Liam GearyBTEC MEDIA

Crime Drama TV Trailer – Evaluation:

This term in BTEC MEDIA we were asked to plan and then create a TV Crime Drama Trailer as if it was going to be showed on one of the mainstream TV channels! Our group set of and planned ours to be showed on E4 the comedy/Entertainment channel for the TV group 4. We decided to base it on an original TV series Misfits directed by Jonathan van Tulleken and the amazing CSI series on Channel 5

To start off planning we watched and analysed three crime dramas. We watched Sherlock, Castle and CSI. We analysed them looking at the opening credits, Characters, forensics, story line! This helped me a lot when planning the real thing as I could think more in-depth by doing work on these three crime TV shows! We didn’t any ideas really from the shows we watched. As we didn’t want to copy!

Comparing the final result to the Original idea: Looking at the finished result we didn’t stick to the key shots we took for our plan as we did change the main idea around a bit! The original idea was to have one criminal who was chased by the cops etc... Like any other cop drama would be like but we would slide comedy and a bucket load of action into it! I don’t feel like the trailer shows its full potential but if we had another go at making it I’m sure our group could improve on a lot. We kept the Characters the same and the script so I feel that was our strongest point along with shot plans that we followed all the way through!

I feel like it didn’t reach the Audiences expectations to what people would of expected but to be honest we did plan it to be like one of those cheesy comedy’s sketch shows on E4! If we all tweaked titles etc. in the result along with a couple of extra crime clips we filmed it would defiantly feel like a Proper TV Crime drama show.

The Camera man in our group was James Smith; I feel that he did a great job working with the camera making sure he got the key areas and the angle/shot types!

We used a lot of eye level and medium shots for the trailer and it worked well! We used a canted shot which was tricky to work without making the camera shake a lot when holding it a lot! The scene where the cop was chasing the robber through the street to the building was shot at eye level and long shot angles. We chose this as I show the surroundings clearly.

The videos we watched on crime and drama helped me a lot when producing the film. I enjoyed the CSI video we watched as it was more gripping instead of Sherlock! It felt like a film. The case studies helped as well as I came back to

Liam GearyBTEC MEDIA

them when creating the film to see what sort of shot types they did as I did talk about shots and characters. Looking back at the case study’s we did our group went with the opening which showed the criminal and the detective but trying not to give much away on the series, so people tune in as they are more gripped and pondered!

The storyboard and script we made helped a lot and we managed to stick to it roughly! I feel that we could have stuck to the script better as we did change what we said as we changed the order of the film and how it worked.

I would like to say that my editing skills are good but there is always room for improvement and my next learning curve is mastering Adobe After effects instead of using Sony Vegas Pro! I feel that my trailer was good but it I did drift off from the idea of Crime Drama a bit!

I used sound and video content which we did not make but did have to wait more than a week to get permission to use the video and music tracks I used of Sound cloud! I chose the Video City Render as it suits a city crime area and

THE CINIMATIC CITY VIDEO ON MY TRAILER. IT FADES IN TO AN UP-SCROLLING CITY AFFECT WHICH ROLES INTO THE FOOTAGE WE TOOK.

THIS IS THE FIRST TRACK FOR THE TRAILER. It provides a good beat for the start to keep people watching when on the TV breaks!

Liam GearyBTEC MEDIA

does not look posh but looks almost rough area! The music I used was some of my favourite tracks from Monster cat Media. They give suspense and comedy throughout the music tracks.

I emailed the company which provides Copyright free music and asked that I was doing a school Btec Project and it will be posted on the web in several places. They provided me with the copyright with a couple of warnings etc., like all companies provide due to Ownership!

Using Premier Pro is easy for me as I use this at home regularly and most of the time I slow down on work as I have to help people out in my class several times.

Our group did keep to the schedule we decided to use but had to shift the filming around and use less days to film as Leon was excluded for a week

Strengths of the Trailer:

The shots were tied in well and there were no odd gaps and all the scenes were carefully cut up to look more professional.

Weakness of the Trailer:

The trailer could have had more scenes of crime. I feel that the footage would have been good for the last project we did!

What feedback did you receive from your class mates. What did they think were your strengths and weaknesses? Did they leave you any comments?

If you were to do this project again would you do anything differently?

To get a distinction you need to say how and why you made the choices you did.

Liam GearyBTEC MEDIA

When I exported my Video to a viewable Media format I chose the most High Quality Format so people can view the video in comfort and HD (720p)

Liam GearyBTEC MEDIA

I chose MPEG 2 as it has the best options and is the

highest quality format to render a video in Adobe

Premier Pro!

HDTV 1080p 25 – This is one of the best HD present quality pre-sets I

have used in any Adobe Video related software. It provides a

crystal clear view in full screen!

The size is set to Widescreen and the Frame rate is at the Standard 25 Frames per second so it is not

too slaggy or to sharp