Final Review Layout

Final Poster Choices

We have decided on which two posters we are going to use for our poster. We will use:

Callum's Poster

We have chosen to use this poster for many reasons. Firstly, Callum has used photoshop for many years and was very comfortable and confident with creating this poster. On the other hand, Greg and I have never used photoshop before and knew little about the software. We both practiced in order to create an effective poster. There are many great aspects of this poster that really appeal to the target demographic (young adults.) The main image used in Callum's poster includes the two main characters which inform the audience and already give them clues which will make them want to watch the short film. The two images are close but not looking directly at each other which shows a sense of competition and rivalry which is displayed in our film. Also, I really like the colour scheme Callum used as the colours are very mysterious and enigmatic. The use of smoke is synonymous of the thriller and crime genre. Callum has included all the aspects of a film poster such as the title, reviews, actors and the credit block. We chose this poster because it looks very realistic and I could see it in magazines (Little White Lies) as well as online. It really captures the mood of the poster and I believe that he has really made the villain look frightening and quite creepy by the light behind him. He has used a different costume to the short film such as the hat and the tie but it works because it makes the villain look like a typical character from a thriller film who inflicts fear and danger on others. Lastly, I believe that the font for the title "Exhibit J" and other texts is bold and stands out as it has a shadow behind it and catches peoples eyes. The white colour stands out from the black background and the main image.

I can really see this poster online as it is an intriguing and artistic poster, the demographic will want to watch our short film because the enigmatic atmosphere creates an interest from the audience on social networking.

Sofia's Poster (with parts of Greg's poster)
We decided as a group to chose my poster (Sofia) but to also incorporate aspects of Greg's poster as he had some really good ideas. This poster is very different compared to Callum's, we wanted to show a variety of designs to display our short film. The darkness and mystery of this poster is very effective as it looks like a typical thriller film poster. Its quite simple as it only uses one main image but is eye catching. I chose to use a black background because it makes the text and image stand out but it also looks gloomy and threatening which is also portrayed in the image. I chose this image because it is quite disorientated and it fades into the background to show that the villain "J" has a hidden identity in our film. The mask is very synonymous and well known as it is used in many thrillers and horrors because it is very creepy and spine chilling. I chose white text for the reviews, actors and credit block so that they fit with the image and can be clearly seen in front of the dark background. Greg's poster included the main actors which I was missing so he came up with idea of including them in my poster. As you can see, I played the actors names around the mask so that they surrounded the bottom of the masks point.  The title "Exhibit J" is in a red colour to connote blood and danger. The font also looks slightly aged to add enigma to the poster. I decided to include our group logo for "NewbieHills" which is green hills in the bottom left of the poster to show who produced the film. In addition, social networking sites are linked to the poster to show where we are advertising our film and where it is available. Short films rely on advertising online as they do not have the budget to be shown in cinemas or on big billboard like feature films. The main sites Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are shown because they are the most popular with the target audience (young adults) and are now easily accessible as everyone owns some sort of smart device. In conclusion, I believe that by using Gregs ideas and my ideas we have created a great poster which really captures the themes in our short film. We have worked really well as a group during the poster stage and have produced 2 powerful film posters!

Evolution of poster designs and FINAL POSTER! - Callum Horncastle

So, after being assigned to create some drafts for posters, I've put my four drafts together for comparison, along with my final draft to be my main poster.

{Poster Version 1.0}

This was my first poster, which included a basic layout of a case file with the film title written over it.
The merged face of the main character and the antagonist was relatively well done.
However, overall I think this draft looked very unprofessional and very sloppy; I didn't like the layout at all and I quickly scrapped it for my next version.
                                                                                                                                                

{Poster Version 2.0}

I put a lot more work into my second poster, and was very pleased with the results, rather than merge the protagonist and antagonist together, I placed them apart with half of their faces submerged in darkness, which added massively to the effect.
I soon found that the landscape portrait didn't look very good as a poster, and looked more like a magazine cover, and so I converted it to landscape.
                                                                                                                                                

{Poster Version 2.1}

I much preferred the poster in landscape form, and it looked much more professional.
However I found the title's font to still look off, along with the colour being a bit too much.
The silhouette in the distance was nice, but I still didn't quite like this layout, as it just didn't look professional enough for my liking, as I wanted it to look 100%, being the perfectionist I am...
And so, after a long analysis, I scrapped this poster for a new one.
                                                                                                                                      

{Poster Version 3.0}

The last poster had a lot of warm colours, so I made sure this one had a very grey / blue tone, adding to the chill-factor. Which really worked with the positioning, the smoke added to the mystery, and the hat hiding the protagonist's mask added a lot of enigma and tension.

I made the title black and white to add simplicity, which made it more effective.

The film reviews and caption above the title made the poster look so much more professional.

I decided to settle with this poster layout, but I wanted to align a few things that seemed out of place...
                                                                                                                                                 

So, after a few tweaks, my final version was complete... Here it is...

{Poster Version 3.1}

The final version!!!

*trumpet sounds*

Film Poster Analysis - Callum

It's a blog post by ME!
Can you believe it!
Miss me?
That was rhetorical, of course you did.

So our task is to analyse some short film posters.
So, here's an analysis of some short film posters!

This is the poster for a low budget short film called Fall Out, this film is based on a teenager surviving in a post-apocalyptic world after a war between countries, leading to complete devastation of the country.
This poster portrays the plot really well, as it shows the protagonist standing in a ruined town with a bag on his back.
Now for some MRANG...

M - Mise en Scene is used a lot within this poster, and really helps to identify what the film's going to be like.
       The lighting is quite dark, considering the white surroundings, making the whole scene a dark grey.
       The character's costume is rugged and worn, along with having a large prop bag on his back, this
        suggests that he travels and doesn't settle down anywhere.
       The colour is really desaturated, setting a dull and grim atmosphere.

R - The representation appears to be rather basic, focusing on a male protagonist in a hostile situation.
      The dark clouds represent the oppression and darkness the world is facing in a post-apocalyptic world.

A - Being a survival adventure film, the audience would be teenagers and young adults, predominately male.

N - The narrative is quite clear with this poster, as it shows the protagonist, and the environment.

G - The genre is a survival adventure, this is made clear by the devastated environment and the character
       standing in the scene with his bag over his shoulder, facing away from the character into the unknown.
       prop bag, making him appear as a survivor.


                                                                                                                                                                     

 

FlySpy is a short film about a young genius, who is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend; he creates a small drone in the form of a house fly and spies on her (being the deviant he is), he ends up discovering her new boyfriend is abusing her and he decides to intervene.

The poster is clear in one sense, but still full of enigma. The robotic fly is clearly the main focus and is the most important factor of the film, so it is made clear.

However, in the background is the silhouette of a woman, standing in a door frame with a hand to her forehead; this makes the viewer inquisitive as there is some mystery to the scene.

Now for some MRANG! Woohoo!

M - Mise en Scene is not used much in this poster, however, there are still some strong points.
       The positioning in the frame is well used as the robot fly is centred in the foreground, while the
        mysterious figure is positioned far in the background on the left side, allowing the fly to take up more
        of the scene.
       The lighting casts a spotlight on the fly, along with a white light emmiting from the open door, other than
        that, the scene is submerged in darkness, adding to the enigma.

R - The representation seems to be focused around relationships, and trust, hence the subject of spying.

A -The audience seems to be aimed at teenagers, no gender is specified.

N - The narrative is vaguely shown, but still unclear. It is made clear that the robot fly will be used to spy on
       someone, probably the female character in the background; but that is all we're given; there are no
       given reasons as to 'why', there is no motive.

G - The genre is a thriller, shown through the darkness around the entire scene, and the enigma of the woman
       in the background.

                                                                                                                                                                      

 

This poster is for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's Tintin, a blockbuster film based on the old comics in the 20th century.
The story is about the origins of Tintin and how he meets original characters, which led him to become the adventurer he's depicted as in the comics.

There poster clearly shows what the film is about, and the contents of the film; Tintin is evidently the main character as he is posed in centre frame, with his canine companion at his side; they are both silhouetted to at dramatic effect.

MRANG TIME!

M - Mise en Scene is used a little bit.
       The positioning in the frame is good as Tintin is placed in the centre of the frame in the foreground,
        with the dog beside him, this allows the audience to acknowledge they are the main characters.
       The lighting is behind the main characters, making them silhouetted to entice the audience.
        the background is flooded with a warm yellow light, making everything less gloomy.
       Tintin's costume features a thick long-coat, which is notably "cool" amongst clothing, this is probably
        used to give Tintin a more appealing character.

R - The film, and Tintin the character represents the everyman, as Tintin is an ordinary human being whom
       is thrown into the situations without warning, or preparation.
      His character is just as ordinary as you I, allowing us to connect with him and feel closer to the character.

A -The audience appears to be for children and young teenagers, but also for older fans of the original
      comics.

N - The narrative is shown clearly, both by the title and by the background; being called "The Adventures
        of Tintin" is an obvious give-away that this will be an adventure film. The ship and plane in the
        background hint towards what the adventure will entail.

G - The genre is adventure, I've already covered the pointers as to why it's an adventure film above.

Exhibit J: The Final Product

This is it! The final product of Exhibit J. We have worked really hard in putting this together and believe it has turned out well. Although we have come across some problems during filming and editing we acted in a professional manner and completed the editing to the deadline. Our target audience have seemed to enjoy it as Greg and I shared it on Facebook and I showed some family members, we received some positive feedback which I will be displaying in another post. We have tried to include numerous camera techniques as well as lighting techniques which have created the enigma for our short film. In addition, the foley's we used coincide with the moving image and the music builds suspense and tension very well.

Audience Feedback On Raw Footage

In order to create an effective short film we need to ensure that we receive some audience feedback throughout the different stages to help us to improve. I did create a video on audience feedback earlier in the Blog and it really helped us to get some good ideas and make some changes. During filming, we used many of the audiences ideas and suggestions and it has really improved the footage. We are currently creating a separate project for some of our target audience to view next lesson and then we can get some feedback which is extremely important as they will be the people who will view our short film. Instead of writing about the audience feedback, we are going to create a video instead showing what the audience think. I will be asking some questions to get specific and analysed feedback. I have come up with some questions to ask such as....
What effects do you think we should use?
Where should the music be included?
Do you like the raw footage we have filmed? Is it effective and why?
How can you imagine the title looking? What sort of colours and font?

Here is the video we showed the audience.

Editing!

We have begun the editing stage as we completed filming during half term in the space of two days. I am really looking forward to seeing the end product as we really worked hard on every aspect so far. We are editing our short film in stages. Firstly, we put all the shots in order to ensure that we know the timing and in case we need to film any other shots due to continuity. Now, we are beginning to add effects such as cross dissolve and fade to black to make the film more fluent and interesting to watch. We will not start adding titles, foleys and music until we have ensured that the footage is to a high standard. Before creating a title we need to research audience feedback to see what our target audience thinks as that is very important because they are going to be the ones who are watching the film. We have decided that we are going to cut the editing between the group so that we all can edit a part of the film. Greg has put all the footage on the Mac and put it all in order. Now, Callum is going to add effects such as cross dissolve and I am  going to add the music and we are going to discuss the title together as it is a very important part of the film because it needs to capture the audience.

Filming Behind The Scenes.

Behind the scenes. We have shown some evidence of us filming in the two locations including Burgess Hill and Reigate. In addition, I am going to make a new post about the Brighton scenes that I recorded by myself to show some of the famous settings.

Lighting Experiments

This 45 second film shows us experiment with low key lighting, a little bit of regular lighting and shadows. I (Greg) also used this time in editing to work on some editing techniques, like video transitions, audio fade, and some picture-in-picture.

J is an enigmatic character, so our work with shadows and low key lighting will help add enigma to his character. The use of shadows will keep what J looks like hidden for most of the film.

The regular lighting set up will be used for most of the shots with the detective.

Animatic 2

The quality is not great but in this Animatic we are discussing each shot, camera angles we are going to use , what is going to happen in each and how long they are.

Low Key Lighting test

*Sofia Here*
Greg and Callum took some test shots of lighting techniques, there is a video on another blog post which shows them in more detail. However, I believe that this shot is very effective as the low key lighting really establishes the concept of thriller as it creates an eerie atmosphere. In addition, we can use this technique in our short film to show the divide in personality or characters because it is an effective way of hiding someones identity which creates enigma around the character. This technique will be especially useful when we film the murderer called "J" because he has a hidden identity and we need to ensure that the audience fear the character which can be created by lighting and many other techniques. Also, the black background surrounding Callum, really draws the attention to his face and his facial expression which is a vital part of a scene. We can tell a lot from a persons facial expressions and eye contact.

Talking About Characters 2

To make our film as realistic as can be, we need to look at our characters in depth to prevent them from becoming cardboard characters, or Mary Sues.
To help make this even more realistic, I have created back-stories for the characters to be implemented into the sub-text to help with the actors to bond with the characters.

Jack The Ripper
The Ripper, while he is unknown and cannot be understood to an extent, it is still very clear and evident that he is immoral, and has no sympathy for his victims, nor their families.
From this small piece of information, there can be suggestions behind The Ripper's reasons for these killings; perhaps an abusive childhood that led him to become mentally unstable? Or maybe his mother was a prostitute who was murdered, and he went on to kill prostitutes out of in-direct revenge?
The possibilities are endless, but still interesting to look at with depth.

Detective James Neeson
James Neeson is an outstanding detective, and is the head of his string of detectives; he is very similar to Sherlock Holmes in regards to his passion for being a detective. From a young age he was always passionate about detectives and their styles in solving mysteries. Being a middle child he was neglected in his family, leaving him to become rather anti-social, the time he had to himself was spent reading books and solving online riddles. Regardless of his anti-social nature, he was a kind boy and found love early at his high school, he was a passionate lover, and a lovable character.
After fulfilling his dream of becoming a detective, he became fixated on his job and quickly became the best detective the Metropolitan Police Force had ever seen.
However, his passion for his job had left his fiancee alone most days and nights, and she soon left him.
Since then, detective Neeson has been left with nothing but his job.
While unhappy, he has become even more passionate about his detective duties, as it is now all he has.

Casting

We want our film to be the absolute best it can be, which can only be done with good actors.
Thankfully we have a wide range of talented theatre students with a passion for acting that we will choose for our characters.

Jack the Ripper - Kyle West

Detective Neeson - Callum Horncastle

Detective #2 - Greg Ivan Bicknell

Forensic Scientist - TBA

Police officers - TBA

Animatic 1

Jack The Ripper found?

Doing some research for inspiration, I found an interesting post online.
A forensic scientist claims to have figured out who Jack was.
I'm not convinced, but it's a very interesting article.

Fake Wound Tutorial

We have researched many fake wound tutorials on Youtube such as the one we posted earlier in the blog. Callum and I thought it would be a great idea to create our own tutorial as it will show many techniques such as camera shots and editing. It took a while to decide where to film as there are a lack of places in college that are quiet so we had to film in various places such as the stairway and a classroom. It was great practice for when we film our short film because we now know what works and what doesn't such as the red ink where we will be using fake blood instead. There are many stages to go through  when creating a fake wound and in the tutorial we have taken you through it step by step to make it easy to follow and  informative.

Talking About Characters

Script Draft

The Ripper

Fade in to a crime scene, forensic team walking around, tilt down to a mutilated body.
New report voice over the entire scene.

Cut to forensic scientist photographic body with flash. Cut to body, flash repeatedly.

Flash white, quick fade to next scene.

Picture of the body on an evidence board in the police department.

Policeman
 "This is the 4th killing this month, we need to crack down on the killer."

Policeman #2
"Detective Neeson, what do you suggest?"

Cut to behind detective Neeson, crab shot around to reveal his face.

Detective Neeson
"The killer seems to be heading south, towards Brighton, he's only hitting big areas to create a bigger fear factor to make a name for himself, so Brighton is the next best place for him."

Cut as he clicks his fingers and whips around.

Detective Neeson
"I want officer patrols doubled there, keep eyes on every nook and cranny. We're going to wait for him."

Cut to black as he closes the door.

Cut to Brighton, happy scenes of families and landmarks.
Detective Neeson on radio, checking for updates.
Nothing.
Suddenly the radio blares on.

Policeman
"Neeson! We have a body! Jack's here!"

Cut to the policeman.

Policeman
"This alley has one way in and one way out, meaning he's headed south towards your location!"

Cut to Neeson, he switches off the radio and sprints towards the lanes.
Neeson reaches the lanes and spots the Ripper.
Neeson gives chase. Chase scene.
 Reach a dead end, Ripper is not to be seen.

Detective Neeson
"Come on out, make this easy on the both of us!"

Cut to Jack hiding behind something, brick in his hand.
Cut to Neeson, brick is thrown and hits Neeson, stunning him, Jack gets away.
He shouts in frustration.
Cut to black.

Fade in to the office, he enters, still angry.
He goes to the evidence board and looks at all the documents.

Detective Neeson
"Where's the link?"

He can't find a lead and angrily starts pulling documents off the board.

Detective Neeson
"Where's the bloody link!?"

He rips nearly everything off the board, then throws all the papers off a deck.
He turns back to the evidence board and screams.

Detective Neeson
"WHERE ARE YOU?"

He stares at the single document hanging from the board, the map of killings.
He takes the document and takes a pen. He joins the marks to form the letter J.
The last point is clear. Close up on Neeson's Face.

Detective Neeson
"I'm coming for you Jack..."

Fade to black.

Fade in to location.
Neeson enters warehouse and finds dying woman.

Jack comes flying out from a hideout and runs away, Neeson gives chase.

Chase scene.

Jack whizzes past a corner

As Neeson comes around the corner Jack stabs him.

Neeson is thrown to the ground and Jack runs off.

Neeson pulls out the knife while on the ground and bleeds to death.

Zoom out on his body. Fade to black.

Fade into alleyway, news report voice over.

Jack's sillouette, he turns around and stares into the camera.

Jack the Ripper

"Jack's Back..."

Cut to black.

End.  

Short Film Locations - Callum Horncastle

Now that we've decided on a thriller based on Jack the Ripper, we can look at some effective filming location to ensure the film is as powerful as possible.
In our first day of planning, we have already came up with some really good locations, which we we will go onto research.


Our first suggested location, is for the Police Department offices.
Thankfully, Sofia's father runs his own business and has an office building, which he has generously offered for us to use for the film.
We will visit the office to look for filming angles and good shots at a later point.



Another suggestion, for suspense and murder scenes, are the lanes in Brighton.
These confined alleyways are absolutely perfect for a spooky, dark setting, especially if we film at dusk.

            

With Brighton in mind, we also had the idea of using the Brighton Pier as a location, perhaps having a murder victim underneath the pier?

Another very good idea, for our climatic ending, is the back of The Magpie House in Reigate.
This was the same location we used for Shadow Shot during the AS Coursework.
The area is large and there is plenty of dark areas to create a thrilling tension filled scene.
Having worked there for a long duration of time, I know that this location works well at any time of day, due to the confinement of the tall buildings blocking out the sun, and if there is rain, it still creates a dark effect.

Brainstorm