discussing the package

New Programmes and Skills

When we started the coursework I had never used the Mac computers before and was excited to see what they can do and the difference between them and other computers. This was very visible to me because straightaway I acknowledged different new programmes that I have only seen on the Mac's and interesting ways of using tools to create effects. I also found that simple tasks like saving and uploading were much quicker and easier on the Mac's. When revealed to the Mac computers we did have some practise from our preliminary task when making our music video. This meant that were able to become familiar with the tools and layout of the programme Final Cut Express. This is the programme we used to edit all of our trailer and found a comparison between this and the programme we previously used in AS, Pinnacle. I think Final Cut Express has more techniques available for us to use to help give our trailer better effects and the setup of the programme is easier to use. I personally see editing as one of weaker areas in this project as I am much more able on Photoshop but I think through this project and with help from the other members of my group I have definitely developed my skills and become much more confident with the programme. Towards the end of the project I felt that I could comfortably use most tools. I think one of the most time consuming and difficult times i had using Final Cut express is when me and another member of the group tried to make the title run smoother but we didn't know the effect of the different transitions well enough to help us change it. I think if we had more time I would have been able to explore this more to know I had a larger variety of transitions and effects.

As I have mentioned we used Photoshop to produce the magazine cover and poster for the project. As I use this programme in another subject I felt that this would be my stronger point in the project and I found that I helped other members of my group. Me and Laura took a big part in producing the magazine cover and poster but we all had our input and the other members were able to develop their skills too. We used Photoshop because we felt that this would be the best programme to use to modify images and to help us build up layers, especially for the poster. We made small changes using the programme but found they were effective and helped the presentation of our photographs. However, we did use PowerPoint on the Mac's for the magazine cover because we all decided that this is the easiest way for us to import text over the top of the cover image and place the text in various places and the use of different fonts and sizes. I think the programme helped us produce a pleasing magazine cover.

To film the trailer we decided on using the HD Flip Cameras which is different to what we used in our preliminary task. This is because we thought the camera was easier to use in different angles and also uploaded footage onto the Mac's very easily. It also meant that whilst filming we could easily play back what we had filmed to see if it was okay to use. I found the cameras easy to use and the tripods that we used definitely made the footage less shaky. I think with the tripods our filming wouldn't be so clear and wouldn't look professional. From using the cameras I learnt that the quality of the cameras is very good and gives a clear picture.

Another new programme that I was involved in using was GarageBand to create the music for our trailer. I hadn't used the programme before and found it great fun to listen and mix the different sounds available on the programme. When practising it was interesting to see how different sounds create different atmospheres and this was something we thought about when creating the music for the trailer. Along the way on the programme I learnt how to gradually lower the sound of the music so it fades out in sections and how to change the speed of the music. I think the programme is very easy to use it was just sometimes difficult to decide whether the sounds we were putting together worked.

 

To gain feedback about our trailer we used Facebook and You Tube as we knew that they are very popular sites and the majority of people our age use the sites. Exposing our trailer onto this sites showed me how much use the sites get and also how they are a great way to advertise products to our age group.

Target Audience Feedback

When we first started to produce our trailer we knew that we wanted our target audience to be people aged from 15-20 year olds. This is because we would give our film an age certificate of 15 and we felt that people aged up from this to 20 would be the people who we be the most interested in this type of genre. This is shown from our previous questionnaire to a group of 20 students and found that the majority of them like to watch this type of genre so we felt that we had to follow this through by thinking about what our target audience would enjoy. Another aspect that we acted on from our previous target audience research was that we found the students preferred the characters to be the same age as them as they feel they can relate to the storyline more. This is why we have used one of our friends as the main character as she fits into the middle age of our target audience as she is 17. This is shown again from our new results that were taken after the trailer was created as we asked another group of students if they like that she is the similar age to them and the percentage of them saying yes was quite high. This shows that the age of characters is quite an important element of films.

Here are our latest target audience feedback results that we have changed into bar graphs to make it clear and understandable. As one of our main priorities was that the trailer gave a clear instruction of what the genre of the film was we decided to question our students to see what they thought. We made the question multiple choice so they had a decision between each genre we mentioned. Thankfully we had a positive result of them concluding that it is a thriller film being advertised. However, the percentage of people saying it looked like a horror is not far behind. I think this could be because some of our clips are slightly more dramatic, for example when she appears from the water at the end, instead of being more thrilling. I don't think this is surprising to us because we did feel that some elements may reflect a horror theme but we think the two genres can sometimes be linked together so we didn't see it as worry for us. To contribute to the pleasing result of the students knowing the genre we had an excellent result of the students believing that we had followed the typical conventions of a thriller genre. This is great for us because we have felt that we have accomplished our task as we have used techniques that some professional trailers may have used to pursue a thriller genre trailer.

This result here is also pleasing as we have tried to commit to tension building throughout the trailer. We decided as a group that this was a very important aspect to have in a trailer and especially a thriller. To see that the students think there is means that we have successfully used a technique seen in most professional trailers. This also meant that we didn't feel we needed to change anything to make it more interesting for our audience to watch.

To see that our audience wants to watch the film after the trailer is very pleasing for us all because we feel that we have made the right decisions along the process and had a successful result.

After showing our trailer to a group of students who go to our sixth from we decided to gain more feedback by putting the trailer onto Facebook. This site is open to a lot more people and we asked for any feedback. We again had some positive comments about the trailer however someone did comment about who our character is talking to. When making the trailer we thought this was clear but this has shown that maybe it isn't. Even though there is a slight confusion we felt that we didn't need to change the dialogue because you can still understand that she is stressed and needs help and someone to talk to. A second comment was about Frank being in one of the shots but she was meant to be playing the role of one of Megan's friend as we wanted to create the atomosphere of an everyday at school from the locker but then this changing when she sees the chess piece inside. I think this isn't something for us to worry about changing because Megan is still the main focus in the shot.

I think from our results we can see that we have thought about our target audience when making the trailer and expanding on ideas. We did use the feedback we gained from the first questionnaire and I am glad we did this because I think this helped us understand the message the trailer needs to give to our audience.

The Whole Package

When we first started creating our whole package and idea we knew that all three features, poster, magazine cover and trailer had to fit well with each other and promote our imagined film. We have created a package that we think will attract a mainstream audience as well felt that this would be best for our chosen genre of film and would enable us to engage as many people as possible into our products.

We believe as a group and individually that our three features work very well together as we have kept aspects similar and met the conventions of each element. The poster is something that we knew would be visible to everyone as it would be seen in the street on bus shelters etc. and knew it would have to be attention grabbing. This is why we put a lot of effort and creation into this and I think we have a pleasing outcome. We used a certain font that we felt fitted well with the genre of the film and chose a colour scheme of red, white, grey and black. These are two elements that we have used through all three products. This is because it shows a link between them all and also begins to be familiar with our audience and more noticeable. Another main aspect that is seen in all three products is the symbol of a chess piece as the title of the film is 'Checkmate'. We felt we needed to carry this through in the three elements because it is the main importance of the film and similarly to the stalker we are leaving our mark with the chess piece. The magazine like the poster is going to available to most people to see but is mainly towards people interested in film as it is a film magazine. This is why we had to make the cover very eye catching and decided to use a photo that looked like a shot from the film. This is a contrast to the poster as this photograph looks very set up and was. This shows how the two have different audiences to attract but both are important to urge our audience to watch the film. Along with these two advertisements the trailer is the product that reveals the most and informs the audience more. This shows that the poster and magazine cover may interest our audience but the trailer is the main product that will help push our audience into going to watch the film. This shows how the three work together in different ways to help contribute to the audience watching the film. The three elements have a relationship as they are all similar but also different as they have their different aims but the main aim of all three is to urge our audience into watching the film and I think they all do this.

I think one of the most successful elements of our magazine cover is the layout of the cover. We have managed to incorporate different sized fonts and colours keeping with familiar colour scheme in the other products. The text surrounds the model on the cover meaning that the photo is clear to see and the writing helps draw the attention the centre. The text was one of the main priorities to us for the magazine cover as we wanted to get the right balance and felt that this would help make it look professional. Another aspect I like about the magazine cover is the photograph that we chose to use. We had many photos to choose from and in our development we tried out different ones but we are pleased with our final decision. I think the fact that the photo is outside and has an interesting background makes it different and definitely look as if it is a shot from the film. I think with the photo and the text the magazine cover would grab our audience and would make them want to read about the film. I have picked these two elements of the magazine cover because I think as well as the most important parts of the cover they have both worked well. I think the cover portrays a film magazine genre and also has the promotion element for our film. One of the difficulties we had when creating the magazine cover was at first we couldn't agree what photograph to use as we all had different ideas of how the poster should look and some people in my group like the close up photos whereas some thought this became to look more like a fashion magazine cover for some of the photos. Even though we all had different ideas we were able to compromise and had a pleasing result that we all agreed on.

I feel that our poster has worked very well as it promotes the film and has very easy layout that is attention grabbing from the emotion created from the close up of the character. One of the aspects that I think has worked particularly well is the chess piece that is covering one side of the characters face. The chess piece looks as if it becoming part of the character maybe because she can't get away from the stalker and the chess piece is what he leaves as his mark. I think the chess casting a shadow on her face makes it look threatening towards the character and represents the genre of our film. I like how our character looks upset and the smudged make up adds to her being stressed and detached from anyone else. Even though I like how the chess piece is transparent I think that it could have been slightly less to make it more pronounced in the poster. I think the colour scheme is another element that works really well on the poster because they contrast against each other and the red really stands out. When creating the poster we decided on only using the main characters name to not give away who the stalker is but now I do think that we could have had other name that could have played parts of her friends or family as she wont be the only actress in the film. However, I understand that like this it raises the suspicions of who the stalker is. Something that I don't like about the poster is the plain black background behind the chess as I think we could have graduated the colour slightly as the other side is grey.

I think one of the best assets of our trailer is the quick cuts that are towards the end of the trailer. This is something commonly seen in thriller genre trailers to create tension and build up the climax of the trailer. I think our quick cuts do this in our trailer and without them it wouldn't be so interesting and grabbing to the audience. When filming we knew that we wanted to include fast cuts and that's why we tried to film as much as we could so we could include different short angles and positions. The quick cuts contribute to the trailer looking professional and shows the influence from our main inspiration 'Disturbia' as they also have gradual fast cuts. To increase this tension we decided to make the music quicker as it plays further into the trailer. The music is another aspect I think has worked well and definitely helped pull the trailer together. I like the basic beats we have used and from our research we found that thriller trailers had no vocals included unlike what you would maybe see in a Rom-Com trailer, so we too have not included any vocals. I like the slow pace of the music at the end of the trailer because I think it fits in with the dramatic shots and also the release date and billing block enter the screen on the beat of the music which is very effective.

I think one of the weaknesses of the trailer is the title of 'Checkmate' because the smoke jogs slightly as it plays. Me and another member of the group tried prevent this and tried different transitions to see if this helped it play smoothly but we didn't have enough time or experience with the programme to be able to make it better. I am glad we tried to make the appearance better and I think that it isn't a very noticeable aspect I just think it would have looked more professional if we were able to do it. When were editing parts of the footage we found that some clips were too short like the bath clip, so we had to change the speed of them which we thought the audience might see but luckily this hasn't had a bad effect on the clips and has helped us prolong sections.

When we were producing the film we were trying to use a variety of shots and I think we have managed to do this as their are many angles during our trailer. I think this is something that has worked well and definitely fits the conventions of trailer as they have to include different shots to make it interesting for the audience to watch. I like the titles in the trailer as they expand on the screen because I think this adds to the threatening atmosphere and also I have noticed that trailers of this genre use the same effect on their titles. They have worked well because it links to the game of chess and the audience feel like they are becoming involved with the game.

Evaluating Conventions

This is the first print screen I have taken from our trailer. I like this shot because I think that it feels as if the camera is almost planted in our characters bedroom which adds to the mystery of the story and as if the stalker in question is always watching her. Also the bedroom is quite a private place and the camera is invading this like the stalker of the film. I think this angle works well because it shows a natural movement of her curiosity which continues through to the audience. This shot reminds me of the Paranormal Activity trailers as it is as if the camera is trying to catch the characters everyday movement. This shows that our research has had some influence on us and we have used different angles like other trailers to represent curiosity.

This is our billing block that appears on the screen at the end of our trailer. We have done this beacuse we found from our trailer research that a billing block is a convention of all trailers as it the credits to the most important people of the film. We produced this ourselves and included our film institution and production company. I think the billing block works well with the trailer beacuse as well as informing the audience of the people who contributed to the film it is also a sign of the trailer finishing as we have found that many trailers have this towards the end. The billing block definitely helps make our trailer look more professional and as if the trailer is advertising a real film.

This shot is one of the main links to our title 'Checkmate' and we repeat this at different speeds throughout. As a group we felt it was important to have this connection to show where we got the idea of the title from and why we used it as one of the main symbols. We also felt that most trailers represent to the audience why the films are called what are they are for it to make sense to them and also show that the title informs them of the what the film is about. I like that the shot is from the same hiehgt of the hand which forces the audience to watch the movement of the chess piece. I think the shadows created from the chess piece really accentuate their shape and design which re inforces the symbol which i again shown when the title appears in the trailer. I think that this being the only time the audience see anything from the stalker works well beacuse like other thriller genre trailers we were trying to not reveal to much to the audience. This is another convention we spotted when doing our research. We found it also hepls build the tension of the trailer and urges the audience to wacth the film to find out who is behind the chess board.

 

When watching trailer we found that one of the most common conventions of a trailer is there film institution logo being shown. We found that many trailers have them at the very beginning but we decided against this as we wanted the filming to engage the audience straightaway. However, we have kept the logo near the beginning of the trailer so it doesnt disrupt when our trailers tension begins to build more and the cuts become quicker. Adding the logo inbetween shots has worked well and makes our trailer appear to be realistic.

Here we have deicided to use an split screen effect on the shot to show how we can use different tools and to help create the confusion shown from the actress. She looks very stressed in the shot and to empahsise this we felt adding the split screen would give the audience a lot to concentrate on and give an insight to how she must feel inside beacuse she has so much happening to her. The spilt screen is a convention we saw in the 'Disturbia' trailer which is one of our main trailers that we took insoiration from as it is a thriller genre. Howver, they used the split screen to show other people acting at the same time whereas we hyave used one charcter to help create her distress. 'Disturbia' used four parts in their split screen but we felt we only needed two because it is of the same character. Also something we would have liked to change is that the two sides had different footage but we still think this works well because the reverse footage implies that everything keeps playing over in her mind. We have wanted to use a split screen in our trailer since our storyboards but we have developed it and used it on a different shot to what we previously decided. I think we made the right choice in where we have included it as I think it works well with the emotion from the character.

I have chosen this print screen because I like how the camera is looking down on the character making her look very vulnerable. This is something typicallly seen in trailers as well as films because it automatically suggest to the audience the characters position in the film and their role. For example this character is the damsel in distress throughout the film and trailer. We chose to put the character behind the door to show that she is trying to block everything out and keep away from the stalker. The lighting looks very natural and I think you can tell that is a room light so it tells the audience that it is at night which adds to the threatening atmosphere.

This shot is towards the end of the trailer where the character is trying to drown herself. We wanted to add a dramatic scene like this to represent how the stalker is affecting her and she feels that there is no one to help. We have quick cuts up until this point and this is beacuse we wanted to show how much was happening to her and then how she feels this is the only way to deal with it. I think this has worked well because I like the contrast in speed and in fact we made this shot longer to empasise the isolation and to help the audience sympathise with her. The shot was quite difficult for our friend to do as she had to hold her breath underwater but I think what we managed to capture works great because her eyes being open give a sense of her being lost and make it much more freaky for the audience to watch. We decided to add this because we felt that from our research trailers had something towards the end that really grabbed the audiences attention and spirals questions of what happened. I think the only apect that we wasn't too sure on as a group was that our actress is dressed but this is something that we think could imply her madness and represent that she isn't preparing herself for a bath but to take her life.

After the titles if our trailer this shot appears as she pulls herslef out of the water. We did this to shock the audience as they may have thought the trailer had finished. It is also shows that she didn't carry out the suicide so the audience then want to know what actually happens to her. This is a convention we have seen in trailers and I think we have used it well here as it fits in with our genre aswell as the storyline. I like the shot because of the dripping water from her face and the smudged make up which makes her eyes look quite dark meaning the audience can't connect with her. The smudged make up is something seen intrailers to show the characters tress or upest and we have used it here to show both of those elements. I think the postioning  of this shot in the trailer has worked particularly well and I think definitely would urge the audience to watch it as it shows that something unexpected may happen in the film.

Along with the billing block the date of the film release appears on the screen. This a very important convention of a film trailer as the purpose of the trailer is to inform them what the film is about and when they can watch it. It is typically seen a the end of the trailer so the audience engage with the actions throughout the trailer and make their opinion and then decide if they want to see it. We have used black and white like all of our titles in the trailer and clear, bold font. I think the black empty space around the text adds to the eery atmosphere after seeing the character pull out of the water. It also fits in with the slow beat at the end of the trailer and I think this makes it effective as it tells the audience it is something important that they need to know.

Our Final Trailer

Titles

We have now completed our editing apart from the titles. We have decided to use the same font as the title of our film that we used on the poster and magazine cover. This is because it means all of our advertising links together. We have also used a black, plain background with white writing because this ties in with the chessboard idea as well as the two colours contrast against each other. The black is also a colour that is a convention of our genre as thrillers are seen as dark and dangerous. We decided that we wanted our titles to gradually expand on the screen as if they are coming towards the audience. I think this works well because it makes the audience feel threatened as they close in on them and I think it adds to the tension. Inbetween the titles we added a fade transition so they appeared on the screen slowly which emphasises the words and also enables enough time for the audience to read them. The titles are links to the game of chess as well as the game played between the main character and the stalker. We did this because we thought it would add to the mystery of who the stalker is as well as build the suspense. I think this has worked well because I like how we have linked the two aspects together.

When the title of our film appears towards the end of the trailer we wanted it to be more interesting and eye catching so we had the idea of using smoke that gradually fades out to create the shape of a chess piece to again tie in with the name of the film. To do this me and another member of my group opened an image of smoke onto Photoshop. We then used the shape of a chess piece as an outline so we knew what the smoke needed to change into. Then creating different layers we changed the opacity of each one so when played together as Gif file the smoke gradually fades. This is similar to what we did for our Production Company Logo when we made this animatic too, this is why we found it easier to do this time. Like the Production Company logo we had to use fade transitions inbetween to make it run smoothly when we imported it onto Final Cut Express. I think this has worked well because it makes our trailer appear more professional and it shows that as a group we have paid attention to detail and creativity.  

Extra Filming

We had planned to film some our trailer at a friends party as at he beginning of our trailer we wanted our character to be seen with her friends at a party to show how her 'normal' life slowly changes over time. However, we had the problem of our actress not being able to come to the party as she was busy. this was a step back for us as we didn't know what we was going to do. Without being able to film when we got back to class we watched what we had again and decided that we could begin our film with what we already had. From discussion between the group we felt that this would have not been needed in the trailer as we think that the it may have made the trailer too long and is information the audience doesn't need.
Even though we had come to a conclusion about the change if filming we still felt that we needed a little extra footage to show a different setting, time of day, and angles. We filmed the clips at school during our free time as our character is a student and it shows that changes are happening to her in different places. I t was also a good place for us to all be able to get together as we were all at school. We used aspects of school such as lockers in the shots to help us use different angles. It was also a very nice day so we took advantage of this by doing some filming outside as well as inside. I think this short extra filming was worth us doing as we had some small gaps to fill and it contributed to our quick short cuts that we have towards the end of the trailer to build tension. However, I do think that the outside shots don't fit with our genre so well as it would be much more intense if it was the evening or night but then we wouldn't have been able to use the different setting if we were to change this.

Music

As previously mentioned when we began editing we realised that our music wasn't right for our trailer because we had too many sounds that didn't fit well together as well as too much change in the style of music through the trailer. We felt that it didn't create the right atmosphere we wanted as we want it to be tense and build suspense. Here is a print screen of our music on GarageBand before we developed it:

As you can see we have many changes of sound from the different layers we have. We tried to blend the different sounds together by gradually incorporating them all but this still didn't sound right. So we have started again by deciding to begin with a sound that will be our drone as it plays throughout the whole piece. This is a very low, repetitive beat that enabled us to match the next beat. We wanted the music to be quite slow at the beginning as we wanted it to gradually get more depth like the trailer. We then watched our edited trailer so far and where we felt our trailer began to show more tension and mystery we added another faster beat that increased the sense of something changing in the trailer and to the character. I like that the music fits in with the action of the trailer as i definitely think it makes the trailer more excitable to watch and will help engage the audience. With the tension being built towards the middle of the trailer we then decided to lower this towards the very end as we wanted the audience to sympathise with the character more and to make an eery atmosphere. I think this change in sound has contributed to this. To do this we gradually faded out the music so we can only hear a low beat that also fits with the titles and billing block appearing at the end. We have realised whilst developing the music how much difference it makes to the trailer and we definitely feel that it makes it the trailer much more interesting to watch. We have now completed the music and all like the developed version much better. We have still got small changes to make such as loud, short beat sounds when the titles come up but we haven't done this yet as we are still working on some of the titles. This is a print screen of our developed and completed music and I think the change in how much is in the music piece is very visible. 

Development of Production Logo

After our pleasing result of our designed 'Night View' logo we thought it would add to the drama and professional look of the logo if we animated it slightly. We came up with the idea of when the logo appears on the screen the eyes gradually fade in and become brighter which also makes it more threatening. To do this we opened the designed logo onto Photoshop. I duplicated the layer numerous of times and then changed the brightness of the eyes in each layer by using the eraser tool but on a different opacity each time so the colour gradually built up. Then with all the layers made I then made this into an Animation. I hadn't done this before but we did have some practise in our music video (preliminary task) as a group as we put animation into that. This was time consuming as we had to put each layer into the time line and change the times of each layer. However when we had finished the animation we found that it was jolting slightly when it moved to each different layer. To stop the appearance of this we opened it onto Final Cut Express and used a fade transition between the layers so it ran smoothly. We are all very pleased with the animation and glad we put the effort in to making it move as we think it gives a great effect.

Our Production Company Logo

Alongside with our chosen institution we have designed and produced our own production company logo. We have called the company 'Night View' as we thought it sounded dark to fit with our conventions of a thriller film and also 'view' connects with watching the film. The idea of cats eyes came from the link of cats eyes in the road at night. With this we then adapted it to glaring cats eyes as cats too can be seen as bad luck and an omen of death. To makes the eyes more pronounced we decided on curving the text around the eyes. The bright yellow eyes contrast against the black background which emphasises the idea of them looking into the audience. We wanted to keep the logo quite simple as from researching other production companies we found that they had something memorable but not too fancy, especially for our type of genre. We created the logo on Powerpoint and imported the image of the cats eyes from the internet but changed the brightness and shade of them to our liking. I think the thin lettering makes the logo look prefessional and also more exaggerated. I like the logo as i think it is different and the style fits with our genre of film.

Institution Company

As a group we have deiced to use Dimension Film as our chosen institution as from research we have found that this company is associated with similar genres to our chosen genre, thriller. Dimension Films is currently part of The Weinstein Company as when the Weinstein brothers decided to part from Miramax they took this label with them. The company have released films such as, Halloween, The Others, Scream, Spy Kids and Piranha 3D. All of these films have a genre of horror/ thriller and this is why we felt that it would suit our film best.

Final Poster

This is our final poster that we have developed over time as a group. After experimenting with different colours we decided to change the photo to black and white but kept it bright so we can see her emotion clearly. Black and white also connects to the chess board which is part of our film and trailer. I think being in black and white also makes the titles stand out more and to act more on this we decided to have the title of the film in red and her name in white as it is on the dark part of her hair. Having the title in red fits with the colour theme throughout our project but can also have connotations of death, love, danger which are all aspects in our film. We chose to put the date of when the film is released in red too as we think that the title and date is the most important information to be seen immediately on a film poster. We used a photo of a chess piece that we took and to put the two photographs together on Photoshop. By creating two layers one for the chess piece and one for the portrait we were able to set the transparency of the chess piece quite low to create this ghostly affect as it lays over one side of her face. It also let us cut around the shape of the chess piece so we had the selected part only. Then using the eraser tool on a low opacity we gradually blended in the chess piece to her face as if the chess has become a part of her as she can't get away from it or maybe as if she is using it as something to hide behind. I think it also tells the audience that the chess is a main part of the film and we used this as a symbol of her stalker as we didn't want to reveal to the audience who it is. We didn't make many changes to our model, only her head was tilted slightly so we straightened this up by rotating it a small amount.

I am pleased with the outcome of poster as i think it portrays what our film is about and i like that the portrait is close up as i think this really pulls you into the character. I think having the chess piece as one of the main aspects of the poster is important and I like how it covers one side of her face as I think it adds mystery to what it is about. I also like the layout of the poster as I think it works well and neatly surrounds the portrait. I think our poster is quite simple as there isn't too much too take in but it is effective as the blended chess and positioning looks quite professional and artistic. I believe that this poster will appeal to our target audience and would urge them to watch the film.

Editing Begins

We have now watched all of the clips we have taken and decided that there are certain parts that we would really like to re film as there are aspects of the footage such as lighting that doesn't tie in with the setting. I think if we don't have time to re film parts it will affect our film because it may appear that we haven't paid attention to details but we know as group that we still have a lot of work to do and feel that we only will take action on this if we have time towards the end of the project. We have also noticed that our music doesn't fit with our film and we feel that there is too many beats and different sounds. We have decided that this doesn't work well with the footage we have edited so far so we are going to change this when we have more edited clips so it fits in better with the change of scenes and different moods trying to be created as we want the music to build up tension as the trailer goes on.
We have had to cut many of our clips because they are too long and we don't want our audience to feel like that are watching a short film instead of a trailer. We have also decided to cut some clips up and use the different parts during different sections of the trailer as they still tie in and make sense. I think this works in our trailer because it helps build the pressure and tension. It also contributes to the conventions of a trailer as we want to give the audience some information but not too much and also from our research we have realised that the clips don't have run chronologically. We have also found that we have added fade in fade out transitions to help the trailer run smoothly and help the flow of the different clips playing with each other. We are planning to use a spilt screen for a part of the trailer but we haven't developed that far into our footage yet. When we first watched our clips we felt that we hadn't filmed enough and I do think this is true in some aspects as I think we could have a larger variety of angles and shots such as more close ups as I think this will help us make the trailer quicker as we would have more clips to choose from. However, after editing some we feel better about our footage and we think that we are going to be able to work well with what we have.

Poster Draft

After using images from the internet as a basic idea of what we would like our poster to look like we then used one of our photos that we took. We decided on one that was close up and indoors. This means that it is different to our magazine cover and looks more professional and would have been taken at a different time. Her make up in this photo is down her face so it looks like she has been crying and she doesn't have much expression on her face which tells the audience that she is upset and maybe lost in what to do. When taking the photo we wanted to have a shadow on one side of her face so we used a light reflector on one side. This is because on one side we are having a chess piece cast a shadow over her as if it taking over her which ties in with the emotion we want in our film as she cant seem to get away from the re occurring chess piece and person. As we still have taken the photo of a chess piece we have had to practice with an image from the internet still and have been using PowerPoint. Here is the first development we did:

You can see that we have put the title across the top and the actresses name. We decided to only put her name in the poster because she is the main character and we felt that if we put the other characters in we would be revealing who her stalker is to the audience before they have watched it. We have also made a billing block that is across the bottom of the poster with the date of when the film is out in slightly bigger font. We changed the photo to black and white to represent the sad mood in the photo but felt that it was slightly too dark. 

Here you can see that we have made it brighter so her features are more visible such as her eyes which I think enables the audience to engage with her more and her emotion. I think being brighter also increases the contrast in the photo and makes her face stand out against the black background. 

Experimenting with the colours further we changed the photo so it was slightly sepia but again we felt that it went too dark and wouldn't be bold enough to stand out to our audience. We tried this colour because we thought it added to the depressed and sad emotion on her face.

Here we have lowered the saturation of the photo but not used the sepia effect. I think this gives enough brightness and contrast in the photo without it being too dark and also fits with the emotions trying to be portrayed through the photo. With the photo having more colour we decided to change the title to grey as we think it stands out better here and appeals to the eye better than red. We still kept red in the poster in her name as our main colours throughout the project have been red, grey and white. Throughout the developments we like this outcome however once we have the photo of the chess piece it may change again.

Final Magazine Cover

This is our final magazine cover that we have all decided on. As you can see we have chose to use one of the photographs taken outside as we all felt that it was more effective as it helps build more sense of a chase, worry and also we think our audience may sympathise with her more as she looks vulnerable. We liked how she is looking over her shoulder as if she is running away from someone and also is a change to the typical 'gaze' seen in mostly editorial fashion magazines. Even though she isn't looking straight at the camera we think she still engages with the audience because she is facing us and they are intrigued to know what she is looking at. I particularly like the background of this photo as we can see car headlights from the traffic passing and the street lights. I think this implies that it is a shot our film and it advertising the film more than just the actress. I also think the blur and shadow created shows a sense of movement which adds to the threatening atmosphere. 

    When editing the photo we made small adjustments such as one of the headlights was too bright and very close to her face under her ear as you can see . To  remove this I used the clone tool on Photoshop so it looked like it was never there. We also decided to air brush her face slightly. We did this by using the gaussian blur effect on the photo but on a different layer and then erased sections such as her eyes, nose, hair, mouth and ears. As the original layer is underneath you can see what parts to erase and how it looks. It still looks realistic and her features are in focus but her skin looks smoother.  We also used the clone tool again on areas such as her coat to remove things like coat poppers and also made parts of her zip darker so it wasn't so prominent in the photo. 

When we put the writing we had already done over the top of the photo we thought it fitted well as she is in the centre of the cover and the writing surrounds her. We have developed the magazine further as well as we changed the font of some or our writing, the size, the colour and also added more text in as we felt it needed slightly more to be more appealing to our audience and eye-catching. We also added small things like the magazine website address and issue number as it is a convention of magazine cover. To balance out the appearance of the cover we decided to add a ribbon to the bottom. This is bullet points of other films that are going to be coming out and are spoken about in the magazine. 

Day of Filming

On the dedicated day of filming we got the majority of footage done and to do this we decided to slit up into pairs filming different parts to help us get it done quicker and took advantage of having two flip cameras. However, I think that maybe doing this is why when we played the footage on the computer we have decided that we don't have enough varied shots. This is a problem for us cause we feel that we might have to re film parts which means that we will have to organise another time that everyone is free to do filming. We filmed during the day and asked our actress to change outfits for different scenes. This also took some time as we had to decided what for her to wear and felt that we was sometimes wasting time deciding on the positions of the camera. I think this shows that we could have prepared more before the day of filming. One of the problems we have realised with filming during the day is the scenes were it is meant to be night time have slightly got a hint of daylight even though we tried to block this out. This is something that we might re film if we have time and is one of the aspects that hasn't worked particularly well.

We used the HD cameras and found that we had to use the tripods because otherwise the filming wasn't steady enough. Laura and Amara filmed the scenes of the chess pieces moving across the board and this took them sometime as they were creating a shadow but I think it was worth their time as the lighting is quite good on these shots. Whilst they were doing this me and Frank were filming the shot of her brushing her hair in the bathroom. I think we have filmed this clip quite well because we have managed use movement of the camera in the shot which builds up the tension.

I think during the day we all worked well together as we had to make joint decisions and help each other with positioning of cameras and angles. We gave our actress as much direction as we could to help her and to enable us to get the shots that we wanted. I think we had a good relationship with our actress because she is a friend of ours which meant that we all felt comfortable with each other and was an advantage for us. Eve though we all agree that we might have to re film sections or add sections i think the day went well as we have most of our filming and means that we are ready to start editing.

Trailer Animatics

With our completed storyboards we have created our animatics but we haven't completed the music for the trailer yet so we have created sound effects for now and dialogue. The cuts are slightly too quick at the moment as when we actually do the filming we think that they may be a little longer. This is no surprise to us as from previous work we have realised that our filming may not be exact to our storyboards because ideas can change as they can look different once filmed. The animatics have helped us visualise what are trailer is going to be like and has helped us imagine our ideas. However, we are going to work more on our script and music obviously as I think this will make a big improvement and difference. You can see that in our animatics we have tried to use different angles to create different atmospheres as well as making rhe trailer more interesting. We have used a point of view shot from the character (Megan) as she walks in and discovers the footsteps on the floor. Looking down on them makes the audience feel as if they are there with the character and draws them into the mystery. Another technique we are planning to use is at split screen as we have previously discovered how to do this on Final Cut Express and feel that we need to take this chance to show the new technique we have learnt. The split screen reveal more than one angle and also more than one action happening. We think that this will help build the tension of the film as the audience have a lot to concentrate on.

Costume

As our film is is meant to be everyday life for the character but something strange happening the costume is very basic. We have asked our friend to bring clothes to the filming day that she would wear everyday, casual wear. I think this will also appeal to our target audience as she will be wearing the latest fashions and trends which will help the girls in our audience relate to her 'noraml' lifestyle. We have a part in our trailer where she is waking up in the morning so we have asked her to bring pj's for this section. Another part that her costume has to be slightly different is when she is returning home from a party. We would like her to wear a dress but it is at the end of the party so we would like her to look slightly messy to show that she is maybe upset and definitely ready for home. Also when she is in the bath towards the end we have asked her to bring an old vest top and bikini bottoms as she will be getting wet and we wont see the bottom of her. At first we thought that it may not look right that she is clothing but we didn't expect our friend to not wear something and also we think that because she is planning on taking her life not just a bath it doesn't matter. Her make up is also what our friend wears everyday but in the bath part again we wanted the make up to run slightly to show stress and upset.

Filming Preparation

We are planning on filming our footage during the half term as we think this will be the best time as at weekends some of has have jobs and its hard to get everyone together. We are filming at one of the girls in our group house as outside her house is quite quiet and the layout of her rooms are good for us to use. With knowing when we are going to film we have began planning a shedule of the day so we know what we ve got to do and i think it will also help us keep in time with eveything we have got to shoot. As well as the shedule we have made a prop list so our friend knows what we would like her to bring in and also lets us check that we have everything we need.





These lists will help us keep organised and our storyboards that we have produced will help us rememeber what we have to shoot and roughly for how long. Even though we are using our storyboards as a guidline of what we need to do we know from previous filming that our ideas may change slightly from the orginal storyboard ideas as sometimes shots may look better a different way on the camera than what we originally imagined. When filming we are going to make sure that we have enough different shots, angles and versions so we have enough to chose from when editing and also it is hard for everyone to be free again for filming so we want to get the majority done on the day. We are going to use the flip cameras as we think they are easy to use and to put in different angles as they are quite small and also the quality is quite good. For our prelimiary taks we used different cameras but have decided to go for the flip cams as we have seen other groups use them in our class and we think that the quality of the shots are better. We are going to use tripods for the camera so we can keep are filming steady causing no wobbles and to help with things like zooming in and out in shots.

Magazine Development

After selecting a few photographs that we liked as a group we each edited a photo on Photoshop. As I take Photography as a subject too I had quite a good understanding of the effects and tools you can use and tried to use as many as i could to create a realistic magazine cover photo. I changed the levels of the photo and the brightness and contrast which made the colours stand out more especially the warm orange glow that follows her movement. I erased any blemishes by using the spot healing tool but our model didn't have many so I didn't have to concentrate too much on this. I chose to work on this photo because I liked the outside shots the most because I felt that it looked more like a scene out of the film than the shots we took inside with a black background. In this photo I think that from her looking to her left makes it feel as if she watching out for someone and makes the audience interested to know what she is seeing. I also think her coat being off her shoulders adds to the character looking vulnerable and upset. However, it could also be seen as sexual so I think we wouldn't use this photograph as we don't want to portray the wrong story of our film through our photo. Another aspect i am not too keen on in the photograph is the fence behind her as even though it helps make her stand out it is a bland background but i do like the angle it creates in the photo. I think the photo looks well with the writing of the magazine over the top but as a group we have decided that we wont be using this particular photo but we all felt that by trying out different photographs helped us make our decision on the photo we will use and  was beneficial to us to experiment with the different photos. 

Our Photos

After taking the photos we selected a range of photos that we liked as a group. Here are some of them: 

These are the photos before we edited them and have tried to select photos that are of different angles and settings to have a good range to choose a final photo from. The photographs that have a a grey background and where she is dressed in a floral top is Megan being the actress and not in character as we are not sure whether we want to do an interview from the actress in our magazine or not. The photos with a black screen are her in character and you can also see this from the change of make up and dress.

Final Cut Express

At the start of the A2 course we produced a music video to the song 'The Show' by Lenka. This was preliminary task for us to become use to the tools and new techniques on the Mac computers. As a group we each learnt new skills on the programme as well as becoming familiar with the Mac computers as a whole. I hadn't used the Macs before this task and I found that they have so many programmes to help you produce your work and also quite easily as their are so many tools available. I think we all found this task very beneficial because we used this as a practise to learn new techniques and become use to how the tools work and where they are which will help us edit our trailer quicker. We adapted to Final Cut Express quite quickly and were able to do easy edits like cutting clips and moving them around. We then used the different effects on the programme such as fade transitions and reversing clips to make clips interesting. Using these programmes we felt that we had a good outcome with our music video and feel sure that this will happen again with our trailer.