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.