Reflection

These last few lessons we have been working on our wbsite and poster. I started with my wbsite, and I basically got nowhere near anything in that lesson because of all the time it took mucking around trying to make things work. The next lesson I started on my poster and I think it's going really well so far, I looked up a couple more posters and I got the idea to use the park scene (with no people) as the badckground, as it isn't too busy but it is an extremely important part of the story. I was messing around with photoshop and I found out how to wash it out or something like that so now my poster is basically black and white and I think the whole effect makes it seem a lot more tragedy/supernatural etc. Now i'm, also thinking abut what to make the background of my website, as the image I had really had nothing to do with the film at all. So I think the same washed out park image will do perfectly, and if it is too small and streches out then that is no problem as will give it an even more mysterious effect, but i'll have to check it out next lesson.

Tree Diagram

Website

CoverPage -
The cover page will contain the title of the story and a one way link to the homepage. It will be a plain background with large, loopy text for the title and smaller text for the "enter site" caption.

Homepage -
The homepage will contain the blurb, film title, menu system and the film poster. The background will be the dark foggy one and the text will all be either red or blue depending on the appearance of the background.

Characters Page -
The characters page will follow the same trend colour scheme and background wise. It will contain short descriptions of each of the main characters and links leading to image pages of each of them.

Trailer Page -
This page will contain a blurb of the story or something simular and a placeholder for the trailer. Matching coolour scheme, title and menu linking the page to the character page, story page and the homepage.

Stroy Page -
This will contain the synopsis of the story and a few images from the film.

Poster

Images -
For the poster a background image is required, this could either be a background similar to that of the site, dark and foggy, or it could use the park background or a close up of one the characters, probably Suzie. If it was a picture of Suzie the background would have to be plain and dark, maybe the foggy type, with very few colours other than that.

Text -
The title would be the films title "Rules Of Life" with either the slogan or the blurb, depending on space available. The main characters names will be across the top, depending on the colour scheme they will be in plain text. The release date could be anything probably the date the task is due or something, and it will be in one of the bottom corners of the poster.

Planning - Text

Synopsis -
Blurb: Missing memories, visions of a dead friend, sisters who can't see you, Suzie doesn't know what has happened to her and when she finds out... how could she believe it?

Synopsis: After an argument with her mother, Suzie runs from her home. She unknowingly puts herself in the path of tragedy when she goes alone to the park. When she wakes up with no memory of having gotten home, and finds her dead friend sitting on her couch she and her family discover that the only way to be happy is to let go.

Slogan: When the only option is to acknowledge the truth.

Cast and Crew:
Suzie - Played by Emily Bennett, this tragic story revolves around Suzie and how she must accept her own death in order to let her family move on.

Lettie - Played by Katie Manchester, the dead friend of Suzie, this mysterious apparition endeavors to help her friend understand.

Mother - Played by Shelby Batty, this woman mourns the loss of her daughter but refuses to let the rest of the family stay in the past.

Sister - Played by Amelia Batty, Jess loved her sister dearly and holds on so strongly to her memories that she almost comes into contact with the spirit of her lost older sister.

Planning

Background -
If I am trying to play the genre of my movie to its fullest extent the image I want to use must reflect this. I'm going to use a picture containing fog, hopefully it will have a purple or blue colour tinge to it and possibly some water or anything else to exaggerate the mystery tragedy type of genre. These are some examples I found.

Colour Scheme -
The images I use from the film will also have to relate to this, maybe a few close-ups or the empty park or something, if I edit that it could also be used as a background image. Overall I'm going to aim for a cool colour scheme of blues, greens, and purples, maybe I'll make the text red/crimson to add more to the feel, and also because it is a complementary colour which will make it stand out without looking bad, it also represents blood an tragedy.

Reflection

Poster making was really fun the other day, and it was also really helpful because I needed a brush-up on photoshop techniques, I haven't used it in ages and it takes me fives seconds to forget what I just did. I got even better today, figuring out by myself how to change all different colours and parts. Making the same poster again but differently was really hard. I couldn't think of any other genre because my image is just a few scrunched up bits of paper fading into black. So when I tried to mnake it lighter and happy I couldn't change the brightness because it was just black and there was no former background to illuminate. I ended up just making it a faded brown theme, I have no idea what sort of genre it is now, but it's definately something old fashioned or seomthing to do with ppolitics, which of course is hard to get away from considering the name I had to use. It was still fun though, but I think I need to decide what image I'm going to use for my actual film poster, since I am using my own film. A plain background may be good, I think, with a picture of emilys face or the park or something related to the story. xp =^_^=

Poster Practice

Twilight

I was just looking for another site to continue my research and it was actually a brilliant idea! The Eclipse site has a little comments box on the side on the front page next to the trailer and I think that's a great idea because people love being able to express themselves and also to see what other people think.
From reading the character descriptions on this site I have learned that while writing them it is not good to write assumptions about feelings and especially appearances as they make the whole thing sound corny and gay and pathetic. However I don't think I will have to try so hard to avoid this problem as my movie is not derived from a book.

Harry Potter - Deathly Hallows

The colours are repetitive, when it comes to the text all of it is in silver, keeping the site related. There is plenty of space in the background and all the pages are focused on one specific thing eg. Characters, Storyling etc.
The overall feel is a bit omnious, like something very big and important and final is comming up, which is true because it is the long awaited end of a long series. All the colours and the burning background add to the tragic atomosphere.
There is a varitey of posters for the film, some contain images of characters and some of objects which are important in the film, for example the Diadem of Ravenclaw.
The website is layed out very clearly, the background stays the same for every page and the information is all displayed in the same fashion, the box just reappears with a different content.
It definately appeals well to the the target audience, both people who are already fans of the series and to people who know nothing about it. It is colourful, and the fact the background is a huge burning castle begs the question "what is going on?"
I like the layout, is looks really clean-cut and proffessional.

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/harrypotterandthedeathlyhallows/index.html

The Dark Knight

The site retains the same colour throughout, it is dark and black and reflects the film itself and the supernatural theme of it. Each page contains much space and is centered around one idea, such as the trailer, the characters, the dates etc.
The front page contains a picture of the main character and the background is an image of the city which the film is about, these elements give continuous insight to the storyline of the film and build up an expectancy by the viewers of what they will see in the film.
There are many posters for this film, most of them contain very little information other then a couple of dates and the name of the film. They mostly contain images of the two main characters and are in similar formats which relate them to each other.
The menu system is also interactive.
The target audience is a wide age-range, from 15 years to 30's, the site is interactive both visually and through audio, it targets people who like action and some sort of tradgedy through the dark colurs and full-on background sound.
I like the fact that it is all very simular, it makes it easy to relate every part of the film and its advertisments.

http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/dvdsite/

Post-Production

There were a few problems encountered during post-production and editing. Technically there was a problem with the format of my film, I had created using a lower definition so when it was converted the image appeared stretched. I also ran into trouble with some time management, by the time I learned how to properly use the program final cut I had only enough time to make a couple of quick changes, however, I didn't have enough time as the shots ended up too bright and it make the film a little jerky with odd colours. I also had I slight problem when I didn't have the files I needed to make the film run smoothly, as I had deleted all the ones I believed I wasn't going to use, so in one scene the sister puts the dog down then is holding it a second later.

Storyboards were of absolutely no use which really brought the filming down in my opinion, they would have allowed us to have a specific thing to follow and film, however, the story kept getting changed, so the storyboards no longer applied, and the group kept changing what they wanted to do during the filming process, which made it even more confusing. The rough edit was really useful, it showed us what we needed to change and where effects and voice-overs were needed. We eventually got a script as well and that was really useful as we knew exactly what we needed to say, allowing to film the shots as many times as we wanted and using different parts for the same scene as the words

For time-management there were a few issues, however the only ways I could fix these were to cut things short, or only make them half as good as they could have been, because all the time issues I encountered were ones where I learned information too late to use it appropriately in my film. The worst t.m. issue was the voice recording one, we didn't get it done until a Friday lunch-time and the film was due the next Tuesday, I couldn't get a laptop out for the weekend and so I only had Monday night to work on it, it was made even worse when I got to work on it finally and the brilliant voice recording system which we waited so long for had recorded the sounds so low we could hardly hear them, therefore I had to lower the volume of every single part of my sound-track individually in order to make the voices heard.

I don't think effective use was really made of the EDL because it wasn't until after the scenes were made that I knew exactly the way I wanted to put them together, it was also difficult because the group couldn't really help each other as we were each making pretty different films using different shots and slightly different storylines.

I think after I was reminded what to do that I effectively made plenty of reflections, however they weren't really of any use to me, next time think what I need to do is not reflect but plan ahead if I need to use them productively.

I learned how to use the program final cut pro, and how to convert our clips to the correct format to be used in final cut through another program, I also learned how to individually change parts of the sound in garageband, including parts from the films soundtrack.

I'm not satisfied with the final result of my film, there are many aspects that I had wished to change or improove which I noticed during the progress, but my time managment seemed to be so bad that I only got half the job done that I wanted.

If I could I would have spent much more time on the editing, making it far smoother, finding the scene I was missing with the dog, making the sound better etc. I would have liked to re-record the sound as I had been expecting it to be much better then it turned out to be, however I only discovered this the day before it was due so I couldn't do anything about it.

If I could start again I would definately do a few things differently, I would start by making sure the storyline had storyboards to follow, then I would get all the planning for filming done with plently of time. I would get the voice recording done much earlier so that if there were any problems I would have time to fix them. I would also pay more attention to the editing. Basically I think the only real problem with my project, or the factor that made it un-satisfying, was the lack of time management so that would the factor that never left my head if I did the project again.

E-Z-T Film + Emilys Film

In Elenas film the overall editing was done very well with much detail, they used overlapping layers, colour manipulation as well as camera movement and angle. These effects made the films genre and storyline much more apparent even though it was still only a short film. They also used the effect of taking many photos and using photoshop then running them together to make a scene that would fit in with the normal runs, this allowed them to put in extra effects, it was a brilliant idea. They could just improove one of the first scenes, where she was going into the house, it was a little long, and the sound seemed a bit "echoey". In comparison to mine, the film seemed to have had a lot more time put into it, and far more checking and double-checking of the editing and sound.

Emilys film was done really well in the sense that they chose a perfect storyline for the task, it was short but contained many different elements, as they could use whatever they wanted to slow the girl down, such as a long trip, falling over etc. The film had good use of camera angles as well. The thing that could have been a bit better were the sound, as it was a bit hard to hear in some shots. Compared to mine the storyline was far clearer and it was also funny and had a meaning that was easy to read.