Research and Planning
The first thing to consider when planning our piece was carrying out a thorough investigation into the conventions of narrative within the genre we had chosen. This would allow us to have an insightful understanding as to what we needed to include to meet the standard of trailer we were aiming for. To do so we used YouTube as a main media platform in which to watch existing urban drama teaser trailers, and music videos and then deconstructed different elements of these (click here to see deconstruction). From doing this we were able to construct a storyboard which gave us a clear plan for filming and the post production stages. 
After doing an explicit investigation into many aspects of the existing urban drama genre we began to plan more specific parts of our trailer. We obtained primary research through the use of website Survey Monkey, allowing us to ask the general public questions which would help us make vital decisions during the planning stage. For example, we produced a survey which asked various questions relating back to the title of our piece. As this image suggests, this process had a significant effect on our decisions, as we took the results into consideration and named our teaser trailer 'Straits'. We promoted our survey on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. Aiming the surveys at 15+ year olds meant we were able to get opinions from actual members of our target audience. (click here for survey results)
Furthermore, we looked into new post-production media technologies which are used in production of film websites and posters. This gave us ideas on what we could do to suit a modern day audience and conform to conventions, using the technologies available to the best of our ability. Google Images allowed us to browse through multiple images of existing film posters and analyse these in depth before beginning the process of creating our own. (click here to see poster deconstruction)
Construction
The media platform in which we created our piece on was Final Cut Pro, software which proved useful and effective in many ways during the post-production stages. Once we had cropped and ordered our footage we were able to manipulate it in certain ways to appeal to trailer conventions and our target audience. This included adding black and white filters, effects including 'intro flashes', reversing, and increasing the speed of shots. These were all effects which had been inspired by conventions found in our research stage. One of the most useful technologies that was available on Final Cut Pro was the stabilising tool; it was this that allowed for the smooth and professional tracking shot of the underpass which appears at many points in our teaser trailer. Final Cut Pro also proved useful when applying the sound to our trailer. We were able to create multiple layers in order to smoothly mix the two songs we had chosen and taken from un-copyrighted distributors on YouTube. Furthermore, we could create sound bridges in which to include diegetic sounds of the characters speaking which was something we found was often seen in the urban drama genre.
Typography played an important part in our teaser trailer. As we learnt from AS, it can help define a genre and develop the professional quality of a piece. In the process of creating a unique typography for our end titles we found a suitable font on online service DaFont. We downloaded this font and then manipulated it to have the blue and red 3D effect using Photoshop. (click here for typography editing) These media technologies were also used in the construction of our film poster.
We used the internet to search and analyse many existing film websites, giving us an insight into what was generally included within these. We used the website creating service Wix, to design and construct our film website which would be a distributor of our trailer. This media technology made the task fairly easy and allowed us to achieve a professional looking film website. (click here to see website production)
Evaluation
After posting our first draft onto YouTube, we arranged a focus group in which we showed a number of people the trailer and asked for constructive feedback. We also used this media platform as a way of self- evaluating; comparing our product to existing professional trailers and other A2 media pieces. From this we found that a number of things required a certain level of improvement. The general consensus that we got from this was that we needed to improve the tension and build up the pace slower and to fade out the music more subtly at the end.
We took all the comments into consideration and used Final Cut Pro to improve on all the areas that had been raised. We then reposted our trailer onto YouTube and received comments which met the level that we had hoped for.
We revisited our first draft video on YouTube and compared it to our final piece and from doing this were able to check that we had included all of the necessary improvements suggested in our audience feedback.
(click here to see full comparison)
(click here for improvement)
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