Social Realism - What Is It?
Social Realism is a genre used in visual arts that has, over the years, become a very interesting source of entertainment for all sorts of audience and people; an expressive way of showing a 'slice of life'. Click here to find out more and see various examples of the genre 'social realism' in use...
Film Promotional Poster
For the latter parts of the project, one of the additional tasks me had to complete included creating a film poster to promote our short film...
Research Into Setting
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.
Creating A Production Company Logo
For this group project, we felt we needed an identity or logo to represent our 'short film company'. We had already had a production meeting organizing and deciding on a name (Makley Productions) but we also felt a visual presentation of this identity would have been appropriate to include as a credit in our final piece.
First Set of Footage!
Our first pieces of our short film to capture on film were the internal shots in the house. Click here to see the very first bits of footage we captured with our Canon 55oD camera and external microphone.
Friday, 22 February 2013
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Evaluation Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
For this evaluation, I decided to use my graphic design and artistic skills to explore my response and present it. I decided on creating various mind maps/explanation diagrams to show my response.
I needed to create some plans on how I was going to set the mind maps out though, as walking into it blind would be a very messy and foolish method of approaching the question.
Here are my initial sketch plans for the diagrams:
And here are the final pieces to answer this evaluation question:
Research
By using the modern technologies I listed in the diagram in the research stages, we were able to gain data and research that was rich in quality and very accurate to the theme of social realism. It also saved us a lot of time to use technology rather than going out to find hard copies of research and spending ridiculous amounts of money on films and film viewing tickets.
The fact we could use YouTube and other video sources for researching films was also a great advantage for us, as it allowed us to access films easily, plentifully and appropriately as we could see from others feedback whether the film was a successful one or not.
Another factor that should be consider if that we could easily find different cultural or political based meanings through the internet easier rather than watching only physical DVD's and films, as we could simply search for exactly what we wanted and most of the time find it, enabling us to gather research and knowledge reasonably quickly.
Generally, the media we used in this section of the project was also technically research on presentation techniques, as we started to learn how we could record and nicely show our pieces of work in a nice, organized way. The more we created with these technologies, the better we got; meaning the better we will present in later stages of the project.
Generally, the media we used in this section of the project was also technically research on presentation techniques, as we started to learn how we could record and nicely show our pieces of work in a nice, organized way. The more we created with these technologies, the better we got; meaning the better we will present in later stages of the project.
Planning
The planning process was quite an interesting one for using modern technologies, as it was tempting to just write everything onto a piece of paper a lot of the time. However, we found that recording our ideas and planning development on digital media put us at much more of an advantage as it allowed us to stay organised and keep our plans tidy and easily accessible for later reference throughout the project (specifically production stages).
New digital technologies were also a brilliant way for us to store any information we needed or created. As well as being easy to upload and create online documents on websites such as Scribd and SlideShare, it allowed us to easily view and improve on our pieces, whether they be a written document or a video source. We could easily access them to see if we needed any improvements in either the actual planning content or the presentation of our ideas. It also helped us experiment with creating videos more as we could physically create our own videos containing plans and ideas rather than just embedding film files from other users like we had done in previous research stages. (E.g. Research into Environments of the Real World)
Production
New digital technologies were also a brilliant way for us to store any information we needed or created. As well as being easy to upload and create online documents on websites such as Scribd and SlideShare, it allowed us to easily view and improve on our pieces, whether they be a written document or a video source. We could easily access them to see if we needed any improvements in either the actual planning content or the presentation of our ideas. It also helped us experiment with creating videos more as we could physically create our own videos containing plans and ideas rather than just embedding film files from other users like we had done in previous research stages. (E.g. Research into Environments of the Real World)
Production
The production stages was easily the stage that required the most use of new media technologies. This ranged from hardware to software to websites and social networking, all of which created a, in my opinion, really well structured production process.
By using all of these modern pieces of technology, we were able to create a modern, easily accessible and great quality product that easily looks like it was built within a professionally industry standards. By this I mean that all technology that was used was similar, if not the same as, to what professional media or film production companies use with their own products. This made our project seem extremely authentic.
Also, by creating a good, realistic short film and production process it would allow us to create great quality evaluation points, as well as being able to sync our ancillary tasks with great accuracy. We would also be able to use any skills we had gained from technology used in this stage, as well as the previous, to create the future ancillary tasks and evaluation responses.
Evaluation & Ancillary Tasks
By using all of these modern pieces of technology, we were able to create a modern, easily accessible and great quality product that easily looks like it was built within a professionally industry standards. By this I mean that all technology that was used was similar, if not the same as, to what professional media or film production companies use with their own products. This made our project seem extremely authentic.
Also, by creating a good, realistic short film and production process it would allow us to create great quality evaluation points, as well as being able to sync our ancillary tasks with great accuracy. We would also be able to use any skills we had gained from technology used in this stage, as well as the previous, to create the future ancillary tasks and evaluation responses.
Evaluation & Ancillary Tasks
The ancillary tasks were primarily built from a program that is of industry standard; Adobe Photoshop. This program was used to create the poster and magazine review as it allowed us to use our artistic and creative skills as best suited to the products we had to create. When we were researching examples of these pieces, we would use other presentation techniques such as Powerpoint (uploaded to SlideShare) and Prezi presentations to present the research we had gained. Because we had previously used similar presentation methods for our very first stages of research, we created the ancillary task presentation pieces very quickly, as we had already developed a good knowledge on how to use the software and programming.
The evaluation tasks had to involve use of technology in order to stay interesting and informative to a reader. Media technology was especially great for presenting our pieces of work for this section. Once we had all the content we needed written down somewhere (such as on Word or paper), we could use our newly acquired skills from practising with the media technologies previously and easily copy and paste or import and apply the content we needed into these presentation techniques (such as YouTube videos or Prezi presentations), creating very interesting, and in some cases interactive, records and presentations.
Blogger and Wix were also pieces of technology that were used for this project; to present any content we created in a blog format. Katie and I used an advanced blog layout on Blogger, whereas Matt used Wix. These sites allowed us to create posts and pages, embed content (such as YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations and Behance portfolio pages) and create nicely set out pieces of text and presentation. We gradually learnt how to better control and use these blogging format sites as time went along; learning how to align text better and import and place images clearer for example.
So, on an overall view, I found the use of modern and new technology went hand in hand with our project and really enhanced the quality of any pieces of work we produced; whether it were research, editing or anything else the project involved.
Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I created a Behance portfolio presentation to explore this question. You can view it on the link below:
Evaluation Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Here is a Prezi presentation, which was created by Matt, to explore and answer this evaluation question:
Overall, I think that we did a great job with creating the ancillary tasks to go alongside and work in synergy with our short film. If we were an industry, we would be using the film poster to advertise our films in various places such as cinemas and bus stops (as already researched before) and the magazine article to get our film and its contents out there for the public to read about. These pieces of media would aid our short films sales, promotion and overall excitement if it were an industry standard project, as advertising it needed to get anything promoted in this modern age.
I really love the fact that all of our pieces of media match and look right together; all fitting a certain style and theme that we ourselves have created. They all hold similar features, which make them instantly identifiable of being related to each other. It's also a lot more professional to keep to a theme/style. You want you're products to link together rather than lead their own single parts. I think they all link very well, making them a success!
Evaluation Q1: In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In order to get my point across on how my project used and challenged typical conventions and themes in the social realism film idea, I decided to create a video to explain some big examples of how we used them.
Another note I would like to add is how we used people and directors as influence. We didn't directly copy anyone from the industry, as we felt this really limited our creativity and didn't allow us to challenge the ideas enough for our film. We wanted to create a piece that was no where near as dramatically led as most other social realism films. By this we mean that from our analysis's of already existing social realism based films, the stories and characters were still very dramatic in our eyes, involving themes like drugs, knife crime and gang culture. Although this IS seen in our reality, it's not exactly a prominent part of it and problems tend to be and end up being dealt with a lot less dramatically as these social realism films did.
Our topic in our film revolved around running away from home due to an abusive, neglected broken family lifestyle which is considered normal for a social realism genre based film. We made sure to constantly think of how Ken Loach would approach this issue throughout our production as he has a lot of experience in films with this topic. However, we approached the results and solutions to this problem a lot differently. Most social realism films would have presented the main character running away and getting involved with horrible situation such as muggings, fights, drugs and other anti-social behaviours, to express their emotions and frustration during their point of crisis. We, however, felt this to be far too dramatic, considering the fact that in reality, teenagers who run away, in a middle/working-class lifestyle, usually returns, quite quickly too, due to the fact they realise they cannot handle being homeless or miss their family, 'dealing with the cards they were dealt'.
I feel we created a much more realistic theme in the theme by doing this rather than going down the dramatic route.
Another note I would like to add is how we used people and directors as influence. We didn't directly copy anyone from the industry, as we felt this really limited our creativity and didn't allow us to challenge the ideas enough for our film. We wanted to create a piece that was no where near as dramatically led as most other social realism films. By this we mean that from our analysis's of already existing social realism based films, the stories and characters were still very dramatic in our eyes, involving themes like drugs, knife crime and gang culture. Although this IS seen in our reality, it's not exactly a prominent part of it and problems tend to be and end up being dealt with a lot less dramatically as these social realism films did.
Our topic in our film revolved around running away from home due to an abusive, neglected broken family lifestyle which is considered normal for a social realism genre based film. We made sure to constantly think of how Ken Loach would approach this issue throughout our production as he has a lot of experience in films with this topic. However, we approached the results and solutions to this problem a lot differently. Most social realism films would have presented the main character running away and getting involved with horrible situation such as muggings, fights, drugs and other anti-social behaviours, to express their emotions and frustration during their point of crisis. We, however, felt this to be far too dramatic, considering the fact that in reality, teenagers who run away, in a middle/working-class lifestyle, usually returns, quite quickly too, due to the fact they realise they cannot handle being homeless or miss their family, 'dealing with the cards they were dealt'.
I feel we created a much more realistic theme in the theme by doing this rather than going down the dramatic route.
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Final Piece: Anchored Renegade
Our video was then edited to the best quality it could be and a final cut was produced. The video below is our final short film product. It was uploaded to YouTube at full 1080p HD quality. Enjoy!
Using a website called Animoto, I created a 30 second long key frame compilation slideshow using the websites slideshow creation and hosting services. I would have made it longer, how to do so with the software I would have had to purchase a premium membership, which wasn't worth for the 10 pictures I had and on our student budget.
Using a website called Animoto, I created a 30 second long key frame compilation slideshow using the websites slideshow creation and hosting services. I would have made it longer, how to do so with the software I would have had to purchase a premium membership, which wasn't worth for the 10 pictures I had and on our student budget.
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Final Film Poster
This is our final promotional film poster.
I also printed this poster of in real life to envision what it would look like on a wall in reality. I didn't have access to any A2 paper, which is what film posters would usually be printed on, so we had to make do with A3. But, we think it still looked really legitimate and authentic, as well as felt proud of our product (although we know it would have looked a lot better at an A2 scale).
Here is my evaluation notes of the promotional poster product:
Overall, I feel that by creating this promotional poster, it would attract lots of potential viewers to our film and it would definitely benefit our films popularity and knowing amongst members of the public. Film companies and directors create these promotional posters to get their new films out in the world and have its name recognized, rather than letting it be released without anyone having prior knowledge of its existence. It's kind of like having a prior warning or announcement for the films release basically.
Also, if film posters and other similar advertisements didn't exist, people would find it extremely hard to have motivation or desire to go see films in cinemas or buy them on DVD or digital copy etc, as they would have no prior knowledge on what style or ideas are within the film at all, thus making it impossible to predict what the film will be about in any other way other than going straight to watch it. This would also cause quite a big risk review wise, as if people didn't know what it was about, made effort and paid to go see it, then hated it, they would display this dislike. This could be avoided by giving them a prior advertisement so they would know before whether they would like the film or not.
I think what I created was quite successful and looks very realistic as a social realism based poster. I think it would definitely boost the promotion of the film and give a very clear idea about the themes and styles in film, as we can clearly see from the poster that the film is set in quite grungy and negative tone. It's also, thanks to the bold lettering and colour contrasts between the text and image, stands out very bold and is easily noticeable catching lots of eye attention. I'm quite proud of this piece.
Monday, 4 February 2013
Creating A Film Poster Advertisment
Using Behance, I created a small portfolio page to present the creation process of our groups film poster. You can see the progress shots of the posters' creation here, so click the link below to view:
Click On This Link Please!
Click On This Link Please!
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Inital Font Ideas For Film Poster Advert
One of the main aspects of a film poster is to have the film’s title on the piece of paper, often taking up a third of the page. I decided to design and test some fonts and see which I thought suited the film’s genre and themes better. Factors such as capitalizations, weight and kerning need to be considered during this design process.
The images below show the different font ideas I explored, through own hand-drawn designs to similar or own created digital versions.
From the research and exploration I have been doing, we think that a sans-serif, bold, capitalized font would be the more appropriate type of text design to use. However, we will test with the others during the posters production to see if any of the others end up suiting it a lot more than we expected.
Size is also another big part of font and poster design! Film titles need to be the primary source of information to the viewer, alongside the imagery. In order to make sure it's 'first bit to see'/primary status is shown, the title needs to be big and catch the viewers attention. It also shouldn't blend too much with the imagery or it may go unnoticed.
I decided to create some sketches to explain what I mean by how size can impact the success of a poster...
From these sketches, we can clearly see that some of the pictures do not even look like they have a title until you start wandering around the page to find it. This is NOT a good technique for advertising a film, as people need to know to films name within the first few seconds of seeing the poster in order to be interested. Without noticing the title, they will walk away; thus not promoting your film successfully. I must make sure in my own poster that I create a title that is at a 'right' size.
Size is also another big part of font and poster design! Film titles need to be the primary source of information to the viewer, alongside the imagery. In order to make sure it's 'first bit to see'/primary status is shown, the title needs to be big and catch the viewers attention. It also shouldn't blend too much with the imagery or it may go unnoticed.
I decided to create some sketches to explain what I mean by how size can impact the success of a poster...
I also started to look at the lettering style used at the bottom of a film poster, in the credits and legalities section. Regardless to the type of film or genre, they all used a similar style and followed a certain trend that seems to be automatically assigned to the credits section of any poster. Here are some examples:
Upon seeing how all film posters follow a very similar trend (minus the colour schemes and specific font names), I realised I had to use this style in my teams own short film poster. Using these images as reference, I searched the internet to find a font that is similar to the ones used in actual film posters. The features/style I would be looking for were tall, thin and capitalized letters. I found a font and experimented with it to see if it would look accurate to a real poster. I made sure to include
Photography For Film Poster
As we didn't want an illustrated film poster, due to the fact it would be silly to have a social realism film advertised in an unrealistic manner, we needed some photo's to work with and create it with. Below are the shots that we took as possibilities for our film poster.
We also had one more shot, which we decided was the one we wanted to use. It can be seen below.
We liked it because of how dirty and rough it looked, which matched our films theme and idea of homelessness perfectly. We also just really liked the composition in general. This was actually an accidental shot that was taken, as we had meant to be recording video footage for our film rather than taking a picture. However the out of focus blur and the general structure of the picture actually looked really nice; catching our actor at a natural, random moment where he was playing the character's role.
Creating Logos For The Film Poster
One of the other features we noticed during our analysis of film posters was that there were a sufficient amount of associated companies and sponsors in the credits section at the bottom of the poster. These companies were all represented by logos. These seemed to be an essential for a film poster in order to look authentic and professional. It's almost as if it's a boast to credit all the featured companies that were worked with.
Instead of stealing other companies logos or using resources that were not our own, we decided creating our own fictional company logos would be best. We first created a collage of existing logos that are usually found on film posters in this credit section we speak of.
From these logos, we could see the typical designs and styles of them, such as the fact that they all following a single colour palette that is designed to stand out from the background (particularistic white on black and black on white).
I then began to design my own fictional designs.
I uploaded a Powerpoint Presentation to Authorstream to show my logo designs.
More PowerPoint presentations from Shellah Hunter
Creating Content For The Film Poster
Once we had done all of our research for our posters' content, I set to creating the content. You can see the content that we created for the poster in this Google Document:
Click This Link To View The Document!
Click This Link To View The Document!
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Initial Design Sketches For Film Poster
The first part to creating an advertisement for a film in poster format is to create and sketch ideas for the piece. By doing this, I can create a rough plan on how the short film will be advertised, following the themes and conventions that I had researched previously. We had already taken some photography from our shooting sessions, so I could work on designs from them.
In this image, I explored the pro's and cons to using landscape or portrait layouts for posters, as there are subtle differences in what each type suits.
Our group then discussed the ideas that had been created, all based from photography we had already gathered and taken before, and made a decision on which we thought would be the best and most appropriate to use for our film poster. This was our final choice.
We chose this design because there was something about it that really stood out to us. They layout of the piece seemed right for what we needed in our promotional poster product. We also liked how the picture was taken; using a low angle made the picture seem dramatic. We also felt it matched all other aspects and criteria we needed for a poster, such as the landscape layout, room for text, non-focus on any variables at all other than our actor and the fact he is all alone in a dark area. Something about the image was also very photogenic and appealed to us immediately decided to use this idea.
In this image, I explored the pro's and cons to using landscape or portrait layouts for posters, as there are subtle differences in what each type suits.
After putting the canvas layout into consideration and once we had a sufficient amount of research and references, I began to sketch ideas for a poster.
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| Initial Design Sketches |
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| Final Design Sketch |
Film Poster Research
In order to gain an idea on how typical film posters look, we had to do some research. We didn't want to waste time researching random film posters and felt our time would be best spent researching posters for films in social realism genre. This was so that when it came to creating our own poster, we would know the norms of a social realism genre based film in particular rather than researching other genres such as genre or romance which may lead to us being influenced by themes and styles that do not match our film type at all.
Katie created a presentation to show our research process and what we had concluded, as results, from our research on social realism film posters.
Katie created a presentation to show our research process and what we had concluded, as results, from our research on social realism film posters.
Friday, 1 February 2013
Film Poster Advert
The second ancillary task we had to complete was a film poster that would advertise our short film. Poster design is a very creative process, so I feel we can show a lot of our creativity during this process and will also enjoy doing it, thus putting us at a good chance of creating a great result product for this task.
Promotional (or teaser) posters are a very common form of advertisement for moving footage media pieces in this modern day and age, being placed and viewed from a variety of different places such as cinema walls, bus stops, buses themselves (in a banner form), schools, streets and more. They may also appear on digital formats such as websites or moving image advertisements.
These posters are very commonly used to advertise newly created and released films, particularly for films expected to be released in under a year’s time, rather than films that were released quite a while ago. They are usually of an A2 or larger size and are very bold, with the intentions of catching a viewers or passer-bys attention.
By creating a film poster, we will be able to promote our film via a media that involves a lot of creativity and artistic aspects. In order to correctly and successfully create a poster with a good synergy to our film, we must make sure it fits the themes and style of it. Without the similarities, the poster could end up looking like it is promoting a completely different film.
Here is a collage (which I created in Photoshop) of some examples of film posters.
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Final Film Review Magazine Page
This is the final piece for our first ancillary task, a magazine film review article.
I personally think Matt did an excellent job with creating an authentic magazine film review! It all looks very realistic and appropriate for a magazine article to be about. He followed all the of guidelines and research aspects that we had previously researched and created a great piece.
One of the aspects I noticed had a strong point and build to it was Matt's focus on and use of fonts. I really love all of the fonts he chose, along with all the sizes and styles. They all match exactly what we had researched previously and looked really great in our product, which is great for looking professional and authentic.
I also really liked his colour palette of the article. Just using a simple black, white and red colour scheme was very bold and provided the idea of simplicity; which is what our film is about in some aspects. The colours were also not too bright or suggestive of any ideas that we didn't want to represent our film with. For example, if he had coloured the page bright pinks with purples and yellows, the page would have looked very stereotypically aimed at females, which is not our aim. By using the palette he did, we could aim at all ages, genders and classes due to its simple nature.
I do however think the photo that was used was edited a little too much. Apparently, Matt received a criticism that told him to lighten the picture a little bit because it was 'too dark' for the page. However, I feel it has either been lightened a little bit too much or didn't need any manipulation in the first place. Luckily though, it still looks like it fits on the page so it wouldn't prove much of a problem if it were a real article.
Matt also came across a technical difficulty during the production of this piece. As he was placing and organising the content text, he found that there wasn't enough textual information to fit in the columns. He didn't want to just change the size of the font to a bigger one to allow it to stretch and fit because he felt it didn't look like a real magazine article then, as they usually follow a same 'copycat' or default style and size when it comes to font. So, he created a little more content for the article and tried to keep it sounding accurate to the rest of the text. The fact that it is barely noticeable where he added more texts suggests he followed the research, themes and style of the text perfectly, meaning there would be no trouble with the final piece.
Overall, I think the magazine review is very accurate to what would realistically be posted within a film based magazine. It matches the typical conventions of other magazine review articles, particularly ones about social realist films, and looks like it would promote our film quite nicely. I do not mean the content itself, but the whole presentation of the film throughout design and the fact there is LOTS of information would definitely boost the films popularity and overall success.
One of the aspects I noticed had a strong point and build to it was Matt's focus on and use of fonts. I really love all of the fonts he chose, along with all the sizes and styles. They all match exactly what we had researched previously and looked really great in our product, which is great for looking professional and authentic.
I also really liked his colour palette of the article. Just using a simple black, white and red colour scheme was very bold and provided the idea of simplicity; which is what our film is about in some aspects. The colours were also not too bright or suggestive of any ideas that we didn't want to represent our film with. For example, if he had coloured the page bright pinks with purples and yellows, the page would have looked very stereotypically aimed at females, which is not our aim. By using the palette he did, we could aim at all ages, genders and classes due to its simple nature.
I do however think the photo that was used was edited a little too much. Apparently, Matt received a criticism that told him to lighten the picture a little bit because it was 'too dark' for the page. However, I feel it has either been lightened a little bit too much or didn't need any manipulation in the first place. Luckily though, it still looks like it fits on the page so it wouldn't prove much of a problem if it were a real article.
Matt also came across a technical difficulty during the production of this piece. As he was placing and organising the content text, he found that there wasn't enough textual information to fit in the columns. He didn't want to just change the size of the font to a bigger one to allow it to stretch and fit because he felt it didn't look like a real magazine article then, as they usually follow a same 'copycat' or default style and size when it comes to font. So, he created a little more content for the article and tried to keep it sounding accurate to the rest of the text. The fact that it is barely noticeable where he added more texts suggests he followed the research, themes and style of the text perfectly, meaning there would be no trouble with the final piece.
Overall, I think the magazine review is very accurate to what would realistically be posted within a film based magazine. It matches the typical conventions of other magazine review articles, particularly ones about social realist films, and looks like it would promote our film quite nicely. I do not mean the content itself, but the whole presentation of the film throughout design and the fact there is LOTS of information would definitely boost the films popularity and overall success.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Creating A Film Review
We assigned Matt to be in charge of the designing and overall creation of the final article piece. He gathered all of the research that had been done and any resources we had for him to use on his poster and got to work. He used Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 for his piece.
Matt firstly focused on placing the main elements and layout on his digital canvas so that he knew exactly where to place any other resources or design needed. He would then place any content resources I had previously written onto his design and adapted it to look professional authentic and overall suited to a magazine article design, as well as looking suited to the social realism genre by keeping the design simple yet bold and making a statement.
Rather than just creating the article at home and not bothering to record his steps, he decided to take screenshots of his work in progress up until completion. This allowed Katie and I to see exactly what he had gotten up to and to see if he really did follow the trends, styles and steps needed to creating an authentic magazine article, like the ones we had previously researched.
He put these screenshots into a PowerPoint presentation and uploaded this to SlideShare to share with his group and audience.
Matt firstly focused on placing the main elements and layout on his digital canvas so that he knew exactly where to place any other resources or design needed. He would then place any content resources I had previously written onto his design and adapted it to look professional authentic and overall suited to a magazine article design, as well as looking suited to the social realism genre by keeping the design simple yet bold and making a statement.
Rather than just creating the article at home and not bothering to record his steps, he decided to take screenshots of his work in progress up until completion. This allowed Katie and I to see exactly what he had gotten up to and to see if he really did follow the trends, styles and steps needed to creating an authentic magazine article, like the ones we had previously researched.
He put these screenshots into a PowerPoint presentation and uploaded this to SlideShare to share with his group and audience.
Screen shots of magazine process from Matt Martyn
You can see our final magazine film review article product here:
Click this link!
You can see our final magazine film review article product here:
Click this link!
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Photography for Magazine Article
From the research we had done on film magazines and their review sections, we knew we had to include at least one photo in to our media piece in order for it to look authentic. So, on one of our shooting days, we wandered up the stations tracks a little bit and spent half an hour taking some really nice photo's that we could possibly use for this ancillary task in particular.
We took photo's at a few different angles and distances to give us a variety of different compositions that we could use for this ancillary task. These shots include low angle shots looking up on the main character, long distance shots to include the background and mid shots to catch both the characters emotion and environment Although we liked all of the shots, we decided we liked the one below most and are thus going to use it as our film's representative imagery in our magazine review article.
We really liked it because whilst it looked very professional and dramatic looking, it also looked quite dull and had a certain dirtiness to it that a social realist film needs to be advertised with. This may have been due to how the character and his clothing blended well with the environment around him. We also really loved the train lights in the background. In a more 'in depth' view, we suggested that the lights represented freedom or a better life, which is what our character is seeking. We really liked how this imagery portrayed this point.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Creating Film Review Content
One of the main features that are required in a magazine review is textual content. Without that, unless it is a poster or images relating to a previous piece of text, the page you have is of no use what so ever and has no purpose to it. After my research into content of a film review magazine, I took on the role of a film reviewer and created, what I would imagine to be, a realistic film review of Anchored Renegade.
I had to make sure I included all, or at least most of, the features that I had previously researched in order to create a legitimate and realistic looking review. I also had to create the content for the page's tagline, title and ratings etc, which would also be included in the magazine review's page. I uploaded my review to Scribd.com.
If when it came to creating the film review I didn't create enough content for it, we agreed that Matt (the member who is going to design and create the piece) could add additional content as long as it fit the research and style we had made before.
Friday, 25 January 2013
Film Review Magazine (Content Analysis & Research)
I then decided to create an analysis and research the actual content that you would put within a film review magazine. Using Prezi, I created a presentation that shows the research information I came up with from researching various film review articles.
Film Review Magazine (Design Analysis & Research)
Design is a big part to creating a magazine page, as without it or a good design, readers will often grow bored of the content they are reading and either stop reading it or let their minds wander, not taking in the information they are being given. Also, if someone saw the blank page, it is likely no one will even attempt to read the content that lies within the page.
So, we had to come up with a design for our magazine review article. Matt decided to do a radial analysis on the design and layout of magazine review pages and upload it to SlideShare.
So, we had to come up with a design for our magazine review article. Matt decided to do a radial analysis on the design and layout of magazine review pages and upload it to SlideShare.
Film Review Magazine
Another task that we are needed to complete is a magazine article reviewing our short film.
This task would require both literature and graphical design skills to present the piece of media. It is our choice whether we review our own film as having a positive or negative impact on its audience and we must make it see as professional and authentic as possible, trying our hardest to review our film in the shoes of a reviewer.
In order to create this piece for our first ancillary task, we will have to conduct some research into typical magazine film review articles... Here is a collage of real magazine film review articles.
This task would require both literature and graphical design skills to present the piece of media. It is our choice whether we review our own film as having a positive or negative impact on its audience and we must make it see as professional and authentic as possible, trying our hardest to review our film in the shoes of a reviewer.
In order to create this piece for our first ancillary task, we will have to conduct some research into typical magazine film review articles... Here is a collage of real magazine film review articles.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Second Draft of Short Film
Here is the second draft cut of our short film, Anchored Renegade. It is available at full 1080p HD quality but will be improved on at a later date.
After this draft, we gained some feedback from our teacher and decided his ideas made quite a lot of sense.
So, we set to work on focussing on the areas that needed manipulating, such as the argument audio overlays suggested. However, I felt the chaotic montage would be better placed on the train sequence, as the shots contained a lot less movement and other points of focus other than our main character than the sandwich scene. So, I decided to compremise and placed the 'mashed-up' audio here instead.
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Social Media
A massive part of today's society revolves around news and updates, particularly via social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These websites are used for the majority of the time for getting news and knowledge of what is going on in the world, whether it be between friends, celebrities or world events. Media companies are particular fans of these forms of websites because it allows them to stay modern and up to date, as well as gives them the ability to communicate with their audience and fans. It's a great way to advertise and promote products also.
We all decided that our film would look more authentic and be promoted a lot better if we created some pages for it via these social media forms.
YouTube would be one of our most useful social media forms as our project revolves around moving image and video, this being what YouTube specialises in and is known best for. Matt, Katie and I each created our own little media based YouTube channels and will be using them to promote any material we would like to broadcast via this website.
Following Facebook's step-by-step page guide, I created a simple page for our film Anchored Renegade. After I had created the basic elements (including page name, description, admins), I started to create posts that involved our film in some way or another. I then began to invite people from my friends list to like the page and promote it. We will see how many likes and fans we get by the end of our project.
You can view the Facebook page by clicking the link below:
I also started off a Twitter hash tag for Anchored Renegade. This hash tag will be visible at the end of our final video product and also on some of our ancillary tasks. Using hash tags will allow us to firstly see if we reached the Twitter audience, but also to see how promoted are film has become overall. If the hash tag spreads, it could mean big promotion for us.
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
First Draft of Short Film
The first draft of our short film was then uploaded on to YouTube.
As this was only a draft, there were mistakes and cuts that we will need to fix at a later date before releasing the final project.
Afterwards we were given some feedback from our media teacher. Katie created a video to respond to the feedback.
As this was only a draft, there were mistakes and cuts that we will need to fix at a later date before releasing the final project.
Afterwards we were given some feedback from our media teacher. Katie created a video to respond to the feedback.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Post-Production: Credits and Titles
One of the more minor, yet still important, processes of creating a film is having sections that contain information such as the title of the film and credits. There is no definite or right way to present this content, allowing film makers to use their creative (or simplistic) skills to present the information. We had already created a very simple, scrolling upward, black and white design for the credits of the film, leaving it as a very simple design that is often used in many films.
The information in the credits were quite detailed and contained all of the roles and content that were used during the films production. The content was created in a group effort.
Directed & Produced By Makley Productions
Katie Jones
Matt Martyn
Shelley Hunter
Actors: Matt Martyn & Katie Jones
Screenplay: Katie Jones
Cinematographer/Choreographer: Shelley Hunter
Visual Edit: Katie Jones, Shelley Hunter & Matt Martyn
Audio Edit: Shelley Hunter & Katie Jones
Special thanks to TFL and STS for co-operation and permission to film shoots.
'Runaway'
Performed by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Produced by Rick Rubin
Courtesy of Warner Bro's Label
'New Moon'
Performed by Grizzly Bear
Produced by Chris Taylor
Courtesy of Warp Label
#AnchoredRenegade2013
With the opening title/sequence, I wanted to explore some creativity a little more. I decided to look up examples of opening sequences in films and television programs to see how they generally work and to inspire me to think of my own ideas.
I also found a really great Flash-based website which allowed me to easily navigate and view great examples of opening sequences, titles and prologues in films (as well as other media such as games). It was absolutely great for finding good and successful examples, as well as inspired me to create my own work.
Click here to see Prologue.com!
From the research on examples, I found a few common features. The title's style of the film often shared the same font and colour (style) as the titles they use for poster and banner advertisements. This will be useful information later on during production for when the ancillary tasks are assigned. I also noticed that they aren't always centre of the screen, as easy and typical as that may seem. Lots of films placed the text in a completely different part of the 'image', especially if it matches up with something in the footage they are presenting. An extremely common example of this was where some films would present the title looking like it were physically in the scene being shown, perhaps as graffiti or a structure. Another similar effect would be to have the title or other opening sequence texts appear on screen and then it would be 'sent out' by some form of physical object in the footage removing it, whether that be a cleaning wipe or simply a character standing it front of and blocking the text, beginning the film. I thought these were great ideas, and decided I wanted to create a similar effect on my own film.
I chose a point where I felt the title would look cool; the scene where the main character has just noticed the keys and is contemplating whether to leave or not. I felt text would go nicely there behind him on the wall as it would look he is carrying them on his shoulders a little bit, thus suggesting the idea of having a lot to deal with and carrying lots of stressful weight on his shoulders. He then stands up and it cuts to the next clip. I wanted the text to disappear behind him, but to do so would require advanced using of video editing software; mask cutting.
I started off by opening my short film in Sony Vegas Pro 12, splitting the section where I would like the model to start to cover the text and copied the segment into a new video track layer above it. I then added a blank video track and created the title text in the place and font I desired it to sit and stay on the footage. This layer was placed underneath our new duplicated footage of the scene.
On the top layer, I then began key-cutting (or masking) roughly around the edges of the actors shoulder; the sections that I wanted to cover the text.
The information in the credits were quite detailed and contained all of the roles and content that were used during the films production. The content was created in a group effort.
Directed & Produced By Makley Productions
Katie Jones
Matt Martyn
Shelley Hunter
Actors: Matt Martyn & Katie Jones
Screenplay: Katie Jones
Cinematographer/Choreographer: Shelley Hunter
Visual Edit: Katie Jones, Shelley Hunter & Matt Martyn
Audio Edit: Shelley Hunter & Katie Jones
Special thanks to TFL and STS for co-operation and permission to film shoots.
'Runaway'
Performed by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Produced by Rick Rubin
Courtesy of Warner Bro's Label
'New Moon'
Performed by Grizzly Bear
Produced by Chris Taylor
Courtesy of Warp Label
#AnchoredRenegade2013
I also found a really great Flash-based website which allowed me to easily navigate and view great examples of opening sequences, titles and prologues in films (as well as other media such as games). It was absolutely great for finding good and successful examples, as well as inspired me to create my own work.
Click here to see Prologue.com!
From the research on examples, I found a few common features. The title's style of the film often shared the same font and colour (style) as the titles they use for poster and banner advertisements. This will be useful information later on during production for when the ancillary tasks are assigned. I also noticed that they aren't always centre of the screen, as easy and typical as that may seem. Lots of films placed the text in a completely different part of the 'image', especially if it matches up with something in the footage they are presenting. An extremely common example of this was where some films would present the title looking like it were physically in the scene being shown, perhaps as graffiti or a structure. Another similar effect would be to have the title or other opening sequence texts appear on screen and then it would be 'sent out' by some form of physical object in the footage removing it, whether that be a cleaning wipe or simply a character standing it front of and blocking the text, beginning the film. I thought these were great ideas, and decided I wanted to create a similar effect on my own film.
I chose a point where I felt the title would look cool; the scene where the main character has just noticed the keys and is contemplating whether to leave or not. I felt text would go nicely there behind him on the wall as it would look he is carrying them on his shoulders a little bit, thus suggesting the idea of having a lot to deal with and carrying lots of stressful weight on his shoulders. He then stands up and it cuts to the next clip. I wanted the text to disappear behind him, but to do so would require advanced using of video editing software; mask cutting.
I started off by opening my short film in Sony Vegas Pro 12, splitting the section where I would like the model to start to cover the text and copied the segment into a new video track layer above it. I then added a blank video track and created the title text in the place and font I desired it to sit and stay on the footage. This layer was placed underneath our new duplicated footage of the scene.
On the top layer, I then began key-cutting (or masking) roughly around the edges of the actors shoulder; the sections that I wanted to cover the text.
This was then followed by creating a key frame for every frame in the scene and creating masks for each frame. This is a very lengthy process that requires lots of precision and patience.
Once I had created all the different masks for every frame that is visible for the scene I needed, I would constantly replay it back (at different speeds) to spot any mistakes and make sure that the text looked like it naturally disappeared behind the actor.
Here is a basic key frame version of the part;
I had then finished, creating a really cool image of the actor, who is physically in the scene, overlapping digitally added media from post-production. It looks very modern and cool for the viewer to watch, bring up the 'how did they do that' thoughts to keep them interested in how the film is being presented.
I then wanted an interesting way to present the names of actors in the film. I found that the first two shots had really large amounts of space and area to play around with and found areas for the pieces of text to be placed. The specified areas wouldn't take away too much attention away from what is going on in the film and didn't ruin the imagery of the scene, so they fit well there.
Here are where I decided to place them;
These will all be present in my final product piece.
