail to escape the clutches of their capturers – but it is just a dream, right?

The shock of the dream wakes Hannah up and she talks to Natalie about her nightmare. She is convinced that there is more to this dream as she thinks it is real. Once she is reassured by Natalie that her nightmare is nothing more than a bad dream Hannah goes away with her boyfriend for a weekend away. As he puts her bag in the boot we see the mask in the car and the identity of the Masked Man is revealed – Hannah’s boyfriend is the Masked Man and one of the capturers. But it also poses the question – was Hannah’s dream just a projection of her immediate future?

The Human Exchange is a story challenging social behaviour and social conventions, female resurrection and the re-birth of womanhood while challenging the debate of who is on top between men and women and who controls who in the battle of the sexes in this dramatic tale.

 

 

© Scott Thompson 2013. All Rights Reserved.

Problems and Solutions in making The Human Exchange

In my initial idea I intended to have a handover scene of the girls from one gang of human traffickers to another on waste ground at night. It was the realisation of trying to get the right lighting, allowance from the land owners and the logistics of cast, crew and equipment meant that I had to reconsider the location and also the script.

The location was now going to feature purely in or around my home and to enable this changes in the script and the story had to be changed. The female characters were not going to be ‘exchanged’ but were going to be held captive. With this the story had to have some element of the conditions they were in and the treatment they were getting. For me, this made the story more interesting visually and more dramatic.

After I had finalised the script I sought cast and crew members and soon enough I had assembled the people I wanted in the roles I wanted them to play or work in. After I had done this I was then informed that my lead actress was unable to play the role of ‘Hannah’ due to work commitments. I decided that to replace her with someone who was going to play a smaller role at the end of the movie. This meant that I had to find another actress to fill this role, but after failing to do so, I dropped the additional scene and made amendments to the script to accommodate this change.

As the production date got closer one of my mail actors emailed me to request that he wanted to go home by 2:00pm on the days of the shoot due to work reasons. When I offered him the role I had informed him that he, along with all the other cast and crew members, where required, had to be available Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 8:00am to 10:00pm to which, at the time, they all agreed. I made the decision to drop this actor and I was short on time to find someone to replace him. I did manage to do this but at a cost of creating another problem.

Because of the time spent on trying to find a replacement actor I was unable to utilise the time in filling the role of the Masked Man. Because of this time constraint I had to cast myself to fulfil the role, a person who considers himself as a poor actor. This now, in turn, had increased my workload, as I was the producer, director and an actor!

After ironing out these problems I was then informed that the person who I had arranged to do the sound recording for my film was unable to do so because of family commitments. I decided to move the person who was going to be my runner into the sound recorder role, but this clearly left a void in the team that had to be filled. There was only one solution. It was another role that had to be filled by myself.

No sooner did it feel that I had solved a problem another one arose and this was the case when 1 week before the shoot one of my actors had informed me that they maybe unable to participate due to be taken ill with tonsillitis.  To accommodate this problem I rescheduled the day I intended to shoot his parts from the Tuesday to the Friday. This meant I had to make sure that all of his parts of the film were shot on that day. Bearing in mind that all his parts were to be shot in one location I felt that this wasn’t too much of an issue.

Apart from a few minor issues along the way while shooting most things went to plan according to the schedule on the first two days. The next major snag was the on the Friday morning one of my actors was unable to attend due to the illness of a family member and had to go to the hospital. I had to replace this person with my sound person, who as well as capturing the sound also had to fill the role of the Well Dressed Woman who is the leader of the human trafficking gang.

At the start of filming on the last day, the most important day for the narrative of the story, my “lead” actor was hinting that he wanted to leave by 7:00pm so that he could attend a party later that evening. This put pressure on me as I rushed to get shots done quickly, especially his parts, due to the unnecessary time constraint that had been enforced upon me.

During the shoot on the last day my “lead” actress fell ill and had to take a ‘time-out’ for a few hours to enable her to recover from her sudden and short illness. To ensure that this didn’t interrupt too much of the shoot numerous shots had to be taken out that were planned, others had to be shot out of sequence and many had to be improvised. This caused problems when it came to time as I had to think on my feet and reschedule elements of the shoot instantly, where some shots and sequences were shot off-the-hip.

It was also during this time when members of the cast and crew started to ask what time we were going to finish and there started to be a little discontent. I informed my cast and crew that I had previously arranged with them all that we would be shooting for three days between 8am to 10pm. Because people were getting restless I rushed the shooting and because of this some shots didn’t get filmed.

After the shoot I had the task of editing the footage, but to do so I had to capture the footage into the software programme Final Cut Pro 7. After I set up the camera and synchronised it with the computer so the software could recognise the device I endeavoured to capture the footage. However, I made a schoolboy error and forgot to click the ‘now’ button in the capture window. This resulting in me wasting an hour, as I had just watched the footage, and not captured anything.

Because of this I decided to capture the footage at home, however this meant using a PC and Adobe Premier Pro CS3. I also knew that I would have to manually record the footage in Excel so that I could log the shots. This was extremely time consuming, but the job needed to be done.

I took the camera home and attempted to capture on my software and PC, but was given a camera with only one battery and no battery charger. I was given the wrong Firewire leads which meant I had to go to PC World at Southend Airport and then realised that they were no longer there. I then went to the right location and they were out of stock of the leads I wanted and was advised to try Maplin. When I went there they were closed so I went back home and contacted a college friend and borrowed a lead from him. I had to pick the lead up which meant nearly an hour round trip to get to his house and back. After trying numerous attempts to capture the footage, the software programme was unable to recognise the camera, the battery life expired and I had to wait four days – due to a bank holiday weekend. I decided that I would go back to college and try again and after getting another battery I still had trouble transferring the footage due to the software not recognising the camera. The problem was that the Firewire connector socket on the camera was broken and so I had to get another camera.

Luck should have it that another college friend had finished transferring her footage and no longer needed the use of the camera, which I was then able to borrow. I went back home to capture the footage and was successful until I attempted to play the footage back.

When I played a clip, I could see video but was unable to playback any audio. After doing an internet search for possible causes I found a solution. The problem had been caused by Windows update disabling a setting to which I then reconfigured. This solved the problem of not playing the audio but I was left with a problem that the audio was not in sync with the video. I was unable to ‘unlink’ the audio and then sync the video and audio before being able to ‘link’ because when the video played the audio was approximately 20 minutes behind resulting in clips not having audio at all.

As a result of most of the edited clips I wanted to use not having sound due to the software unable to keep the audio and the video synchronised, and due to the ever decreasing amount of time available to me I had to make the decision to scrap the idea of editing the movie and to create a Teaser Trailer, but this wasn’t without problems either.

Due to the memory on my PC the computer was unable to add transitions, titles, colour correcting or credits without crashing. To combat this I had to edit one thing at a time and save it, before closing the programme and re-opening it. One Title Card had to be created in Microsoft Publisher, because it was quick and easy to do so, then converted into a JPEG and imported into Premier Pro CS3. 

Despite the problems, stress and annoyances, overall I am fairly happy with the Teaser Trailer I have produced. Sure, I would have liked to have a final edited version of the film I intended make but for all the reasons stated above, on this occasion it was not possible. Are there things I would change in the Teaser Trailer? Of course, but that will have to wait for another day. I still have the tapes and the RAW footage and soon I’ll have a new system and software package. The Human Exchange is not a finished project, it has not been binned, it has been put on the shelf to be edited in full, hopefully, in the near future.

Poster 1 Annotations

Poster 3 Annotations