WEEK 20

This week I designed my proper magazine cover.
The pictures of the two boys are 2 main characters in my film. I tried to go for a stereotypical look of a student when taking the pictures. By stereotypical look, I mean someone in casual clothing with like a bag over their shoulder – a school bag, also the headphones around his neck go with the image. With the image on the right (Calvin Demba) I played around with the tools in Photoshop including the smudge tool, to give him a more troubled look on his face, this was done to increase the tension. With the image on the left (Marlon Sr. Douglin) I decided to cut out the majority of his body on the right side as I positioned him to appear behind Calvin on the actual magazine cover. I decided to make Marlon look to the side when taking the photo, as he looks like a ‘lookout’ for his friend Calvin and as these 2 along with others get in trouble they need all the help they can get.

For the background I used a blackboard with "I will not disturb the dead" written on it. This was made by simply getting a picture of a blackboard, finding a font that looks like chalk and then writing the text onto it. I made the text look as if someone had to write lines. I came to this decision as sometimes in schools when someone gets in trouble one way of punishing them is by making them write lines. They’d have to repeatedly write out something they should not do, in this case the lines read ‘I will not disturb the dead’, reflecting the plot of the story; in which, the protagonists go somewhere where they shouldn’t go to a certain place as it’s a site of where a class of students died in 1986 (hence the name), this causes the ghosts of the dead to react. I also added little images of bloody hand prints across the board. This represents the students trying to break away from the ghosts as they’re being “tortured”. The hand prints on the board show the students regret “disturbing the dead”.

For the grungy, dirty looking effect on the main image and background I found a picture of a piece of old paper and placed it over the image, and then set the blending mode to 'Multiply'. I done this to make the image seem more dark and dirty, as the genre is horror these are generic conventions. Giving the whole image this sort of grungy dirty effect it takes away this sense of innocence, their innocence of youth is jeopardised when they break the rules, however this may be a simple mistake they make whilst young, something they can learn from if they do conquer this paranormal encounter.
There is also a subtle light source coming from the left side of the image which was created by using a soft white brush, and then using Gaussian blur to spread the light around.

To get the worn out effect on the title of the film "Class Of '86" I first typed it out normally, rasterized the type, then started rubbing out areas of it to make it look old.

The "magazine of the year" stamp near the top right corner was made by me, using shapes and text.
I got the picture of a barcode off the internet and added it to my magazine for realism.

The rest of the graphics on the magazine are all shapes, text and screenshots of movies, found on the internet.

For the masthead I used a font known as ‘Devil Breeze’. I liked this font as it seemed modern and can appeal to fans of films of all genres. As it does not look like a font for a specific film type, it can be seen as a broad-spectrum font. It also appeared perfect for me to use as a masthead the way it looks across the top of the magazine.

Here are a list of the fonts I used

Devil Breeze - Masthead

Arial

Arial Black

Arial Narrow

Calibri

Trajan Pro


Impact

Garamond



WEEK 19

Here is my first draft magazine. I didn’t think any of the photos I previously took were suitable enough for a magazine cover, so I used this image of Iron Man as a foundation for my magazine cover.



As you can see I got rid of the Iron Man text on the image and the majority of the left side so the main image could go on my front cover. I then flipped the image horizontally as it looks better.

 For the masthead I used a font known as ‘Devil Breeze’. I liked this font as it seemed modern and can appeal to fans of films of all genres. As it does not look like a font for a specific film type, it can be seen as a broad-spectrum font. It also appeared perfect for me to use as a masthead the way it looks across the top of the magazine. I added a coverline regarding a new film coming out. I also put a list of films due to be released, telling the consumers ‘New movies you need to know about’. As this is a common feature on film magazines I decided to put this there. This seemed to be a good feature, as if the customers weren’t interested in the main cover image (main film), the list of other films may persuade them to buy it – as there may be a film in that least they’re interested in.

I decided to advertise a ‘free giant Iron Man poster inside’ as my draft magazine’s main feature is Iron Man, however when I do come round to incorporating my own images on to the cover I’ll leave the advertisement.

I added a barcode to the magazine, along with the issue number, the date, and an official website for the magazine for realism.

WEEK 18

Whilst doing research for my second ancillary project, I came across the movie magazine 'EMPIRE'. Look at some of their front covers I noticed a key detail. When advertising a film on the front of their magazine they tend to have a theme that goes with the film. For example, looking st this 'TRON LEGACY' feature on the magazine, you notice that the magazine's theme, i.e. the text, subheadings, masthead and so forth look as if they're part of the movie. Giving the film more significance, as the magazine is revolving around its feature. I wish to incorporate something similar on to my magazine. As my poster and trailer have aspects of fire in it, I want to make fire, or the colours orange, black and or gold predominant on my magazine cover. Just like the 'TRON LEGACY' cover, I would like my magazine to only have one picture; a picture representing my film. This will give it more significance and make it the main attraction. For cover lines it would be wise of me to mainly focus on films as its a film magazine. I can talk about upcoming films, film reviews, interviews with stars or upcoming events to do with . I noticed that some pictures appear in front of the masthead whereas others appear behind it. This could be due to the significance of the film or popularity. As my film magazine will not be an established franchise I'll make my film appear behind the masthead, so that the masthead is clear enough for the audience to read. Some magazines like EMPIRE can have the masthead behind the main subject because it is a well known established magazine.

Here are some other posters I looked at

WEEK 16 - 17

The text for the film I created for my film I decided to incorporate it into my film poster.

I thought the idea of a film poster dominated by text would be a different approach. In doing so it meant I would have to put a lot of effort into the text as that would be the subject for my poster. So what was actually a design meant for a landscape layout, I transformed the text into a portrait A4 image, as I could work better with that layout. I also added fire to the top of my text so I gave of the image that it was on fire. In order for me to make it look more realistic I brightened up the text (top half mainly) so it literally looked lit up.

Here’s my first draft poster. As you can see the text in the centre looks more yellow and is brighter. I decided to use the render tool > lighting effects on the text to emphasize its significance and also to darken the edges at the same time. Looking at other film posters for horror films I noticed that it’s normal for the edges on the poster to be black or any other really dark colour. This puts all the attention on to whatever’s in the centre. I decided to reverse the roles of the text and the picture because usually on film posters the image is usually dominant and the text would be there to support it. However in this case it is the other way round.

As you can see I also took time out to make a little production logo for originality and detail. This gives my poster more realism (this is located in the bottom right of my poster.

WEEK 14

Researching for my ancillary task I came across the TRON movie poster which was text only. I liked this idea as it is a more simple approach, yet it is just as effective. The designer of this poster had the idea of representing the film through this poster, by using a specific font and
effects. The font links to the film as it is about a sort of racing game in which the letters linked together looked like a futuristic racing track. The glow emits brings the text alive allowing it to catch the attention of the reader.

Whilst researching Photoshop effects for fire I found this. I found this interesting because of the way the person is set to be on fire the designer of this picture has incorporated the fire to be part of
the subject. As the basis behind my storyline is that a class of people were burned to death

Using adobe Photoshop I created a dramatic title for my film trailer. I decided to use the fire effect because of the idea behind the trailer. The film is about a group of friends who go to a place where they shouldn’t have gone. Where they decide to go is where a special class used to take place. Most of the class died in a fire in 1986, they were all young no older than 7. Rumour has it that the ghosts/spirits of the dead tend to hang around the site of what was once a little private school. As the friends want to be nosey, they end up finding out for themselves that there are weird things happening around the place. Their inquisitive nature finds them in a dire situation, in which their lives could be on the line.

WEEK 11 - 13

Researching film posters, I decided to look specifically at film posters of my chosen genre; horror. Examining a range of horror film posters you immediately notice a common theme throughout. You notice that if not all, most horror film posters’ backgrounds are black. If it’s not black it ends to be a really dark colour. This connotes darkness, giving a spooky feel. The use of black or any other dark colour for the film poster is a generic convention, which I believe would be very hard to challenge as this has been a common theme ever since horror films were about. So I decided to incorporate the use of black onto my poster. Much like the other posters I want to have my subject highlighted in the middle of the poster, with black around the subject, all long the edges. This will give all the attention to the subject. Similar to 'The Last House on The Left' I want the title to be larger than the actual picture, so I don't reveal too much throught the picture. I am also considering using a silhouette for my picture, to make it more scary as such.

WEEK 8 - 10

My partner and I began filming. We shot our first scene outside on the college site. This scene involved a group of friends talking about ghosts of people who died in a fire before this college was built into a college. During filming we had to re shoot this scene about 4 times in order to ensure the realism was there.
We also shot another scene in the toilets in which one of the characters was staring in the mirror and hey had a sort of weird experience, which may be due to an apparent ghost, or just something out of the ordinary. Here I was the one doing the actual filming and I decided to do an over the shoulder shot which lead into the mirror, allowing me to see my character’s full facial expressions. I used a mid-shot I slowly zoomed in to embrace his facial expressions. That scene ends there, which will be punctuated at the end by a brief break and I have the idea to use the sound effect of a loud noise of a door slam.

For the next scenes I decided to do a mobile scene, in which I was holding the camera running and breathing heavily, to give the audience a subjective view of one character in the area that the students want to investigate. I wanted the scene to appear before the initial scene of the group talking about the forbidden area, giving the trailer an exciting start. Following that I shot a scene of the person I was running with being dragged somewhere by a some what invisible force.

I filmed in a playground in the night time. To emphasize the naturally spooky setting I got someone to push the swings and other apparatus then run out of the camera's sight. This looked as if the swings and other apparatus were  moving by their selves.

Due to a misunderstanding, I was forced to complete the rest of this project by myself.
Also as I missed the deadline for presenting my video, I wasn't able to get some audience feedback from my classmates. However I did end up getting a few friends who fit my target audience description to watch it and give me their feedback.