Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Sound inspiration

Sound is a very important part of a film, especially for a trailer, it sets the tone of the film and genre is easily recognised from the sound used in film. Because our trailer is a psychological thriller we wanted that to be easily identifiable from our sound. For this we looked at trailers of films for a similar genre to gain inspiration and take element from all of them to create the most effective sounding film trailer. Sound is also important for us as we do not use any diegetic sounds and therefore had to mimic those which would be recorded by the camera.
The Machinist 2004
What I found effective about this film trailer was

  • The slow steady build of the non-diegetic sound
  • The mixture of voice-over and diegetic speech, which portrays the confusion of the protagonists mind

Side Effects 2013
What I found effective about this trailer was

  • The unnerving tone to the non-diegetic sound making audience aware that something wasn't right
  • The sudden change in pace to build tension and matching that with lots of short shots
  • The long drawn out sound at the end of the trailer which makes the audience feel almost uncomfortable.
What we need to do is create the drama and tension like in the film trailers above without making it sound over dramatic and therefore sounding too much like an action film other than a psychological thriller. Though inspiration can be taken from both of these trailers.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Re-shooting:

After completing our first draft for our trailer, it was pointed out to us that if we included a more wider variety of shots, it would be more "trailer-like" as most trailers generally include shots from throughout the film, especially as we are creating a teaser trailer. However as we are not filming the whole film, we had to set up specific shots that would only be shown on the screen for our a couple of seconds but would add diversity to the type of shots we included.

We decided to use the girls that we photographed for the Polaroids, this made sense as they would have a role in the film and so are already featured in the trailer anyway. As we were focusing on the girls themselves, this meant we didn't need to look for a specific location to use as a background so we filmed all of the shots in school, saving us time.

We also realised that an average mid shot of our killer sitting down in his living room, didn't add anything to the mise en scene of our trailer and stood out as a bit bland so we changed the shot completely and just did a close up of his knees as he sits down.

A collection of the shots we used in the final version of the trailer are below, including more close ups, a point of view and a shot where the camera was on the floor.








Monday, 9 March 2015

Evaluation: Final Trailer

I decided to complete an evaluation of our final trailer, after all the changes we have made to see whether we have improved since Megan did an evaluation of our first draft here.



Above is our final trailer, I feel the amended trailer is significantly better than our original first draft (as expected).

Firstly, the music dipped in our first draft, so it built up far too early, stalled for a few shots and then restarted and this wasn't working. The sound in our final trailer is definitely more effective, as it builds up more gradually until it culminates at the final moment after the Polaroids flash up. However we did have a slight issue with the final sound used, as when editing the sound effect we wanted was a high pitched ringing noise but unfortunately, when uploaded to YouTube the sound is affected slightly and so the audience won't feel the full impact.

Another part which was successful is our time lapses, when planning the locations that we could film in, we weren't sure how they were going to turn out but thankfully we managed to capture the shadow going over the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square which is a shot I think our group should be particularly proud of. Additionally the other shots taken inject a hint of pace into the opening shots of our trailer, which are slower in order to set the scene.

Our credits were also a risk we decided to take, as the idea we had could have worked or gone completely wrong but luckily it went well and is quite effective as it fits with our genre. However in our first draft, we included far too many, considering we are creating a teaser trailer rather than a theatrical trailer and they take up a lot of time, so we decided to cut out any credits which weren't essential for our trailer.

While editing our trailer in the early stages, we quickly realised (after advice from teachers) was that we didn't have a good variety of shots included, particularly as this is a teaser trailer. All of the shots used were filmed at a few locations and a lot were extremely similar, this was unconventional of teaser trailers, so we decided to re shoot some scenes with the girls we used for the Polaroids (his previous murders) as they would be a part of the actual film. We filmed these clips for a couple of seconds and then used them to help build up towards the height of the trailer and provide a range of shot types.

Overall, I think our final teaser trailer is successful and we have managed to improve and progress the piece without losing the direction that our original ideas were pointing to.

Evaluation of final film poster

This is our final film poster, we decided to compose the  poster with the protagonists polaroid in the middle and in colour to bring attention to the audience and give them an understanding that she is an important part of the story. We also decided to not include a large amount of colour to convey the atmosphere of the narrative. We have a serial killer included in the narrative and therefore did not want to make the poster look to happy. We chose to use the same font as the film title in the trailer to portray professionalism. We have adhered to the conventions of a film poster by having the title in large font the, the tag line on the poster somewhere and also having reviews of the film. At the bottom of the poster we also have all of the names of the companies and people involved in the film, we decided to use a different font here because when we used the same font as the film title it was quite difficult to read. At the very bottom of the poster we also have the rating of the film and all of the companies that it is associated with. Paramount are the distributers of the film and Dolby digital which converts the footage to a format that can be used in cinemas and on DVD's. We feel that that the background image of a dirty wall reflects the tone of the film as a whole.

Website: Title

When adding our title onto our website because we had a specific typography that we have been using throughout our other pieces of coursework. As we could not download our chosen font onto Wix we had to input our title as an image.








To do this we went onto the add button displayed at the side of the editor on Wix and chose to add an image without a border. If we had chosen to add an image with a border then it would not have the look that we want our website to have and might have mad it look less professional.








This then led us to an upload page in which we searched for the image of our title that we needed, that we had already created prior on PowerPoint, and uploaded it to the website.







Once we had done this the image then appeared on our website. We had to re-size and move the image into place on our website. We also made sure it was centered by using the grids that were already placed on the editor to help with this. We placed the image at the top of the page in the center.



Sunday, 8 March 2015

Website: Changing the Background.

We decided to create our website on wix.com, we opened up a blank website format so that we could have complete freedom to where we could place items on our homepage.

Firstly we decided on a background, a brick wall image like the one in our poster. We saved this to our computer system and then proceeded to add the background to our website layout.

To do this we went onto the design button on the website which led us to the background and general design of our website.













We selected the background button of the design tab which allowed us to customise our background with images that have been defaulted onto the website creator. Although, because we had already saved an image that we wanted to use as our background we selected the customise button which allowed us to upload our own image to use as our website's background.





Evaluation: First Draft (Trailer)


Once we had completed our final draft for our teaser trailer of a psychological thriller we received comments from people who had watched the trailer and also took into consideration some of the comments to improve our trailer.

Things that worked well:
  • credits were effective
  • mise-en-scene of the graffiti and killer's obsessive book
  • time lapse up London
  • close ups of victim/girl
  • combination of fast paced shots e.g. close ups of previous victim.
Things that needed to change:
  • the sound did not pick up as much as it should do towards the end of the trailer.
  • some shot within the trailer did not add to the effect on the audience.
  • clips towards the end could be faster and some cut out.
  • too many credits as it elongated the trailer unnecessarily. 

Shooting: Challenges

When shooting we did have some difficulties involving different problems each time.

One problem we faced, not of a technological or skill based problem, was finding a time when we could all be at the shooting so that we were all involved. One shooting that took place only two of us attended because we could not find a near enough time that we all could make it.

Another problem we had, especially when shooting the indoors scenes with the killer, was lighting. We had to move around lamps and even hold them up so that the lighting would be in the correct place so that it revealed what we wanted to audience to see but not so much that they would know the entire narrative and keep it more the to feel of our chosen genre.

We also when shooting these scenes of the killer has to try out different angles to what we had planned to do before we started filming. The ones that we had planned to film didn't look as professional as those that we had of our victim.

Many of these problems and difficulties we managed to overcome and the outcomes of our footage from these problems was professional as they allowed us to think of new ideas to film.

Monday, 2 March 2015

Website: Second Draft

While thinking of different designs for our website, I felt like our protagonist Emily, needed to be a part of it somehow. When doing the photoshoot for the poster, we took a variety of shots as at the time we were unsure of what we were going to do. There was a mid shot of Emily sitting by a wall looking into the distance which we did not use for the poster, it was also landscape which made it a better fit for the website. For the first draft, we used the original picture but then I realised it didn't stand out and wasn't as effective as we planned.


I then imported the image onto Photoshop and began playing around with various effects to try and find one which could work for our website. I found one called "poster lines" which gave it a hand-drawn quality, which again could work with our use of handwriting for our credits and the font we used for the typography on our poster. I then also added a vignette quality to the border, which made it seem more darker and more like a website homepage.




After importing it onto the Wix website the main problem that I had with the image I chose was the fact that it changed depending on the size of the computer screen I was working on, as my laptop is obviously a different size to the macs we use in school, so it was hard to move the other images around it.







One of the main requirements for our website is that it has to use the same typography as included in the trailer and on the website. However, there was an issue as Wix did not have the specific font we used as one of their default settings, nor would it let you download a font onto the website itself. Luckily Megan had already had to save the title as an image on Photoshop with a transparent background. I then imported the image onto the website editor and readjusted the image so it fit into the corner.


Another major thing to be involved is that our teaser trailer video needed to be present on the home screen and it needed to start playing as soon as the website was loaded. I decided to place the video to the right of Emily's face as I didn't want to cover up any part of her body. By doing this, it made it look like she was looking in the direction of the video which worked out to our advantage.



I wanted the Polaroids to be a main feature of the website as they are with the trailer and the poster but it was complicated to fit them alongside her body and the trailer so I opted to spread them out across the bottom of the screen. I then added the same effect that Megan added on the first website, where the mouse rolls over the Polaroids it flashes slightly.


However, when I finished making this draft, I felt like it wasn't as effective as our final version, which linked a lot better to the poster, including the background and using the Polaroids as links to the other pages. Although I like the idea of using our antagonist as the background, I feel the image isn't reflective of our psychological thriller genre, whereas the brick background used on the poster has a fade-to-black border around the edge, making it darker. Similarly, if I didn't want to cover up the image of our victim, it meant the video, links, tagline, reviews and Polaroids would either have to be a lot smaller or just look really cramped which isn't the aesthetic we were going for, so it was a lot easier to use the brick background.