Progress of Products Before Break

Last year we found it valuable to have a break from our coursework for a few weeks so that we could see it with fresh eyes when we came back to it. This is the stage we have reached with each of our products before having a break from working on them in class:

POSTER

We have made the decision to incoporate the images at the bottom more fully into the overall composition by removing them from their backgrounds. We also added a colour overlay of a brownish shade to the two brothers so that they were distinguished from the father, making it clear they are the more important characters and that they have differences with him. we have added the billing block and begun to add the other key elements of the text at the top of the poster. This is what we need to work on as we are aware it does not stand out enough. We have developed the tagline, which will also appear as intertitles in the trailer to tie the products together. We have merged the two title font ideas we were trying out, as we prefer the thinner, spikier font to reflect the conflict in our piece, but the khaki colour works best across the two print products and so was the better choice.

To work on:

- placement of text
- making text stand out from a distance
- we are still not sure if we are happy with the bottom of our poster and the way the pictures merge

MAGAZINE COVER

We have mainly been focussing on the bottom half of the poster,  the teaser text and smaller images for other films as we are finding getting the right layour for these difficult. We have ideas for what we will write as text based on our research into magazine text, but we have added in some placeholders for now as we are more concerned about composition. We have added smaller images taken from stills that we exported from the coursework of other groups.  We have also tried to work out the colour palette of the text.

To work on:

- placement of teaser text
- colour palette needs an extra colour - more use made of the blue?
- we need to add in magazine cover line, price, web address etc - there is room for these above and around the masthead

TRAILER

This is the product that still needs the most work as it is the most complex project. One of our main issues is getting the sound right as this is a key part of our trailer. These two screen shots of our project show how we have been trying to build up the sound layers and add in drum loops and other tracks and mic them in the package. This is complicated because the speeds of some of the tracks we want to mix are different. so we have to adjust them without altering the pitch before putting them together. We also have to balance with other sound such as dialogue and sound effects (car crash, gun fire etc). As we keep adjusting the order of our trailer, this means adjusting the music again.

This is a further rough cut of our trailer. We are aware that it is not a finished product but we will be working on this as our main focus when we return to the coursework after the break.

 

 

To work on:

 

- sound is a priority as identified above

- pace - still needs more pace at end and most shots could be trimmed down further

- re-ordering of some shots is still necessary e.g. it does not work putting the hair cutting scene through the piece as even though trailers are not chronological, it makes the time sequence really difficult for the audience. We also are not sure we have got the shots showing the revelation about what the army has been concealing in quite the right order to make the idea clear to the audience.

Magazine Cover Progress

 

 

This shows the progress of our magazine cover. We wanted to tie it clearly with the poster, and the colour palette and general approach of the smoke-filled scene makes it clear that this is the same product being advertised in both texts. We looked at a lot of magazine covers we had in the classroom with groups of three characters advertising action films, and we found that a common format was to allow the top half to third of the cover to be dominated by the image and to have teaser text and photos of other films below. We also noticed that a shot of an action sequence was often used as the background of the bottom half to give a more dramatic feel.

 

We have followed this layout idea here. We have used our extracted photo and added it to a plain grey background with the smoke effect. We have used a photo of the location we filmed our military shots in as the background but made this layer much more opaque. We also used the burn, smudge and blur tools to make the images blend well. This was a time consuming process and you can see the progress in the different jpegs presented here.

 

We are now starting to think about the composition of the bottom half of the cover, The placement of text and smaller images is the hardest part of the process of creating a cover and we expect to go through several drafts before we find a composition we are happy with.



Poster Progress

 



This shows the progress of our thinking around the poster. We are following the idea of a split poster that we saw was common for war-based films in our research. The top half is emotion and character-based. We have extracted the chosen photo of the brothers and put this on top of a photo taken while filming to create a sense of location and then added the smoke effect to add danger, an impression of battle and also to smooth out the whole image and make it merge better.

 

The bottom section gives more narrative detail. We have chosen photos taken while filming of the three characters and desaturated the colour to add to the emotional tone. We have tried to capture a different emotion for each character. We are now working on blurring these images together so there are less harsh lines.

 

At the moment we are debating whether our kind of poster would include actor names or not. We are also looking for the right font and colour for our title. The green is not the right font, but the colour works well in terms of standing out. The black and white is effective and we prefer it, but it might not have enough impact. We will probably be influenced in this decision by the magazine cover - the title has to work well on this too, so that will help us choose our font and colour.

Experimenting with Trailer Music

Music has become a main focus as it is so important to creating the emotion and pace of a trailer. Here we are experimenting with different combinations of sound under our trailer. We want to use The last post trumpet sound at some point as it is so iconic. We have also added drum loops, as these create tension. We are also looking for emotional tracks to edit together with the drums and trumpet. Finding the right material and then editing it together seamlessly is going to be a time-consuming job, which is why we are beginning now.

2nd Poster Photo Shoot

We took a series of photos for out poster. We took the photos outside to try get the right lighting as opposed to having artificial light that would have made us look pale and would not have looked genuine in a war situation. We waited for a bright day and tried to use natural lighting to create some shadows and interest. We ended up choosing the very last photo in this series - it has a flatter lighting than we were looking for, but as we have decided that the poster will include a battle scene in the background, this lit up effect might reflect the flares and will be useful to us in our overall composition. We also like the facial expressions in this shot.

Extracting Image for Magazine Cover

This is the start of the magazine cover we are making. We started off by extracting the main image using a combination of the magnetic lassoo and magic wand tools. Extraction is probably the main skill on Photoshop as nothing will look right if the image is not correct. We enlarged the image and really took our time to make sure that we got as smooth an extraction as possible. We needed to do this to put a different image in as a background. After the extraction we blurred around the image to make all the edges look smooth as once they were cut they had rather harsh cut lines. Then we added a slight drop shadow which helps to create a more 3-D effect. Once we had done this we put a white to black fade background on the image to  highlight where we had missed edges on the extraction or did not rub out little pieces of the initial picture.

2nd Rough Cut

After our audience feedback, we have produced a second rough cut of our piece aiming to address some of the issues:

• We have re-ordered the whole trailer and taken out some shots to make it less clear that the mother dies and that the elder brother dies to keep some tension and to avoid telling too much of the story
• We have shortened all our clips to try to create pace
• We have added a drum beat to keep a sense of movement in the project as we continue to edit
• We have made the end section less chronological and tried to cut to keep pace and tension

Potential Magazine Cover Photos

When looking at other examples of film magazine covers, we noticed that there are standard poses that are used. Groups of three are often posed in this way, with the main character in the centre and a little further forward, usually directly on to the audience. The other two characters tend to turn away a little. We also noticed that the main character gazes directly at the camera while the other two tend to look off into the distance. We have also grouped this with the brothers closer together and the father a little apart - this has two functions. it gives some indication about the state of the relationships, and it also avoids a totally symmetrical feel, which we have noticed is a common feature of magazine covers as they have a fairly loose layout.

Composition of Poster Photos

These photos are not properly lit but we are using them to get an idea of how we would like our poster photos to be composed and the facial expressions we need to use. We have idenfied these as the two main things that will dictate whether our photos are successful or not.

Response to Initial Feedback

On re-watching what the Year 12s saw, my initial thoughts:

Some of the scenes were to long (or appear so without the voice over that is clearly needed).

There needs to be a voice over to bring context to what has happened and what is happening in the trailer itself.

The car crash scene is terrible and needs to be redone with more fluidity to make it seem like it flows and doesn’t stop start with bad continuity.

Too much story told

Comments on audience feedback for our movie

Too much of the story is told, so we need to either get rid of some scenes, for example Miss Devlin (the mother) dying, or cut back on the amount of military shots.

Audience is split as to who is the person dying at the end, which could either be good or bad.

More scenes needed to be added to bring the full depiction of our story across and add pace.

Response to First Feedback

On re-watching what the year 12’s saw, my initial thoughts are…

-          Less fade to black shots - overkill here!

-          Needs inclusion of some much needed sound, e.g. voiceover, gunshot etc…

-          Fill in slight gaps on editing between shots

-          Include some extra shots to make the storyline more clear

-          Don’t tell too much of story – cut out some info

-          More pace, feels too long and does not have trailer tone
 

Comments on Our Audience Feedback

-          Need to take out certain parts of the story as we have included a little too much for the trailer.

-          Add in some much needed music and sound effects

-          Make it clear which character is which but leave a degree of mystery

-          They agree too much story told

First Audience Feedback

Our first rough cut was shown to a Year 12 class. It was explained to them that this was a very early stage so there are many elements missing e.g. music, effects, voiceover etc. They were asked to focus on whether our selection of footage conveyed a sense of the overall plot and the relationships between the characters.  By watching their faces we got a sense of reactions to different shots (which we could tell by the sound) and we could hear their discussion with the teacher afterwards. We thought it was a good idea to organise feedback very early because further down the line it can be more difficult to address major problems. We also felt the class would be more honest if we weren't there but the video gives a good sense of their reactions.

Whole Rough Cut For First Audience Feedback

Here we have put our versions together and got rid of duplicate shots. We are trying to get a sense of how the whole trailer will run and whether this is conveying the narrative to the audience as intended.

Initial Edit

We split the storyboard between us and created a rough cut of our individual halves:

George's Half:

Brendon's Half:

At the moment we are conscious that the trailer runs too slowly and that the shots aren't trimmed enough to create pace. However, at this early stage we are mainly looking to select the right shots from the many takes we have and arrange these in a rough order on the timeline. From this position, once we have put our halves together, we will be able to move into proper editing, looking at how the shots run together and the overall impact.

Potential Poster / Magazine Photos

We took these shots at the airsoft centre as we felt we already had access to the uniforms and there was also the right background, which could save us a lot of time later. However, as you can see, this was towards the end of the day and the light was not as good as it had been earlier.

The background for this shots has potential to work well on the poster as the location is quite non-specific but has the right military feel.

Here we moved away from the all to improve the lighting, but the background is not as effective.

We are also conscious that in the posters we researched, the facial expressions of the cast were key for conveying the mood and emotion of the film. This is something we will have to work on!

Photos from Filming