Focus Group

The questions I have used within my Focus Group

source of image

Would you buy this Christmas card and if so, for how much?
What age group do you think would this card appeal to?
Do you generally buy classical Christmas cards, funny Christmas cards, or contemporary Christmas cards?
Would you prefer handmade Christmas cards or mass produced?
How many would you buy in a pack?
What colour scheme do you look for in a Christmas card?
What messages would you be looking for within a Christmas card?

A focus group is a meeting of participants that gather qualitative market research in order to see if the product is marketable and worth the investment to produce. This is helpful when producing a Christmas card to find the ideal age range and target audience within the consumer market. The factors you have to include such as geo-demographic (the location of where the person lives), demographic (how many people you surveyed) to achieve reliable information.

I think the focus group went good, I gathered some useful information such as my participants think that funny Christmas cards are best, 20-50 age range for the card I'd chosen. £1.50 I think is a good selling price for a Christmas card because it's affordable and not too expensive but still achieve quite a lot of profit, and my focus group agree with this. My focus group prefer handmade Christmas cards, but are not too bothered if they are mass-produced. They also think that a pack should include three to five, which I agree with because it will keep the cost down to produce and good value for the price. I will incorporate this feedback into my final Christmas card.

plan for christmas card

Study of Christmas animation

1. How did they do the animation?

2. How effective is the use of colour and sound?

3. What stereotypes were used and are they acceptable?



Mog's Christmas


Santa's Workshop

Walt Disney animated it using pen to sketch out each frame. Then using Technicolour to colour in the frames. For the time this was very advanced. The colours are somewhat muted compared to modern day animation, the lip-synch was out due to the way it was animated and produced. They recycled several scenes and sound clips probably to keep the budget down. There was quite a few stereotypes such as one of the toys (who was black) stamped the OK stamp without Santa doing it for him. This symbolises for the time doing something without being asked.

The Night Before Christmas

They drew the characters and the backgrounds separately and overlaid it. They also used pen to sketch out each character and setting. There was not as much sound effects as the first one for example when Santa fell down the chimney and brushed off the soot there was no sound effect for that.

Santa Claus Is Coming

The animation was done using probably Flash because the lines were too smooth and intricate to be done using hand-drawn methods. The sound of this animation was good because before she saw Santa it was a typical Christmas backing track then when she actually saw Santa they twisted and sped up an alternative Christmas backing track. In all of these animations, the main character is always Caucasian which is the typical stereotypical view of the Christmas main character. I think this is down to being Victorian Christmas views.

Christmas Comes But Once A Year

I think the 3D animation segments at the start and the end with early stop-motion and a physical model.

final design christmas card also the final review

Review of design
I decided to do a contemporary design for my Christmas card because that was best suited for my target audience. I decided to use a photographic image within my card design because when I carried out the market research the General format the of  the cards which appealed to me were photographic which were also targeted at the audience I chose. I will sell my card in a pack of 3 becuase this is the number i gathered with in my focus group i will also sell my Christmas card for £1 per pack. I think this is a appropriate price because this is around the price of budget cards.

I decided for the font to go with a traditional Christmas design which Brings a traditional
Element to my Final card because the rest of the card is very contemporary. 

I think that the Black and white background gives the it some depth, meanwhile the holly leaf gives some Colour and life.

I think my card was successful because I carried out extensive market research and incorporated several elements of design yet kept the overall product simple and modern in design.

christmas card step by step guide

storyboard for ag/en/t

Pinterest Christmas research

Copyright and Plagarism

Copyright is put in place to protect a product or creation from it being stolen or reproduced.
Copyright is a legal right. For example if you copy a film and post it on the internet you will be breaching copyright law because you did not create that film and you do not have the owner's permission.

An example of plagiarism is going on the internet and copying and pasting a document and submitting it as your own coursework.

Below is a video I found on youtube that breaks down copyright law.

Copyright is using someone else's work without their permission.

Plagiarism is passing someone else's work off as your own

Candy photoshop tutorial

Candy photoshop tutorial

I created a pattern of three red boxes and saved it under the pattern drop-down menu

I created a new document with the word "Candy".

 Then created a drop-down shadow, Stroke, Bevel & Emboss on the FX tab:

• The drop down shadow gives the typeface some depth and incorporates another colour
• The Bevel & Emboss creates a 3D effect
• The Stroke gives a slight border around the typeface.

Then imported the pattern and created a clipping mask. Then I free-transformed, rotated the pattern to create a tilted effect

I think that it creates a good effect which I will incorporate into my finished Christmas card. I am not a big fan of the font but with the finished Christmas card I will ether download a font or use a preset. 

AG.EN.T Script

AG.EN.T

By Sam Goddard

ACT 1

EXT DAY Norfolk Crescent

The year is 1938. Mr AG wearing a trench coat and suit. His face is scribbled out with an overlay (post)

Wide shot with Mr AG walking from the right to left side of the shot

Mr AG walks to park bench

Mr EN is reading The Eagle Has Landed. He’s wearing a shirt and trousers - businessman.

Close up of feet as Mr AG stops walking and sits down on the bench next to Mr EN

TITLE CARD - “Has the eagle landed?”

Mr EN looks down at the book then turns to Mr AG

TITLE CARD - “It’s imminent”

Mr EN goes back to his book

Mr AG leaves an envelope on the bench and goes

Mr EN doesn’t notice

ACT 2

INT DAY Phone box

Mr T on the phone. He is wearing a suit jacket and dark trousers. His face is also scribbled out.

TITLE CARD - “Get to location 21B”

Mr T nods in understanding

TITLE CARD - “The password is ‘Imminent’”

Mr T leaves the phone box

ACT3

TITLE CARD - “5 minutes later”

Mr EN notices the envelope and looks around. Looks inside and is shocked at what he sees

TITLE CARD - “I better take this to the police”

Mr T enters the park looking at his watch and realising he’s late. Asks members of the public if the eagle has landed (TITLE CARDS)

They all look at him strangely

Mr T happens upon Mr AG, asks him, and the penny drops

TITLE CARD - “Oh no!”

Mr T follows Mr AG back to the bench but Mr EN has gone

They both sit down together, defeated

popcorn

If I had more time to make this interactive Flash animation I would put an animated explosion as a transition between the kernel and the popcorn. I have used Flash before but didn't know how to create buttons. I enjoyed experimenting with this and making this animation but I think due to time restrictions it isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be.

five shot guitar film

I'm pleased with this short clip. I think it's quite funny and comedic. I decided to put a guitar in the background to give some setting and to fill the background and make it more interesting. I think the black background could be changed to a colour background because Shane's black t-shirt blends into the background in a few shots.

Pitching

Message Map

This is a Message Map, and a short introduction to the role of an Editor. This is something I'm interested in doing.

Apprentice Clip 

I think the pitch was not successful because they weren’t enthusiastic about the product, for example there were a lot of pauses and very wooden. They also had no justifiable reasons for choosing what design choices they decided to do with their product. Things I would change would be a more confident presenter and a more structured presentation.

Christmas Card Research

Christmas Card Research

Christmas card guide

I used the polygon tool to highlight a Christmas tree shape and then used paint-dropper to fill in the shape

I applied filters to give it a tinted effect

I applied a snowflake shaped brush 

I then decided to type Merry Christmas and shape it as the trunk of the tree

I finally changed it to a suitable font.

6 word story flash

Abruptly, he gave her a suitcase.

I think this gif represents my six word story clearly. I used Adobe Flash. I have used Flash in the past and am quite confident within the animation segment of Flash.

For the "He" in the animation, I went for a masculine colour and for the "Her", turquoise, which I think is more representative of a feminine colour. I also sized the "He" bigger and the "Her" smaller. This also represents masculine/feminine. The background I originally had a gradient background (as shown below) but when I exported it converted it to a more basic circular design.

The Forest what i thought

I thought that the animation technique used in The Forest was my favourite part of the short film because it represented how dark and miserable the character's world was. I didn't like the story and the ideas around it because I found it depressing and a bit too dark. If I made a similar animation I would still make the story thought provoking like The Forest but I would make it a bit more light hearted and happier and not so depressing.

flash gif

We were originally asked to do an animated gif about a bouncing ball using Adobe Flash (below). I scrapped my original bouncing ball gif because I wanted an original and unique idea that I could add a twist to.  I ended up doing a Flash animation about a gun shooting a ball. My original plan was to have the ball bouncing and then the gun shooting the ball mid-bounce. I was held back from doing this idea due to time limitations and I think my original gun idea was too complex to perfect in the time given. In the past I have used Flash and I'm quite experienced with it. If I could improve this animation I would make the ball explode more realistically, but overall I am happy with this animation.

five shot method

I had to edit the clips using the five shot method. I'm pleased with the continuity between each clip. Doing this I've learnt that the five shot method is a good easy to way to produce good results within a short film. I found it difficult to find suitable music but I think I've done an okay job. To improve it I'd find instrumental music with no vocals.

library sound film

I learnt that you always need to record a buzz track. A buzz track is background noise, for example, chatter, or traffic. This is important because in between each sound effect you need some sort of filler to represent reality because the world is never completely silent. A buzz track will run through the entire film.

I've enjoyed the editing and recording of the sound clips and I think that recording the clips was fun because I had to think about what would sound like what's represented on screen. For example, I had a water bottle and a lunch box, and shook them both at the same time to capture a sound of ice in a glass rattling.

I found it difficult to match up the "mass ssshing" towards the end of the clip because we recorded one solid sound and it was hard to make it sound like more than person, and to match up the start and stopping of the "ssshhing" of the video to make it sound natural. In the end I divided the sound clip into three, and I adjusted the gain of each clip to different levels to create the illusion that it was three different people.

I think I could improve by recording more sounds and recording the sounds whilst we were watching the video to get the timings and consistency of each clip just right.

Balanced audio is important to stop the audio clip becoming distorted.

Gain is the input and volume is the output.

image location

shark film

I think this animation is okay for what it is but if I had more time and resources I could improve it massively. If i had more time I would bring in artificial lighting to prevent the flickering. I would perfect the models and I would put a background to set the scene further. The things I like about this animation is the idea that the table is sea. I think that the waves take apart from this illusion. If I was to do it again I would just put a blue base on the table instead of animated waves.

3 animation films

Adam
Adam is my favourite one of the three. I think it was technically clever how in one scene  he flies around the planet it's quite hard to achieve that look because he is not grounded on the planet and the planet is a sphere.


Light, Dark, Light
This is my least favourite although it is still clever. I think it could have been a bit shorter and more interesting. If I was doing this animation, this is what I would have done: I would of made it a bit shorter, a bit more to the point, and I think it was a bit too weird, but this is just my personal preference. I liked the idea, I think it was clever how they made each body part morph to make a man in a comedic way.


Morph
This one is very simplistic and very short but I think it needs to be this length. I think most animations have to be a simplistic idea to be represented in this medium. I liked how it was simplistic and funny how the red blob and the pink blob acted.

assassins creed sound film

I decided to do a less serious, light-hearted version of this trailer, which is quite comedic. I am quite pleased with the outcome. I think there's a few timing issues with the sound for example when he jumps there's a few milliseconds delay before the sound starts. I think that if I had more time I could perfect and iron out these issues. I think the ice-cream van music at the end is quite light-hearted and humorous. I decided to do this because I think that in a serious game trailer it would be quite fun and changes your perception of what Assassin's Creed could be like.

I got all the sounds from Freesound

Recce, location scout,

Location Scout and Recce

a Location Scout is a job where you have to go out and look for locations that will be suitable and in place for a film and the directors vision. You have to tailor the location to the specific film: for example if you were doing a Star Wars movie you wouldn't decide to film it in a train station. A Location Scout is also one of the first people to be involved in pre-production and day one when the film has been greenlit to go out and source locations, photograph them and then will speak to the Recce.

The Recce will assess the situation for Health and Safety issues, practicalities such as accessibilities, lighting and ambient sound, are they aloud to film there and if so do they have to pay. How much disruption there'll be for everyday life.

We have Risk Assessments to assess the situation for possible dangers to the cast and crew, and local people.

Synopsis

Thor

Thor is banished by his father for attacking the Frost Giants home planet, meets three scientists studying the disturbances in the realms and must get back to Asgard to stop his evil brother Loki from claiming the throne and opening the portal for the Frost Giants to attack Asgard.

Star Wars The Empire Strikes

The galaxy is in peril and Luke Skywalker must train to be a Jedi with Jedi Master Yoda on Dagobah . He must confront his greatest enemy, Darth Vader, to save the galaxy from Darth Vader and The Emperor's rule

Synopsis 

Synopsis is an overview of the film. Longer and more detailed than a logline which outlines the key plot points. Some synopsis can have spoilers, others just outline plot points without giving too much away. The purpose of a synopsis is to see if it sounds like a film that you would like to go and see and to give an insight to what’s happening

Gif

I took a picture that I had taken in a previous photoshoot and added the curved filter to create a lightning effect. The black and white effect was on the black and white filter drop-down menu, then I created a face to insert into one of the frames. I would improve this if I had more time by making the face stay on a frame longer. I'm really happy with the lightning effect. I think it adds an interesting aspect to my gif.

cover letter

Sam Goddard

101 B Backer Street

London LO4H6

UK

Mr Warner

Warner Bros Studios

Burbank

California

USA

Dear Mr Warner,

I am applying for the position of director within the next Star Wars film. I’ve always been into films, especially Star Wars. My favourite films include 2001 A Space Odyssey, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and The Godfather. I have got a C grade in both Film Studies and Photography and I am currently doing a Level 2 Diploma in Creative Media at Bath College. Therefore I am fully qualified to direct the next Star Wars movie. I understand the responsibilities of being a film director.

I am committed and determined to get the best outcome in all of my projects. For example, when I was directing my last film, “The Life And Times of Tobie”, I would not rest until all the camera angles and shot types were completely right.

Yours Sincerely,

Sam Goddard DGA

180 degrees rule

180 degrees rule

This is when one character is on the right and one is on the left and the right character stays on the right and the left character stays on the left. To break this rule you have different shots with different people on opposite sides. This can confuse the audience and will ruin the shot.

Magazine Layout

this is where i got the copyright image

copyright images

colour photos