Feedback for Ancillary Products

These are some of the various different comments I received as feedback for the ancillary products which I created previously:

• "There needs to be something to fill the bottom left of the magazine because it looks too empty compared to the rest - maybe a small article preview?"
• "I liked the simple colours used as it doesn't make it look as if there is too much on the poster"
• "I liked the gradient used in the centre of the poster because I think it works well with the images with as eyes are immediately draw to them"
• "Good sticking to the darker colour scheme for the poster, it really makes the genre clearer"
• "I'm not too sure about the angled text on the magazine cover - looks a little tacky in my opinion"

Finished Film Poster



Film Poster - I have now added in a number of images from various points of the movie to link the two togther more obviously. I have also added in the ident title at the top and all of the credits expected have been placed at the bottom in the conventional 'steeltongs' font style.

Finished Magazine Cover

Magazine Cover - I have included an advert in the bottom left of the cover because previously it was looking quite empty and that isn't convention of existing magazines of any genre.
I have also altered slightly the red text nearer the top because some f my target audience said that it looked a little 'tacky' when angled, so I have made it straight but kept the bold effect and the red colour.

Trailer Ident

This is the ident which I have created to be included in my trailer, which was one of the major things missing from my trailer.

Video Filters

One point which I received as feedback for my trailer was that the colour of some shots wasn't dark enough to fit the actual genre/idea of my trailer. So at the moment, I haven't decided which style I am going to use, but I did do some trials of various different filters which are in final cut. From these, I have decided to just simply use a more intense colour saturation because this one in my opinion looks the most effective for what I was picturing trying to achieve, because although the colour tint does give a dark tone, all colour has been removed which I don't think looks as good as partial saturation.

Improvements of Trailer

I have currently been making various changes to my trailer following the comments which I received from the comments which have included adding different sound effects and altering the timings of cuts so that they are more precise and flow much smoother than they did before. So far I think that some of these simple and very minor changes have upped the quality of this piece quite well because it makes it look much cleaner and more exacts in terms of codes and conventions of film trailers. One of the major things which I need to edit into the beginning of the trailer is an ident because this was an almost unanimous comment and it would also make my trailer follow further codes and conventions of existing film trailers.

This is the newest version of the trailer - Like I said there are only minor changes to the previous version!

Magazine Cover Almost Complete

This is my latest update of the magazine cover, it does seem to be potentially almost complete, however there is one main concern which I have annotated on the image which I think could be improved upon.

Film Poster Delay

I really need to work more on my poster because I think hat I have spent more time on the magazine and now the cotnent of the poster seems quite inferior over the magazine, so over the next few weeks, I intend to have the poster complete to a higher standard in terms of both quality and content.
This is the stage which my film poster is currently, it needs a lot more work as in my opinion I think that I've spent more time on the magazine cover.

Progress of Ancillary Products

These are more progressed stages of my ancillary products, I think that they are coming together much better than I thought at the earlier stages. I can see hat they are following some codes and conventions of existing products. I have altered the designs a little more to what I had initially drafted.
Currently there are no photos on the pages because the photos which I had initially taken were quite bad in terms of lighting and picture quality, so I will have to retake those pictures at some point.

Trailer Improvments

I am now going to work on improving my trailer from the feedback which I received from the showings. Some of these improvements will include:

• Altering the typography - this is because I received a comment stating that it was a little too 'in your face' and that I should use a simpler form of typography and then add text effects to the title so that it still conveys the genre appropriately.
• Additional effects - for example on the title shot and the 'coming soon' shot I intend to add a sound effect on the top so that the audience is drawn into those shots, which are some of the most crucial ones as they provide some of the key information about the film.
• I am going to work on the sounds a little more because there were a couple of times were the sound wasn't synced properly with the video and also some stopped too early or carried on for too long.

Feedback From Rough Cut Showing

I showed the rough cut of my trailer to a group of people which were relevant to my chosen target audience and asked them to write down comments about both the positive aspects and also points which could be improved.
I have found this to be really helpful as it allows me to focus on points which I may not have noticed before and it gives me opinions from different perspective rather than my own.
These are the comments I received from the showing which I then scanned:

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of my trailer. I do think that it does need improving within various different aspects such as syncing some of the audio appropriately and make the edits and transitions of shots run much smoother so that it looks more professional. I intend to show this video to groups of people who are of my chosen target audience so that I can gather their thoughts and opinions on the clip.

Further Editing

I have made more progress during the editing process. I have made the transitions of video and sound more clean, but I still need to ensure that they are even better in the final video. Also I have added in the soundtrack and various sound effects which I waned in the video to convey the genre more. I have developed another skill by working out how to partially saturate the colour from the clip which the below screen shot demonstrates. To acheive this appearance of the clips, I used the colour corrector tool in final cut and   
messed around with the "sats" to remove specific levels of  colour from the clips.

This was the type of saturation which I was thinking of when designing the storyboard. I wanted to use this because I think that it is a simple techniques which alters the tone of the shot because having the vibrant colours which the original shot had would have completely opposed the mood of the overall trailer. Also this tools was quite effective in dimming some of the lighting because during filming, the natural lighting was very strong which I wasn't really pleased with as it didn't make some of the clips look how they where intended.

Audio/Soundtrack

I have now decided on the soundtrack and effects which I am going to use in my trailer. I have also been able to ensure that the files will be usable in final cut which is one of the issues I was previously having.

Before confirming the sounds I would be using, I analysed where I and which clips I would be using them with to ensure that they are suitable and that the video benefits as much as possible from the audio file.


I really like the main soundtrack because although it doesn't have lots of different things going on, I think that it really suits the genre and in my opinion, the simplicity is quite good because it doesn't overshadow the video or the video doesn't overshadow the soundtrack.

Typography In Trailer

For my trailer I have decided to use "action of the time new" which I downloaded from dafont.com. I have chosen this because I think that it stands out and does lightly convey the horror/thriller genre of trailers.

CORRUPTION

Audio Issues

I am currently experiencing some issues in terms of adding a soundtrack and sound effects into my rough cut because I have located some sound effects which I want to feature in the video, however I am having trouble transferring them over to my final cut video. There seems to be an issue with saving the sounds as a compatible file type hat is able to be used within final cut.

More editing 19/11/12

Where I currently have the cursor in this screenshot, I plan on using a sound effect of a "crash" sound because this will follow on well from the shot before it as it will create the effect of a forced entry into the room.

Here I have created a montage of two clips which have been cut into many separate parts and together I think that the fast paced cutting will work well with atmospheric music over the top to create tension.

Beginning of Ancillary Tasks

These are screen shots of my first session of producing the ancillary products. So far I think that they are going fairly well, I am struggling with a couple of factors, mainly due to my knowledge of indesign is quite limited, however this is beginning to help me develop my skills further with the program.
In my opinion, I do think that the final products are going to look different to my initial designs, mainly in terms of placements on the page and colours etc.

Starting Editing 14/11/12

Today I have begun the editing process for my footage and these are a few screen shots of what I had achieved in the first session. I have roughly put together the first few clips and have begun to include transitions.

I have also started to try and alter the appearance of the clips through the use of filters because I want to partially saturate the colour of the clips to convey the genre I am using. So far the filters I have tried aren't what I require so I am going to need to continue looking at more as the editing progresses.

Filming Process

So far I have filmed the shots from my storyboard which are set indoors due to the weather. I think that it has gone okay at the moment, however it has been slightly difficult getting some angles because as the room I have filed in is rather small it has been hard to get the tripod in the correct position, but currently I am improvising my way around these issues by slightly altering the shots from that of my storyboard.

One major issue was trying to film reflections because the most common issue that has currently arisen was that it is difficult to get the shot of the reflection without getting the camera in shot. So I think that I need to experiment with different angles from what I had initially planned in my storyboard to ensure that the camera or any other equipment isn't able to be seen in the mirror reflection.

Filming Extension

After the incidents which I stated in one of my previous posts, I have been able to have access to the school equipment (camera & tripod) for another couple of days, up until Thursday. So I plan to have all of my shots filmed by the end of this week, I will then progress onto the editiing process

Delay on Filming... RAIN!!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to complete my filming during the week of half term because the weather had unexpectedly turned to heavy rain which made conditions unsuitable for filming, mainly because of the risk of damaging equipment and also because of the effects which the rain had on health and safety on the location.

However I was able to film a number of shots which are set indoors, so it wasn't an unproductive week.

Risk Assessment

After doing a health and safety check of my primary film location, I found that there are a number of different issues around the location:

• Sharp objects - I need to ensure that location is clear of any unnecessary objects not used in footage to ensure that location isn't going to cause any harm to participants and also the public.

• Damage of equipment - There are potential risks of equipment being damaged, so it ill need to be used appropriately and accordingly to prevent this from occurring

• Slipping due to wet weather - Prior to filming, always check that the ground isn't going to cause slipping/skidding leading to injury. Also I will need to make sure that any people involved in film are wearing costumes which are suitable for conditions i.e. grip must be on footwear.

• Surrounding public - As I will be filming in some locations which could potentially have people, I need to make sure that they aren't going to cause damage or interruptions and also ensure that anything I am doing isn't going to bring harm to them as well.

The Woman In Black - Promotion

Hammer Film Productions' The Woman In Black used various different types of activities to create the whole promotional package of the film.

A viral campaign was created, and this seems to have increased in popularity over the years, especially since the success of the 2008 film The Dark Knight, and this was to entice the audience into seeing how scary the film may potentially be. This campaign featured an image of something suddenly appearing and the plan was to capture the reactions of people's faces who actually viewed the image. These reaction videos were then viewable from the website of the image.

They also used an interesting poster for the teaser of the film. It is very minimal and doesn't feature any what seem to be main cast. The image has been also manipulated so that they have no eyes & the tag line of the poster "What did they see?" contradict each other. I think that they wanted to create mystery and intrigue for the film. 

Then the official poster was released and it does seem to have been made in a way to answer questions because as the first poster said "What did they see?" the official poster reveals it to be "The Woman In Black"
Then obviously released the film's trailer to youtube on 18th August 2011, which is about 6 months prior to the theatrical release and this was used to basically create hype and buzz for the film as the release date of February 2012 got closer.

Film Promotion

Within film and any other business, promotion is an important part of any release because it will influence the financial risk of the project. Film studios will invest heavily into marketing for their films because they will need to ensure that the film is known and that it will be successful. They will invest in expensive marketing campaigns to maximize as much revenue as early as possible in the promotion cycle. The budgets for marketing usually amount to anywhere between half or three times the production budget. The publicity of films is usually handled by the distributor and exhibitors.

Initial Magazine Cover Design

This is my initial draft of a magazine cover for the second ancillary product. I took inspiration from various different types of film magazines such as Empire, Total Film etc because I think that these follow most of the conventions of magazine covers and so I think that this will help me create a cover design which will look authentic to the audiences.

The main character of the film will be placed in the centre because it is a common convention for the image from the main featured film to be placed in the centre as it allows the reader to identify that this will be the larger and more primary article of the overall magazine.

The magazine title will be at the very top of the page because this is a convention which almost all magazines follow because by placing the title at the top and in a large font style, it is immediately in view of the audience so that they notice the individual magazine.

I wanted to place some other smaller articles because this is also a common convention of magazines because if there was just the main article, the overall cover would look rather empty and won't look interesting to the reader. Also by including a variety of different article topics, it allows the magazine to attract a wider audience range because of the different target interests.

Initial Film Poster Design

This is my first draft of a film poster for my trailer to be used as one of my ancillary products.

Codes & Conventions of Film Magazine Covers

These are some of the codes and conventions which I think apply to film magazine covers

• The name of the magazine is clearly displayed
• Must be eye catching to the audience
• Actors and images are generally used as the main focal point of the cover
• Colours and fonts are used to create a specific effect and genre
• Different font styles, colours, size etc are used to suggest different ideas
• A wide number of titles are included to indicate the large amount of content inside the magazine
• The price, date, issue number, barcode etc are also clearly displayed

Film Magazine Cover Examples

These are a couple of examples of film magazine front covers. From looking at just these covers, I can see that a common convention of the covers is that most of them seem to have the main text in a font which is representing the main featured film such as the Empire cover for Tron Legacy has a futuristic typography which is also the official typography that is used on the other promotional products such as the film poster. Also the Hellboy cover has the Empire masthead on fire which is representative of the film itself because it is iconic of the actual character from the film.

Codes & Conventions of Film Posters

These are just some of the basic codes and conventions which film posters should follow:

• Age certificate is usually visible
• Release date or 'coming soon' clearly stated
• Introduces the genre of the film
• Directors and production company names are on display
• Names of primary actors are used to highly promote the film
• A large and easy to read film title
• The overall poster must be eye catching

Film Poster Examples

These are just a few examples of posters from films which i have either taken inspiration from or from the same or similar genres. From looking at these together, I can see that a common factor of thriller film posters is that the main character or object has been centralised, so that it has been the made the main focus of the actual poster

Research of Existing Posters

As part of my research for the ancillary tasks, I have decided to analyse other existing film posters to look for common codes and conventions which seem to appear. I currently am researching official film posters, I will later move onto looking at student made products and compare them together.

The first poster I have analysed is for the film 'The Others' because I think that this is the type of film which I want to achieve. This is also one of the many films which I have taken inspiration from.

Typography

For my ancillary products and also the trailer itself, they need to have a consistent typography which is relevant and conveys the codes and conventions of the psychological thriller genre. So to stat with I have found some film posters of the same or similar genres and took out the typography just to give an idea as to what styles seem to be more significant and effective than others.

Beginning of Ancillary Planning

Along with our chosen project, in my case a trailer, we also have to produce at least 2 ancillary products to go with it. Ancillary products are basically secondary forms of promotion. So for my trailer I have to make 2 out of these 3:

• a website homepage for the film
• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film
• a poster for the film

For my trailer, I am going to produce a film poster and a magazine front cover.

Storyboard

This is my initial storyboard for my trailer idea, it isn't perfect by any means but it does give a small idea as to what direction I am taking with my trailer. I do believe that this will change during the filming process as I will most likely come up with additional ideas, so I am not saying that this will be the definite end product. I do think that the aspect which will change most during filming/editing is the length of the shots because these timings were just approximations so I think I will more than likely change this later on.

Date of Filming

I have booked out a camera and plan to start filming during the half term commencing on 26th October. I plan to have all filming done within that week.

Characters

In terms of characters for my film, I want the main character which will be featured to be a young adult because I think that this will be more relevant to my target audience because it will allow them to relate more. I want this character to initially be shown as strong and slowly make the vulnerability of the character develop throughout some aspects of the trailer to display a transition in character development.
In terms of the protagonist, I don't want to feature them too much in the trailer because I think that this will build on the tension and suspense and this would be a method of attracting and gripping the audience with interest.

• I have decided that the character in my trailer will have very simple costumes and they aren't going to be too different from everyday costumes because I think that protagonists in psychological thrillers don't usually wear extravagant costumes.
• The colours of the costumes will be very minimal as I want to convey the mood and the tone of the psychological thriller genre.

Props

I don't plan on using many 'unique' props such as guns, knives etc because the theme of my trailer isn't going to focus on violence but instead the psychological aspect so I am hoping to utilise the objects which are already in the locations I film at to make it look more natural.
Also I don't want to include these more intense props because I think that it will cause issues because I would need to make sure that people are aware that they would be for coursework purposes.

Locations

I currently have an idea of a couple of possible locations which I plan to use for my filming. I have taken into consideration that these locations need to emphasise the genre of the film trailer, so I think that they will have to be quite isolated and be quite dingy because this will really set the mood for a thriller film. So the locations which I am going to primarily use is going to be an enclosed woodland area, churchyards and also portions of a park, however because this location may feature brightly coloured aspects which won't convey the atmosphere which I need so I am going to need to use some filters or colour saturation during the editing process to create the more eerie atmosphere.