Main - Task - Rough Cut - Audience Feedback

Main Task - Audience Feedback:

The audience liked the variation in the shot types and in the plot itself, they found that the trailer made the film seem really interesting. They said that the trailer seemed really realistic and professional, especially the title text and all the crew information seemed like it was in a trailer for a real feature film. The sound effects used sounded good and fitted with what was happening on screen, the action on screen was synced with the music and the soundtrack sounded professional. It was said that the fact that we used a number of locations was good and made it seem realistic, as if we had taken clips from multiple points from throughout a film and not just filmed it all in one location. Two of the audience members are not in our normal class so they had no idea what the film was about before seeing the trailer, despite this they were still able to identify our plot and the characters that are in the film. They were also able correctly identify the genre, which means we followed the conventions of the action thriller genre well. They said that the order of the clips could have been changed slightly in order to get a better idea of the narrative and so that the locations don't skip around as randomly in the earlier stages of the trailer. Also, Some of the actions shots need to be reorder in order to build up the pace as some of the shots are slower than some of the others but are later on in the trailer and so it kills the pace slightly, which is not what we want. In order to give a better idea as to who the antagonist is it was suggested that we show a clip at the very start of the trailer of a case file with a photo of the character and information about what he did and who he is.


In order to improve our trailer we will film a short clip of a case file and add it into the start of the trailer. Then I will re edit the order of some of the clips in order to make the narrative clearer and keep the pace consistent. Other than these minor changes, our trailer was complimented on its professionalism and realistic look and feel to it.

Construction

List of shots recorded to put into our trailer (in order of recording):

- Medium shot of the protagonist as she is logging off of her computer.
- Another medium shot of the main character as she packs up her belongings from her desk.
- Close up of her lanyard as the protagonist looks at it for a while and then places it in her box.
- Medium close up of the protagonist's draw as she locks it, shot through her desk chair in order to add some artistic flare to the shot.
- Establishing shot of the now empty office, the camera tracks along the length of the desk.
- Shot of a mirror and in the reflection we can see the main character carrying her box of belongings out of the building.
- Medium shot into long shot as the protagonist leaves the building again, this time shot from directly behind her as she walks away from camera.
- Close up of the Kent Police sign in order to show where she has just left from and where she used to work.
- Long shot from outside of the protagonist leaving the building in order to create a match-on-action in the edited trailer.
- Another long shot of the protagonist walking towards the camera, it is shot as a point of view as it is meant to represent the antagonist peering around the corner and watching the protagonist.
- High angle shot of the protagonist walking by, again designed to be a point of view and is shot from up high.
- The antagonist jumps out from behind a wall and grabs the protagonist, he covers her mouth and starts to drag her away, it is shot in a medium shot.
- Longshot of antagonist struggling to drag the main character towards the boot of his car, he opens the boot and then puts her in. The car is in the centre of the frame and is shot from down the alley way where our protagonist was just walking.
- Another longshot of the antagonist struggling to take our main character to the boot of his car, the same thing happens in this shot and the last shot, but it is filmed from a different position. The camera is placed where the antagonist was waiting behind the wall but still keeps the car in the centre of the frame.
- High angle shot from the balcony that one of the previous clips was shot from. We see the car that our protagonist has just been put in driving away, the black bars from the balcony can be seen in the shot to give the sense of being trapped and imprisoned.
- Extreme long shot of our main character running towards camera after running around a corner, it is meant to be her trying to escape from the antagonist.
- Then, we filmed a medium shot of Jess, our main character, banging on someone's gate and trying to get in so that she can get away from and be safe from the antagonist that is out to get her.
- Close up of a gun as the magazine is being loaded into it by the antagonist.
- Another close up, but shot from the other side of the gun, as the antagonist pulls back on the barrel of the gun so that it is ready to fire.
- Close up of the gun from the side as it fires to show the recoil and have some effects to make it look real in the edit.
- Over the shoulder shot of the antagonist as he is shooting at the protagonist, Jess, who can be seen running away in the background.
- The same over the shoulder shot as before with the antagonist shooting at Jess, but this time the antagonist is walking and shoot and the camera is following him and trying to keep the same framing on the antagonist, by following him it makes the shot more intense.
- Medium shot of Jess disarming the antagonist as he points a gun at her, she grabs it o0ut of his hand, knees him in the lower torso and then throws the gun away.
- Close up of Jess as she falls into frame and onto the fall its meant to be as if she has been punched or shot and she is down on the ground.
- Low angle longshot of Jess walking across a bridge in London.
- High angle filmed from the bridge of Jess waiting by the riving bank, looking around at the sights and taking in the scenery, as if it is just a normal day.
- Establishing shot from the river bank of a boat going by and the bridge in the background, this should set the scene that it is in London and help to establish location.
-Medium shot through a slightly open door of a figure walking towards camera, the shot ends in a big close up of the antagonist's face.
-Low angle close up of protagonist as she is breathing heavily and crying.
-Close up of a gun, the camera arcs around the gun to reveal that it is pointing at the protagonist, the camera stays in the right of the frame.
-Camera tilts up in a POV shot and we see the antagonist pointing the gun at the camera.
-Camera tilts up in a POV shot and we see the antagonist pointing the gun at the camera but this time he hits the camera with the gun as if it was the protagonists and the camera whip pans away.
-Low angle medium shot of Protagonist from the side as she cocks the gun and then holds it out in front of her and shoots.
-Medium longshot from inside an old building, filming through the door as the protagonist walks by.
-Extremely shaky tracking shot of protagonist running, filmed as if it is POV of someone running alongside her.
-Protagonist waiting at the train station for a train into London, filmed in a longshot from the other platform with the subject slightly off centre.
-Establishing shot down the tracks with some of the station in, to represent that she has already left on the train and gone to London.
-Close up of a puddle as we see the protagonist foot stepping in the puddle as she walks through the puddle.
-Over the shoulder (OTS) of the antagonist as he walks towards the protagonist and the camera follows him. He grabs her next and slams her into a garage door and the camera moves round slightly to get more of the protagonist's face in but it is still an OTS.
-Medium shot of the protagonist sitting on the ground up against a garage door as the antagonist grabs her hair and slams her head into the garage door.

END

Main Task

Rough Cut:

Final Edit:

Animatic Storyboard - Audience Feedback

First Arrest - Animatic Feedback:

The first bit of feedback that we received for our animatic was that the music fitted the genre we were hoping for and fitted with the conventions of a trailer for a feature film. It was said that the titles at the end of the trailer were very professional and very polished, this means that the titles will be okay to put into our actual trailer and wont need to be changed. The audience liked our variety of camera shots, they liked that we didn't stick with the same shots and shot styles, we used a variety of artistic compositions and the audience liked our use of this. Pacing was not a problem in our animatic as it was said that it was paced well for the genre and the pace picked up and slowed down where it was conventional to, this means if I edit the real trailer the same way, the pace won't have to change. The fact that I used found images when editing the animatic was brought up but we explained that it was a case of we didn't have time to take images for the action shots and we had to get on with filming the real trailer, so I used found images just to fill in the last few seconds at the end of the animatic. The audience got the general idea about what had happened in the trailer and the narrative of the film, but, to help it along even more, the audience suggested that we use dialogue in our trailer or even a voiceover. I think we will use dialogue and tie it into the shots we have already planned to use. The main thing that we need to remember with out trailer is to add some kind of narrative device, like dialogue, in order to help the audience understand more. Other than that, if we make the trailer the same as how we planned in the animatic then there will be no problems with trailer.

Planning - Animatic Storyboard

This is the animatic for our trailer, the photos in this animatic represent the kinds of shots and scenes that we will feature in our actual trailer such as fight scenes and guns fights. The music is the score that we will also use in our actual trailer and all audio is how it will be other than the addition of some sound effects that will be in our trailer but it is hard to put them into the animatic as I would need the video clips themselves to know where to sync the sound effects with the on screen action. Some sound effects such as punch sounds and gun shots are too specific to put into an animatic and they would have to be done for the final product. But, this animatic is still a very accurate representation of how our trailer will look and sound in the end.

Planning - Production Company Logo

How I made the logo for my production company:

The first stage of creating the logo for the production company of mine was to create and animate the 3D text that would be in the introduction logo itself. To do this I used a program called Cinema 4D R17 and I started by creating the text using two motext objects, one would be slightly larger but thin in order to get the red sides to the text and then a smaller, wider one in order to get the chrome front to the text. The font I used is called 'Lund' as I wanted a font that was stylish and wasn't plain like 'Bebas' or 'Calibri'. I animated the text using very basic functions in the program called keyframes, I would change the settings for position and rotation and then add a key frame. Then, Id move to where I want the movement to end or change and change the settings so the text is where I want it to be and then add another key frame. I repeated this throughout the 10 seconds worth of timeline and then rendered out the text. I rendered it as a series of PNG images so that the background would not be in the video, this means once I load the animation into after effects I can add my own unique background much easier.

The next stage of creating my introduction logo was to load the animation into a program called Adobe After Effects CC 2015. I did this by starting a new composition with the same frame rate and for the same length of time as my animation, then I loaded in my images and if I select to load in a series of images, after effects automatically puts them all together back into one smooth video. After this, I started another composition, which would be to edit the actual intro, and I can import the composition that I used to edit the photos together, once imported, I can edit it just like a video file. I loaded in the music that I had chosen to use (Night Lovell - Still Cold), which is copyright free, and then chose what part of the song I wanted to use. The next main step was to add the colour grade to the video to make the colours a little more interesting and I did this using a plug-in called 'Magic Bullet Looks' I just wanted to make the colours a little more interesting and add a red tint to the intro in order to continue the colour scheme of the intro consistent. I added the colour grade to an adjustment layer so that I could add an effect at the start in which the intro turns from black and white into colour as the beat drops. Finally, I added lots of distortion effects using an effect called 'Warp' and I added twitching effects using a plug-in called 'Twitch', I added these effects to the beat of the music in order to make the intro much more interesting and work well with the music, instead of just a plain animation with no sound effects. Once done, I exported the video the by clicking 'File', 'Export' and then 'Add to render queue...', I chose where I wanted to save it and then clicked 'Render', the quality settings are chosen at the start but they can be changed afterwards if necessary.

The final step of creating my introduction logo was to load the file that was rendered out of after effects into movie maker in order to cut down the file size. After effects produces very large file sizes and so in order to upload the video to YouTube and be able to watch it back properly to check for errors, I have to load it into movie maker and then resave the video. To do this I clicked and dragged my intro into movie maker and then clicked 'File', 'Save Movie' and then clicked the option to render out the video with the exact properties it was loaded into the program with so that the quality is the same. After the video is finished saving, the quality is the same, but the file size is much smaller and the video will play much better on my computer so that I can watch it back.

The result is an interesting, colourful and eventful introduction, which I think looks professional and will add a lot to our trailer as it will make it look much more professional to have a 3D animated introduction at the start.

Planning - Editing Timeline