Evulation

I have finished the trailer, to conclude it I am very happy with the final piece. After applying the changes I got from feedback It has made a nice and improved difference to the trailer. Overall when comparing this to my proposal and answering the brief I think personally I have done a really good job and response.

Answering the brief; the brief specifically stated 'neither are you trying to film literal interpretations of what is being said' I think my trailer portrays this strongly, I avoided any kind of literal interpretations but instead related to what is being said to what was going on in the times of Kennedy's era in america whilst it is making sense to the speech. For example at the start of the speech he talks about generation so I relate the quote to americas generation which was a young generation. So having the opening scene of a baby being kissed by a mum shows that theme it also shows the theme of emotion which I wanted to propose in my video. Another example of how I didn't literal interpretations but related the speech to times in american was when Kennedy talks about trading places with people of other generations, I used scenes from to kill a mocking bird which at the times was the top selling book in america. I used the court scene where a black person is convicted of rape, the victim who is white is pretty much proven by a white lawyer who supports the civil rights just like Kennedy that she is the guilty one but the black buy still loses the trial. Showing this scene symbolises the discrimination what was going on in those times and relates to the support Kennedy had of the civl rights movements. I think you could look at every clip I put in and it would have a message relating to the times in america but not in such a literal way.

The brief also stated 'give the viewer a flavour of the political/social circumstances' well as I said above every clip related to the times in Kennedy's era and portrayed the meaning of the speech. I broke the speech down into inspiration and processed this theme into symbolising it with emotional clips, using the Vietnam war which was a very long frustrated war for america which Kennedy wanted an end too I thought was a powerful way of exploiting my proposed themes. Fighting for your country supports the message of the speech, Kennedy wanted american to unite, work together to keep the country strong. Showing solders fighting for the country is deep and powerful to show this, it shows their risking their life's for the country which I feel is a strong way of portraying the theme of inspiration.

My editing in the trailer I am content with and I think is effective of conveying my theme as much as possible, I used a lot of fade effects, slowing down clips in final cut to make them look dramatic and epic to exploit emotion to the viewer. I also wanted to make the trailer build up momentum of emotion which I feel I have done. I ended the trailer on a much stronger ending to what it original was, the ending of the church with the cross grave stone silhouettes over laying a series of clips of fast pace soldiers shooting guns and going into battle is powerful for emotion. The gravestone crosses obviously symbolises death which relates to a potential outcome of the soldiers and symbolises their sacrifice for the country which links to the speech of 'ask not what your country can do for you' 'ask what you can do for your country' which for me is inspiring and I have portrayed the most important part of the speech with a very powerful inspirational clip with strong meanings.

Concluding the project as a whole I am happy with everything, my sketchbook idea generation, story board and the process of making the trailer was fun and I got into it strongly. I am very happy with what I produced.

Process if making my trailer - Motion

All my kinetic text was created in motion.

The first part of the trailer of the radio 4 part was simple motion work. I brought in the large image file and just applied fade effects to it.

The actually kinetic text parts such as this:

I used the 'crawl right', 'Fade in' and 'Fade out' effects on the text to add the emphasis to the inspirational/emotional theme, the slowly crawling to the right like gives that effect of carrying on the build up and journey of the video, the slowness symbolises the epic and emotion elements.

I used the same font, colours, and effect styles on every other kinetic text part. The only difference was some of the layouts and font sizes, there were some different kinetic styles on some clips though.

For example on the part where Kennedy says 'Energy, Faith and Devotion' I put kinetic text over the video with quick fade in fade out effects on them with a varied positions on each separate clip.

I found using motion was easy, didn't really encounter any massive problems, It took me a while to get all the text in sync though to the speech and editing all the effects to the end of the timeline... But it was easy to function and use,

Process of building my trailer - Final Cut

 This is what my final cut timeline looks like. Showing all my edits.

 

I used a lot of the pen tool technique to emphasise the fading edit to add a more epic and emotional feel to the trailer. Each clip had the desaturate effect applied to it to make it black and white.

Using the 'I' and 'O' technique to select certain parts of video and drag them in was a real high point in this development, I found it really easy to use, I really like final cut so using the programme in general was nice and easy for me and I am happy with everything, I didn't encounter any problems...well the only thing I had to research was how to drag clips in without brining the audio with it because it was frustrating removing the audio form the clip each time I dragged it in, I overcame this by locking the audio files of the speech and sound track which disables audio from coming in from inputted video.

Gathering clips

All the footage I wanted to use was all existing footage so I used www.youtube.co.uk and www.videvo.com to gather clips I wanted to use. I made sure each clip I downloaded was the highest quality it could be. The majority of my clips chosen are at least 720p but a couple are standard 480p which I had to enlarge the wireframe on them in final cut pro. Making them bigger which made the quality of them worse than the hd clips doesn't effect the video at all. Cause there old clips they get away with being a bit bad quality as it shows they are old. I saved every clip into a folder in the final cut folder and just imported them all into final cut.

Here are all the clips I used in my final submission trailer.

Crit

Monday morning I critiqued my trailer to the class. The feedback I received was mainly high positives but some elements what could do with improving were pointed out.

The feedback which was what could be improved were the following:

- Take the shine effect out from the kinetic text part in 'country'
- The mocking bird clip is too long, 2-3 cuts in this would be better
- Take out the really short clip of the war scene on a beach
- Change the ending scenes to a something more powerful, A slow dramatic scene of a cemetery was a brilliant idea
- Change the kinetic text of 'Ask what you can do for your country' to a more simple, plain and easier to read motion

Other from these there was a lot of positive comments and I am happy how crit went. I don't have to make any major changes and I think after these changes my trailer will be very powerful.

Pitch

I pitched my proposal to the class of what I want my video to look like. The feedback I received from the class and teacher was positive. I presented my pitch but creating like a step by step process of how I came to my conclusion of what I wanted. My presentation was about 12 slides long and I think I showed pretty clear what I want my video to look like and what I want it to portray. I produced a rough storyboard of some start off ideas which now I have generated further. I said what I want my themes to be and also produced a mood board to give an even more clear idea of what I want to portray.

The feedback from what I can remember was someone really liked my idea of the rolling date effect at the beginning. Someone pointed out they liked the idea that i'm creating an emotional build up in my trailer. Other than that I don't think there was any other specific feedback.

Overall Im happy how the pitch went and I am excited for gathering the clips and creating the montage together in final cut for monday's crit.

Chosen Font

The font I have chosen to use in my trailer is:

I chose this one because first of all its serif. But most of all I like it because it just reminds me of an old american style font, which I think will fit my trailer. Im just picturing it over my american flag cut scene. I have a good feel its gonna suit. I will have it in italic to emphasis the theme of inspiration which will be used with some pan effects and fade effects to emphasise even more.

Choosing music

For my trailer I think it was very important the music I used was crucial and had to fit the speech and the video. After outlining my theme and proposal I visualised in my head that the music piece was inspirational, an instrumental piece of music. Preferably a piano.

Because I didnt know any kind of this music from the top of my head I had to research on youtube some already made inspirational videos. After looking at a few I found the song Everyday by Carly Commando, instantly after hearing this I wanted to use this in my video. I really liked it and visualised in my head my proposed video clips with the speech and this song and I thought they all made a really strong connection and would work very well.

So I played the speech with the song just to explore a taste of the paces between the two to see if they fit and they fitted very well. I was very pleased and excited to start putting clips together with this song.

The song just sounds inspirational and really does fit well with the speech.

Font research

After kinetic text research now I move on to see what font I want to include. I am going to look at some fonts what were around in 1960's to convey my theme more consistently. It would be nice and satisfying to find one which is blocky and which I think would suit. But if that is not the case I will use a serif font which is blocky. Its hard for this though, because right now I don't know the exact footage I'm using so I wont be able to see what it looks like on the screen so after research and when it comes to making the video I might change the text when i'm experimenting on the footage because another font may end up looking more ideal just from seeing how it looks on screen. For now though I will visualise as I know the rough idea of what video clips I want and where in the timeline.

Fonts in the 1960's

Helvetica, Courier, Univers and Letter Gothic were the most popular fonts of the 1960s.

These fonts are a bit too formal for what I am looking for, to fit in with 'inspiration' the font has to have a feel to it. Fonts in the 60's were just so simple and boring.

After looking around online for fonts I think would suit my theme of inspiration, historic and war I found these:

These are more the type of font I want to use. The serif symbolises historic which fits in with my theme more but still my theme of inspiration; I don't think this is font is 'epic' enough, I thought of having the font in italic styled. They are normally used in inspirational styled videos. I will experiment with fonts in motion to see which I prefer best.

I tried this font first and I really liked it so I will probably use this one.

Kinetic text research

As the brief states we need to include kinetic text in the trailer, I thought I would do some research on existing videos that include kinetic just to get a feel of how they work, the motion of them, the font, the font size, positioning etc. This will give me ideas of how I will use it in my trailer

First of all I looked at 'Nick the greek', this was the first one I looked at and I already got a good feel and inspiration of what I can take from this to put in my trailer. The text is lad out randomly when spoken; there is no right or wrong where the text is positioned. The text sizes for each word are all different which creates a nice dynamic effect. The colour of the words are different which can be good for emphasis, this idea of using colour to emphasise word is something I would like to use in my trailer. It has given me the thought of using the americas rich famous red and blue to use as the colour to emphasise certain words, this contrast effect will go nicely in my video too as my trailer will be in black and white.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mnvvVi4HaI

The next video I saw was 'Say what again' the way the video is structured is pretty much the same as the other video in how the words flow across the page in a randomised order. The angles of the words are played around too so they could be vertical, horizontal and even diagonal. In this screen capture there is nice effect where the words are vertical against a giant horizontal words, then the transition tilts. 

Here is a nice example of playing around with positioning again, using the circles in the 'O' as space for other words. An element from this video which is different to the other is font. Even though both videos use very blocky font, this one is serif compared to the sans serif in the other one. I think for my video a serif would be more suitable, purely because my proposed idea for my trailer is basing footage and events from around the 1960's. A serif font would suit this old historic theme because they are more historical looking, a sans serif is more modern font.

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw6uZNz3i1g

Whilst researching I actually found an existing john K kennedy speech kinetic text video. I didn't really think it was that good in my opinion. The theme looks modern, and the choice of colour isn't appealing to me. The orange background looks to warm and hot when the speech is and inspirational speech and very powerful. It just looks boring, I think using americas colours or an older looking colour would be better and more effective. The text doesn't change colour, and there is a lack of dynamism to emphasise key points. From looking at other kinetic videos you can tell what ones are better from how the text is played around more, the colour used etc. 

 source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwrECXcKeMM

This video is called 'A few good men' again its pretty much the same as the other videos just a different theme. But I also saw that this one includes symbols which work pretty much as text to signify something, which I thinks a nice and good effect in kinetic text. I dont think I would use it in mine though because I don't want symbols to disturb the main focus of my inspirational/emotional video, I want full focus and a serious theme on the emotion I want my video to bring. Adding in a symbol for example an american flag, will add to busyness on screen and distract the main points my videos trying to make.

Overall after researching I find pretty much every kinetic text video is the same, theres no real major differences in each one. But after researching I have got some nice ideas and feeling of how I can structure more text in my video: how I can play around with movement, layout, colour, text sizes etc.

What I want my trailer to portray

After researching the speech, what part of the speech I want to use. This has given me my interpretations of what I feel from the speech. For me it is inspirational, so that is why I am going to focus on this aspect for my trailer.

I want the trailer to be inspirational, that means my choice of music and clips have to fit this theme.

I want my trailer to be short, epic and actually build up a good momentum of tension to a good ending. After seeing some of last years students work, most of them had a poor ending to a good build up which is disappointing.

Also my trailer, I want to reflect what was happening in the times in america when Kennedy was in charge which is the 1960s, so I want my video to be all black and white. I want to involve a clip from the film of to kill a mocking bird because one, it was the most popular and famous book at the time and secondally conveys the civil rights movement which was also going on at the time and Kennedy supported it. I want to include clips from the Vietnam war too, to provide inspiration and refrence again to the 1960s. I think showing clips from the war expresses emotion, and relates to the speech which  have brainstormed up in my sketchbook, breaking down the speech into segments.

I have a nice overall feel of what I want my trailer to portray and feel, now I need to conduct some research into what music piece I want to include, also I need to spend good time picking out clips. I will conduct some small research onto existing kinetic text videos aswell because it will help me when creating my kinetic text, I know which parts im doing in my trailer what are having kinetic text, how approach this will need research.

The part of the speech im using

This is the transcript for the speech I am using in my trailer. I made this choice purely on the ending of the most important quoute of the speech 'Ask not what your country can do for you. I also wanted it to be as short as possible, because a short trailer in my opinion is a more effective trailer. It is better of building that tension right up to the last clip or scene which is normally in a trailer. Long trailers can cause dullness and may make the audience bored.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

The time of this speech to be spoken is 59 seconds. Adding that to the 5 second leeway in each direction will make my trailer 1 minute and 9 seconds

Research - JFK

This research is going to include information on JFK himself, the speech and any political and cultural circumstances in the current era the speech was made.

Who is John F Kennedy?
 JFK was the 35th president of the United states. Born May 29, 1917 and died November 22, 1963 (46 years old). He became president from 1961 until his death. Kennedy was the only catholic president which inspired his strong warm hearted decisions as president. During his reign he created/followed these remembered events: the Bay of pigs invasion, the cuban misssile crisis, the building of berlin wall, the space race, the african/american civl rights movement and the the early stages of the vietnam war. Kennedy was ranked very highly in public opinion ratins of U.S preseidents.



JFK was assassinated on november 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. And his murderer was shot and killed before any trial could take place.

What was his speech, what was it about, when and where was it?

His inaugural address was called Ask not what your country can do for you. It was delivered at 12.51 Friday, January the 20th 1961 at the white house. Against a backdrop of deep snow and sunshine, more than twenty thousand people huddled in 20-degree temperatures on the east front of the Capitol to witness the event.

The speech was mainly about delivering the word to his fellow US citizens to create peace around the world, asking them to help the country by helping others around the world. He sought both to inspire the nation and to send a message abroad signaling the challenges of the Cold War and his hope for peace in the nuclear age.

What many consider to be the most memorable and enduring section of the speech came towards the end when Kennedy called on all Americans to commit themselves to service and sacrifice: 'And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.' He then continued by addressing his international audience: 'My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man'. I want my trailer to end on the most important part of the speech because its important the last heard message and the build up of the trailer ends on the most important part of speech, the words summarize the whole speech.

The cold war

American people were fearful of the long, drawn-out cold war. The cold war was a just a relationship between american and the Russian soviet union from 1945 - 1980. Neither side ever fought each other, because both sides feared how the consequences would fall out. Why were both countries so distrustful of each other though?

Both countries wanted to be the most powerful and didn't trust each other because each country did things secretly, each country thought the other would have secret nuclear weapons. They both were in the race to launch satellites first into space and to get a man into space. Russia was the first to get a man into space but America was the first to get a man on the moon.

Kennedy wanted to end the cold war, by declaring how he wanted peace. He forced  Khruschev (Russian president) to withdraw soviet missiles from Cuba in 196.

What was the main purpose of the speech?

The main purpose was to inspire his fellow american citizens. Telling them to work together to keep america strong. Kennedy evoked a sense of security and a spirit of idealism which reassured Americans of their nation's strengths and inspired them to serve their country and the world. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man," Kennedy said in his inaugural address. Dazzled by his poise, moved by his eloquence, Americans proudly embraced the vigor and vision of their young president.

Civil rights movements

The African-American civil rights movement was outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them. Kennedy wanted black Americans to have the same rights as white people. When Kennedy became president black Americans in the south were denied the right to vote and were bared from public facilities. Which subjected to insults and violence. In the north black Americans faced discrimination in housing, employment, education and many other areas. Kennedy declared his backing for these rights.

Vietnam war

During Kennedys reign the Vietnam war was going on which was a conflict between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN, or North Vietnam), allied with the National Liberation Front (NLF, or "Viet Cong") against the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, or South Vietnam), and its alliesnotably the United States military in support of the South, with American combat troops committed from 1965 to 1973. The war began as a civil war fought to determine the status of Vietnam, as either a unified nation or as one partitioned into two independent states. The north side was communist and the south side wasnt. America got involved in this war to stop the spread of communism. Kennedy tripled the amount of American economic and military aid to the South Vietnamese and increased the number of U.S. military advisors in Indochina. He refused to withdraw from the escalating conflict in Vietnam because, he said, "to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there."

What else was happening in Kennedys era, what was the cultural background and other strong facts? 

During the 1960's half the population was under 18. Which is madness. Kennedy's speech was influential to this young generation, it would bring the youth up to be good, kind people grown up to help the country and keep america strong what was Kennedy's main prospect.

To kill a mocking bird became the most popular book and most selling at the time. Which was a powerful story about discrimination of a black person, who was convicted of raping a white girl. Even though it was a blatent lie of the white girl, she still won the case. The story was about a white lawyer who supported the black victim and did everything he could to support him, which conveys the civil rights movement. In my trailer I would want tot try fit in a clip from the film of this book. I think its so powerful, and relates perfectly to the times in america at the time and portrays Kennedys support of the civil rights.

In the music industry, the beatles were the most popular band and top of the charts you could say at the time.

Barbie was around in the 1960's too, which became a most wanted toy for young girls.


The birth control pill was invented in 1960 as well which was a big thing at the time.

Introduction

The brief gives us 8 famous speeches to chose from. They are:

• Franklin D Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
• Winston Churchill: We shall fight them on the beaches
• Harold Macmillan: The wind of change
• Nelson Mandela: An ideal for which I'm prepared to die
• Jawahharal Nahru: A tryst with destiny
• John F Kenndy: ask not what your contry can do for you
• Martin Luther King: I have a dream
• Margaret Thatcher: The ladys not for turning
• Earl Spencer: the most haunted person of the modern age

At first look of them none of them stood out for me for any inspiration. I am very unfamiliar with all these speeches. 

Kate asked the class to pair up and create a presentation on research of one of these speeches, so we could all learn about the speeches from the class mates presentations to save us researching them all individually which would be a timely process.

I paired up with Liam and we researched John F Kennedy, and in doing this I learnt a lot about him and his speech. After all the presentations I knew what speech I wanted to do. John F Kennedy's. I didnt chose him just because it was the one I had to research, I found his speech very interesting and inspiring and it has motivated me to use it for the trailer. I knew nothing about him before researching it, now after knowing it I get visualisations in my head what my trailer can potential be. 

AF105 Time Based Media

The Brief

Our next project we have been introduced to is Moments in Time - speeches. Which is creating a tv trailer for a new radio 4 programme called 'Moments in time - Speeches'. Which is about a selection of famous speeches from the 20th century.

We have been told that the trailer should be just over a minute, shorter the better. (5 Second leeway in each direction)

The trailer will be a short film about the speech I have chosen, combining the speech with film footage, images, text and graphics.

Things not to do

• avoid using original footage
• film literal interpretations of what is being said in the speech

Things to do

• use footage what demonstrate a flavour of what the political/social circumstances of the period in time when the speech was made
• feature text elements to emphasise words spoken in the speech (kinetic)
• use music and can use sound effects

What I need to produce in this project:

• Storybaords illustrating the trailer in images, with a timeline aswell.
• Sketchbook with research to visualisation of concepts

Deadlines

28th January - Pitch idea

11th February - Crit final trailer

15th February - Final submission