Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Film Poster




This Is the Poser for our film we created on Photoshop. Our main inspiration was from the Grudges poser. The black around the eye symbolizes the hair, her own barrier from the outer world and the only thing that can cover her face and perhaps cover the wrong things she has done. To create the Poster, we changed the opacity levels of the original photo i took of vanessa on photoshop and then placed the hair from the grudge over the top using a different layer. The text says "it never forgives, it never forgets". The reason for this being is, Vanessa never forgave her elder family member for abusing her and she will never forget it. We used a quote from "Empire magazine" as they are a major magazine which looks at films using the quote"The most intense film of the year" which will automatically want the audience to watch it. Other texts we included were both mine and Kimberley's names and Vanessa Reynolds as she has the starring role in our film introduction. I am very happy with The Final result as I feel the photograph is very unnerving and has an almost ghostly element to it due to adjusting the opacity level.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Film poster inspiration

I want to create a cover for my film " The Common" using photoshop. I have been researching many different styles and formats to find exactly what I'm looking for. Here are some of the selected few of covers I would like my cover to be inspired by.

This is effective because of the black space on it. I want to use a similar idea on my poser.


Poster above stands out for me because of the catch unnerving slogan"it will get under your skin"

The simplicity of this poster attracts me to it whilst still portraying horror 


Experimenting with my clips




Above are the same sequence I created using iMovie, although one in colour, one using the black and white effect. I feel the black and white sequence creates the right atmopere I'm looking for. Without the colour aspect, it almost leaves the audience feeling unknowing and on edge as not everything in the picture is given away. The moody contrasting monochrome shades add dynamics.

To create this sequence, I merged some of the shots I filmed at portelet common until continuity was present. I didn't show the character throughout the sequence until the end, for the reason of i want the audience to really want to no who this unknown character is who has pushed an Innocent victim off a Cliff. i also didn't want to overpower the audience with shots of her face as it could perhaps look cheap and unprofessional. to give my sequence even more atmopshere i added music which created suspense, and also the sound of a heartbeat building up speed until the shot of Vanessa's face on screen. I then got the music to fade out gently unlike a sudden Holt which i don't think would work.

Saturday, 22 November 2008

Experimenting



This Is one of the shots I filmed at Portelet common. I wanted to show the comparison of both black and white and the original. I personally really love the black and white because of the crispness of her white shirt among the less so bright foreground and background and feel the original green background isn't at all inspiring. The Subtitles colour could lead into anything using the black and white effect whilst the green background could only lead to a colour that complimented it, unlike a tacky colour that clashed with it. My work partner thinks the opposite of what I do, so I don't no what is going to happen.

Thursday, 20 November 2008


This technique only uses 1 layer from the original shooting, and the other layer is from the shooting using the green-screen of kimberley walking. In "after affects" we adjusted the contrast and brightness, hue and saturation and then merged both layers together to create this effect.  to remove the green background, I used the plug in on "after effects" called key light. I then told it to take out the background colour green. 

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Green Screen Test

Greenscreen Experimental

Today in media after experimenting with changing the opacity level in the 2 layers of shots, we wanted to try and produce a similar effect but differently. This enabled us to use the greenscreen as this was just to test out the procedure, Vanessa was not needed and we used Kimberley dressed in a white gown like Vanessa in our film introduction. I got Kimberley to walk on the spot in front of the greenscreen as I filmed her using the canon LX2. Below are the shots I filmed of Kimberley in front of the greenscreen and Kimberley and I talking about what we wanted to achieve in this Piece edited on iMovie.
Kimberley infront of greenscreen
Me filming kimberley walking infront of green screen

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

Test effects

Today we experimented with the program " After Effects". As mentioned in the past post,whenever I filmed a shot of vanessa engaging in movmenet, I took a shot of the location in the exact position, only just without Vanessa in so that in post production I would use both layers and adjusting the opacity to create an almost ghostly character which could appear and re-appear on and off the screen. For me I really love this effect.Not only will this keep the audience engrossed in whats happening but if done well with practise using " After Effects" it could look outstanding.

Monday, 17 November 2008

First shooting day

Today, myself and my partner Kimberley went to Portelet with our actress Vanessa to shoot shots 1, 7 and 8. I filmed shot 7 and 8 and Kimberley filmed shot 1. The weather today whilst shooting was dull and dismal with light patched of drizzle. We thought we would use the weather to our ability instead of against us. The crispness of the white sky created the atmosphere we were hoping for. As we need to shoot 5 more scenes at the common we will have to choose a day with very similar weather. As it is winter this shall not be to much as a challenge. We shot our 3 shots using the canon XL2 over a 3 hour period. The lengthy time was due to the variety of different angles shot. I Filmed shots of the area and then the exact same area again but with Vanessa in it so that in post production i can put the area shots behind the Vanessa shots and create an almost ghostly eerie character. This may turn out far to unprofessional for what were aiming for but once experimented using iMovie to try and create this effect, this could be exactly what we need for our film.

Eqipment we braught with us today were:

Canon LX2
Tripod ( for steady shots)
Stepladder ( my idea because i wanted shots from abouve vanessa)
Beanbags( so that the Canon LX2 was able to lie stabely flat on the floor angeling upwards)
Canon powershot A540 ( camera i braught to take photographs for my blog)
White Nighty


Vanessa and I with the Camera( which was covoured at the time due to drizzle)




A problem we faced during filming was the actress had to do it barefoot but she got thorns in her feet. To help reduce this problem I Transported her on my back from each shots, see below for photograph.


I supplied our actress with food and warm clothing to ensure her acting will be the best it could


Low angle shot

Used Beanbags to create a steady stand for another low shot


I am stood on the stepladder trying to shoot an areial veiw shot

Areial Shot


Filming Vanessa



Friday, 14 November 2008

What I need to Do to Be able to start filming

Today me and Kimberley decided on a date we will shoot storyboard shot 1, 7 and 8. we have organized our actress vanessa to take half a day out school on monday 17th of november. We will bring the Canon XL2 with tripod, Stepladder for high shots and a white nighty to the location of Portelet common. As our male actor will not be able to participate in the first shooting session at Portelet common we will have to plan another date where both female and male actress are able to participate. As Kimberley and I are doing half the films editing and filming each, I will be shooting shot 6,7,8,9 and 10.

Today I also rang up Le Quennevais sports centre to ask permission if we would be able to use their pool to shoot our underwater shots in the story board. This has Been booked for sunday 23rd of november at 11 am. As Shot 9 and 10 are underwater shots, I will be the one filming. I will be shooting our actor Max Holley falling into the pool unconsciously and slowly floating into the depths of the pool. I will be using The ......... to shoot these shots.