details of reshooting

upon coming to edit the first alleyway scene, we discovered a continuity problem, in which the good clips we have alternate between day and night, meaning we are going to have to go and re-film the scene again, and make sure that the scene is filmed entirely through the day.

another thing we decided to reshoot is the agnar/Alex exchange scene, as some of the footage had background noise and we felt it wasn't good enough, and because of this we also decided to change location.

Radio trailer research

Radio trailers are often quite short(around 30 secs) and often follow similar conventions:

• They often have  a voice over, with some sound included from the movie.
• Details at the end about certificate, viewing, release date e.t.c.
• The slogan of the film

A radio trailer will be shown on certain radio stations depending on the audience, e.g an animated disney film will not be advertised on classical film. Given that our film is a short film it will likely not be advertised on the radio.

Here is an example of a few radio trailers for star wars. This documents a few of the conventions mentioned above.




Here is a few from old horror movies which document a lot of horror film conventions such as screaming.

annotation of a film poster

Character profile - Alex

Name: Alex

Age: 18

Gender: Male

Occupation: College student

Appearance: Brown leather jacket jean jacket and jeans

Character traits: Drug addict, fearless, adventurous, brave

Function in Narrative:

The main character and the protagonist in the film, he is killed by a mugger and is sent to purgatory where he is given a second chance at life. Later on he discovers he is being tricked and that he is being tormented by Agnar, our twisted antagonist who enjoys to mess with his victims minds.

His main role in the film is Agnars victim as Agnar is far more powerful than him and there is very little he can do about it, however his actions towards the end of the film as he tries to escape Agnar and cheat death. This shows him to be quite brave and fearless. However he is shown to be overpowered by most characters in our film

Progress report 5

As we continue to shoot our film, we have begun research on our post production tasks, such as viral advertising and posters. We have designed a teaser poster and have put in a lot of research into viral, and the plan is to research radio trailers next.

Our film is underway with shooting, with plans to finish all filming by the end of the week so that we can begin editing

Also this week we were introduced to our evaluation questions so we can begin planning for those at the end of the year.

Research into viral advertisements

In the modern age, a common way of marketing a film is to create viral advertisements to appeal to the target audience, and because so many people nowadays have access to the internet it is very easy and cheap to market on the internet and reach a lot of people.

One of the most common ways to market any media, be it TV shows, films or games, is to put posters and trailers on websites such as youtube. Because so many people use these websites, lots of people are bound to see it and so it gets word out. However adverts on youtube can be skipped after a few seconds so it is important to make it catchy quickly.

Adverts on youtube are often marketing big films as they are more likely to catch the watchers eye, so this form of advert may not be appropriate for our film as it is low budget and would likely be skipped by lots of people and so the campaign wouldn't be very effective.





Viral adverts can also be more subtle and less easy to find. The last exorcism used a short 5 second footage on chatroulette. The people on chat roulette did not know what was happening as the girl on the footage turned into a demonic figure and lunged at the camera.

This was effective because it genuinely scared a lot of the people who were watching, which implies to the audience that the same feeling will be replicated in the cinema. Also for other people watching this video, it is quite inventive, suggesting that the film is creative and unpredictable, unlike most modern horror films.

Toy story also used a viral advert like this, making a fake commercial for a toy in the film 'lots o huggin bear'. It was made to look like it was made in the 1980's and pulls this look off really well.


The dark knight had a very extensive and successful viral advertising campaign. One method it used was a website called whysoserious.com, which got a huge batman fanbase on a worldwide scavenger hunt. This campaign worked because batman has a very large pre-existing fanbase.

It also featured a rent-a-clown website and defaced newspapers.
























The muppets also used a lot of viral advertisements, parodying a lot of other recent films to show how the film can be made to be different genres. This expands their audience because they are pulling fans in from the film franchises they have parodied by being clever and impressing people watching the parodies. We could use an idea like this by creating a second edit and making it a different genre.



Paranormal activity also used viral advertising and is probably the most relevant to our film because paranormal activity first started out as a very low budget film with an unknown director and unknown actors. they used eventful.com as a form of crowd sourcing, where people could demand the film play in their city. Also, videos of spooky ghost-like activity popped up on youtube, especially for the second and third films.

viral advert idea

one idea for a viral advert for our film is to have the antagonist, agnar, to go and appear in well known locations around the world, place such as the pyramids, stonehenge, as well as getting in shot for big newspaper reports around the world, getting his face on screen. We would then take pictures of the character in these places, and post them on popular social network and meme sites, and hope the public gets their attention drawn to it, and hope it spreads around people, and have people wondering and pondering what he might be, and what his purpose is.Then when we release the trailer, we will centre it around agnar, and the realisation of what he is will entice people to come and see the film and discover his story.


my inspiration came from a  group of satanists that attended a number of high profile football games around the world to draw attention their their cult, they popped up on social media sights such as twitter, Facebook and 9gag.

Research into viral adverts

in the new, technologically advancing age, film companies need to find new ways to promote and get their film to younger audiences who spend more time on the internet rather than watching television, or listening to radio.

one of the biggest markets that film companies can attack today is youtube, as it has such a large audience, and is one of the easiest formats to advertise on. They can do this by having a short trailer on before the video the consumer is trying to watch, or alternatively they could have a banner on the side of the video that could attract the consumers attention, or they could also have pop ups in the video itself. They could also, probably most simply, upload the actual trailer as a genuine youtube video


trailer on youtube before the actual video

actual trailer video

another way to send viral adverts is by phone. A popular way of promoting films is with the synergy through the network Orange, and orange wednesdays, this is where offers for two for one cinema tickets is sent to your phone for new film releases, this gives the film advertisement , this could also persuade more people to come and watch the film, because people love a bargain. this can also work beyond the simple offer they receive, as they will go see the film, tell their friends about it, therefore pushing it to a larger audience.The same can also be said for email, as many companies are able to send spam emails to many many different addresses.

another, more exiting, viral advert is by committing a prank on unsuspecting public, and posting the video online, a brilliant example of this is the carrie prank to promote the new film release

Research into thriller film posters.

the main characteristics of a thriller poster is the dark background and minimalist colour pallet. This, however not colourful and bold, can draw in fans and audiences of this particular genre, who are used to this restricted colours and the dark colours relate to mystery and often, in the case of woman in black,    horror.   

the taglines of these posters are also quite mysterious and eluding, and quite ambiguous. for example "fear her curse"and "not every gift is a blessing" as this entices the audience to come and watch the film, because they get intrigued into the meaning behind the wording.

another running feature through the posters, as with all genres, is the big stars name at the top of the poster, as in these, with Daniel radcliffe, johnny depp, and bruce willis is big obvious writing at the top of these posters.

Another thing linking these posters is the use of the steel tongs font, this is a characteristic linking all major film posters, and the stereotypical and most used font on movie posters.

     

How to make a video look like a movie?

I looked at some you tube videos with tips on how to make a digital quality video look more like a movie, and this video with some useful advise and techniques. I found out that shooting in 24 fps is one of the best ways to bring a "movie like" look to the footage of our project. This is because traditionally most of the very first, top hollywood productions were filmed in 24 fps (because this was the speed film tapes were working at.). The frame rate speed of 24 fps was firstly used in 1920's because it allowed for the best synchronised sound quality at the slowest speed possible. Over the time the audience worldwide got used to the 24 fps quality in the movies, and this is how hollywood left it until now. A video recorded at 24 fps will look more like a movie (in the end), simply because this quality of a movie is more familiar to our eyes.  Even though modern HD cameras can shoot at a "better quality" of 25 fps up to 30 fps, most of the movies today are still shot in 24fps using modern HD cameras.  There are exceptions, however the audience always notices the difference, and makes such movies filmed in a higher frame rate look a bit different and strange to their eyes. Another reason why Movie Distributors use 24 fps frame rate is because its the slowest possible, the faster the frame rate the more tape has to be used, and more money has to be spent ( and the tape is expensive). Using a slower frame rate of 24 fps saves them money, and the motion in the film is still nice and fluid for the eyes.



I looked through you tube to look for some tips on how to professionally light a scene. I found a video on you tube, with some interesting tips and tricks on how to light your scene without spending much money on professional lamps/ lights and gadgets.There are a couple of other important factors which have to be taken into account if a video footage is to be made into a movie. Lighting, camera lenses, using techniques such as depth of field. Lighting is one of the most important. Just by lighting a scene in particular way can change the atmosphere of that scene totally. Lighting the character, the background, the room in the scene from particular angles, with different intensity and colours of light, can alter the way the scene is perceived by audience completely and make it look way more professional and "movie like".

How to make video look like film

Method 1: Depth of field
Depth of field refers to how much the image is in focus. Films traditionally use a shallow depth of field to draw more focus on a character or object.












Method 2: Frame rate
All films are shown in 24fps, and so unless we are trying to achieve a slow motion effect, then we will have to film at 24 fps as people are most accustomed to this and so it will look more like film this effect helps create a natural 'motion blur'.

Method 3: Shutter speed
In film, shutter speed should be set to double that of the fps being used, so for 24fps the shutter speed should be 1/48(However most cameras only offer 1/40 or 1/50). If the wrong shutter speed is used it can come off as strobing if its too slow(1/20) or it can look sped up if its too fast(1/100)




Method 4: Blown out highlights
A lot of modern digital cameras tend to clip or blow out the bright areas of footage. Wheras in film this can create a pleasant, stylised effect, on video they tend to look bad as the light doesn't bloom in the same way. to avoid this happening, don't overexpose anything in your footage, just bring your exposure down enough so that bright areas  have enough detail in them but are also not blown out. This may lead to some areas being too dark, which can be used as a stylistic choice or more light can be brought in to counteract it.

Method 5: Colour correction
This is a post-production step and can play a big part in creating a film like style. It is best to make the colours look as natural as possible, however you can cool down or warm up your footage to suit the mood of the scene. The best way to obtain natural colours is to tweak white balance and exposure.
Black levels and contrast can also be used to create a film like effect, but make sure to not go too far or the footage may appear too dark or the darks may be too 'crushed'.

Method 6: Film emulation
Film emulation is a technique which can apply the look of a specific film stock to your film. This can create a stylistic effect if you want your film to look like another film.