PLANNING: IN DESIGN

Last week, we were taught about the InDesign software - used to create film posters. Since we only had a single lesson we weren't able to cover everything - only the basics. I  learnt things such as; how to type in words around a letter and how to fill text with a picture.
During the lesson, I used the draft photos, that my group and I took earlier in the week, to create a rough poster. This allowed me to put my new knowledge about the software into good use.

Below are some picture I took whilst I made the poster.

PLANNING: FILM POSTER

Today I started to plan my film poster. I have saved some images of the Facebook, instagram and twitter logos which I will add to my poster when I make it. I have also started to write the credits that will be included at the bottom of the poster. My group and I felt that we should have the same names for the producers, directors etc. So we made the credits together. Before doing this however, I researched what sort of things should be included in the credits for a film poster. I looked at a few different film posters - but mostly focused on the "Inception" poster. Below is a screenshot of the credits from the inception poster.
I made sure to include things such as, the name of the:
- director
- producer
- executive producer
- writer
- editor
- production company
- actors
- customer designer

Before I wrote out the credits on my word document, however, I researched what the font is for film posters when writing out the credits - as I want my font to be as similar as possible. I found out that the font used is called "Bee Two". I then downloaded a font that was very similar ( as I couldn't find a free version for "Bee Two") and then changed the font to this style of writing on my word document. When I make my poster I will make sure that I use this font. 

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING

On Saturday my group and I continued to do some filming for our film trailer.  The scenes we filmed included: the fighting scene between Aaron and The Ghost, the gasoline scene, the running scene, Aaron taking pictures of The Ghost scene and the gun scenes with the migrant. 

When filming the gun scenes my group and I had to make sure that we didn't film anywhere where there was likely to be a lot of people about as we thought that this could worry the public with someone holding a gun ( even though it wasn't real). We decided to film on a pathway which was in-between a car park and a park as this was a good sized pathway and there were very few members of the public walking past. I think that the pathway also gave a mysterious feel as it looked quite secluded and dark. The gun scenes involved The Ghost raising a gun to the migrants face. This could make the audience feel sorry and sympathetic towards the migrant as she has done nothing wrong, she is being threatened with a gun and she is holding her baby in her arms. The type of shot we used here in this scene was a two-person shot. This allows the audience to see both the migrant and The Ghost and their reactions to the situation. 

The next scene we filmed involved Aaron running up to The Ghost and hitting him against a wall. We wanted this scene to be in a dark pathway near the street. The narrow pathway gives that scared and mysterious feeling to the viewer as therefore we thought the location was ideal to film in. The type of shot used was a two-person shot, allowing the audience to see the full action of Aaron throwing a punch towards The Ghost. In this scene Aaron is seen as the one in control as he is the one pinning The Ghost against the wall and throwing a punch. 

Another scene we filmed was the gasoline scene. We filmed this scene in Kate's garage as it was a perfect size and it gave that secretive feel to the film as no one knows whats happening. When we saw the garage there was a lot of things in there such as bikes. In order to make more space for the scene my group and I had to take these things out of the garage. In this scene, Aaron is back to being in the vulnerable and weak position as he is tied to a chair with no way to escape. The Ghost then circles Aaron with a plastic petrol tank which is full of gasoline. This reinforces just how powerful The Ghost is and what he is capable of, emphasising just how dangerous Aaron's mission is. The scene also shows Aaron's fear and distress to the audience as he is panicking when The Ghost chucks gasoline around him. In the next shot, the scene is black and then there is a sudden strike of a match stick. To get this completely black scene we closed the garage door to block out any of the natural sunlight from outside. The close up of the fire on the match stick will scare the audience as it indicates that Aaron is about to be lit on fire alive. Before anything else happens, there will be a cut in the film so that the audience doesn't see what happens - as it is a trailer. This will build up a lot of tension and curiosity to the audience as they will want to know what happens next and if he is able to escape or not.

In the next scene we filmed my group and I went to Weighbridge High Street. This scene involved Aaron spying on The Ghost and following him in the high street to see what he was up to and who he was meeting. As Aaron hid behind a pillar from a building, he took pictures of The Ghost with his professional camera to get a better idea of what he looked like.

Another scene we filmed was the running scene. This involved Aaron sprinting in an open area and hiding behind a tree. It is clear from the scene that Aaron is running away from someone - either The Ghost or one of his employees who has orders to kill Aaron. The type of shot we used here was a panning shot, where the camera follows the movements of Aaron. Again, this scene portrays Aaron as the one who is in the more vulnerable position as he is the one running away. The location for this scene was ideal as there was nobody else about and therefore we had no disruptions when filming the scene.

RESEARCH: OCR EXAMINAR REPORTS 2015

Today I read through the OCR examiner reports from 2015. I did this as I thought it would give me some hints as to what the examiner is looking for. For example, I found that there were particular presentational tools that the examiner liked and didn't like. 

Below are two screenshots I took from the examiner reports.

RESEARCH: FILM POSTER ANALYSIS 3

Today I made a presentation on the analysis of the film poster, "The Martian".
Below are 3 screenshots of my work that I created using the online website, "NewHive"
Or you can click HERE, HERE and HERE to view my work from the website.

RESEARCH: FILM POSTER ANALYSIS 2

Today I made a presentation on the analysis of the film poster, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2".
Below are 2 screenshots of my work that I created using the online website, "NewHive"
Or you can click HERE and HERE to view my work from the website.

RESEARCH: FILM POSTER ANALYSIS 1

Today I made a presentation on the analysis of the film poster, "I Am Legend".
Below are 3 screenshots of my work that I created using the online website, "NewHive"
Or you can click HERE and HERE to view my work from the website.

MOVIE MARKETING GLOSSARY

Below are some movie marketing definitions which I have found on the MediaEdu website. This glossary will be very useful for me when I come to analysis things such as film posters. 

Movie Marketing Glossary

You may find the following words help you describe and analyse a movie marketing campaign:

Awareness	what marketing seeks to create - when audiences know something about the content of a film (stars, plot premise etc) and when it is going to be released
Buzz	Positive word-of-mouth
Day and Date Release	Simultaneous distribution of content on different platforms (e.g. a movie released on DVD and VOD on the same day)
Distributor	Business entity that buys the rights to sell a film to the cinema, video and TV markets. All blockbuster movies are made with the distribution rights pre-sold or arranged as big studios have their own distribution arm. Smaller, or independently produced movies often have to wait till they are completed before anyone will buy the distribution rights
Exhibitor	Cinemas - usually large chains of cinemas (eg UA in Hong Kong, Cineworld or Odeon in the UK)
Hold-over	When a film plays for longer than originally intended, perhaps because of large audiences, or winning an award
Interactive	Building a brand through a 'conversation' with the consumer, usually online e.g. a Facebook fan page where consumers leave comments and download images and videos
Junket	Held either on the set or at a hotel, members of the press are invited to meet the talent, doing either round table or one-on-one interviews. A nice lunch and swag bags may or may not be provided, depending on how much the studio wants to impress the journalists.
Key art	The central concept or design used in posters and print ads
Merchandising	The process of manufacturing, distributing, licensing and sale of T-shirts, toys, posters, key-rings etc that contain characters or designs from a movie
Platform release	A limited opening at key cinemas to develop word of mouth. Once a good buzz has been achieved, the movie will open at more cinemas (wide release)
Playdate	Date of release of a film in a specific market
Press kit	The pack given to journalists containing such things as still photos, press release, biographies of main personnel. Some press kits are unusual and inventive, and contain small gifts as a not-very-subtle persusasive tactice to get the journalist to be nice about the film
Primary Audience	The main target audience of a film, those who are likely to go and see it on its opening weekend, or even start queuing up six months before it is released
Secondary audience	The audience who will only go and see a movie after they have heard about it - either from friends or from reading reviews - and have been persuaded that it is worth seeing. They will not risk it on its opening weekend
Tagline	The one-liner summing up the story which appears on posters ("Same planet. Different scum" etc)
Teaser Trailer	A short trailer which does not give very much at all away about a film. It is designed to arouse curiosity and may appear a long time prior to the release of a movie (6-8 months)
Tie-ins	Promotional campaigns (Happy Meals, car tvcs - you name it) where another company gets together with the film company and they promote their products jointly
Trailer	A 'sample' of the best points of a film which works to create awareness in audiences. Can be anything from 30-180 seconds long
Twitter bombing	Moviegoers now tend to tweet the moment they leave a theater, and the mass of their opinions can have an instant, harsh effect on ticket sales. This effect is noticed when early screenings on the opening day for an anticipated movie sell well, but later screenings are empty.
Viral	use of pre-existing social networks (E.g. YouTube) to "spread the word" about a movie. Like a virus, a short video clip can pass from one consumer to another. This UK Cadbury's advertising spot became a global viral phenomenon, thanks to YouTube.
Word-of-mouth	The general public attitude to a movie - what people tell each other about it. This is thought to be the most important ingredient for box office success

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #6

My group and I have made our sixth call sheet for our film trailer.  Included in the call sheet are things such as the date of the shoot, the location, the crew, the equipment and the props and costumes. To give a better idea of our location we also included a map of where we were.

Making a call sheet makes sure that my group and I know when and where we are shooting and what we need to remember to bring on the day - in terms of equipment, props and costumes. This therefore also helps my group and I keep organised and prepared for the day, making our filming more quick and efficient on the day.

Below is a screenshot of the call sheet

RESEARCH: FILM POSTERS

Today I have made an maze on the visual hierarchy of design layouts.
Click HERE to view my maze

Below are some screenshots of my work.

PLANNING: INTER TITLES CONTINUED

Today, my group and I continued working on our inter titles. To get better inspiration, I watched a few film trailers and concentrated on what their inter titles were. I noticed that they would include actors or directors names. Therefore, these are some things that I wrote down for our inter titles and my group and I plan to now use them in our film trailer.

An example of a film trailer that I watched was The Woman In Black - where the inter titles say Fear Her Curse. I liked these inter titles as they are quickly shown, with action clips in between and they only have one word shown on the screen.

CONSTUCTION: FILMING

Last week my group and I continued to do more filming for our trailer. The scene we filmed was the custody scene - where Aaron is in custody, being questioned about Sydney's death by Detective Gibbs. During the scene we had Sydney's death reports on the table to remind the audience why Aaron is being questioned. I also decided to create an email conversation between The Ghost and Aaron as this is important evidence to suggest that Aaron may have had something to do with Sydney's death.

Below is a picture of the death reports and the email conversation I created.

























Below is a collage I made, using the website BeFunky, to show what we did and where we filmed.

RESEARCH: SURVEY FOR TITLE

In todays lesson my group and I continued to think of good film title ideas. Last lesson, we all seemed to like "Consequences of Identity". However, we came up with a few more ideas since we think that "Consequences of Identity" is a little bit too long.

We came up with the following ideas:
- The Identity
- Identity
- A question of Identity

Since we could not decide on which title to chose, my group and I have decided to talk to at least 5 different people - give them the 4 options ( including "Consequences of Identity") and then feed back to our group to see which title got the most votes. This is a good way to chose our film title as it is important for the audience to like the title of the film as this way they are more likely to remember it.

PLANNING: IDENT

Today my group and I started planning our production company and ident ideas. We came up with the idea of the production company to be called BlackLight Productions. To make the name link with the ident we thought it would be a good idea if it was something to do with the colour black and then a bright light.
We came up with having a black background with a lamp shining into the middle. On the screen you will see a black circle slowly move from one side to the other. When it gets to the middle of the screen it will pause as the title "BlackLight Productions" appears on the screen above the circle. The circle will then continue to move until it is no longer on the screen.

PLANNING: LOCATION RECCE 4

Today, my group and I did another location recce for our film trailer. We chose to do the filming at our school, Claremont Fan Court School as we only needed an empty room.

The room we chose was in the basement of our school. It was the ideal location since there were no nearby classes taking place and therefore there was no noise when filming. Also, there weren't any school students walking pass the room, again making it more quiet and convenient.

When we found the room, there was a circular desk in the middle of the room. As this scene was a custody scene, I thought that a circular desk may not fit in well with the scene. I then suggested that we borrow one of the tables from next door's classroom, since it was empty and no one needed the desk.

During our location recce, we also set up the lighting and camera to make sure that we knew exactly where we wanted the extra light to be and where we wanted the camera positioned.

Below is a collage I created, showing the location of our filming and what we did. You can also see the circular desk which is then replaced for a rectangular, grey-looking, desk.

By having this location recce prior to filming, my group and I are able to be more organised when it comes to actually filming the scene as we know where we want to film, what the lighting should be like and where the camera is going to be positioned. 

TRELLO UPDATE

Today I have updated my trello list. I have been able to complete some of my tasks and this means that I have moved them from the "Doing" to the "Done" column.
Below is a screenshot of my trello list - or you can view it online by clicking HERE.

PLANNING: INTER TITLES

Today, my group and I made a start on creating inter titles for our film trailer. We were each given a piece of A3 paper and a pen and then wrote down any ideas we had. Once we wrote them out we discussed as a group which ones we thought would be the best to include. Next lesson we plan to continue with discussing our inter titles.

Below are pictures of what we did in the lesson

CONSTRUCTION: EDITING

Today, my group and I made a little start on editing our film trailer since we were not scheduled to film today. We firstly uploaded all of the footage onto the computer and then onto iMovie. Once it had all loaded we then started to go through the clips, delete the ones that we weren't going to use, and then started to drag over the clips to create the trailer. Although we didn't get very far in the editing process, we have made a good start and we shall continue to edit whenever we have free time.

PLANNING: FILM TITLE IDEAS

Today my group and I came up with ideas for our film title. We tried to think of words to do with the film and then tried to make it into a title. Below is a screenshot of a word document I created, where I wrote down the possible titles for our film. The title highlighted in yellow seemed to be our favourite. However, we do think it is quite a long title and so we may try and cut it down. 

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #5

My group and I have made our fifth call sheet for our film trailer.  Included in the call sheet are things such as the date of the shoot, the location, the crew, the equipment and the props and costumes. To give a better idea of our location we also included a map of where we were.

Making a call sheet makes sure that my group and I know when and where we are shooting and what we need to remember to bring on the day - in terms of equipment, props and costumes. This therefore also helps my group and I keep organised and prepared for the day, making our filming more quick and efficient on the day.

Below is a screenshot of the call sheet

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #4

My group and I have made our fourth call sheet for our film trailer.  Included in the call sheet are things such as the date of the shoot, the location, the crew, the equipment and the props and costumes. To give a better idea of our location we also included a map of where we were.

Making a call sheet makes sure that my group and I know when and where we are shooting and what we need to remember to bring on the day - in terms of equipment, props and costumes. This therefore also helps my group and I keep organised and prepared for the day, making our filming more quick and efficient on the day.

Below is a screenshot of the call sheet

PLANNING: CALL SHEET#3

My group and I have made our third call sheet for our film trailer.  Included in the call sheet are things such as the date of the shoot, the location, the crew, the equipment and the props and costumes. To give a better idea of our location we also included a map of where we were.

Making a call sheet makes sure that my group and I know when and where we are shooting and what we need to remember to bring on the day - in terms of equipment, props and costumes. This therefore also helps my group and I keep organised and prepared for the day, making our filming more quick and efficient on the day.

Below is a screenshot of the call sheet

PLANNING: REFUGEE COSTUME

For the female refugee my group and I decided for her to wear a plain-looking jumper with a long skirt and a hijab - making her look more like a real refugee. When deciding what the costume would look like I googled "refugee clothing". The picture below shows a screenshot of what my search came up with.

As you can see, the refugees all seem to wear simply, plain clothing - with most of the women wearing long skirts or dresses. I also noticed that a lot of the female refugees wore hijabs. I researched hijabs further to find out what Kate ( playing the female refugee) should wear. Below is a screenshot from a picture I found on Google. 

Below is the costume that Kate wore for filming. Kate also wore a scarf over her head as a hijab although this is not in the picture. This female refugee is portrayed as being caring and vulnerable - as  she has had to leave her home county and travel to the UK for safety, protection and a new start to life. She is shown to be caring as she is seen holding her baby in her arms, making sure he/she is safe. 

As for the male refugee, my group and I also decided he should wear simple clothing. Omar (playing the male refugee) ended up wearing trousers, a top and a jacket. When deciding what Omar's costume was going to look like I - again - googled male refugees and whats sort of clothing they wear. Below are screenshots of my findings. 

From looking at these sort of pictures I was able to gain a better understanding as to what Omar should be wearing.

STORYBOARD

Today, my group and I made a storyboard for our film trailer. This will help us keep on track when filming. The storyboard is below. 

PLANNING: AARON'S COSTUME

For Aaron's costume my group and I made sure that Aaron would be wearing something different for some of the scenes - since film trailers are not in chronological order and therefore different scenes from different days would be used. The costume we agreed to used was casual clothing - trousers, a top and a jacket. On different scenes we would slightly change the costume by changing the top or the jacket or by adding a coat to make it look more realistic.

Below is a picture of Marcus's costume for his character, Aaron.

PLANNING:SYDNEY'S COSTUME

When planning each scene my group and I had to think about what costume Sydney was going to be wearing. We decided she would that since Sydney was going out that night she would wear a dress with heels. Below is the dress we decided on.


Since Sydney is involved in a big operation to do with selling illegal passports to refugees, she gains large amounts of money from doing this. As a result, Sydney is able to spend her money on expensive clothing. Therefore I think this costume portrays that message as she is wearing an expensive dress. Also, in the trailer this is a quick clip which shows Sydney putting down some shopping bags - all of which are expensive, high quality brands, such as Pandora. This therefore emphasises that Sydney has suddenly got all of this disposable money.

PLANNING: SHOT LIST

I was set the task to make the shot list for my group. I have put, in the columns: sound, vision, actors, props and notes as this is what most shot lists include.