After Effects

Learning about Adobe After Effects in one of our lessons, allowed me to have a better understanding of how to use the After effects programme and how to create effective looking titles that link with our genere of film.

In the lesson we were given a simple tutoriaol on how to create a title for our film trailers using basic tools in After Effects . I used Cam studio to record the fil title I had created and show the effects I had used.

This is a screen shot of the name of our film which will be placed towards the end of the trailer. 

 

This was my practice/draft title in after effects, I then went onto create another After Effects title. I wanted to put an image behind the title 'Animus',  and then for the words to zoom in and only show part of the image.

 

 

I chose to use a piece of footage that was just the main characters eyes, but showing no emotion and looking very distant. I then placed this behind the title 'ANIMUS'. I use various key frames to position the title over the eyes and then zoom and enlarge the scale of the font so that it only showed on eye. 

Filming: Locations

I filmed in various location and tired to film as much as possible so that when it came to editing I was able to chose from a wide variety of shots and ensure that if there was a slight problem with one shot that I would have filmed multiple shots of the same clip.

Each time I went out filming I decided to take a picture of where I had filmed to keep a record of each place, I then created a slide show to present these still images of the places I had filmed my trailer.

Film titles and font styles

As I begin to move on with my film trailer, I need to consider my film titles and font styles. I looked at a website called Art of the title, which is a leading online publication on the creative processes behind the art of title sequence design. It spans out to film, television, conference, and videogame industries.

On Art of the title I looked for clips that incorporated films belonged to the psychological thriller genre. Such as this clip made by William Somerset looking at the film trailer for Seven.

This isn’t going to have a happy ending. —William Somerset 

Also when looking at film posters I created a Prezi to anaylsesome Psychological thriller film posters such as 'Anna' and 'Seven'. When analysing these films posters i saw the oputunity to look into detail at the type, size and style of fonts used on the film posters, I found this o be a great help in assiting my choices inchosing font style and size for my owm film poster and possibly my film magazine.



After anaylising the fonts of mulitple film posters, I used dafont.com to find a range of fonts that I could possibly use when creating my film poster. 

For the image on my fiml poster I am using a black book, the writing within the book has to be hand written but very loose, singature like. I used dafont.com to find fonts like this style, I found three fonts I liked and was able to type the words 'The ending is always the best' into dafont.com and see what it would look like in the font styles I liked.

Since I had to write up the words into the book I printed off the image above and traced over the font styles to get an idea and practice writing in that style.

Music for my film trailer

Afetr researhing into generic fiml trailer music I wanted to look at music and sound FX from trailers that were the same genre as mine; Psychological thriller. I chose to look at Seven and Shutter Island to analyse the music in deopth however, I looked at  several other trailers for inspiration and noted down a few things.


Looking at Psychologial thriller trailers -

I created a mood board of all the different film posters that fell into the Psychoilogical thriller category, I have watched each of the films trailers I have placed on the mood board. I watched these film trailer and took some notes and inspirtaion of the things I liked and could possibly incorporate into my trailer. I then took two other trailer in the psychological thriller genre; Seven and Shutter island and analysed the music and sound FX in moer depth, to really understand how to create an eerie, enigmatic atmosphere within a psychological thriller trailer.





Analysing music for a Psychological thriller trailer -


Seven -

The music in a typical psychological thriller trailer is broken up into 3 parts, these parts are easily recognised in the trailer SEVEN.



Shutter isalnd -

The music in the SHUTTER ISLAND  trailer follows typical conventions of film trailer music. The 3 sections are clearly emphasised and the tones and instruments used provide the atmosphere and mood that directors wish to create in a psychological thriller trailer, to entice the audience to watch the film.  

When looking for music to accompany my trailer I found various websites that provided free copyright music and sound FX.

I found these sound effects from FREE SOUND

• http://www.freesound.org/people/unfa/sounds/156692/ - sudden shock or change in events 
• http://www.freesound.org/people/ayamahambho/sounds/113595/ -  use for more isolated shots , alone in the woods. 
• http://www.freesound.org/people/Airborne80/sounds/219187/ - whispering hearing voices ect. 
• http://www.freesound.org/people/genelythgow/sounds/203558/ - as a base line undertone through the trailer

After filming some shots for our trailer and then editing team in After effects I decided that we needed other sound effect such as when she is in the hospital suite. As from our audience focus group I found that many people thought she was dead an dot rather confused about what was going on the plot line. Therefore I though fit best to maybe use a heart/vitals monitor sound FX to ensure that people know she is in a coma rather than thinking she is dead and to add a bit more clarity to the plot line of the trailer.

I found these sound FX on FreeSound to use within out trailer for the heart/vitals monitor

A key learning point I took from looking into film music, I learnt about the varying styles of music that need to be in my genre of traile. I aim to find a sisnter music track that has varying tempos, thereofere when it comes to editing my trailer the shots I use I plan to fit them to the music of my trailer. This will help when creating a climatic montage and fitting music to the shots to add a mysterious atmosphere.

Scripting my Trailer

In the lessons we looked at scripting for other film trailers both teaser and thetrical, we also loked a the element of using a Voice over and the conventions and functions.

Voice over –

·         Gives background information

·         Introduces scene setting etc

·         Showcase narrative and stars

·         It gives importance of production makers

·         Sense of anticipation

·         Reinforce the title of the film

·         Voice over scripts tend to summarizes story (5-8 lines)

Voice over commonly replace by inter-titles and character narration/commentary 

Scripting  -Looking at scripting for other trailers 

The Woman in Black  - 

In the lesson we got given a script for both the teaser and thearical trailers for "The Woman in Black". We then watched the trailers and annaylised the scripting of trailer.

Teaser trailer - 

Theatrical trailer - 

After looking at the scripting of the Woman in Black trailer,  I then explored scripting within trailers of my own genre. I looked at Seven, Shutter Island, Memento and Black Swan.
From looking at scripting for these trailers I found that there is little 'lengthy' dialogue and more 'one liners'. Also that there are between 1-3 conversations within the trailers that are commonly broken up by montage shots or the conversation carries however, the image on the screen changes. This is the use of off-screen dialogue.


The scripting for my trailer 

Gaining Permission

With Regards to our filming ideas for locations and setting some of these are areas of the general public, therefore in order to film in these location we had to write to or call to gain permission.

Macc Forest

Dear Sir/Madam

I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film in Macclesfield forest on various trails. The shots will be of an actor walking/running through the forest, the shot will appear for a few seconds in the trailer.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks,

Heather Lancashire

Sparrow Park

Dear Sir/Madam

 I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film in and the view from the park. The shot will be most likely of the view from the park rather than of the park itself, however I may also have need to film in the park itself. The shot will appear in the trailer for a couple of seconds.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks,

Heather Lancashire

Teggs nose Farm/flats

Dear Sir/Madam 

 I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film in and around Teggs nose Farm. The shots will be of the view but also there will be shots containing actors, this is where I would need to film in the flats and near other buildings. The shots will appear in the trailer for a couple of seconds.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks, 

Heather Lancashire

Town

Dear Sir/Madm

 I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film around the town shopping area, also near the town hall. The shots will be of actors as the areas will be used as the background setting. The shots will appear in the trailer for a couple of seconds.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks, 

Heather Lancashire

Large house

Dear Sir/Madam
I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film in and around your house as I feel with its grand, modern structure will work well when filmimg scenes for my trailer.
I am looking forawd to hearing from you.
Many thanks,
Heather Lancashire

Studio

Dear Sir/Madam
I am an A Level Media Studies student at The Fallibroome Academy, as part of my course work for this year I am making a film trailer. I am requesting permission to film in the studio to shoot various shoots using the lighting rig for my trailer.
I am lookig forawrd to hearing from you.
Many thanks,
Heather Lancashire

After gaining permission for the places where I am filming, I have created a Risk assessment for filming in these places.

Planning

G324 ADVANCED PORTFOLIO Planning

I create an Emaze presentation to present my planning ideas for my film trailer

To help with my planning and plot synopsis I found several trailers in the psychological thriller genre but ensured that they were all very different in the plot line to give me a wide range of trailers to look at and take inspiration form.

Plot synopsis

The film is set in a suburban, quaint  town, a family are brutally murdered, fortunately a young girl survives she is the ‘middle’ child of the family. After being taken to hospital for her wounds she beings to see flash backs of that night. The doctors say her memory is damaged but the unknown face of the murdered haunts her thoughts . To help her remember she finds the help of a ‘viewer’ – someone who can access people’s subconscious memories – She entrust in him her deepest darkest secrets of the past as the viewer begins to unlock the girls troubled mind. AS her memories begin to appear and become more vivid her personality changes and her actions more hostile , she finds herself blacking out and ending up in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. Becoming increasingly nervous and anxious at what the viewer saw in her memories he sent to have her tested, shortly after this the viewer is found dead at the hospital and the girl released. She decides to hire a P.I. Looking through the case over and over the P.I finds a ‘trail’ and begins to act upon it . Suspiciously after this the P.I is murdered , the girl then takes the case back into her own has picking up from where she left off. Months pass by and continuous deaths of those who try to help the girl occur yet the police have uncovered nothing and her case is getting nowhere. For her own safety she is taken under Witness Protection to prevent her from being the next target, the police suspect the killer is tormenting the girl and making her life a living hell. the girl becomes increasingly more agitated and has personality shifts, after moving to her new location the police provider her with counselling and help for her audial. Through this she unlocks more mysterious memories, even remembering murders she was never there to witness. Years pass by and eventually the girl settles and puts her traumatic past behind her, she starts a family and a completely new life. However the dreams and thoughts haunt her still has she beings to see the victims of her past being murdered as if see was looking down on them. One day her daughter finds a journal with records and a dairy entry of each of the victims in her mother’s past, seeing what her daughter has found she is keen to take a look. However she is horrified at what she reads on the blood stained pages of this little black book, eventually reaching the last pages in the book she finds pages entitled with her husbands and each of her child’s names. The book has one last thing written in the back ‘the ending is always the best’ All of a sudden she has a flash back to the night of her family were murdered and then finds herself standing over her husband’s body with a blooded knife and the little black book. 


 After creating my plot synopsis i converted my ideas into shots and created a storyboard templete to present them on. I then colour coded each of the individual shots to which setting they are being flimed in. 

After planning out my shots in my story board we decided to make an animatic from the image I drew out on my paper copy of my story board. We used premier pro to insert the imags and create our animatic. 

After planning my plot synopsis and creating my story board I decied to work in a pair on my trailer, this helped me with the filming schedual and timing for getting all the filming done and able to edit.