Closed Blog Notification

Centre Name:
Norbury Manor BEC

Centre Number:
14343

Candidate Name:
Shria Mavji

Candidate Number:
8113

Unit:
G324

Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation question 1

Our trailer's premiere - Questionnaire feedback

We handed out the questionnaire that I created, and these were some of the responses we got back.

 "Because it fitted in well with the clips" 

I found this comment very valuable as it shows that the style of music that we were going for has paid off, and was in sync with the clips that come up on the screen.

This person also said that we could of improved on our text, taking this on board, we could have used visual effects on the text to make it seem less plain.

"Because the sound fits with the scene, especially when the pace quickened"

This comment made also highlights how our music fitted in with the quick cutting scenes towards the climax of our trailer. It also bring a sense of relief, as we worked hard on trying to make sure that the each different shot, cut at the right beat of the music. 

"... With the girl walking around, you could have it slightly darker instead of having a alternating dark scene and light..."

I found this comment very useful as it was something I didn't see the contrast of myself. I think it was important to have some scene that were in light to show the contrast of the past and present, but taking this comment on board and looking back at our trailer, I can now see how putting light scenes right after shots that in the dark, makes the light scenes seem even more brighter and ruins the concept of horror. 

"...Jojo's costume & makeup made the essence of the film more effective..."

The comment made shows how the mise-en-scene of one of our main character's Annabelle (played by Jozefina" paid off really well. We were trying to go for the demonic, ghostly spirit look and from audience feedback we have manage to do this successfully.  

Overall, the feedback we gained was positive, lots of people found the poster was created because of the red eyes that looked demonic and provoking. In the trailer, there are some aspects that we could improve on such as the text and the contrast between light and dark shots which were highlighted. Although most people found that the music was used effective and was in sync with the clips that changed on the beat of the music towards the climax of our trailer.  

Quick interview with our actress Jozefina

Today we had the premiere of our horror trailer and got hold of one Jozefina for a quick interview, just to find out about her thoughts on the final products.

The final package

This is our final new film, Chained Souls', promotional package, including the magazine front cover, poster and our main production, the trailer.

Our magazine front cover 

Our poster

Does our poster and magazine front cover meet the conventions?

Using the check list I created earlier during poster research, I have analysed and deconstructed our poster to show how we have followed conventions of existing horror posters, and film posters in general. 

I annotated the different conventions that our magazine front cover has as shown below: 

Creating a mini questionnaire - audience feedback sheet

For our premiere tomorrow, I have created a mini questionnaire that we will hand out to the people that we have invited to gain audience feedback.

Questionnaire

Creating green screen appropriate to our chosen producers

Practice run!

Today myself and Beth did a practice run through our premiere for Friday. We reconginsed the difference it makes when you watch something on a desktop or a laptop and when it's viewed on a big screen such as interactive whiteboard. This also helped us make any sound adjustments that our media teacher pointed it out during the class presentations.

Making adjustments and viewing it on the large
 screen as we go along.
 

Changes made to the magazine front cover

After receiving class and teacher feedback on all 3 of our products we have been making changes as shown below:

Presenting our products

Today we presented the 3 products that my group has been working on to the rest of our class. We gained valuable comments and tips on improvements that we will need to make this week. Below is the final version of the poster that myself and Ellesha have worked on. The magazine's front cover and the trailer both will be posted up during this week as we will be improving on them.

Final poster

For the rest of this week we will be improving on the follow:

Trailer:

-Make sure sound levels are correct are consistent throughout the trailer

-Retaking any shots that were identified to be grainy and not in focus

 Magazine font cover: 

-Double checking over spelling mistakes 

-Adding in my real name as well as my character's name in the movie. 

Magazine front cover - which we will be improving on this week 

Update: The trailer

One of the main problems we have faced during this last week was pointed on Monday by our media teacher who said that our first opening shot was too grainy and therefore not visually clear. To over come this, we tried various different techniques and options available to us on Premiere.  

1. Cropping the video around the edges will eliminate the excess dark spaces within the shot, which will help reduce the amount pixelated areas present on screen.

2. Adding a black fade will allow the framing of the shot to still be the same size without it looking like it has been cropped. 

Creating a Sepia tone: The house

We wanted to show the contrast of the past and present in our trailer, and one way to do this was to change the colour tone of clips. We decided to create a sepia tone on the clip of the new house that we will be using to show the past of the 3 friends already visiting it and being inside of this house.

Sepia Tone from bertybeth

Invitations to our premiere!

Here are the tickets that Asha has created that we will be handing out to our guests that we will be invite to watch the our trailer. We felt that it was important to make the tickets visually attractive which might influence our guest to come along and attend the premiere taking place on Friday. We created our production name "Blair production" , at the start of the course when we were put into group and have included this on our tickets too.

Invitation tickets for our premiere on Friday 14th

Potential guest list of people who have helped in our production:

Jozefina - our actress who played the character of Annabelle

Harpreet - we have used her voice to create a voice over in the narration of Annabelle

Miss Roberts - we have used one of our media teachers voice for a voice over

Update - magazine front cover

The magazine front cover that Asha is working looks like this so far. She has experimented with having the image in a black and white scale, which we found not as effective as the colour version.

The image in black and white, and the original version 

General update: 
Finals in tomorrow! - Tomorrow is the deadline for all our productions, so far we are all on track and have been gaining feedback and making various different changes in regards to this.

Events coming up: 
10/02/14 - Next week Monday we will be sharing our trailer in class with the other groups, and from this we will gain valuable feedback on things that we need to improve on and make changes to, which we will have the rest of the week to do so.
14/02/14 - Premiere! Next week Friday we will be the premiere of our trailer and we will be inviting people that have helped us on our production journey to show them the final product. A key person that my group will want to invite to this even will be our actress Jozefina who has helped us a lot by being apart of the cast.

Final changes - Poster

The poster that I have been working on is nearly finished! A final change that I needed to make after getting my group's feedback included making the text stand out better which I have done as shown below. 

Last minute filming... WHAT.

Early this week Beth and Asha went out filming to get a panning of a creepier and run down looking house in response feedback we got of the current panning of the house which looked too modern and the mise-en-scene conveyed happy thoughts. They accidentally encountered the owner of the house, and didn't manage to get any footage!

The house Asha and Beth went out to film

 This house would have been perfect to feature in our trailer as there are over grown trees which cover it, and create a min forest in front of it. Although from Google maps street view, the house isn't visible, but it is a white house which looks like it hasn't been maintained in awhile.

The next day myself and Beth went out again to film a house, we found this house which worked well as an alternative and got good footage that we can use in our trailer.

Alternative house

The mise-en-scene of this house isn't as great as the first one that Asha and Beth went out to film. The green bushes gives it a more of an lively feeling, although in editing we will be change this panning to a black and white scale, which will also symbolise the past in contrast with the footage in colour as the present. 

Editing the poster

Making changes - text on the trailer

One of the issues that we needed to change was the text and front. The font we used before was just an ordinary random one, but we needed to change it to the same style font that has been used on the poster and magazine front cover which is, "Perpetua Titling MT".

To make this change I went on to Photoshop and entered the new text that we would be using and changed the front style too.

The two different titles we will be using and in Perpetua Titling MT font. 

I then cropped each text out and saved it as a .JPEG image, and imported into Premier Pro to edit in.

We also needed to add in the credits at the end of our trailer, and our film name of course!  For this, we decided to keep the same style fonts we have used in the magazine front cover and in the poster. 

Update: The trailer

Here are some of the things that Beth has been doing in progress of our movie trailer: 

Trailer feedback

Today we also showed our teacher the trailer we have produced so far, and noted down any changes we needed to make to improve on it. Here are the changes that Beth noted down and this week we will be making those changes.

Main issues:

The main difficulty that we are having is conveying our narrative in the trailer without giving it all away. When we asked our teacher to guess what our narrative was, she was slightly confused and didn't pick up on the concept of 3 friends discovering a haunted house! 

To address this issue we will be making changes to the ordering of our clips and adding different text in help convey our narrative more easily. 

Photoshoot - magazine front cover

Asha doing my makeup

Beth help and Ellesha helping with lighting

Today we carried out the photoshoot for the magazine's front cover featuring the me. For this photoshoot Asha did my makeup, meanwhile Beth and Ellesha helped set up the studio lights.

 Asha has been using this version of Empire magazine's front cover as inspiration. It features Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter "coming out fighting" which we related the final girl concept to and used the framing of the image as inspiration in taking images for our magazine front cover.
            

Making changes - fake article

At the early stages of post-production Ellesha created this fake article which is featured in our trailer to help our narrative flow better.

 We got feedback for our teacher to change the "Olden Times" to just "The Times" as it doesn't make sense label something in the past as "Olden" because it would of been the present at that time. 

In regards to this we changed it and this is the new version which we will be using in the trailer. We also noticed that the colour on the first article created wasn't readable on screen, and so we made the text bigger and bolder and changed the intensity of "Sepia" tone which makes it look old. 

Potential images for poster

After doing the photoshoot on Friday, I went through the picture and chose the following 5 that I could potentially use for the poster. These were the best 5 images in terms of lighting, mise-en-scene and framing of the shot. They vary from a mid shot to an extreme close up which could work for the poster.

Out of these 5 images, we chose to pick the image below, which also explains the reasons why.

The photoshoot

Today we carried out the photoshoot with Jozefina for our poster. Below are some of the images that we took, including the potential images that I will be using for the actual poster.

Test shots - magazine front cover

Here are some images from today's photoshoot, Asha did my makeup which she will be doing again on Monday. The look that Asha has been trying to go for is from one of Empire magazine's addition featuring Daniel Radcliffe.

Poster update and general update

The following screen shots show what I have done today to improve the poster.

General update:

Tomorrow there will be a photoshoot carried out with our actress Jozefina (playing Annabelle) for the poster's image. 

The equipment and props that I will need are for the photoshoot will be;

• Makeup - to create Annabelle's mise-en-scene
• Annabelle's costume 
• A black back drop 

I will also need help from Asha and Beth, as their hand's will be in the shot, wrapped around Jozefina's face. To create this shot successfully, It will need to be a extreme close up, focused on Jozefina's eyes as this will create an eye catching image for the audience. In addition, Asha and Beth's hands will need some fake blood on it so it creates the illusion of how they are chained to Jozefina. 

Update - The magazine front cover

Our group memeber, Asha, has been in charge of the magazine's front cover. Below is a flat plan she's created for the magazine, which features the "final girl" Sammi, who I have played as for our trailer.

Flat plan that Asha has created

The magazine's front cover will also feature horror films that are coming out this year such as "The Purge 2" and "Devil's Due" which Asha has done research into. We well also an mid-shot image of myself, and have scheduled to take test shots on Friday, and take the actual images that Asha will be using on Monday 3rd February.

General update: Photoshoot schedules and key dates

31/01/14 - photoshoot with Jozefina in the studio (12.20-1.10PM) 

31/01/14 - test shots for magazine front cover with myself, Asha, Beth and Ellesha in the studio (11.20-12PM)

3/02/14 - photoshoot for the magazine front cover with myself, Asha, Beth and Ellesha in the studio (8.55-95AM)
7/02/14 - All productions should be completed, including trailer, magazine front cover and poster

Our group is now working towards the final week of production and so far everything is going according to our scheduled. Next week I will be editing the poster and then move on helping the other group member's with their productions. 

The trailer - having a go at editing

My group member Beth is doing most of the editing, but today I decided to have a go, and did the following to help her as our production deadline is soon approaching on the 7th February.

Poster production - the basics

Today I started off by looking through the different fonts that were available on Photoshop, which I could use. The chose font that I decided to go for is called "Perpetua Tiltling MT" which looks like this:

I decided to chose this font as I looked back at my poster research and saw that most fonts were plain and simple, which creates the main focus to be on the image. 

I thought it would be a good idea to get all the layers needed inserted on to the poster so that it is ready before the photoshoot with Jozafina. This would also make the production of the poster easier as I would just have to insert the poster's picture in later and change the colour of the text to adapt it with the colours on the image, as well as make sure that it is visible for the audience. To help me with the layout of were the to position some of the text, I used another horror poster for guidance.

This is where I am up to now with the poster. I have inserted all the different layers that are the conventions, and have booked the studio for this Friday lunchtime to carry out a photoshoot with Jozefina.