Useful youtube video on how to create fake cuts etc... AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-jdr1yQ8aI

I thought that this link would be useful for both our photoshoot and our trailer. This video is very good as there are step by step instructions and there is a visual explanation. As none of us our make up experts, instructions on the internet that we can find our very good!


http://www.ehow.com/video_2369484_tips-blending-halloween-makeup.html

Commentary on how successful the photoshot we conducted was... AM

Hollie and I conducted a photoshoot in a drama room in our school. We decided not to use an outside location, as we are going to draft with photo's that we have taken inside of school and if they are not as successful as hoped we will try and take on a different approach. We decided to keep the image very simple, with just a close up of an actors face with heavy make up and fake blood. We will then edit the image on photoshop, in order to create the best effects and use the best editing software.

Unfortunately we could not get hold of a very high resolution camera, so we used my own 14.1 megapixel camera and then we would be able to edit the image on photoshop.

We roughly took around 40 photos, which we are going to round down to about 5 and edit them. Once we have edited, we will then choose the one which we decide looks the best.

The drama room was a very good area to conduct our photoshoot, as they have long black curtains which we could use as a background, and to cover up the actors body.

Friday 13th website - research into horror film websites SE

Films are advertised to the public through teaser and conventional trailers on television and on the Internet. Once people have seen these exciting insights into the story and action of the film they are led to want more and know more. Therefore every feature movie has a website or web page set up to give the public somewhere to access this information and learn more about the making of the film and it's plot, cast, setting and production. The website will also offer previews, the trailers and photographs from the film and information on the DVD release. Some may even have games available to play that are based around the movie.

Influenced by the film 'Friday 13th' (2009) in the planning and production of our teaser trailer, I chose to look at the website of this film in order to see how they advertised their product further and how they portrayed the Horror genre. The opening web page to their website has a similar appearance to a poster advertising the film:

The primary purpose of this page is advertising the DVD of 'Friday 13th'. The title is main focus centred at the top of the page entered in the familiar text used throughout the advertising and production of the film. Images of the DVD cover and case are on the left side of the screen, allowing the viewer to create a mental reference to the product. In the center of the page there is a video insert showing the trailer which gives the audience a preview and an introduction before they enter the main site and explore the film in greater detail. Below this, there are three interactive buttons, one of which allows you to enter the main site. The buttons are designed to look like smudges of blood, which builds anticipation and suggests that the further you go into the website and the more you know about the film, the more gory and gruesome it will become. Therefore the style of the buttons continues the horror theme through out the website, suggesting that when designing our website we will have to pay great attention to detail as the smallest of things can have the greatest impact on the viewer and maintain continuity. Finally, details about the production team of 'Friday 13th', company credits, technical specifications and other details such as the language of the film's dialogue, the location and setting of the film and the release date are all listed at the bottom of the page. This is to ensure that they are available for the audience to view but they are positioned discretely enough and written in grey text on the page to not draw attention away from the film it's self and the horrific atmosphere that the producers are trying to create.

I then pressed the interactive button "enter the site" and I was instantly directed to the main site for 'Friday 13th'. This type of page is far more interactive than the initial web page. An eerie, orchestral style music plays continuously as you explore the site and other sound effects are used as you hover the mouse over interactive buttons. There is a button at the top right hand side of the page which enables the viewer to turn off the music and sounds if preferred. In our web page I think it will be achievable to have music playing as people view our site and it may be possible for sound effects to be used when the viewer moves the mouse over buttons depending on the program we use to create it and how much time it takes taking into consideration our internal deadlines. On the left hand side of every page is a drop down menu represented wooden planks with an option on each plank. As you hover over the initial menu button, the planks fall with the appropriate sound effect to reveal the different options as the planks take the form of a ladder. The navigational options are as follows: 'about the DVD', 'cast', 'downloads', 'photos', 'video', 'ecard', 'soundtrack', 'official shop'. Each option takes you to a different page offering you an insight into the different aspects of the film, showing previews in different media platforms and some are available to download. Each page has a different background consisting of screenshots and photos of characters edited to create a visually aesthetic image that compliments the text content of the page. Continuing to be interactive, the background moves as you move your mouse which might be too advanced to implicate in our website but is very interesting concept and one to take on board in the designing process of our site. Furthermore, as you move between pages, a transition of the colour black gradually seeping through the background and eventually covering the screen before the new page is revealed in the reverse of the same process is used. I think this unusual transition is effective as it is slow to show the new image, continuing the horror theme as the lack of speed increases and emphasises the anticipation of the viewer. I think we should investigate transitions and use a similarly effective one opposed to a simple and fast one. The last navigational option: 'official shop' does not take the view to another page of the website but opens a pop-out window linking you to the official Warner Brothers shop website.The appearance of the internal pages of the 'Friday 13th' website are as follows:

'about the DVD':

This page focuses on the production of the DVD and advertises it through the following sections: 'synopsis' which covers the special features of the DVD as well of the synopsis of the film; 'the film makers' informing the viewer of the history and credits of the production team including the director Marcus Nispel; and finally 'production notes' of members of the production team which are quoted and organised into the chapters of the DVD. We could create a similar page on our website, the information provided on it would be far more basic and we would have to design a DVD cover (this could be similar to the poster we are developing) but I feel it would be an effective option to include in our own website.

'cast'

As you hover the mouse over the characters you can see in this screenshot, the actor or actress's name followed by the name of their character's name appears around the selected person. If you then continue to click on the name, the image of the individual remains in full colour and the rest of the screen fades into darkness so that the focus is on the selected character alone; along side this image a biography/filmography is shown describing the actor/actress's training and past work.

'downloads'

This page allows the audience to access free items related to 'Friday 13th'. These items include many wall papers for your computer, posters, cut out masks, iron-on prints and ring tones. By having these items available, the viewer is encouraged to form a closer relationship and interest to the film and therefore is more likely to buy the DVD or pay to watch the film in the cinema.

'photos'

This page provides a slide show of twenty-nine screen shots from the 'Friday 13th' that can be either scrolled through at one's own leisure or played on the 'auto play' setting that plays the pictures on a loop with no input needed from the viewer. I think this section of the website could be easily recreated on our own site as we will be able to take screen shots from our teaser trailer and even use some from our unused footage if it looks effective and enticing.

'video'

The audience is able to view either the conventional trailer or the teaser trailer on this page. By having these available on the website, the audience is enabled to access footage from the film and experience a preview that was edited in such a way that creates suspicion and curiosity in the mind of the view to see the outcome, therefore advertising the sale of the film. As our main task is to produce a teaser trailer for our film, I feel that it is highly important to include the trailer on a page within our website and maybe even on the initial web page to encourage people to look further into the site.

'ecard'

The 'ecard' section of the website offers online greetings cards that you can email to your friends, family and contacts. There are three available that all relate to 'Friday 13th', one of which enables the viewer to upload a photograph of his or her own face and insert it into a hole created in the body of a character being kidnapped by the murderer. This is a good way of encouraging the public to advertise the film with no effort of the production company needed. I think that it is not necessary to include this section in our website but it would be interesting to explore if we have the time.

'soundtrack'
A media player is embedded within this page offering the viewer a chance to listen to every song or piece of music that the film used in it's soundtrack. A number is also provided at the bottom of the page enabling the public to download the songs as ring tones. Like the 'ecards', I feel that this is an unnecessary option for our group to develop as our soundtrack will be very limited due to the fact we are only producing a teaser trailer that may only use one track opposed to a film that has several.

Camera HT

We tried to get a high mega pixel camera at short notice but for our research we have decided to use a Sony cybershot 14.1 megapixel camera.


Key Features:

• 14.1 effective megapixels resolution
  Captures very high quality images, allowing detail-packed enlargements
  


• 4x optical zoom
  4x zoom range and 26mm wide angle to cover wide range of shooting situations
  


• 2.7" LCD
  Clear Photo LCD screen (230k dot) offers excellent detail, high contrast and wide viewing angle
  


• Intelligent Auto
  Automatically adjusts exposure and other settings for optimum results in a wide range of shooting situations
  


• Face Detection
  Automatically adjusts focus, exposure and white balance for clearer portraits: priority selectable between children and adults
  


• Smile Shutter
  Automatically fires shutter when subject smiles: with adjustable smile threshold and priority selectable for children/adults
  


• Easy Shooting mode
  Fuss-free operation for beginners with simplified controls and easy-to-read on-screen instructions

Camera advice HT

Before we go to take the photos i've decided to do some research into how to create the most effective photos at night. During my research i found that on the camera we should avoid using the flash, to try and combat this we should try and adjust the ISO on the camera and increase it.

This will mean the higher the ISO the lower the exposure. Another bit of advice i found was to take multiple pictures all using different exposures this will enable us to retrieve the best possible outcome.


Definition of ISO: is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light.

Example of ISO

This link shows tips on how to use ISO and how to correctly use lighting settings:

http://www.videojug.com/film/digital-photography-tips-iso-and-light-settings

Ancillary task begins!!! HT

We have taken the advice of our teacher and have decided to split our ancillary tasks between the 4 of us, Me and Amy are going to tackle the advertising poster and Sophie and Claire are going to do the web page.

Me and Amy have decided that today we will try out different shots and mise-en-scene's for our poster. We've both agreed that we will try and mimic the picture of 'eyes' which Claire posted. We particularly like this and will take inspiration from this as it depicts the horror theme really well also with the eyes being off centre in the picture it allows us enough room to add titles and other texts. We hope to get all the pictures taken today so we can start on putting our poster together on photoshop; using the photoshop tutorial i added below.

Cold Night for Alligators Font.. AM

This type of font is very suitable for our media trailer as each letter looks like it has been drawn with blood. As the genre of our media trailer is a horror, it is important that we get a font that represents the intensity of the killings that occur throughout the trailer.

Eyes Idea CA

The idea of the dark background against the pale skin and the blood from the eyes makes the image very intense.

Useful link? CA

I found a link to another blog with research links into how to make a thriller poster.



http://a2mediacourseworkdanielparslow.blogspot.com/2010/11/film-poster-reaserch.html

Influences for poster HT

I think that this forest picture could be an ideal influence for what we should try and re-create for our poster; with the focus on the sun just breaking through the trees and depth of the picture we could create with help of photoshop to make it seem the ideal place to resemble and give connotations of a horror. It also ties in well with the theme of our film which is set in a forrest. We can grab the interest of the audience by layering the poster with different images; for example in the photoshop tutorial they use clouds to set the scene. We could also adjust the saturation and colour of the photo to enable us to pull of the correct affect and feeling for our poster to give off the correct message.

As the seperation of the trees leaves us with a lot of room to work with we could follow as the photoshop tutorial explains we could use an image to send off a message, in the tutorials case they use eyes i think we could also follow this as it would highten the fact the film is a horror and also add to the suspense of the film as the audience will want to find out who this person is.

We can set the eyes in a black background like the picture above in order to not give too much away and add to the suspense of the piece. Photoshop tutorial also explains that we should work on the eyes and make them more dramatic and other worldly so they fit in with the theme of the film.

How to create a Thriller/Horror poster HT

I thought this link on tutorials in photoshop will be extremely beneficial to us as it will allow us to take step by step gudiance and ensure that our poster is of the highest quality, depicting the corret message to our audience and also aiming to the right market sector for our film.


http://www.tutorialkit.com/tutorials/How-to-create-a-Thriller-Horror-Film-Poster-in-Photoshop-59857.html