Narrative theory

Narrative is essentially what the media text shows about the story, this is a very important part of  the composition of the trailer. As trailers are intended to be a video representation of the film, it is important that the audience is given a favorable perspective of the story. Our trailer is intended to be slightly different from the general trend among other trailers, but a the same time, to avoid confusion, we have kept the narrative on the same basic structure presented through many different media theories. There are many theories surrounding narrative, these are the main theories which we have tried to include:


Propp's Spheres of Action
Vladamir Propp suggested that most films follow a trend of 7 constant characters. The hero  (the main protagonist, the person who embarks on the quest to get the princess) the princess (the hero's prize for completing said quest) The villain (The antagonist, the person who threatens the hero's ability to rescue the princess) The donor (the person who gives the hero something to complete the quest) The helper (the person who assists the hero on his quest) The dispatcher (the person to send the hero on his quest) and the father (the person who rewards the protagonist the princess). Our trailer is only 2 minutes long and very few characters are represented, however some representations of Propp's theory can be clearly seen within our trailer.

The Hero- Obviously our main protagonist would be Will, as he is the character who has embarked on the quest. Will is relatvely suitable for this role within our genre because of his costume. He is wearing clothes which are very practical but at the same time have a sense of fashion about them. Making the charcter much more eye catching in comparison to the scruffy hoodies and jeans of the other characters.

The Villain- I would be considered the villain within our trailer, primarily because of the attempted murder on the hero. I am the main antagonist and represented in the trailer as a hurdle in which the protagonist has to overcome to complete his quest, with the music turning from calm to loud and fast when I beat up Will. I am well suited to be the main antagonist because of my costume and props, as I am primarily wearing a black, scruffy hoody atop dark jeans. The focus on dark clothing has clear connotations of evil, therefore it is appropriate for the main antagonist to wear this. The gun I use is a silver .44 , this is a very large revolver, meaning that is extremely hard to miss, making it appropriate for the main antagonist. All guns have a sense of subtle menace about them, but the size and grandeur of the gun accentuates this effect.

The Princess- Although we do not have a princess in the conventional sense, we have a clear and desirable goal for our protagonist to achieve: survival. The main theme of our film is the simple need to survive, in everything that the protagonist does; scavenging, hunting and fighting, he always has the ever present goal to survive. This is a relatively common "princess" within our genre, mainly due to it's complete universality among the audience, because no matter what class, gender or sexual preference an audience member may be, there will always be the desire to survive. This universal desirability of the princess makes the hero's quest much more relatable and therefore attract audience members due to sheer empathy

The Helper- the Helper in our film is Muhammed, although he is not working for the hero, he provides the role of helper to the antagonist. Being silent and not shown well, he provides a sense of mass to the antagonist, making him appear much more powerful.

Enigma code
The enigma code refers to any part of the text which is not immediately clear to the viewer, causing confusion and doubt towards the nature of the film. This confusion leads to intrigue as the audience get's much more interested about the events surrounding the trailer, leading to more members of the target audience coming to see the film. This is present in our trailer as most of the details remain shrouded in a certain amount of mystery, only showing some, non descriptive scenes to entice the audience in. This gave us our desired effect of showing without telling, however this could also be considered somewhat counter productive at the same time. Much of the audience feedback complained that the trailer was confusing and hard to understand, which was our desired effect but perhaps we took it slightly too far

Evaluation Activity 2

Evaluation Activity 4

This is the camera that was used for the filming of our trailer, it is a Panasonic HC-V500 hand held camera. It has many features which made it ideal to record our film. For example the image stabilisation feature was extremely useful throughout the production, allowing us to get decent shots even when the camera man had to move especially quick. This ensured that we never missed any fast paced scenes and that the quality never diminished in our film, no matter how complex the shot was. The microphone in the camera was good enough that we could use it for the primary audio recorder, without having to re-record anything. There was some issues with the built in microphone such as wind noise when at Wisely airfield, but this was a one off event and the wind died down for the rest of the days we spend filming. One way which could have resolved the wind noise issues would be to by an external microphone but funds did not allow. The audio is not a major issue, as there was very little dialouge in our trailer, however if we were to do the filming again we would consider renting/buying an external microphone to improve the audio recorded on site. A DSLR camera would have also been a good investment allowing for better quality video (the one used was acceptable) and allowing for depth of field adjustments making the footage look more professional.


This is the tripod we used in production with the camera mounted on top. It is relatively cheap and simple, but as it is a relatively low tech piece of equipment, we didn't need anything too high grade. The tripod we chose did the job well,  allowing for steady stationary shots. The tripod also allowed for the camera to be set up and left on whilst everyone was on set, leaving no one to operate the camera. The tripod was also used when the angle of the shot made it difficult for the camera to be manned, such as when the camera was in a corner or the room was too small.

 

This is the main piece of software that was used during the editing of the trailer, it is Adobe Premiere Pro. The main reason why this software was chosen for the editing was the fact its become an industry standard, along with Final Cut only available on OSX. This is a very versatile piece of software which allows for advanced video editing such as colour correction and other effects to be added, as well as title animation. Not only does this software allow for video editing, it also allows for basic audio editing such as adding fades and mixing all of the levels. Some audio EQ is also available, but we used dedicated software for creating an editing the soundtrack. During the editing process many of the available features offered by Premiere Pro were used, we thought that of we are going to use the best software, why not use as many of the features as possible, within reason of course. The actual editing process went very smoothly due to the software's well thought out and laid out design, the timeline at the bottom, a preview screen to view the changes made to the trailer and the effects window where all the effects are changed and managed. The software also features a mixer window for the audio. As this was the same software that the opening two minutes was edited on we were very familiar with the software and did not have to learn it like when we made the opening two minutes which as a result, cut down the editing time considerably and also an improvement on the final product.
Although this software is very versatile, the trailer could not have been produced without the use of other software.


This is the other dedicated video editing software used in the production of our trailer, Adobe After Effects. This software was also chosen as it is also an industry standard for special effects video editing. Although not as extensively used as last year, it was still an essential piece of software that was vital to the trailers production. This software was only used to add the muzzle flashes to the fight scene, a small detail but one that makes a huge difference. As this was also used last year, even more than this year, adding the muzzle flashes this year was easy, unlike last year which took forever. This software is not as simple to use as Premiere Pro which makes it more of a professional use only software as they are the only ones that can use it effectively, but I feel that we did well considering we have only used the software once before. The software features a timeline like most other video software but from then on it gets more complicated and there is no audio editing functionality, which means that this software has to be used in conjunction with other video editing software such as Premiere. Although this is a very powerful piece of software, it is useless without the effects to add into it. For this we used Action Essentials 2 Pack which includes lots of muzzle flash effects and audio sounds, such as the gun shot sounds.


This is Logic Pro, the software used to record the soundtrack.

Photoshop was used to create both the poster and the Empire magazine cover. Photoshop is a widley used software for creating images in not only the film industry, but also in many other creative industries such as in photography for professtional use. The main reason why we used Photoshop by Adobe was because of its ease of use and diversity of the software. during the creation of the magazine and poster we used many of the features of the software to enhance the look of the productions. To name a few of the features used in the production, they include color grading and brightness and contrast editing, title and text features, as well as many of the croping tools to cut and move things around in the image. A good example of when we sued this feature specifically was when we were creating the poster, the main image is not one image, but the charcacter was cut from a different image and put onto the background image, this is a common occourence in many professional posters. As for the other effects used, it is quite obvious where they were used, adding text and changing the colours in the image.

Evaluation activity 3

Our audience feedback was relatively positive overall, Our media class of 6 people were our sample audience all well within are intended age rating of 15-30 year olds. All in all, the general consensus of the group was that our trailer was overall, very effective for the post apocalyptic action genre, with most of the themes, mise en scene and settings conforming to the general trend. The music was considered to be a good fit for the trailer due to its rising tempo and pace until the crescendo moment where the music and tempo gets louder, as this is relatively commonly used so it was instantly recognisable as an action movie.

In terms of criticism, many people thought that it was very hard to understand, an effect which we were trying to make but we might have overdone it to the extent that it becomes a little bit confusing. Another criticism is the overuse of jump cuts, this is not a major problem but it was common among this audience and others who we have asked.

All in all, I am quite happy with the feedback which we have received. The general sounding from our sample audience was positive, with no major criticisms. The criticisms we did receive was nothing we didn't already expect to hear and are mainly just our style of filming/editing therefore we do not need to deal with them

Evaluation activity 1

Title of the film+ font and style of title
 The title of our film comes at the very end of our trailer, this conforms to the general trend for film trailers, as it ensures that the title of the film carries a certain amount of weight, as the viewer has just seen some of the best parts of the film and has already formed an opinion on whether they like it or not. This effect is also supplemented by the last scene which was shown before the title, it is a tense standoff between the protagonist and the main antagonist. The sudden appearance of the title after this tension has a good effect as it releases the built up tension of the moment in a sudden explosion of activity, it also puts the audience in suspense as the outcome of the standoff isn't revealed, therefore the audience is left unaware of what happens next and would want to know more, making the sudden appearance of the title much more useful (as there will be a sudden desire to see the film) The colour of the title is bright white, this makes the words standout and "pop" from the background, giving a much more eye catching look to it. This pairs quite effectively with the timing of the title, as it appears suddenly at the very end of the trailer, in bright white atop a black screen, it immediately grabs the attention of the audience. The font style is a somewhat dirty, weathered look to the words, this is somewhat of a salute to the genre, as weathered, run down structures are associated with the apocalyptic setting.

Setting of the film
The setting of our film is briefly touched upon within the trailer, less of a focus than most of the other aspects to the trailer. This is relatively unconventional for trailers, as most films generally have many scenic shots of their setting, to make it completely clear to the audience. This is especially apparent in our chosen genre, as post-apocalyptic films feed off of their unique interpretations of urban decay. We have chosen not to focus on the setting too much in the trailer, even though our setting is a large part of it, instead of the typical panoramic shot of the location that most trailers use, we have decided to have shots of the main actor with the location in the background. This makes the audience much more curious about the setting, as it is not explored in depth but a few reasonably effective clues are given as to the nature of the film. The setting itself is a perfect indictment to the mood of the main character, as well as the general themes of the film: the lonely wasteland scarred by the remnants of humanity, it personifies the nature of the character and his hopeless situation


Costumes/Props
The props and costumes for our film greatly represent the style in which we attempt to create our film in. We have not tried to make any aspect of our film flashy or particularly nice looking, we have simply gone for the rough, gritty look to everything. For example the weapons are all extremely low tech: a hunting rifle and 3 pistols. This is mainly for realism, as the film is set in the UK, guns cannot be realistically included if they could not be scavenged from the house of some rural farmer or urban drug dealer. The costumes are all relatively scruffy, functional clothes, the type that ordinary people would wear for practicality rather than style. Our props and costumes all display this unpolished atmosphere to the audience, in a way that is both subtle and obvious at the same time. I believe, in this sense, we have subverted the normal conventions of trailers, as many films in this day and age value the visual feel of the film over any actual realism, in this sense I think our subversion is an attractive aspect to our trailer, as many people would be intrigued by the originality of this effect













Camera work and editing
Throughout or trailer we have tried to include a plethora of different types of shots conveying different emotions in each, however I feel this shot happens to be the most appropriate choice to annotate. For example, this shot is an over the shoulder shot using a free hand camera, rather than a tripod. The shakiness of the camera works well to convey the tension of the moment, as well as the over the shoulder shot, limiting the field of view. This high tension shot fits in well with the rest of the scene, creating a suitable atmosphere of confusion and danger. This shot (as well as most of the other shots in our film) conforms to the general trend among action films.

Story
I feel that this shot works quite well to sum up the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist. It comes at the very end for a split second before the title appears. This already sets the stage for a large conflict between the two characters throughout the film. The amount of emphasis in this scene by the ensuing tension of Will approaching makes it clear that the film will revolve around this rivalry. Although this scene (nor do any other) reveal anything substantial about the film, it gives enough for the viewer to gather what is happening and become intrigued. This effect is practically universal among film trailers, giving enough story to lure the audience, but not enough for them to know exactly what is happening.



Special Effects
The special effects in our film are very limited, we agreed to keep it this way in order to sustain the gritty, realistic look. The only actual special effect in our film are the gunshots, to which we kept limited. The use of special effects were somewhat justified in this case, as we had no better alternative to it without blank firing guns.


Genre
Our genre was post apocalyptic action/drama , we have many hints throughout the trailer, for example the rock music transitioning from slow to fast is a relatively widely used concept of action/drama films. Another example would be our setting, the audience gets many views of the setting of urban decay, but without actually saying anything about what happened. This heavily hints that the genre will be post apocalyptic, but the audience won't know anything about some of the key points of the story, creating an enigma code over why the world is in ruins. However I have chosen this screen shot because it represents the most obvious indicator to the genre: the mise en scene. The main character and antagonists all carry guns, referring to the action nature of the genre. Also the Main character is often seen scavenging in the wreckage for supplies, a typical theme of the post apocalyptic genre.

Characters
This shot is a good representation of the two characters, as the antagonist is bearing over the protagonist, it displays inequity of the situation, that the antagonist is in control of the situation and the protagonist is at his mercy, it sets up a small hierachy within the minds of the audience. The act of the sudden violence within the trailer helps to display the antagonist's mental instability and unpredictable nature. As the protagonist does not attempt to fight back, it shows a sign of weakness that proves the protagonist is not some airbrushed marine who kills everyone, he is just a normal man with the skills any competant, prepared human being could have.

Evaluation Targets

You have worked so well this year and now, albeit in the busiest part of the calendar, you need to push yourself to achieve as many of the twenty marks available to you before the end of this term. Complete the activities set as well including director's commentaries and interviews with each other. Comment on your findings from your target audience and evaluate your progress. Analyse every techincal aspect of your promotional campaign and set future targets for yourself.

Trailer draft 1

Top 5 post apocolyptic films

Post apocalyptic films are a sub genre of films which feature a certain amount of time after a cataclysmic series of event on a massive scale. The main locations of these films are the ruins of modern civilisation, taking  advantage of the depressingly dramatic effect of urban decay. Main characters are normally ordinary people simply trying to survive, however it is not unheard of to include some ridiculously over the top action hero just to be different. The antagonists of this genre generally comes in two forms:  The same thing which destroyed the world as the main antagonist (e.g monsters, enemy soldiers or , most popularly, zombies)  this has the "we have to stick together to survive" type of vibe, having a clear enemy can make the film much more simple, also if the antagonist is interesting enough, it can attract a large audience on it's own, without the film needing anything close to a good story structure or convincing characters (we see this particular effect in World War Z). The other type of antagonist is that of the other survivors, specifically looters and bandits, these antagonists are less interesting but they serve to deliver pseudo-psychological messages about the "duality of man" or something like that. Either way, my group and I all have great respect for the genre, which is why we decided to choose it as our film genre, to show this here are my 5 favourites:

5.  CarriersCarriers is a film set in rural America struck by a deadly virus, it primarily focuses on the main character's decent into disease and madness. It is somewhat different to other films within the genre as it is less focused on the world around the survivors and more on the deterioration of the human mind during a crisis. Normally films can't really pull this off, but in my opinion this film had quite an accurate message until the disappointingly anticlimactic ending. Our film will have a few similarities to Carriers, mainly the whole atmosphere that the world is always working against the characters.


4. Zombieland
    
Although this film has no real relevance to my coursework, any list of my favourite post apocalyptic film has got to have this ridiculous masterpiece. Zombieland follows a teenager trying to get to terms with the the new, zombie infested wasteland that was once the world. It is the typical action film with over the top fight scenes and many comedic ways of zombie killing. It is not exactly a unique film but it is certainly a classic within the genre.

3. Book of Eli


The book of Eli is about one man wandering a ravaged, war-torn wasteland in search of a sacred book which he hopes can restore the world back to it's previous state. The film is full of elaborate fight scenes with impossible stunts as the main character is seemingly invincible. It breaks the trend of the normal man in a destroyed world which is the general basis of many post apocalyptic films. Unfortunately this is a trend we hope to follow, with our main character being a relatively normal man instead of the over zealous super human in The Book of Eli. One thing we hope to take from this film is the style of the antagonists, as there are no zombies, normal run of the mill thugs and bandits take the role of the main enemies. There are many "colourful" individuals used in the film, we hope to take note of certain traits in the characters and add them to our psychopathic antagonist.

2. I Am Legend

I Am Legend is a staple among zombie and post apocalyptic films alike, it is widely considered the best to come from it's genre in the past 10 years and for good reason. I Am Legend follows the story of a researcher in New York who is the sole survivor of a deadly virus which has ravaged New York, killing most of the population and turning many others into cannibalistic ghouls which have decimated the remaining population. The film focuses heavily on the empty shell of New York, with the backdrop being an amazing example of urban decay after the apocalypse. This film has many themes in which we intend to capture in our film, primarily the lone survivor protagonist which features heavily in this film. We intend to model Will as somewhat of a twist on Robert Neville,  however this film is much more glamorous than what we hope for, so we will add more of a gritty aspect to this protagonist.

1. 28 Days Later

28 Days Later is a British film in which we have gathered the most inspiration from, this is mainly because of its similarities with our initial idea, the obvious exception to this is the lack of zombies. The film is about a virus which afflicts England known as "the rage virus", a pathogen which turns the infected into ravenous psychopaths which only want to spread their infection. The film features a group of survivors trying to get out of London to any form of civilisation, through which they have to face the infected, as well as the newly formed paramilitary. The film is done in a gritty, hyper realistic way, which we hope to replicate throughout our film. It is my favourite post apocalyptic film mainly because of the grittiness but also because of the zombies, although we don't have any in our film (as it is extremely over done) I like the concept and this film makes the zombies genuine threats.

Poster design 2

Magazine design 1

this is the first draft of our magazine cover, as you can see, the main feature of this cover is Will's face, with the background being somewhat inconspicuous in comparison. This gives the effect that Will is emerging from the shadows, adding to the shady, mysterious and stealthy aspects to the character. As little is known about the film upon it's early release, these subtle hints and clues are extremely  important within all of our designs, as it helps the audience get a good feel of the plot without revealling anything significant. This enveloping darkness around the character also accentuates many of the features of the main character's costume and face, imprinting some of the main details of our protagonist in the minds of any readers. This type of advertising is very effective when done correctly, when one character within the film is well publicised and celebrated beyond all of the other aspects of the film, it can make the film instantly recognised by the public through this character. A few good examples of this effect in action are Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean, Jason from Friday the 13th and, most prominently The Joker from the Dark Knight. We hope, by having Will's face accentuated throughout all of our productions, we can replicate this effect to a smaller extent.

The position of Will on this magazine cover is facing the reader, however he is not looking at the camera. This duality is extremely helpful in displaying all of the effects we hope to represent our film. On the one hand Will is completely visible in the centre of the cover, making it clear he is the star of the film and fully intergrating the effect discussed above. His full visablity is also helpful in provoking the interest of the audience, as there is a large centeral image to the cover, it can quite easily stick out from the other magazines. It also provokes much more interest to the film, as this is the closest look that they have had of the main protagonist, giving full visability will provoke much more interest of the film and ensures the audience would not get bored waiting for our trailer to come out. However at the same time Will's eyes are averted from the camera, looking at the floor, this sounds like a relatively small detail in comparison to the rest of the cover but it makes a very large difference. As it makes it seem as if his attention is not completely with the audience, as if he has more important things on his minds. This combined with the distrust that comes from averting your eyes from someone adds to mystery of the character

When the viewer has stopped looking at the image of Will, their eyes will inevitably drift to the first headings they see. Due to the pronounciation of this text, the main text that will be noticed is the Empire title (due to it's bold, red letters) this is good because it means that any reader of the magazine is already interested in the film. The other piece of text that would grab the reader's attention is the title of the film "Her Majesty's Wasteland" is in the dead center of the magazine cover, in the original font of the film (The same which has been applied to our poster) this consistency in font choice has helped to make our film name much more recognisable. Also, as it is in the centre of the page, there is nowhere on the cover that someone could look without the title being in perfect view, this enlarged precence of the title combined with its constant repetition, succeeds (in my opinion) in making the title much more recognisable.

All in all I like our magazine cover so far, it works very well in conjunction with our other media due to the reoccuring themes which are present in all parts of the production. Aspects such as the attitude of Will's character  and the font of the titles have been kept the same throughout the production. Relatively large aspects such as this  have been present in every publication we have created, linking the entire production together through these aspects. All of the publications represent the film very well, however the magazine cover is the one which looks the best so far.

Filming Diary #4

Today we filmed some of the last scenes needed for our trailer, mainly the gunfight scene between Chris, the henchmen and Will, we did this in Will's garden. The conditions were temperamental at best, with random heavy rain showers causing us to stop filming to protect the camera, this made the entire session extremely inconvenient, however the weather was not disruptive enough to halt filming altogether so we were able to get all of our planned shots and more. Aside from the weather, there was a few problems in getting all of the extras we intended, as most people were busy around the time we asked, therefore we were only able to have one extra. However we managed to adapt the scene to fit the reduced number of characters, as all we actually needed was Chris, Will and one other gunman to give the feeling that Will is outnumbered. While altering the scene to accommodate the new circumstances, we decided to play around with the scene structure, as we had a few ideas come to us throughout the day.

Most prominently of these changes is that we have now filmed 3 different endings, all of which lead to the same conclusion (Will gets captured). The first ending was slightly cliche', Will turns a corner at the same time Chris does and they point their guns at each other before the scene fades out. The second ending we made, had a little more sense to it, the events play out similar to the first ending, however instead of giving up, Will prepares to take his chances against Chris, however as soon as he tenses, Muhammad would put his gun to the back of Will's head, Will would then surrender. The last ending we filmed was when Chris runs out of ammo in the gunfight and Will corners him, Chris puts his hands up and laughs, Muhammad then appears behind Will and puts a gun to his head, looking dejected, Will surrenders. Any of these endings would work with the trailer, however we have decided to see what looks better in conjunction with the rest of the trailer before making a definitive decision

What went well
We finished every shot we intended to do
The weather was not unbearable
Muhammed showed up
We have a large amount of alternative, usable footage

What went wrong
While not entirely bad, the weather was still disruptive and made filming inconveniant
We did not even get half of the extras that we wanted

Poster Design 1

This is the first complete draft for out film poster. As you can see it is not 100% complete as there are a few things that are i am debating on whether or not to change them or not, those things include the position of the film title, the colour of the font both for the font itself and the colour of the crown logo and i am also questioning whether to return the image in the background to colour but that is going to take a little thought. As of right now this is how the poster is but like i said i am not 100% happy with it and the chances of it being changing soon are high.

Brief evaluation and decisions for the draft poster as it is now:
One of the main questions is why does the character have their back facing us, and that is the exact reason, it raises questions. I have done this as it promotes curiosity in the audience and will hopefully result in them watching the trailer and ultimately, watching the film. The second reason is because of the nature of the character. The character in the film is a stealthy and extremely skilled survivalist ( at least by the end of the film he is) and this poster with the characters back facing away from the audience helps to promote the stealth side of the character, not having his face visible helps to do this as well.

The logo and font colour was chosen as it is the same colour used in the revenue and customs logo. As this is a British film we decided that using the logo and colour from HM revenue and customs would help the audience identify that the film is completely British. We has abbreviated Her Majesty's to HM which is also a direct link to the British revenue and customs, but the actual name of the film is the full 'Her Majesty's Wasteland', This abbreviation might also park the curiosity of the audience who don't already know what it means, which will hopefully lead them to the trailer for the film after they have found out what HM means.

You may notice that the clouds are the only part of the background image that are in colour. This is because it is supposed to represent the chemical war that left Britain in the mess that is shown in the film, however this will be hard to identify to without watching the trailer or reading the synopsis of the film.

The text at the bottom of the poster is the institutional information and some of the main credits for the film, typical of many film posters.

Poster Idea

This is one of the first drafts of our poster, we have settled on the name "Her Majesty's Wasteland", the poster accentuates some of the themes presented by this name. Given the large, regal crown in the middle of the poster, the reference to the royal family (an iconic sign of Britain) is obvious, this further outlines the British touch which we are trying to display as one of the main focus points of our film. The character on the poster is looking away from the viewer, this is a nice change to the conventional theme of characters giving a direct look  towards the audience. This makes the character look much more real and gritty, as if he doesn't really care about the fame of the cover. The fact that he is holding his gun in his hand closest to the camera is an obvious hint to the violence within the film. The gun also compliments the character's distraction, it makes it seems as if the character is distracted by something dangerous enough that he may need to use his gun. The font of the poster is very grand, in the way that the viewer's attention is immediately attracted to the title, however at the same time the font also looks gritty and brutal. The themes presented in the font are exactly what we attempt to portray in our film; a grand, melodramatic piece with gritty, cruel undertones. The only thing I don't like about this poster is the lack of background (which is mainly due to it being a rough draft) and the bullets coming from the title, the bullets in my opinion look very tacky and unnecessary. All in all I like the look of this poster as a draft, it needs work but I like many of the features present on it.

Coursework update

We've had some problems with the completion of our coursework in these past few days, mainly due to the rain, as it creates extremely inconvenient conditions for filming. This difficulty has also been accentuated by the fact that our camera man/director has been away in Sri Lanka for the past week and a half. Therefore we have only had a brief window in which we can work, the majority of this time the rain has been intense. To top this off, I have had quite a major technical problem with blogger on my computer, when I try to connect to Blogger it comes up with this message (pictured below) and does not let me write posts. I have searched for a solution to this problem on the Internet, however none of the solutions listed has been successful in helping my problem. I am currently writing this on my IPod, however it is extremely frustrating to use it in the long term due to it crashing unexpectedly. We're going to have to work as hard as possible in order to make up for this huge loss of time