Evaluation: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Trailer

The Outtakes

Here's a peek into the process of the filming!

Official Poster

Poster: Final Images

Here are our selection of the final images to be included in the poster:

'EAGLE'

'LORETTA'

'SHERIFF'

First of all, we decided on this image for 'Eagle' as we wanted an image that slightly concealed his face with shadows. We wanted this as, usually, across all texts - not just Western films - the hero is often shown in brighter light than the villain as light is often associated with good and the dark with bad/evil but we wanted to challenge this. We wanted to portray to the audiences the fact that he is an unconventional hero as within the storyline of the film, he is an outsider, yet, he manages to 'save the day' - conventionally, in Western movies, the 'outsider' is often the 'bad guy'.

Likewise, you can see in the 'Sheriff''s image that we have used a lot brighter lighting as he is the 'Sheriff' - a job that supposedly means that he is of good character and is capable of protecting the settlement. However, we have also created a dark shadow behind him in order to depict that he has a part of him that is hidden and dark. Also, in the image you can see that the sheriff has his hand on his gun - a show of power - and has an arrogant expression on his face as he is looking down his nose at the audience. These all hint to the audience that the Sheriff could be taking advantage of his power. Therefore, we chose this image of the Sheriff to go onto the poster.

Going back to the chosen image for 'Eagle', we have chosen to make use of an extremely low angle in order to show that he may be an unconventional hero - achieved by the use of lighting techniques - he is a hero, nonetheless. Low angles often force the audience to treat the subject with higher regard and respect. Also, we chose to have 'Eagle's arms crossed with a serious expression and against a simple background in order to portray his personality to the audience - closed off, serious and mysterious.

In 'Loretta's case, we chose to have her in the bar as her job as a bar maid predominantly the reason why she ends up in danger in the film (she overhears the Sheriff's less-than-respectable plans and the Sheriff threatens her to keep her mouth shut), so, the bar is a very important location for her. Also, she is looking into the camera with a soft gaze - letting the audience know that this character is the 'damsel' that is so often present in Western films and also in most other texts, according to Propp's theory. We also chose to have her in natural lighting as we felt that this depicted her ...

We had previously decided from our poster analysis that a lot of posters for Western films seems to have illustrated or painted effects ... So, now that we have chosen the images to be used in the poster, it's time to experiment around on Adobe Photoshop to see how we, too, can achieve the illustrated effect that was evident in so many Western posters.

Here are some of my experimentations:

 The 'Film Grain' effect ...

The 'Palette Knife' effect ...

The 'Paint Daubs' effects ...

 However, in the end the effect that I felt best achieved what we wanted was 'Poster Edges' ... So, here are the final images that will be used in the poster:

Bye Bye Georgie ...

Unfortunately, one of our group members, Georgie, has decided that this isn't the path for her and has decided to leave ... So, we just want to say 'Thank You!' for all your contribution, Georgie, you will be missed and good luck! :)

19/12/11: Filming Report

Today, after months of planning, location hunting, casting and negotiating filming times with our actors, our group members and our actors finally met up for the filming of our trailer! We scheduled to meet up at 10:00 at Folkestone Bus Station, then head to Dymchurch where we could use Megan's house as a base for getting our actors dressed and made-up and then set out to the vast and deserted fields as the location for our filming. However, one of our actors (who was meant to be acting as the antagonist - 'Bully Edwards') made a last-minute decision to drop out due as he was not feeling well. This meant that we had to make quick changes to some aspects of the trailer by cutting out our comedic character, 'Grave Digger', and reassign roles with the actors that we had remaining. It was decided that our actor who was orginally casted for 'Grave Digger' would play our bad boy of the movie, 'Sheriff Bully Edwards'. Although, we were slightly behind on our schedule, we managed to get all our actors dressed up and to our filming location.

For the first filming site, we chose a deserted field near Megan's house as it thought it would be the best representative of the vast, dry lands of the Souther parts of USA that Western movies are set in. In this site, we were to film the ending scenes of the trailer - the 'shoot-out' scene.

Here, we had a few problems in terms of trying to find the perfect camera angle in which modern developments and technology would not be seen. Although, the location was rather deserted, there were several interuptions such as buildings in the distance, telephone and electricity lines and so on. However, after a bit of moving around and with Megan's excellent camera skills we managed to find angles in which none of them were present!

We then managed to get all the necessary shots that we needed from the location so we decided to move on. We would've liked to re-do some of the scenes in order to get even better shots, however, although we had checked the weather forecast beforehand, the weather was not on our side with sudden showers of rain so we were unable to spend much longer in that location. After that, we managed to get a few establishing shots (such as of train tracks and so on). Then, we headed over to Sophie's (our actress) house, which with its all wood and rustic charm was the perfect filming location for our indoor scenes.

We used Sophie's kitchen area, in which we had to create our 'bar' set. The covering up of modern appliances and products turned out to be much harder task than expected ... But after a lot of moving things around and a lot of covering things with towels, we finally managed to turn Sophie's kitchen into a convincing Western bar! We also adjected the lighting to make it dimmer, in order to recreate a more older and natural feel. Also, we felt that the shadows would aid in conveying a mysterious vibe to the audience.

So, after a long while of shooting inside Sophie's house (the actors found it very hard to keep a straight face ... haha), we finally managed to finished the filming! We then moved on to do the photoshoot for the magazine cover and the posters, for which we had to use several other light sources such as extra lamps and torches from several different angles in order to create light and shadows exactly where we wanted it. And that concluded our long day of filming! Despite having to cope with last minute changes, time constraints and after giving much direction to our actors and with Megan diligently working behind the camera, we managed to get some good material for the trailer.

And now the long process of editing begins ...

Casting

After getting together and pulling together a shortlist of our friends who could be suitable for the roles required in our trailer and then contacting those said friends to ask if they would be willing to help ... we have finally got ourselves the actors and actresses who will be portraying the characters of our movie!

Here they are ... I present to you the main actors for our trailer!

JOSHUA HOLLIER as 'EAGLE'

ADAM COMPTON as THE SHERIFF

and last but not the least

SOPHIE O'CONNOR as LORETTA

Poster & Magazine Cover Template

After analysing several posters and magazine covers, we have come up with rough ideas for the creation of the poster and the magazine front cover:

Poster Template:

(By Bhawana)

Magazine Cover Template:

(By Megan)

As you can see I have chosen the title of the magazine, after having searched through common Western slang. I decided to play on the term 'Iron Horse' which is the term for a steam train. I then combined it with 'bullet' as the magic bullet/hypodermic needle theory came to mind, suggesting that a lot of information is provided quickly.

It is also apparent that I have started the piece, using the same font title for the film title as a method of tying the two together and creating a house style. There is also an article title which I used the film 'Cowboys & Aliens' for, as it is the most recent Western themed film to have been released.

Font Choices

In the end, we decided to use 'Carnevalee Freakshow' (1st on the 2nd row) because we felt that the font best represented the 'classic Western' vibe that we were aiming for as the font is one that audiences would have seen often on Western boards and signs and they should be abe to instantly recognise the genre of the film as a Western.

Rough Poster Ideas

I drew some rough ideas for the poster based on our findings from the analysis into film posters.

And The Film Will Be Titled ... *drumrolls*

(Eagle Image: http://www.wpclipart.com/armed_services/fighting_eagles/Eagle_AF_1.png.html)

Decision Time ...

After analysing the films, we have decided we are going to try our hand at making a trailer that will stay true to the Western genre and the codes and conventions that we identified through the analysis of the films.

We decided to forego the parody idea as we felt that while it might be hard to pull off a Western movie in our modern environment, we wanted to face the challenge and explore our creativity. Also, we felt that for a parody movie trailer, we would have to have the aid of some very abled actors in order to evoke the desired response from our audiences - something that we, realistically, do not have access to.

Ancillary Task: Poster and Film Magazine Cover Analysis

(Under construction)

Film Analysis: Blazing Saddles

BLAZING SADDLES (1974)

Director: Mel Brookes

Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens

Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures, Crossbow Productions

Plot Summary: 'The Ultimate Western Spoof. A town where everyone seems to be named Johnson is in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, Hedley Lemar, a politically connected nasty person, sends in his henchmen to make the town unlivable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor. Hedley convinces him to send the town the first Black sheriff in the west. Bart is a sophisticated urbanite who will have some difficulty winning over the townspeople.' - IMBD.com

Here are some of the observations that I made while watching the movie:

Parody?

So, we have chosen to do a trailer on a film of the Western genre ... However, we identify that  trying to convince our audiences that the trailer is a true Western will be a very difficult task with our environment and resources. Therefore, we are considering making the film into a parody movie (similar to the 'Scary Movie' series which mock the Horror genre) which will use the concept of having a 'Western' movie set in themodern environment.

To help make our decision and to help us identify the key codes and conventions of the genre, Megan and I will both be watching and analysing a Western film each. Megan will be watching a typical Western movie ('3:10 to Yuma'), while I will be watching a parody Western movie ('Blazing Saddles') - this should aid us in comparing the different films and identifying which would be more plausible for us to do ...

Costume Ideas

Our genre choice requires us to dress our actors in a very specific way and give them a specific look. To achieve a look that would seem authentic and legit, I recently visited a costume shop near-by - 'Dress to Party'.


(http://www.dress-to-party.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/shop.jpg)

I decided to go to the store to look for any appropriate costumes or accessories that could be of use for our trailer. However, upon searching through the shop, I found that there were no western costumes that would be of use to us. I did, however, find some accessories such as guns and moustaches.

When I talked about it to my group, though, we decided that it would be better if we just used make-up to achieve that 'rough', 'rugged' look that most cowboys wear rather than the fake moustaches that would make it look less realistic. To affirm our decision, we experimented with make-up and decided that make-up indeed would be a better choice.

These are a few looks that we tried out:

For this first look, we tried to create the unshaven look with pencil eye-liner.

Here, we used mascara.

We decided to go with the mascara in the end as the strokes of the mascara brush created an effect that look more realistic than when we used the eye-liner. 

These are the make-up products that we used:

Geogie also went to a costume shop to find any props and costumes that would be of use to us. Contrary to my findings, she found some very good costumes, however, the problem, this time, was the prices. The costumes were out of our budget and we were unable to bargain for a better price. Therefore, we had to settle with having to pull together our own costumes from our own wardrobes.

Here are a few things we came up with for the potential costumes:

Concept Board

Our Chosen Genre is ...

After carrying out research for our individual genres, we unanimously agreed to choose 'Western' as the genre for our trailer. We came to this decision as Megan found that 'Crime' was only a sub-genre and so it was difficult to have a movie that was solely 'Crime' without touching on other genres such as Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Mysteries, Horrors, etc, and I found through my research that Horror/Comedies all seemed to have very common themes. I felt that we would be too tempted to fall into the cliches and would not be able to create original material. 

While we acknowledge that 'Western' may be a difficult genre to do, we were enticed by the challenge and the desire to do something unique.