Trailer

This is our trailer finished and completed...to see more posts which i wrote about the production process, please go to our main blog.

Shallow Water Poster

 

These are my film posters finished...all the same apart from the three title variants. The red is my favourite linking to the theme of blood and water as well as bringing colour to the poster and catching eye attention.

My film poster :)

I have selected an image to work with for my film poster and this is for a few reasons. Firstly the photo is taken at the beach which is our main setting so works well with the film and title. Also the image is extremely simple; I have a wide area of space to work with and Colleens body is clearly in the foreground. The photo also has good lighting which can be altered in photoshop to suit the mood of our horror film.

I started making this photo into a poster but found that space for text at the bottom was limited so added extra shells using photoshop. I took a section of the shells and pasted them undernearth, using the healing brush to create continuity. I now have more room for text and the shells create a good background because they are dark but also have a nice texture. I have altered the lighting in the photo - putting a gradient in so the edges are faintly darkened giving a more scary mood. This also means the shells are  darker, so that text will stand out more clearly.

When designing the poster I thought about adding a 15 rating symbol at the bottom with the rest of the information but after researching into actual posters we found that they didn't use these on advertising - only dvd cases. We have however decided to add some text about 'a previous film we produced'. I felt this would be a good addition as people often see films similar to others they have seen and if we put this on there it may appeal to a larger audience. "From the producers of Out Of Sight".

 After looking at where i could put the title i felt i needed more room above the figure for text as it looked out of place at the side. I have created more sky by using the same technique as before with the stones. It was quite easy as the sky dosn't have too many tones at the top. This did give me more room to play, however the image is now a odd size for a poster. I am going to crop it down to portrait to see if this is a more effective layout.

Film Font

We experimented with lots of downloaded fonts from www.dafont.com and got feedback from others in our class as they are the age of our potential target audience. We got a lot of positive feedback, especially on the more simple font with some erosion. People expressed that some of the fonts we had chosen were a bit too 'cheesy' in the theme of horror and became more comical than scary. Although we did have some good digital fonts, we thought we could do better so decided to use our graphic skills and produce our own title. Colleen hand painted some lettering with watercolour which has a blotted feel, relating to our movie Shallow Water. She used black and white paint, blending it and watering it down which made it look quite dark and creepy.

After some further comment's we realised this wasn't overly scary so wanted to play with the idea of blood and drips. Using Photoshop Colleen added drips to some of the letters, but only a few so that it wasn't over done. This looked creepier than before but still didn't communicate the idea of blood. We then altered the colours, hue and saturation to give it a red tint. This automatically became a lot more striking and gave the image of blood in water, symbolising death, danger and horror. I am really pleased with what we produced and think it's an idividual twist on our trailer.

 UPLOAD RED VERSION

Finished Magazine Cover

I am really happy with my magazine cover and think it fills all the connotations for a horror cover special. The image I chose is quite simple, a close up of the killer (Colleen) but she looks quite distant with a blank expression which is the character we are trying to get across. Also i think the viewer is getting an insight into the character as this is the most we have seen of her yet. The colours used, black, red and white follow traditional horror colours, dark, gloomy and bloody which works well with the genre. The taglines i created are supposed to draw in a audience... 'win' 'exclusive' 'latest reviews' are all used to make the audience feel like they are reading something extra special and that they are getting something from the magazine with the prizes. I have included other horror films so that fans of these films may be intrigued - appealing to a larger target audience. I think the cover looks professional and fits with the horror theme as well as working well with our trailer.

Magazine Cover Research

I have started looking in to other film magazines for ideas of what i need to include on my cover and have also looked back at  last year's magazine project research. Empire and Total Film are two of the most popular magazines and therfore the one's i looked into most, but i did find a few more obscure film magazines such as Sight & Sound and Preview.
We decided to call our magazine Premiere as it's a term well know in the film industry but also it gives a sense of seeing the information before others - First Look. Premiere is additionally a sharp, simple word which rolls of the tounge, making a perfect magazine name.
The photos which appear on magazine covers are often of one single person (main character in a new film), with most magazines using a close up of their face or mid shot showing some of their clothing. They are always capturing the audience's attention with eye contact - the viewer relates better to the image this way. The photos often have a plain or limited background colour which gives more space and freedom for taglines and other images. We are going to pick a photo which fits in well with the above guidelines - making our cover as proffesional as possible.
Taglines are the other very important feature on a magzine. They need to link to the main image as well as the issue (maybe a special). Total Film often use one very large tagline which is about the image, using the film name and quotes from actors, directors, reviews etc. This works well as viewers like to know other people's opinions, especially if stars themself. Smaller taglines are also used, spoilers, quotes, competitions etc. These all have their own way of drawing in readers.
I hope i include lots of these features when producing my magazine - me and Colleen are going to make a cover each then either combine them or choose the best on to submit :D

Photo for Film Poster

Colleen has drawn up some rough ideas for our film poster; what could be featured, layout and compostion etc. We decided to start taking some pictures and play about with the ideas. We managed to get a wide variety of photos - some of which came out well and others that will need a large amount of editing. We have uploaded a selction to our Flickr page.
If you look through our photostream you can see three photos which have already been edited - we had a quick play around with the photo's for experimentation!

film...

Today we did some more filiming, making use of the college equipment and our actor Tom. The idea is that he is one of the victims and therfore we wanted to get some footage of him being 'haunted' by our scary main character and some scared expressions. We filmed quite a lot and took a range of different shots and angels which i feel was very productive!
Later on in the lesson we uploaded our footage and started editing...at the moment our skills are very amateur and need working on but here is a clip of what we got up to:

Obviously this needs a lot more work - especially the lighting as the sequence where the taps are supposed to turn on without anyone touching them doesn't run smooth. We may need to refilm this or just use the editing software on the computer. I am pleased however with the shot of tom running his hands under the sink which then changes to a close up of him wetting his face. We did this to show a range of shots and i think it works quite well, especially as it is one of our first attempts at editing :)

December

I haven't posted in a while because we have been very busy and due to the snow we missed out on lessons. This month we braved the cold and took on the sea for a bit of filming, but we didn't get too much footage. We have uploaded it all onto the computer and hard drive in order to start editing asap, you can see a few of the photos we took on our flickr page (here).

[edit 16.12.2010]
Here is a clip showing some of the footage we filmed, which has been slightly edited...

You can see the post i wrote on our main blog about this clip [here]

In today’s lesson we came up with a list of Movie name ideas:

- Downfall

- Manic Water

- Shallow Water

- Red Tide

- Black Tide

- Murky Water

We then passed this list round the room on a tally chart for people to vote on their favourite, to see which titles would be most popular. This worked well because the people in our class are the same age as our target audience (teenagers and young adults) and therefore we got a clear representative of what our chosen audience like.

The title which came up most popular was 'Shallow Water'.

The feedback we got said:

"It's simple and intriguing name with a catchy ring to it."

"It tells the audience it's a water related film - something everyone is familiar with and therefore becomes a lot more scary"

"The idea of shallow water is creepy and gives a sense that someone/thing may be lurking in it"

Poppy...

Last week Colleen met with our friend Poppy - who we think will play the part of the main character! They went through some outfit ideas as well as make up. We want her to look quite dark and scary but not overly made up as she needs to look real and believable. I have uploaded the photos to our flickr account which you can see here

Storyline

We have finally come up with our storyline idea, with the help of our Facebook survey. We have chosen to keep it very similar to number four;
- Jane' is washed up onto a beach, no idea who she is, and know idea how she got there. deranged and crazy she sets out to find who did this to her, killing whoever gets in her way.
Although this is a very simple storyline, we are going to include a twist towards the end of our trailer to keep the audience intrigued and interested. 

Facebook Feedback

This week me and Colleen posted 4 storyline ideas on a Facebook note so that we could get some feedback from our target audience on what storyline they liked.

See Below:

We thought Facebook was a good place to get opinions as the majority of people on their are students around our age range. This is who we want our film to appeal to and thought they would give us an honest opinion.

The majority of feedback we got was positive, we found that they mostly liked number 1 & 4.

Comments:

"I like the first one the best :) but you could do it a bit like paranormal activity - ish, like instead of her actually coming back, bad things could happen to the student, or the student could unwillingly do bad things to other people, like her friends. Or number 2, instead of the dead person coming back, someone else who knew the girl could do the killing it'd make the film more realistic."

"I like number four the best, looks intriguing :)"

"I think number four is the best because its an original and unique idea. Im excited to see the story unfold and the synopsis makes me want to see more"

"Number 2"

Editing

Today we sorted out all our filming which we did a few weeks ago - testing shots and location ideas. We then decided to try some simple editing techniques just to get a feel for imovie. We put a few different clips together, as well as using a sound bridge and cross dissolve. These are all very basic and the outcome isn't brilliant, but it's our first go!


We have created a YouTube channel which you can find at www.youtube.com/user/teammedia1

I love colleen...

although she lost our film. We have called in the technician to try and save it, fingers crossed.


edit
Fixeeeed, but with no sounds

October 7th

This week we had a lesson off, so we decided to go filming!
We headed down to Southsea and Old Portsmouth to get some shots and filming for location ideas. We think we have chosen this as our main location because our trailer is going to be set by the beach and there are creepy, old, dark buildings around there. There was also a small abandoned pier which looked good when we photographed and had easy access

We have created a Flickr account where we will upload all our photos and keep a record of progress:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48156412@N04/sets/72157625162778978/

Film Poster Analysis

As part of mine and Colleens divided tasks, I have analysed 3 film posters and she has analysed 3 film trailers. You can see the work she has posted at her blog www.tbcolleen.blogspot.com

Preliminary Questions

TRAILERS

In order to create our teaser trailer production piece, background research is a must. This includes looking at other trailers and media products within our genre: Horror/Thriller

A trailer is a preview of an upcoming feature film which will be shown in the cinema in the near future. Trailers can be seen in a multiplicity of formats.

- Cinema: This is where most people would view film trailers, especially older viewers as they aren't as tech savvy as the youthful 'youtube' generation. When viewing films you are shown trailers of a similar genre, therefore targeting the right target audience, creating more hype and awareness. Also many films are viewed as better on the 'big' screen, giving it a bigger more exciting preview than just watching it at home.

- Youtube: Ideally aimed at the younger audience, Youtube and other websites are easily accessible to young people as well as being free. This therefore potentially enlarges the target audience and is easy to be done by the film companies, quickly and cheaply.

- DVD: This is a less mainstream way of viewing trailers, but similar to the cinema in the way that when watching a DVD you will see trailers within the same genre of your chosen film. The producers know that the viewer is more likely to be interested in the new film, if they have enjoyed a similar one.

- TV Adverts: Most people watch TV therefore trailers shown during adverts are broadly viewed. Different trailers are shown at different times, to target a specific audience e.g cartoons and films for kids are shown during childrens programs and throughout the day whereas scarier, more adult films are shown after the watershed.

- Social Networking: Sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc are great places to view trailers, especially the younger audience where 93% of teenagers use online social sites. A trailer can be watched online and then sent out to all the viewers friends giving it huge popularity and lots of hits.

Genre Conventions: ""specific settings, roles, events, and values that define individual genres and their subgenres." These conventions, always fluid, are usually implicit, but sometimes are made into explicit requirements by publishers of fiction as a guide to authors seeking publication." - Sourced from Wikipedia

First Lesson Back...

Today was our first lesson of the A2 year and me and colleen have both decided to make our own blogs, alongside out joint account. You can see our joint blog here at: www.tbcproductions.blogspot.com