Update of Progress as of 27/12/13

As of 27/12/13 i am coming along with my blog and my overall work, i have completed most of the editing needed for my auxiliary tasks and am now into consideration for my trailer. I have done some location scouting and have a rough idea on where i want to do some shooting for my trailer. I went over the results of my survey and analysed the results to help me try and find a way to cater towards a certain audience. I have also gone into some research of different institutes that would maybe produce and publish my work i enjoyed looking at these companies who have been apart of some of my favourite films and magazines. To help bring more relevance to my product i created a twitter and facebook page for my tasks which i feel are quite helpful and overall beneficial for my main tasks.

Social Media Input

To help gain recognition for my movie i have created a Facebook and twitter page for my movie to maybe also get some feedback from people who are maybe interested in my product.

Sourcing Costume and Props- For Trailer

Sourcing Costumes and Props- Trailer

I am going to need a various range of clothing and props for my trailer, heres what i need-

• Baseball Bat
• Gun
• Mask
• Red Bag
• Clock

Heres a list of costumes that i need my actors to wear-

• Hoodie
• Leather Jacket
• Jeans
• Smart Shoes
• Waterproof coat
• Polo Shirt

I only need a couple of things which are all in the possesion of my actors except from the clock so it shouldnt be hard to get the other props. Also all of the clothing is all the actors own clothing so it shouldnt be hard for them to forget what to wear.

Institutional Research- Film Companies

Institutes for films

Institutional Research- Magazine

Here I Am Going to Research Different Companies Who Publish Multiple Different Kinds of Magazines to See Wh...

Consent Form

Dear Parent/Guardian

Your son/daughter has been selected to participate in my A2 media film “Heist” a non-profit film. The participation of your son/daughter is crucial to the creation of the film. Filming will start at the beginning of December 2013 and will finish early January 2014. Please fill in the details below to give permission to your son/daughter to take part in the film.

From Kristopher Cook A2 Level Media Student

Media Studies Film Consent Form

I parent/guardian of __________________ hereby permit/ do not permit my son/daughter to be part of A2 media film “Heist".

Signed:___________________________ Date:_______________________

Survey Results

These are the many results that i received on my 2 surveys one survey was to find out what peoples opinions on posters and magazine covers.

I asked pretty bog standard questions and received some pretty diverse feedback from it which helps me greatly especially in the long run when it comes to focusing on what i want to do and how to go about it. I have a mixture of written feedback and numerical feedback both will help me as i can use these statistics to find and use the most popular answer to my advantage.  As you can see my very first answers i received from my survey was written answers and most of my audience liked to read music magazines meaning the results i am going to receive later on will be from a more musical background.

Most of my audience is female this will help me try to get a better understanding of what the female audience want. I also learned that my audience is also aged at around my age so i can also learn what my peers especially female what they think of magazines in general.

It seems that people seem to enjoy images over content in magazines as you can see, there is a large amount of people who appreciate imagery over content it seems as not many people seem to enjoy the content. You can see below this question that the following question asks the user if he/she reads throughout the magazine or just skims through it only looking  at the images and it seems that most people like to just skim through and not look at some of the written content available. This is very useful information that i can use to help me in my work later on.

The following questions are from the poster side of my survey and feature, as you can see the first two questions asked straight away what the user feels about a film poster and if it reflects good/bad on the overall film itself. Me personally i would not go to see a film if the poster is bad and that was the most voted option also which means my poster has to be of a certain quality if i am to gain peoples full interest.

 
 

The last two questions i asked where vital questions that i hopefully will be able to incorporate into my future work. I asked the most important question of what people look for in a poster and it seems a lot of people prefer images over everything else which is something that i will to add into my work as i some what agree with this statement. from the information i gathered on the final question i learned that the highest demographic is comedy with genres such as thrillers and sci fi following just behind.

Location Recces

The following images are all images from the various different locations that my trailer was set in, the locations chosen are some of the ones that i scouted in my location scouting blog post, however places such as the back lanes in town where mostly used in the moment and weren't really planned upon.

 All of the following images are from my house which is where the beginning flash back of my trailer takes place. The images are of my front door, living room, hall, dining room and finally the yard. The reason why i used my house as a part of my trailer is because i wanted to show the audience that my main character lived an ordinary life before and lived in an ordinary house.

        

 The next set of images you see below all appear not just in the flashback section of my trailer but also are set in the present through my trailer and are quite visible through my quick cuts and various other shot types. The first couple of images are quite close to the St Peters campus and i liked the various different views you can get you may notice that this location is the same location that my shot types video was filmed in. The reason why i used certain back lanes that you find in the town centre was because they had a real gritty feel to them there is broken glass and un even paths etc that all give it a down to earth feel and make the entire thing more believable.

Location Scouting

For my locations i want to have it in mostly gritty areas such as back lanes and old rural parts of the town centre to give it that real British feel to it. I also want to film in my house as i want there to be remnants of my character living normal life so shooting at my home will help. The places i intend to film at are as follows.

• Backlane close to home
• My home specifically hall, living room, stairs.
• Parts of the city centre specifically the street where the store Joplin's is
• Down by the University close to the river walk

All of these places i hope will give a real British feel to my trailer.

Mood Board

Idea Change for Plot

My original idea for my movie trailer was that a hired gunman who gets to the point of where he is tired of taking orders and goes through post dramatic stress disorder but at the same time is still being harassed by his former mob boss who blackmails him into getting back into robbing different places.

After giving it some thought I've decided to make some changes to my story. My story now consist of my main character going through similar things that was in my original idea, the main character was once a hired gunman until his conscience started to make him consider his actions and in order for him to not listen to his conscience he must commits acts of violence to help him forget the many things he did when he was in the armed robbery business, unfortunately the violent side is all that he knows and all he wants to do is become the most violent man in England to cement his legacy. It is like a  Jekyll and Hyde story where the Hyde side stays in full control while the Jekyll side lays dormant. I want my main character to be very unstable and do crazy things that are considered to be over the top, I want to give the feeling that he is invincible.

Update of Progress 29/11/13

As of 29/11/13 i have completely changed the idea for my plot to that of a similar but different genre, using the film Bronson i will use it as a template for what my trailer is going to be. Before the idea change for my plot i had created a first draft of my script that gives you an idea on what my trailer would have sort of looked like had i stayed with my initial idea. I have also researched the different technical elements that you see in pretty much every sort of film media outlet, that being storyboards, editing and ofcourse the script which obviously helped me when it came to doing my script and other forms of technical elements. I have also managed to have a little bit of practice with using PremierePro which is a form of editing software, i created a simple shot types video displaying the various different shot types used in media then i also completed a Simpsons trailer as well which im pretty happy about as it took me a few weeks to complete.

Surveys

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Script First Draft from original Idea

'Heist' First Draft Script



FADE IN FROM BLACK

 

FLASH from different scenes of the robbery non-diagetic music is playing starting off from silent to eventually get louder-

 

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

 

Still keep the flashing of scenes effect going but character says dialogue a little quicker- 

 

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

 

Still keep the flashing of scenes effect going but character says dialogue even faster than before-

 

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

 

A SHOTof a gun is heard leaving silence.

J-

Hello?

 

K-

It’s K are you alright you haven’t called to talk about it?

 

J-

Leave me alone

All of the following are QUICK CUTS 

The dropping of a gun flashes onto the screen

The character of J takes of his mask and throws it to the floor Angrily this once again FADES in and FADES out

FADE in J falling down to a seat in his house then proceeds to run his hands up and down his face (it is night time)

Screen then FADES and FADES back into J washing his face quick cuts to represent flashbacks showing a gun lowered then, the screen then DISTORTS leaving voices.

We see J immediately wake up to his flashback of the gun being raised and is met with the SOUND of a ringing phone.

FADE into J on top of someone beating them down screaming in anger.

 

Screen FADES to black

 

M-

I have a couple more jobs for you.

 

J-

I told you I’m done have you forgotten what i did?

M-

Oh you will do what i say if you ever want your secret to be kept from that loving family who are missing someone from their family photos, because of your actions.

 

The character of J then picks up his mask and pulls it over his head screen FADES to black

 

J then in a depressed muzzled voice says.

 

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

 

QUICK CUTS of the robbery fading in and out once again J

 

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

QUICK CUTS of the robbery fading in and out once again J this time of a different robbery and with a more depressed voice

J-

In, Out, no casualties, just success.

 

Screen then FADES TO BLACK quick cut of a phone ringing and J is sleeping

 

J-

I told you I’m done why can’t you just accept that.

 

 

M-

Oh we are far from done.

 

QUICK CUTS of action fading in and out but a lot quicker, which then stays on a black screen

 

J then says in a focused voice

 

J-



In, Out, no casualties, just success.

Feedback Sheet - Student Work

Feedback Sheet – Student Work

Please refer to photography, colour, layout, font style, framing and cropping as well as font style and actual text in your response.

Please remember to be constructive in your criticism as this is work by students – not professional s

Name of product	What I thought were the strengths	What I thought were the weaknesses
Sinister	-Main Image  -Masthead -Text Content	-Text unreadable in places -Colour Scheme (the red is very inconsistent) -Size of some of the text
Infensus	-Editing -Masthead -Slogan - Images used	-No actors names -No release date
Under Rogue	-Landscape Poster (something different)	-Image -Location -No tag line -Cant Understand the genre of film

 

What I have learned from looking at student work :

 I have learned that I need to be clear with what genre of film I am working with when it comes to my poster, it needs to clearly be able to show the reader that my poster is of a certain genre without being confusing like the Under Rogue poster (a well written and clever tagline should be able to identify the genre if the image does not). I have also learned that a main image is vitally important as this also can represent the genre of film as well as bonus things such as taglines which I have already spoken about. A colour scheme that clearly allows you to see the text and its font is a key as this is what makes or breaks a poster take the Sinister example it has a really good main image and masthead but most of the text is unreadable and therefore will have lost marks.

 How I will use this new knowledge to help me create my own product :

With the new knowledge i have gained i will try to make sure that my genre of project can be clearly identified by the reader without making mistakes and make it where the poster is really confusing, I will use taglines and type of image to portray my genre. I need to create a masthead that stands out on its own and sort of give my project a face so to speak the masthead should also try to be in the font that could maybe portray the genre more. I also have learned that a colour scheme is essential as it not only represents the genre but also allows you to fully see text and the font it is in, what i need to do is experiment with some colour schemes and maybe some of the effects so that i can have a colour scheme that not only represents the genre but allows me to show the content in my actual product.

Heist Movie Poster First Draft

This is the first draft for my movie poster i feel like it still could be improved upon as the colour scheme doesn't really work, not to mention the product doesn't really go with the theme of my overall product.

Simpsons Trailer

This is my Simpsons trailer that i created in Premiere Pro my original Trailer got deleted because of a problem with my system and only had 2 days to re create the trailer from scratch to reach the deadline so this is not my best work, but this is just an editing practice task and i learned how to successfully use different techniques such as dip to black. 

Technical Elements - Editing

Editing is the main reason as to how we have amazing films and advertisements not only for films but for pretty much every product that is used on a daily basis. Editing allows the user to completely take a series of video clips or still images and completely alter them in a series of different ways to create a fully finished overall product, these products can some times be informative for example advertisements or posters on cancer research or other NHS related products.

 This image you see was once just a simple image of a young girl, witht the use of editing however the user has managed to create a effective poter that trys to convey that smoking is bad and doesnt just effect you but also those around you. the user has created a series of layers, one for the young girl, one for the smoke you see circling her head, a layer for the text in the middle and finally the logo of the child health foundation is placed on its own layer and is located in the bottom right of the advertisement.

Examples of Tools and Techniques when editing
Layers- Layers allow you to work with multiple different parts of a project at the same time, Adobe Photoshop has the best example of layers as you have the ability to use multiple tools within the seperate layers without editing the others which is incredibly useful if you are working on something in depth that has multiple levels to them and you only want to edit a small part of it without disturbing the other parts of it.

Cropping- Cropping allows you to simply just shorten an image or take out a specific part of an image and incorporate it into something else. Cropping is availble on every form of editing software.

Text- The text tool allows you to simply apply text into a document wherever you want it. There is pretty much an unlimted amount of font and sizes to use when editing which is incredibly useful if you are creating a poster or something that requires a lot of text that is also very profesional.

Magic Wand- The Magic Wand Tool is one of the oldest selection tools in Photoshop. Unlike other selection tools that select pixels in an image based on shapes or by detecting object edges, the Magic Wand selects pixels based on tone and color.

Eraser- Eraser is just a basic tool used to delete any unwanted parts of a specific document, this is a basic tool that is in every editing program and is very basic to use.

Masking- Masking allows the user to crop a specific part of an image then place it over a background that was not part of the original photograph, this technique is normally used when creating a product or an advertising campaign where you would take a product and place it over a funny background to attract attention.

There are different uses of editing take editing videos for example this allows you to show how a person is feeling or the characteristics of that certain character, an example of this would be if someone was in disbelief with the use of editing you can slow down the shot to create tension or worry witht the viewer. Not only can you portray emotion but you can also add effects that could not be possible in real life, for example on an episode of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia one of the characters is trying to get a television to switch on again by trying to re align the broken wires as he is doing this blue electrical sparks are coming from the wires, this is done via editing as this would be far to dangerous to attempt in real life.

Editing also allows you to incorporate sound into your videos these also link in with what i mentioned before about creating a mood within the video, an example of this would be in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker is about to destroy the deathstar and the iconic music plays to create the sense of action however Luke can not hear the music the only thing he can hear is the sound of gunfire and space ships flying this is what is known as diagetic and non diagetic sounds and is something that is always used in some form in editing.

Video Editing Test 2- Guys on the phone

I wanted this short film assignment to be something like a Vine video where the video has a small narrative but at the end it just ends ridiculously, i thought that doing this video this way would let me experiment with the use of quick cuts and applying text into the video. For some reason the video goes on longer than it should and has about a minute and a half of a black screen which is a problem with the upload.

Sampling Fonts

Heist Font

Technical Elements - Script

Script Example

1.  Fade In:

2.  Ext. Paddy's Pub - DAY

3.  In the heart of Philadelphia, a Cools light sign flickers as it is attempting to switch on.

4.  DISSOLVE TO:

INT. Paddy's Pub - At the bar - DAY

The gang browse the many scratchings on the desk on the bar to reveal a series of numbers.

5.  DENNIS, Philadelphia native, self proclaimed ladies man, early 30s and not getting younger, enters the bar.

6.  DENNIS-
7.  I have some very exciting news. Be prepared to get your minds blown by my brand new way in    which i can pick up some of the ladies.

CHARLIE also early 30s and dirtiest man in all Philadelphia pulls a beer from his pocket and goes for a bottle opener.

CHARLIE-
No one cares dude have you just seen what we found that was scratched into the bar this entire time i guarantee these are coordinates to some sort of treasure and i don't know about you but i want it.

DENNIS-
Charlie do you realise how many idiots come into the bar they get a beer sit down and decide to take all of their stored up anger and parental issues out on the bar with some sort of sharp object, now i don't know about you but id be feeling really stupid on your part for not wanting to hear about my big news.

The bar phone RINGS.   Mac goes to--

What it all means

1- The very first item on the first page should be these words.
2- A one line description of the location and time and day of a scene
3- The narrative description of the events of a scene
4- Film editing instructions
5- A description of a characters name must be CAPPED
6- Lines of speech for each character
7- A characters name always appear above their dialogue

Photoshoot Planning/ Booking the Studio

I have sent out an email to my friends asking them to wear appropriate clothing for the photo shoot and to let them know of what is happening in regards to my photo-shoot. I have also asked if they are going to be available to actually be apart of my photo shoot as they might not be available.

This email is to someone who works at the local university who works with facilities that can help me produce high quality images that i can incorporate into my overall work. Colin who is the guy in control of the studio sent my friend an email and apparently there was some problems with people getting an email back from  Colin, also when talking to Colin he mentioned that he is pretty much booked up where people where also using the studio so i managed to take my photos when my friend was at the same time.

Sourcing Costume and Props- Photoshoot

Sourcing Costume and Props- Photoshoot

I only need a select few of props and one costume as i am only using one person for the actual images. Heres what i need-

Props

• Mask
• Baseball Bat
• Chain
• Watch

Costume

• Suit
• Smart Shoes

All of the above is being provided by my friends and the person in the images.

Storyboards

These are some of the storyboards that i used to map out certain parts of my trailer, as you can see there are various different shot types listed for each scene. Whenever i have a character in the shot i have added a cross to the characters face to help to try and give mean idea of where the character is looking during the scene. To help me a little bit more i have also written pretty much the direction of the scene so i know what is going to happen in each scene and how long that scene will last, as i said this is a great way to physically map out the trailer and help give me a physical understanding of what my trailer will look like.