Evaluation

For our evaluation we had to do a presentation to the class, we also had the choice of doing a podcast, however we felt that our presentation went well so we stuck with it. Here is our presentation:

Story Board Presentation

Story Board Presentation

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Our trailer

These are the first steps we are taking in producing our trailer, we have produced a script which we plan on turning into a story board before filming so we can follow how we are going to shoot on the date of filming.

As we have stated in previous posts on this blog, our inspiration came from other trailers, and we took different elements and added them to our own trailer to make sure we conveyed trailer conventions and make it look as realistic as possible.

Here is our first draft after editing trailer for The Cult, this is what we will be showing in class for feedback on Wednesday.

After showing the trailer in class on wednesday we got lots of feedback. We don’t particularly like what we came up with; so the feedback we got helped us immensely to turn our piece of film around in the editing room.We particularly got feedback on the transitions between shots, and the credits. We originally had the shots with a fade in, fade out black – black effect, which we kept but changed the timing between each as we got further towards the end to make it snappy to create more tension. When Lucy runs up the stairs we were advised for the banging of the stairs to then carry on throughout the rest of the trailer. We learnt that this would increase the tension and the shock factor. The audience then told us that we should drop the banging at the credits to give the impression that the trailer has finished, however the banging would start up again when Lucy screams to heighten the shock.The most occurring comments was that the trailer didn’t seem fast paced enough for the typical conventions of a horror teaser trailer, so what we was going to do was re-film altogether but then once we had further feedback we released we had great potential with the footage we already had but all we had to do was edit it a lot better, and add sound to more of our advantage. Troubles that we had while filming where getting the camera at the right angle to see Lucy screaming, however after playing with the tripod we figured it out. While filming the street scene where Lucy and Lewis are walking towards the camera we had a lot of cars come past the first couple times, which therefore made it so you couldnt here them talking. As well as this the first place we picked was too dark so it was hard to see them furthur back, to overcome this we moved the camera under a street light.

FINAL TRAILER

Magazine Cover

The programme that we used to create the magazine cover was Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Draft1

From analysing magazine covers we started creating our mag cover. Our first task was to come up with a title of the magazine, we went with Take1. We then inserted the picture that we took before, centered it and like the poster played around with the brightness and contrast. We then added more detail, for example we added the title of the film and a quote.

Draft2
After getting audience feedback from the audience on our first draft they said we needed a lot of improvement, first of all they said we definitely needed more magazine detail. We then decided to add a special deal where you get three free posters. We also moved the title of the film and quote up.

Final magazine cover

We again got audience feedback, this time they said the detail that we added was good but we needed more, especially ones that are typical conventions. From this we then added a barcode and information of whats actually inside the magazine. The audience also said that

Taking the pictures for the Magazine Cover.

The day Lewis and I decided to take the photos for our poster, we also thought that it would be a good idea to take the photos for the magazine cover also, this is because we had all the equipment we needed, the actors, right setting, lighting and time. So we took the pictures at Lucy Ballance's house as it had a dark room, which when the lights were off was pitch black, which was perfect for our photo as we needed absolutely no light apart from the specific lighting we chose which was a small battery torch (which can also be seen in the final photos).

When taking the photos, we experimented with the lighting and angles of the camera to give the best effect. We ultimately decided on having the main source of light in the actual photo, with the character looking up into the camera to give the best menacing look.

Film Poster

From having our draft drawn out for our poster we then started to create it on our laptops. The programme that we used was Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Draft 1

This is the first poster that we created with no audience feedback, at first we liked it a lot as the photos taken from before worked really well. The editing that we did was to change the contrast and lightness of the whole image. To make Lewis's hand look more worn we also used the burn tool (which darkens areas) in specific spots to heighten the shock factor. We also wanted the title of the film to be hard to read to increase the mystery of the image. Our main influence for our poster was the babysitter poster we liked this one because we thought the image of the girl was a symbolic and eye catching image. To make our poster mysterious and to differentiate to the babysitter one we decided to darken the surroundings of Lucy.

Draft 2

After creating our first one we got audience feedback, the main thing that they said was that the image of Lucy wasn't scary and shocking enough. They said it "almost seems like she knew she was going to be taken" this isn't the effect that we wanted. So instead we used a different photo that we had taken before that we thought increased the scariness and shock factor. As well as this the audience also advised us to changed the title of the film and add a date. We made the title of the film easier to read and changed the placing of it slightly to center the whole poster. When adding the date we decided to make it just the year and again to center it, to make it different to the title we added a gradient to add some depth to it.

Draft3After making those edits we went back to the audience and got more feedback. This time they said the image was perfect and thought it was great. They still couldn't read the title of the film that well, so we went back and increased the opacity of it so it would stand out more, like the date we added a gradient. They also said that we needed more detail on it. This is when we added a lot of new aspects. For example we added a little light shining through the middle of the title, this is a typical convention of horror posters as it denotes that isn't much hope left. We also added another convention of film posters which is a tag line, ours says 'This time they wont let her go...' which we thought doesn't give a lot away about the film but still entices them.

Draft4

We wanted more audience feeback from our third draft and this time they were impressed with it but still thought it was a bit bare and not clear enough. To make it easier to read we increased the brightness and contrast. To add more detail we added four of the actors names, two either side of Lucy to carry on with the central theme. We also added production detail at the bottom of the poster which nearly every film poster has.

Final Poster

We again got audience feedback and realised that one the school compuers you couldn't see any of the detail so we had to go back and increase the brightness huge amounts. We also increased the contrast to up the scary factor. Overall we are really pleased with our poster and have great feedback from it.

Magazine Analysis

Magazine Analysis

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For the magazine cover what we need to consider is the layout, colour scheme, other stories and what picture we are going to put on.

For the layout we thought that we could make it as central as we can having the character in the centre of the page with the title of the film just below in the same font we have used in the poster and trailer.
We want to include some sort of promotion on the cover, as this is typical convention of all magazine covers, we have decided on inserting 3 free posters all of which promotes our own film. We also are going to include, information of other stories in the magazine such as reviews and interviews but also something a bit different like behing the scenes special of the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

We also need to come up with the name of the magazine, and what font, colour and size we are going to have it. We want to name of the magazine to be related to film, so its easy to understand what the magazine is about as it is the thing that will pop out the most when people are looking at magazines on the shelf in the shop. Below are a few ideas we have:

The Take
Film Preview
Review Mag
FILMmag
Take1
TakeOne
Hollywood
Blockbuster
EPIC FILM
We will choose out of the above.

WE also need to consider what colours we are going to use, and after looking at other already existing magazines we have seen that there isn't many different colours and they all conicide with eachother. So havig lime green, with a dark maroon isn't going to work. We also want to make sure they cover has a sinister effect so it relates with our film.