Location Shots

Before we shot our final trailer, we considered a variety of different location that our filming could take place. These were mainly shot around the school site as the characters involved are school children and it would be appropriate for the main location to be an educational institute. Below is the shots that were taken for consideration and an evaluation of their usefulness to our movie trailer.

This first shot is of the main school yard, although there won't be any specific scenes here with the characters in, there will be a short clip of filming of this area at the very beginning of our trailer. This will be done as a landscape and hi-angle shot and will be used so that audiences are aware exactly of the characters location. Although this shot does not give away too much information about the plot of the film it gives an idea of the characters backgrounds and their personality throrugh the school that they attend. In most movie trailers it is very common that films are set within the summer months, which means any exterior shots emmulate the current season, so romantic comedies would usually be filled with sunshine. Unfortaunatly for us, as we are filming these shots in late autumn/winter it will be very difficult for us to show the summer season how we would like. If we were to use this shot it is important that we manipulate these clips in order for them to appear brighter and relate to the happy and bright feel to the film.

This is a shot of a school canteen and in most teenage comedy films that are done in a school setting, contain atleast one scene in a school canteen. This location has a variety of different strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths is that it is a popular convention of a romantic comedy (that are set within schools) so by using this location in our film trailer we will be following the norm and therefore making our trailer more realistic for its genre. Another strength is that it ties into the film and relates to it, as a canteen such as this one only really exsists within a school, it shows audiences automatically where the film is going to be set. However, when taking this shot we noticed a lot of background noise from canteen workers behind the shutters and we evaluated that potential disruptions from staff members could be a problem when attempting to film in this location. Another problem of shooting in this canteen would be that it is usualyl locked during lesson time to prevent any unsupervised students coming through and when it is unlocked it is break times, so filming our trailer here will be incredibly difficult as this location can get very busy and sound, props and characters will become drowned out by other schoolchildren. We have chosen not to use this location in our trailer because of the potential distractions that may occur when filming here.

This 'hut' is used a lunch-area for current students within the school. However, we think it would be a useful location to include in our trailer as a romantic spot that the two main characters could escape to. As this location is not nessercarily something you would see in many schools it could either be shown as an area within school our we could film it ourselves so that it would appear to be in another area outside of the school setting as a 'secret' place that the characters can go to. This location is set in one of the main areas of the school site so it is essential that when we decide to film there is little distractions from nearby classroom windows or people walking past in the background (like there is in the background of the picture) Despite these problems we have decided to use this location in our trailer, during the 'picnic' scene where the male and female lead are first seen together in a romantic location.

As our male lead character is a stereotypical 'geek' it is possible for his character to spend a lot of time around books and in school settings such as the library, rather than being in school canteens and common rooms. However by using this location it would be difficult to shoot as this library in particular is busy at most times throughout the day, even during breaks so it would be unsuitable to film a large amount of scenes here, it could perhaps be used for a short clip without dialogue. If we later decide that a library should be included, there are a number of libraries around Coventry that could be used as a filming locations. However this could prove just as difficult as we would have to have prior approval from libraries to use their services and the filming that is taking place could prove noisy and distracting for other library visitors. Based on these reasons we have chosen to not use a library location as it seems difficult to do so without causing problems and disruptions for ourselves and others.

Story Board

Before filming our final draft of our movie trailer, so that we had some order and structure to our filming session i had compiled a scene list/storyboard of what needs to be shot to go into our trailer. Although it will not be filmed chronologically the list that was drawn up is in chronological order.


Scene List


1. A landscape, hi-angle shot taken from a second floor window which shows the grounds of the initial location.


2. A short 10 second clip of two younger students playing which are smaller version of our two lead cast members.


3. A transition clip which contains the writing "4 years later..."


(Scenes 4-7 are all set in a Science block corridor, and are shown as a video montage/collage)


4. Aliessha (the female lead) walks through the corridor doors with a male. Sean (the male lead) is stood nearby and the male stands on his toe without realising and carries on walking.
There is text at the bottom of this scene saying "Monday."


5. Aliessha walks through the corridor doors with a male. Sean is stood nearby and the male knocks a book out of Sean's hand without realising and carries on.
There is text at the bottom of this scene saying "Tuesday."



6. Aliessha walks through the corridor doors with a male. Sean is stood nearby and the male sneezes on Sean without realising and carries on.
There is text at the bottom of this scene saying "Wednesday."



7. Aliessha walks through the corridor doors with a male. Sean is stood nearby and this time moves swiftly out the way before anything occurs, as he turns away acting cool that he missed out on any accidental harm he is pushed to the ground by a student running through the corridor.
There is text at the bottom of this scene saying "Thursday."


8. There is a science class sat in a lab and Aliessha is late to class. When she arrives there is a rose on her desk from Sean. She turns around and smiles at him before she is visibly seen to be writing a note saying "Meet me for lunch!" which is then passed to Sean.


9. This scene is set in a small hut, where Aliessha and Sean are eating a picnic lunch by candlelight.


10. Aliessha walks through the corridor doors with Sean this time and they both look as happy as in previous clips. The four previous dates are waiting where Sean was usually stood and he 'accidently' performs the same wrong-doings that they had done to him earlier on in the week.

Meeting 3 (27/10/11)

Our third meeting’s agenda was to discuss our current movie trailer and what needs to be changed in order to improve it. All team members were present at the meeting; this includes Jordan Kelman, Aisling Byrne, Thomas O’Brien and Bethany Griffin.


To begin this meeting, we discussed the good and bad points about the movie trailer, posters and magazines. It was important for us all to get feedback together so we can decide as a group what needed to be done to improve our final media portfolio.


Jordan reiterated the point that our first published media trailer did not relate to our film and it was important that this was changed. As a group we discussed what could be done to the trailer to ensure that the plot is clearly outlined within it. I explained that it would be a good idea to take a look at the John Tucker Must Die film trailer (published below) so we can see how a romantic comedy film trailer lays out its plot to their audience.





As a group we compiled a list of the most important conventions of a romantic comedy trailer that needed to be included, the list is as follows :


+ A fun, girly song that relates to the movie
+ Bright colours that attract the female audience
+ A voice over and a minimal script
+ A collage/montage of short clips to quickly explain the plot 
+ A clear lead female and male character
+ Contains transitions and clips that have a text overlay


By writing this, it can now become a checklist which can be used when filming commences for our final trailer.

Draft Movie Trailer and Analysis

This is our first draft of the movie trailer for our film 'The Close-Up' and there are several things that we as a group want to change in order to improve our final film trailer. 

Starting from the beginning of the clip, the first 4 seconds where the globe is turning and showing Coventry, is unusual to have in a romantic comedy trailer. Instead, they usually begin with a landscape shot of where the movie is set rather than a map version like we have produced. In our final trailer we intend to cut this short clip and put in a landscape, pan-shot of the school site and surrounding areas so that audiences know exactly where the character scenes are taking place without looking too animated (like the globe.)


Secondly, the music that we have used in the background does not flow with the scene entirely, it changes multiple times during the 30 second clip and we think that this too much as it seems unorganized and harsh in places. The music that is played when the character first walks in, does not fit with the movie genre, it seems better suited to a western film instead of a romantic comedy, and we will be changing the background music in our final trailer so that it fits better to our movie and relates more to the cast members.


We have used a multitude of sound effects throughout the 30-second trailer including children laughing, cheering and the sounds of doors opening and closing; Although they relate to what happens in the scene they are not ALL necessarily needed to make our trailer fit within its genre and sound effects like the ones we have used are rarely heard during a conventional romantic comedy.


The quality of the video is very poor and at times it is even hard to make out characters' faces; It is vital that this is improved for our final copy so that it looks like a professional film trailer. In order for our trailer to do this, we must improve the quality of our filming which is going to be done by hiring out camera software that is specifically used for video filming. This will help our audiences connect with the film and characters more as they will be able to see them clearly.


The whole trailer is a single long-shot of film, it does not vary on shots and it follows a single character. There is no problem with this if it was a convention of a romantic-comedy, but its not. Usually, film-trailers have a variety of different shots, angles and scenes within them and in order to make a trailer that falls within this convention we must incorporate all of these into our filming. 


As a group we also felt the trailer as a whole failed to represent what our film was about, although it showed the lead characters personality, from the trailer alone it would be difficult to deduce an outline of the plot and other characters within it. In order to improve on this, its important that our new trailer contains more on the films story and includes the movies main characters particularly the leading male.




This film was edited on iMovie for Apple Macs. We chose this movie making program as we found it easy to manipulate our clips with the organized structure of the software, the video clips that we had filmed were all in view and it was easy to chose which ones we wanted, and to cut the ones we didn't. iMovie also came with a variety of different default sound clips that we had used in our trailer, and it was useful to have the effects there that were easy to find. Although we found the iMovie software helpful, in order to make our final movie trailer as detailed and perfectly edited, we intend to use the Final Cut software for Apple Macs instead as it is a more advanced software than iMovie and we think it could benefit our trailer more by using its services than any other software.

Draft Poster and Analysis

The image above is a copy of my film poster, the first draft. The images on this poster are of a poor quality, particular the female lead as her image looks grainy and pixelated; These images will need to be retaken for my final draft as they do not look like a proffesional movie poster advertisement. A way that i could improve this is by using a higher quality camera in order to make sure that the shots I take are of a good standard and will represent the conventions of a realistic film poster.

The images have not been cut out as precisely as they could have been on Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended as some parts of the background are visible and the outlines of the characters are harsh and overcropped in some places. I used a magnetic pen cutting tool to do this, which automatically detects edges of characters. To improve the cutting of the actors for my final draft I will not be choosing the magnetic tool this time, instead i will be zooming in very closely and cutting out as precisily as i can in order to make the pictures look more effective. This will prove a lot more time consuming but it is a nessecerary action in order for my images to look realistic.

The lighting of the two images also indicates that they were taken at different times and in different locations. This is an unproffesional way of compiling a movie poster, and for one to look realistic, the image should look like it was taken at the same time, even though most advertising companies do choose to photoshop seperate images. In order to make the characters look as though they are together when the images are took i will ensure that the shooting location is the same each time a photo is took in order for the lighting to match exactly or as close as possible.

Although the photo's will be changed and manipulated to improve the poster, the close-up shot and the pose that the characters are in will remain the same. The way in which the actors are angled, only intentionally reveals one-side of their face and this was done as a way to relate to the title of the film being 'The cover-up.' By only seeing half of their face, it could indicate that they are hiding or covering something up.

Towards the top of the poster there appears to be a lot of blank space which I should aim to fill. As the image angles are staying the same I ideally need to include more texts at the top of the post. On a conventional romantic-comedy poster, there is usually the names of the two female and male leads at the very top of the page, above all other concepts on the poster and then a slogan or a short phrase underneath it. If i was to follow the conventions of a romantic comedy poster it would be appropriate for me to include an extra slogan beneath the actors names in order to fill the white space and make my film poster appear more realistic and proffesional.

My movie title is dwarfed by the close-up shots of the characters heads, so in order for the movie title to become one of the main focuses of the poster i should enlarge it slightly; This enlargement may also help cover the vast amount of white space at the top of the poster. I do not intend to make many changes to the film title itself as i think it represents the film well, it follows the regular convention of a romantic comedy movie poster as it contains bright colours and soft text which appeals to a female audience. I could however choose to manipulate the title slightly by putting a shadow on the text or changing some of the font to a darker colour to suggest that something is being covered up, but i will not make any final descisions regarding this until the final draft is complete and i can see it without any extras first.

The font styles of the text in purple which includes the text 'Secrets dont last forever...' 'May 2012' and the characters names seem slightly too harsh and proffesional for a fun, romantic comedy aimed at teenage girls. When working on my final draft of the movie poster, i will experiment with different styles of fonts to determine which would appeal more to my audience and suit my movie poster more so than the previous text. I also think that the scale of some of the text may be slightly too large in places particularly the slogan at the bottom saying 'Secrets dont last forever...' and the actors first and last names appear to be too small. By also experimenting with the sizes of my texts i can understand whats fits better with my movie poster.

The grey text at the bottom of the movie poster is a convention included on the majority of movie posters, however I did not research fully what the bottom text on movie posters really meant. Instead i wrote several names of people who were working on the trailer. To make my movie poster authentic and follow the conventions of a romantic comedy perfectly, it is essential that I research fully into what every part of  film poster is and why it is used.

The software that was used for this movie poster Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and is a popular program for projects like this. I found Photoshop difficult to use at first but after experimenting with the different tools and services that Photoshop offers us, it proves very helpful in manipulating images and text. I intend to use Photoshop to complete my final draft also as i have more knowledge of this software than any other image-editing program and i am now aware of how to use important editing tools that will help my movie poster look professional.

Magazine Layouts and Analysis

 Before designing what my magazine would look like, I had made layout choices on Paint so that I could see how they would look in different styles. Below are the layouts I had created and their individual strengths and weaknesses.

Layout 1


This layout contains all the necessary conventions that a magazine should have, masthead, text, image. However, this magazine layout seems to lack text. Although i did not want to draw the main attention away from the photograph on this layout, it still seems as if there is not enough text drawing the attention of potential readers. It is also unusual for a magazine to only have a left-hand third, it is more common on conventional magazine covers that there is a right-hand third or text on both sides of the cover. 


For these reasons I have chosen not to use this layout for my magazine front cover.

Layout 2


This layout has more text than the previous magazine cover layout above, and it also includes a puff which is a seperate piece of text, usually in a circular shape that advertises something particular in the magazine. Although this magazine cover has more text than the previous, it has drawn a lot of focus away from the image which i did not intend to do. Particularly the bottom half, the cover will be completely filled with texts and if a full-shot image is chosen it will be difficult to see anything below the waist. Even further up the cover, the puff and the text on the right-hand third will unfortunately mask parts of the models face and draw attention to the text instead of the image. This will also result in an unprofessional front cover as it hasn't followed conventions of a magazine.


For these reasons I have chosen not to use this layout for my magazine front cover.

Layout 3


This layout is the one i have chosen to use on my magazine front cover and i have chosen this layout for a variety of different reasons. The first being that it has plenty of text which will engage a variety of different audiences to the magazine as each piece of text will relate to different people. Although there is much more text than the previous two layouts it does not cover much of the image, whether the final image chosen is a full shot or a close-up, the models face and body will be clearly seen and not masked by unwanted text. Similar to the last layout, a puff has been included on the cover however this time it has been positioned in a more suitable place which is not distracting consumers from the image. This layout also had smaller text at the very top and the very bottom of the cover layouts. This is a great use of empty space and provides the cover with more advertising about what is included within the magazine.

Meeting 2 (01/10/11)

Our second meeting’s agenda was to discuss the storyline, actors and plot, and how the film trailer would be set out. All team members were present at the meeting; this includes Jordan Kelman, Aisling Byrne, Thomas O’Brien and Bethany Griffin.


The meeting began with a discussion about the current storyline which is 'a man and a woman meeting which is followed by 3 dates. After getting drunk, they wake up the next morning to find themselves married. They then set out to get the marriage divorced or annulled as they are not ready for marriage but find themselves falling in love instead.' After deliberation we decided that this would no longer be a suitable storyline for our group to take as it, would be difficult to try to represent ourselves as old enough to be married and to make the marriage and divorce scenes seem realistic.


As a group we then had a vote of which storyline we prefered out of the remaining two that were discussed in the first meeting. Which was a choice between a John Tucker Must Die style of film using a female lead instead or a film with lesbian/gay leads.


We had eventually decided together that a John Tucker Must Die style film, as this film is set in a school it would be easier for us to film it realistically as we already have a suitable location. It would also be a more appropriate film choice as some actors may feel uncomfortable in a homosexual role, if that is not what there used to.


Our discussion then turned to possible cast members. We had set-up posters and advertisements around the school advising people that we will be holding auditions in search of our lead roles. From these posters we had recieved 12 applications from willing candidates. After looking over these carefully and judging people based on their individual characteristics and we had shortlisted a possible 7 candidates for the role which we will then be auditioning on the 6th October 2011.

Casting

On the 6th October 2011, my media group had held a casting to decide on who would be the lead female and lead male character. We had shortlisted 7 applicants for the role and had eventually decided on two candidates after much deliberation. Below is the list of candidates that we had shortlisted and audition, containing a character analysis of how succesful they were in there application.

Candidate Profile 1: Jaslin Bahia

Jaslin Bahia seemed to be a born performer when we first met her as she was very enthusiastic. However as soon as the casting began she appeared to be too-over excited and did not seem to concentrate or listen to any instructions we had given her. As the casting continued she became incredibly difficult to communicate with as she would not settle into her role.

For these reasons we have chosen not to offer Jaslin the lead female role on the basis that she found it difficult to listen to instructions and listen to our feedback.

Candidate Profile 2: Lewis Robinson

We were left waiting 15 minutes before Lewis had finally arrived for his audition slot. Even after this he had failed to impress, he appeared as though he had been forced to apply for this role as everything about his words and his body language suggested to us that he was completeley uninterested in acting in our film trailer.

For these reasons we have chosen not to offer Lewis Robinson the lead male role for the movie trailer on the basis that he did not really want to participate in the trailer itself and found it hard to comprise with what we were instructing him to do.

                                                                              

                                                                Candidate Profile 3: Bethany Griffin

Bethany Griffin arrived earlier for her audition, but it unfortunately went downhill from there. Bethany had a serious attitude problem and refused to work with the team in order to complete a succesful audition. She felt it was necessary for her to demand whatever she needed and failed to co-operate throughout her casting.

For these reasons we have chosen not to offer Bethany  the lead female role for our movie on the basis that she would be incredibly difficult to work with as she found it hard to work with other members of our team.

        Candidate Profile 4: Kieran Doherty

Kieran Doherty seemed polite and co-operative throughout his whole casting. He appeared shy in places when there were lots of people around during his audition but he felt comfortable in the role and in front of camers the majority of the time. Kieran tried all tasks we gave him with enthusiasm even though he was not a strong performer.

For these reasons we have chosen not to offer Kieran Doherty the lead male role for our movie on the basis that he was not a strong enough actor to play the part, however we have decided to give him a short role in the trailer where he plays a supporting role alongside the female lead.

                                                          Candidate Profile 5: Cavan Griffin

Cavan Griffin's personality shone through off stage, with many commenting on how much of a pleasure he was to work with. However during his individual performance he fell short on the acting side, his performance was a little bit flat and he didn't seem to enjoy himself as much as he did off stage. He appeared to be frustarated at the end of the audition also, as if he knew it went badly. This changed his mood and he became sulky and unnattentive. For these reasons we have chosen not to offer Cavan Griffin the lead male role for our movie on the basis that his acting was not on the same level as other performers and he appeared to be moody when he did not get what he wants.

Candidate Profile 6: Aliessha Saye

Aliessha Saye is an A Level drama student and is very passionate about acting; This had shown through her audition as she was polite and easy to work with. She adapted well to the activities and scenes we had given her and felt comfortable being onstage. Aliessha contributed well to how her scenes could be improved and used creative critiscism to develop her performances.


For these reasons we have chosen to offer Aliessha Saye the lead female role for our movie on the basis that she was passionate about fulfilling the role to the best of her ability and enjoyed adapting the tasks that were given to her. We believe she will excel in her role as the female lead and bring fresh ideas to our trailer.

Candidate Profile 7: Sean Finn

Sean Finn is also an A Level student similar to Aliessha so they know each other well. This means that they feel comfortable around each other and are able to perform well in there role. During his casting Sean had co-operated well with all the team members present and listened to all instructions given to him intentively. He gave a very strong performance and is a very engaging actor. He had an undeniable stage presence and the team commented on how comfortable he appeared when he was acting.

For these reasons we have chosen to offer Sean Finn the lead male role for our movie on the basis that he gave a high level performance during his audition and he felt at ease in the role. Sean was co-operative and absorbed all the informtion that was given to him, we believe we will find it easy to work with him on this project.

Individual Questionnaire Analysis

The following graphs and analysises are results from a questionnaire that was given to 30 respondents.

The above graph shows that the majority of people that undertook the research questions were female. This has no direct influence on my film as it does not relate to it but it shows thats the rest of the answers to the questionnaire will be slightly biased.

The above graph shows that the majority of people that undertook the research questions were between the ages of 16-19, with a smaller minority being aged 11-15. Therefore majority of people taking this survey were teenage girls, using the gender results also. This again has no direct influence on my film as it does not relate to it but it shows thats the rest of the answers to the questionnaire will be slightly biased.

The graph above shows how much different media advertisements influence the feelings towards a film project of a person. According to the results that have been published it is clear that film trailers instigate the most desire for an individual to want to see a film. Therefore using this data, i now know that it is vital that the film trailer i am producing for my media portfolio explains the plot of the film in a way that can reach a multitude of different audiences and engage individuals. This does not however mean that the other projects within my portfolio, the film poster and film magazine cover, are to be neglected. These, in some ways, need even more care and attention above my trailer, in order to connect to audiences that are not usually inspired by posters of magazines.