Edited Photos

Blogged by Anya

Before looking into creating our poster and magazine cover, we found a photo that we really liked. I chose to edit the photo we chose to see the different atmospheres that we could create with it.

Before editing, I used the different settings on the photo editing software I was using to see what each would do.

Colours:




Brightness:


Contrast:


Gamma:



I then used a combination of these to create effective edits:

Fonts

Blogged by Naomi

Today we also looked at possible fonts for our poster/magazine cover. We used the fonts readily available to us on Word but found that the website DaFont had many more fonts that would suit our poster/magazine cover more. After searching the website we downloaded a variety of fonts we felt would be relevant and fitting with the horror genre and would work well against our chosen images.


When we wrote up our title in the fonts we had downloaded we realised that some of the ones we had chosen would not be as successful as others. They were either difficult to read or we felt that they would detract the eye from the audience. Others we felt would also be 'lost' against the image/background of our poster or magazine cover. However, the decision for the font we shall use was unanimous, and we both agreed that the font Broken 74 was the most suitable and would be the most effective.


This was our favourite font as it subtly creates an atmosphere of terror and reflects the genre of horror perfectly. The jagged edges and scratched effect mirror the tension and suspense we hope to convey in our trailer. Also, the scratches across the writing look similar to the barbed wire fence of the pheasant cage used in the footage, so the font itself can be directly linked to the trailer. This font is powerful and put against an image for our poster/magazine cover will not detract attention from the image or 'fade into the background'.

Magazine Research Continued

Blogged by Anya

We looked at a few different magazine covers from both Empire and Total Film. We couldn't find any horror based magazine covers but we felt that if we were looking at the layout of the cover then it shouldn't matter that the film genre is different.



This magazine uses a posed photo of Harry Potter, plus three smaller photos of other significant characters from the film. The photo makes it seem as if Harry Potter has smashed glass, and the other characters are reflected in some of the shards. This along with the expressions of the characters make the photo look tense.
This photo is also linked with the tag-line 'Friendships shatter. Evil unites' which is in yellow to stand out from the dark background.
Apart from the masthead, 'Potter 7' is the largest font on the page. It is white so that it also stands out from the background and is a bold, clear font for easy reading. Under this title, is the second part of the tagline 'The end begins', this helps build the tension and excite fans of the film because it is quite an ominous statement.
The masthead is the usual Empire font and colour and some of it has been blocked by Harry Potters head which makes it seem as if the film is more important than the title, but it is also because the magazine is successful and so people know what it is without seeing the whole title.
The cover also contains a barcode; a tag-line at the bottom of the page, which has it's own background; tag-lines on the right of the page which are introduced by the title 'Plus!' and a tagline which promotes the magazine itself 'our best preview issue ever' which is above the masthead.



This magazine also uses a posed photo of the main character of the film; this time 'Sherlock Homes'. As with the Empire cover, the photo takes up the whole of the page and the colour scheme of the cover fits with the colours in the photo. Whereas, the Harry Potter cover advertised a 'preview issue' this cover advertises a 'world exclusive'. Again, the title of the film is the largest text on the page excluding the masthead and it is a clear font that catches the eye.
The main article on this cover has two tag-lines, the first is a quote, presumably from an interview and the second, smaller tag-line says 'On set!' which connotes a behind the scenes look at the film.
There are more tag-lines on both sides of the page. There is a main title in blue capitals that draws attention and a small description underneath. There is also a tagline above the masthead with three smaller photos. This tagline promotes the '10 coolest movies' and draws in the reader because it seem exciting. AS with any magazine cover, there is also a barcode, date, price and the website address of the magazine.



This is our favourite of the magazine covers that we researched because it catches the eye and apart from one other tagline, the whole cover is dedicated to the one film; including the masthead which looks like blood. The main image is of the main character and the two other 'super-heroes' featured in the film are part of the background which has connotations of comic books.
The title of the film is the brightest thing on the page and is the first thing you see. The colours used on this cover are bold and are designed to draw attention.
Again, there are two tag-lines for the main article, the first 'It's bloody! It's brilliant! And, boy does it...' leads into the title of the film and is a clever play on words. The second 'the world's first look at your new favourite movie' creates excitement because it it seems to be a world exclusive and it holds the film in high regard by telling the reader that it will become their new favourite film.
The only tagline on the page that does not involve 'Kick Ass' is at the bottom of the page and introduces a new colour to separate it from the main article.

We think this is the most effective front cover, especially for a horror movie. We really like the blood style font of the masthead and will try to re-create this on our own magazine cover.

Magazine Research

Blogged by Anya

Today we looked at Empire magazine front covers as research for our own. We chose to look at Empire because it is a successful, current movie magazine.
From our research, we found there were two types of front cover. There were the ones that focused on the actor(s) and covers that used stills/posed shots from the film itself:




We decided that we would prefer to create a magazine cover that used either a screen shot of the film or a posed shot with the actor in character, rather than focus on the actor herself. We felt it would be more effective for a horror film to have a scary magazine cover as promotion rather than distract with the actor.

Editing Footage & Ideas

Blogged by Naomi

Using iMovie we again edited the footage we have to start to create suspense and tension. We have cut the scenes where our character finds her friend's possessions as we have decided that finding only one possession will create more suspense without giving too much of the storyline away.

We also had an idea to see if Anya's Granddad had any pheasants he had captured when out shooting that we could include in our trailer. If he does then our plan is to have the main character finding the possession next to a small puddle of blood. As she looks up she discovers a row of pheasants, which could subtly imply that she may also end up in a similar state.

We have also moved the running shots to cut in between the shots of Lily shouting out to her friends rather than them being a long sequence at the end of the trailer. We felt that this would be more successful in creating tension and suspense.

Weather Conditions

Blogged by Naomi

Although we had to put our filming on hold for the weekend due to the snow, luckily for us the majority snow has now cleared and so we will be able to resume filming the remainder of our trailer this weekend. Since we already have made a list of what we still need to film we can focus directly on getting our footage and not spending part of our filming time deciding what else we need to do. Also any last remainders of snow or ice in the woods should have gone before the weekend, meaning that we will not need to re-shoot for continuity the footage we already have.

Group Discussion: Weather Conditions

Blogged by Anya

Today, it snowed in our area. This is a problem for us because of the continuity in our trailer. Naomi and I had a discussion over Facebook to try and find a solution. We chose to do this over Facebook because it is instant.

Here is transcript of our conversation:

[You]
What are we going to do about the snow?
[Naomi Cheeseman]
18:20
Is it that bad over in Madam's Copse?
[You]
18:23
Not sure
Either it'll stay like this and the trees will mean there's not a lot and we can clear it.
Or we might have to put a bit in where she wakes up in snow and then re shoot the running sequence.
[Naomi Cheeseman]
18:25
Yeah that's a good idea. We'll have to wait and see.

This lead us to discuss the timings in our trailer as we already have more than enough footage:

[You]
18:26
The only thing I was thinking though is we're kind of making a mini movie rather than a trailer. I think we're trying to tell too much of the story.
[Naomi Cheeseman]
18:27
Yeah that's what I was thinking. How can we shorten it?
[You]
18:28
Maybe we can take out the scenes where she finds her friend's things; just leave one that really provokes a reaction and cut the running shots with the scene where she is calling to her friends.
That way we only have to concentrate on getting one thing in the party bit so that'll be shorter as well.
[Naomi Cheeseman]
18:30
That sounds good.
Also, if its too difficult to get people for the party we could just have her and her friend in the woods and then it's her friends possession she finds?
[You]
18:30
Yeah maybe, have just a few people. As many as we can.
It might be a gathering rather than party but we can still film it like the skins advert but with a few people rather than a huge group.

In conclusion, we have decided that we will have to wait and see what the weather is like the rest of this week before we decide whether to clear any snow or re-shoot for continuity. We have also decided to cut all but one of the scenes where Lily finds her friend's things and have the running sequence cut into the scene in which Lily calls for her friends to let her out to build tension. In future, we must make sure not to try and make a short film instead of a trailer.

Editing

Blogged by Group



We watched out edited footage so far and decided that we would cut the clips where Lily finds her friend's belongings into the scene where she is shouting for her friends as this creates more tension.

We put an effect called 'Day to Night' on the footage where Lily wakes up and when she is calling to her friends as it dulls the colours and as well as giving it a creepy feel, it makes it look like early morning which is when we image the character to have woken up. We also put an effects called 'Vignette', 'Bleach Bypass' and 'Hard Light' onto the running sequence we though the use of different effects on each clip made the pace of the sequence seem faster.



We also started to look at the transitions we could use. Before the end of the lesson, we put a transition between the blank screen after the party and the clip in which the main character wakes up.

Group Discussion: To Do List

Blogged by Group

We had a group meeting to discuss what we have done so far and what we need to do.
We have not got all our footage yet and at them moment the footage we do have does not flow very well.
We made a list of scenes we needed to film and wanted to re-shoot:

Redo scene where Lily breaks the door so it flows into the running sequence more smoothly.
Film close up shots of Lily running so they are shorter and this sequence flows better.
More shots in cage: Wandering around - variety of shots; sitting in cage - twig snaps; find phone but it's run out .of battery; running hand along fence; reshoot some scenes with more dialogue.
Shoot party scene.
FInd another item (lipstick).
Re-capture.
End scene.

As we have enough footage for a 90 second trailer already, we decided that we will wait until we have all our footage and then cut out the scenes that are our least favourite.

Questionnaire: Feedback

Blogged by Group

We decided that our media class of approximately 10 people was too small a sample size of our target audience and so we proceeded to hand our questionnaire around to our english class of roughly the same number of people. Although this is still an incredibly small sample in relation to our target audience, we worked with what we had to get as much feedback as we were able to.


From our feedback we can see that two of our possible titles proved very popular, 'The Pheasant Keeper' and 'Caged', with 9 people choosing each title as what they thought would be the best title for the film.



As there is a tie, we have decided to ask our lecturer to help us overcome the issue by helping us decided which one would be the most appropriate.

Our lecturer thinks that 'Caged' would work better as a title because 'pheasant' isn't a particularly threatening word. He had the idea to use 'The Pheasant Keeper' in our tagline for our poster/magazine cover. We like this idea.

Questionnaire: Title Choice

Blogged by Group

In order to decide the title for our trailer we created a brainstorm of initial ideas related to our storyline. We then narrowed the choices down to the ones we felt would be the most appropriate but could not decide on a title ourselves.



To overcome this problem we created a questionnaire which we printed off and handed around our class so we could gain peer feedback. Also, the students in our class are within the target audience age bracket so we felt they were a good group to ask as it is their choice, therefore making the trailer more appealing to the wider audience we are targeting.

Flickr Account

Blogged by Naomi

Today we set up a Flickr account in order to present all of the location shots and images we have taken so far. To access our images, click here.

Still Photos Continued

Blogged by Anya

This was our favourite photo from the still shots we took whilst filming:



It was heavily influenced by the 'Captivity' poster and will most likely be used in our own poster designs.
When we film again next week we may expand on this idea and other ideas for our poster and magazine cover but at the moment this photo is definitely first choice.

Still Photos

Blogged by Anya

Whilst we were filming our main character, we took still shots that could be used for our poster and/or magazine cover.
We will also be using them to make sure our main character's costume and make up is the same when we do more filming next week.
We took inspiration from the 'Captivity' poster as well as other horror movie stills.
You can see from a few of the shots that we experimented with different lighting and the timing on the running shots. We also used a 'sport' mode on the camera when taking photos of our main character running as the first photo was very blurred.
These are the original shots:



















As you can see, some of the photos contained 'red eye' which I was able to remove on 'Photo! Editor' software that I had on my home laptop:

Filming: The Main Character

Blogged by Naomi

Fortunately we found another actor to play the lead in our trailer, and so this weekend we focused on filming our main character. We visited Madam's Copse at around 3pm as this is approximately the time when it is just starting to get dark, therefore we could capture an eerie atmosphere but still have a good amount of natural light to work with. I started by uploading all of our footage to iMovie and watched a variety of tutorial videos in order for me to gain insight into how to use the program. The tutorials allowed me to learn the basics of the program, for example cropping scenes and creating a "timeline".



I started cutting bits of footage we did not need, for example if we had left the camera recording too long or if our character felt her acting wasn't as realistic as she could make it. I then started experimenting with the timings of our footage and piecing parts of it together to form the beginnings of our trailer.


We haven't yet filmed our party scene so there is a jump from the beginning of the party to the blank screen where the character is heavily breathing. I have also cut the footage of the main character running to only a few seconds, so the sharp pace and variety of angles add to the tension we wish to convey in our trailer.


We hoped to film all of our scenes involving the main character this weekend, but unfortunately it became too dark to film our final scenes. In order to overcome this we have planned to go back to Madam's Copse again this weekend to film the final scenes, and perhaps re-film a couple of scenes to see if we can improve upon them.

We also hope to get our party scene filmed next weekend, depending on how many of our friends are available. It is possible we will film in Fox's Forest, Cosham as this is local to the majority of people we will be asking. Once this scene has been filmed we can incorporate it into our trailer on iMovie and we can then begin to edit and add effects to our trailer.