Character Photos

These are some individual photo's of the characters that I took yesterday after arranging this with my actors. I had Jack and Tyler pose seperately in a range of different positions to get various different shots and angles of the characters. As Frankie (Tyler) is the dominant character in the film, I took more photo's of him so I could try different positions on the poster to help portray his importance in the film. I made sure to take these against a blank background to make it easier for me to cut around them in photoshop. Here I have chosen some of the best photo's out of the ones I took and I am going try cutting end editing some of these over the weekend, ready for Tuesday's lesson.

Test Photos

Whilst I was filming I took several photos of my actors as I was thinking of possible ideas for my trailer. I liked the idea of them sitting against a brick wall as I thought it highlighted the urban aspects of the film. However, as the lighting is not great in these photos I might be able to cut out the characters and layer them onto a different background image, such as a wall covered in graffiti. However, as I am not very confident with Photoshop, I am going to have a practice at doing this in today's lesson with some of these images. If this proves too difficult, I have arranged to meet with my actors on Thursday 29th November to take some more photos of the characters against a blank background.

I liked the positioning of the characters in these shots, as Tyler (Frankie) is crouched higher than Jack (Nathan) to show his importance in the film. When retaking these photos, I would like to use a similar positioning of the characters to focus the attention on Frankie. With this, I might have Nathan crouching down, looking up at Frankie standing up.

Here I have taken individual photos of the characters to cut out in Photoshop. With this, I will then be able to layer the characters onto an urban background image like the original brick wall. I have positioned the characters like this so that I can put them together to make them face each other. As Tyler (Frankie) is crouched higher than Jack (Nathan), it will look like Nathan is looking at his brother, but Frankie is gazing off at other things, showing his dominance in the relationship.

Poster Influences

Poster Influences from JorjiHazeldine

Here I have made a powerpoint of film posters that I have looked at to give me some initial ideas for my poster as an extension of my trailer.

After doing this research, I have collaborated some initial ideas from each poster that I think would work well in representing my film. I would like to use an image of the two brothers against a brick wall possibly covered in graffiti, to highlight then edgy genre and themes of the film. In this image, I want Nathan to be lower down than Frankie, possibly sitting on the floor, looking up at him to draw focus on the main character of the film. I would also like to use a bold title to contrast with the colours of the wall.

Final Teaser Trailer

Here is my finished teaser trailer! I am very happy with the outcome as I like to think it looks professional and like a real teaser trailer. I loved working with my actors, they made filming really fun and overall I really enjoyed making the trailer!

Final Touches

I am now in the final stages of my making my trailer! After adding my music, I have decided to alter my titles slightly as I felt that they weren't giving away enough of the story, even though I am making a teaser trailer. I have broken down the writing so there is less reading for the audience at each interval, and have changed the actual text to a drug quote that I thought worked really well with my footage and themes. I found this quote from Marilyn Mason after researching different quotes and sayings to make my titles more effective. I thought this would work especially well as I have chosen a person that could possibly be popular with the audience and characters.

I used the same website to find more quotes that I am considering using as voiceovers in my trailer. Here are some of the quotes that I found and thought would work best:

After I have done these voiceovers, the only thing left to do is my logo. I will be working on that in today's lesson as I would like to use one of my actors voices which I will be able to record tonight. I have already designed my logo, but I would like to add some effects to it e.g. a shimmer or ripple to make it look more proffessional.

Progress Update

I have recently been very busy with filming and editing. After the two filming sessions I shouldn't have to do anymore filming so now I can purely focus on the editing.

I have already edited most of the footage I have uploaded and I now think that I have a rough copy of my trailer to show to the class in Thursday's lesson. Doing this has included cutting the shots carefully to make sure they flow nicely into each other (especially in my match on action shots), considering the transitions between the scenes, and I am now focusing on the music and sound for the trailer where I have decided on temporary tracks for the different moods in the trailer.
Hopefully I will be able to use these as my final pieces of music if they fit with all of the shots and titles. With this, I may have to cut some of the clips slightly to get them to match the beat of the songs to exagerate the tension and mood change.

Filming Day 2

On Friday I went home for home study and thought I would take the opportunity to meet up with my actors and do a bit more filming and refilm the shots I needed to.

We met at my house at about half one and set off straight away to Spring Park woods down the road from me (the same woods we filmed in for AS). I asked for the boys to wear completely different clothing so differentiate from the other scenes in the trailer, so show that the shots are not all from the same part of the film.

Here I wanted to refilm the fight scene between the brothers, and I thought the lighting underneath the trees would be perfect for this scene as it is the key part in the trailer where mood changes and the brothers start to hate each other. I found a pathway at the edge of the woods that was lined with a wire fence. I thought this would be a great prop for the boys to fight up against so Jack (Nathan) could push Tyler (Frankie) up against it. I also filmed Jack chasing Tyler through the woods to show the tension building up the the fight.

I had also planned to film some other shots whilst we were in the woods but I hadn't thought about what they were going to be until we got there. I discussed this with my actors and we came up with a few ideas that I thought would work well and help paint a better picture of the brothers' story.
These shots included a long shot of the brothers chatting and climbing on a pile of logs, dancing in the woods and throwing leaves in the air and then an establishing shot of the brothers piggy backing past a house.

Next lesson, I will upload some screen grabs of these shots from iMovie.

These are long shots of the characters walking and chatting on a pile of logs. I thought these shots would help highlight the former state of the brothers relationship by showing they are best friends.

I thought the shot of the brothers chasing each other works well in this location as the surrounding features draw focus on the action in the center of the screen. This shot is identify the shift in the relationship between the brothers as they draw into a fight.

Here is a long shot of the brothers piggy backing in front of a nice house to identify one of the locations that helps portray the type of lives the lived at the beginning of the film.

Titles

I am currently thinking about the titles for my trailer. I had already planned the titles that I wanted, as you can see from my transcript, and I am now in the process of designing these on Live Type. With this I was able to decide on a font and different transitions and animations for the text.

Here I have designed a first draft of my titles. I have used an edgy font to reflect the themes of the film and to appeal to the teenage audience. I have then selected the individual letters and moved them slightly to make the font less generic and original to further highlight the ideas and moods of my trailer.
I used a typing animation to make the audience focus on the text, and I thought this worked well with the font as it isn't the typical type font that you would expect. I also think this helps identify the teenage aspect of the film as it reflects the idea of technology and possibly school.

I will update this post with screen grabs of the process of making these titles.

Half Term

Unfortunately I was unable to do any more filming during half term as my main actor Tyler (Frankie) was on holiday for the whole week.

I will have to discuss the re-filming with my actors so that we can arrange a date this week to do this. Luckily I don't have to re-film any of the shots in London, so this should make it easier to arrange more filming as it shouldn't take very long and we should be able to do it one day after school.

With this, I am currently thinking of some new shot ideas to include in my trailer to lengthen it and help present more parts of the story. Since my trailer consists of a series of brief clips from the film, I should be able to add more shots without it effecting the flow or order of the trailer.


After discussing dates with my actors, we have arranged to do the re-filming this week on Friday 9th November. Now that I have home study, I can leave school early on Friday afternoon as both my actors have a second week of half term off.