Day 76 : Aspects of Text + Re-doing Voiceover

- We were given feedback by our teacher to improve the voice overs of Flora featured in our trailer, so at lunch time using Movie Plus X3 I set up the mic for to re-record our actress and the quality came out much clearer and thus more effective. Previously it was muffled which destroyed the whole quiet and mysterious (sense of enigma) scene we were aiming to create. This is due to the fact that we wanted the start of our trailer to be the slowest, so that our audience are on their feet when the tension builds and the climax is reached.

- Here I added one of the first fonts I created with effects using Adobe After Effects, however the font was too
"chunky" and appeared not only unprofessional, but did not reinforce elements of the narrative which other real media texts do, e.g Psycho (1960) with the split text symbolising Norman's split personality.  In result we agreed not to choose this font at it did not have the aura we wanted to encode to our audience. 

- In terms of Web 2.0 we used a font website called "Dafont" which enabled us to find a
distorted and scratched font to reinforce our narrative in terms of Flora scratching out the pictures
of her loved ones, but also the idea that she is not like other children which is why the text is distorted.
This font is called "Skratch Punk".

- Here Prisiclla as she is in charge of creating the poster used the "paint bucket tool" 

to change each letter of our branded title to a medium coloured red which symbolises Flora's tainted innocence and the death of her father, which is why in terms of mise en scene we constantly portray red throughout. E.g trailer Flora wears red ribbons as well as the magazine.

- Once Priscilla had completed this text she saved it as a PSD,
then did "save for web devices" as a JPEG. This meant we could
then use it for our final poster, trailer and magazine. 

- As the background of our trailer was black Priscilla had 

to use the "paint bucket tool" in order to paint the background black.

This then meant the text would be easier to apply within Adobe Premiere, as if 

the background was white as an editor I would have struggled to incorporate it.

- This was the final product in terms of how our branded font "Insanity" looked once I added it. 

As you can see it looked extremely effective with the use of red  on a black background as it 

really stands out. This is the effect that we wanted to create as we want our audience to 

remember the name of our trailer and want to find out more, as well as go and see it.

Day 76 : Using Adobe After Effects to develop text used in trailer

This Prezi presents my experience using Adobe After Effects to develop text for our final trailer.

Day 75 : Slogans and Taglines for our poster & trailer

Before creating our trailer me and priscilla considered snappy, attention grabbing slogans and text we could include in our trailer, magazine and poster. This post will display our thought processes aswell  as ideas. 

-These are the ideas that we brainstormed together. We thought it would be effective if we could intertwine elements of the narrative within the text, e.g "Flora's dying to meet you". This reinforces the twisted qualities of Flora but also tells the audience straight away that she is the villain, which is the element we wanted to include so that the audience is shocked by her young and cute exterior. We are planning to use this in our trailer or magazine, however we may change this depending on whether our target audience feels it is effective and there is not too much text within the pieces.

- The text we brainstormed for our trailer was slightly longer, however as I will cut and edit text in specific areas it won't be too detailed. Most Horror trailers if using text make sure the pace is slow, but also that the text is intercepted between different scenes. This is why as filmmakers we are following this convention as we thought it would be effective in grabbing our audiences perspective. (This is particularly evident in real media texts at the climatic scene). In the climax within our trailer we used the text "Run Because She's Coming to Get You". It is in capital letters which are bright and bold, which we hope catches the audiences attention and build suspense as it is cut in-between scenes of Megan running in the woods.

Conclusion

Text is an extremely important element of trailers as they give the directors and producers an opportunity to give the audience an element of knowledge to gain their attention, but not too much so that they will be curious to see the movie. This is why every piece of text must be used appropriately as if it is not effective in giving the audience a bit of the narrative or understanding of a character it will not have an impact. This week I have been using Adobe After Effects to create animations, but also have access to a wider variety of fonts. In the future I will make a post describing the experience using Adobe After Effects for our project.

Day 74 : Where we are so far (quick update)

Here's our update for last week, in terms of feedback, props and changes which need to be made. (This was filmed on Friday 24th)

Day 74 : Magazine & Poster Development

(Poster)

(magazine)

Priscilla created these flatplans in order to gain a sense of what style poster and magazine we want to create for our final pieces. As previously shown we gained inspiration from real media texts when creating these, for example the magazines close up shot was inspired by the shot taken of the main protagonist from Orphan (2009). We thought gaining inspiration from Orphan would be a good idea due to the fact that our main protagonist is also young, mature and twisted giving us a good idea of how children are portrayed in Horror so that if we choose to subvert it with have a good sense of how children are typically presented. This relates to the idea that Flora (Villain) is an ethnic minority which subverts villains in the Horror industry as they are often white. 

Main elements and reasoning behind them for Poster and Magazine:

- The use of colour red symbolises the gory death of James (Flora's father) but also links to the Slasher genre. When doing research on real media texts in terms of magazines and posters, alot of the Horror editions featured the colour red which creates a dark and menacing aura. We aspire to make are readers/target audience understand what genre the film is straight away, which is why using red would be a good idea as blood is often associated with Horror.

- The doll highlights Flora's last remainder of her father therefore she is the happiest when she is with her doll. It is a key signifier of the narrative which is why we felt it must be included in the poster. The doll is Flora's only friend and emphisises the idea that their is a child hidden behind all her evil. This makes her character even more creepy, due to elements of her behaviour which outcast her from the expected norms of society.

- The bright red bow (on poster) also symbolises Flora's innocence but also clashes due to the connotations of red being lust and passion. In our narrative Flora dresses up in her mother's clothes and smears her make up all over her face, Flora subverts Freud's theory that all boys love their mother's (as they fear being castrated thus become voyeurs) but having a disturbing love for her father.

- The blue tear symbolises the genuine sadness Flora has for her father's death and the red tear symbolises her desire to murder which is tearing her apart. (Thus why her face is cracked)

- The element of a crack symbolises Flora's sanity due to her father's death. One side of her feels bad for what she has done, but the other half blames her mother for everything. (On poster and Magazine) We may not have a crack on our magazine because it is a unconventional element of Horror magazines, but also Afreen's been trying to create a crack and it doesn't look effective due to the thickness of the crack.

Summary

- This week I will be print screening progress using Adobe Premier and After effects. This is in terms of creating the closing screen of our trailer in which our title "Insanity" shatters like glass. I need to re-record the voice overs of Flora as they were hard to hear and muffled.

- Afreen will be developing the magazine more, as specific fonts need to be changed e.g the broken font is not clear and we are worried about our audience being able to read our title but also whether or not the font should be red or black.

- Priscilla is editing the poster and has added the broken glass effect to symbolise Flora's sanity. This works extremely well however we are worried where the title "insanity" should be placed but also if placing the text one letter at a time downwards at the side of the page makes the audience work too hard to understand the title of our movie.

Day 73 : Script for Trailer

We are going to re-record the voice over for this trailer as we realised was too muffled when gaining feedback from our teacher. Here is the script which me and Priscilla have written. It includes the theme of religion but also reinforces Flora's personality and relationship with her father. 

Day 72 : UPDATE# - Postproduction Process

This update includes some difficulties I have experienced using Adobe Premier, but also how the feedback on Friday went as well as how my editing skills have improved presented through Vocaroo.com.

Online recording software >>

Day 71 : Audio & Newsreport

The images below represent what me and my group members have been creating so far in order to add to our Horror trailer, in terms of sound which can reinforce the element of suspense and enigma present in most Horror trailers.

I used soundcloud to present a recording of Flora previously played by Jalisya singing a Christian song . We originally were going to use her singing in the trailer, however due to the muffled audio quality but also the risk of too much music ruining the element of tension in our trailer we decided not to use it. Tomorrow we will be adding finishing touches to our final trailer. Sound and text (Including a voice over from Flora which I recorded earlier using Audacity). Me and Priscilla as editors will be focusing on editing the trailer as a basic final edit is due today.

Day 70 : Filming Update

This post is going to be an update of some of the filming we have done so far, including the last 2 last weeks filming. I will address what went well and what problems may have occurred. 

Thursday 9th of January 4:00pm - 6:15pm

- This is a knife in which are protagonist Megan uses within our trailer. In
terms of iconography me and Priscilla thought that this knife would be
extremely effective due to the largeness but also sharpness, which would most likely
shock the audience when presented in the trailer.

- I filmed a scene of Francesca (Megan) from outside of the window which was a scene influenced by Halloween, when

one of Laurie's friends was in the kitchen making popcorn and Mychael was watching her. POV shots are one of my favoruite shots when used in Horror. This scene worked extremely well, due to the contrast between the light in the inside of the house and the darkness outside almost representing the themes of good and evil presented in our narrative.

Here are some aspects of mise en scene which we included:

- A shattered mirror which we agreed could represent Flora's personality, due to the dark history of her parents
effecting the decisions she makes in life.

- These are the male gaze scenes with Megan. They are quite slow but due to our
teachers feedback on these shots, we will definitely increase the speed through manipulation or
show a quick clip of this scene rather than a long one. This scene also presents the element of male gaze
through camera angles as the camera pans across her body, reinforcing the conventional nature of her character.

- We were planning on using this notepad with bright red lipstick saying "Thank God for my Father's Death", however due to a spelling mistake which we only realised later on in the week we agreed we will not use this scene.

Monday 13th January - P3 & 4 - Streatham Park

- We decided to film chase scenes in the park which are a conventional aspect to the Horror cannon.
They are often effective and build tension which is why we wanted to use them. Filming in Streatham Park was a good idea due to the aspect of an isolate location, however the only downside was the fact that the sunlight kept on getting into the camera which meant that the gloomy and scary aura of some scenes were hard to capture which meant we had to keep re-filming parts, however we got there in the end with clips that had perfect lighting.

- On the way back from Streatham we then decided to reenact another scene from Halloween (1978), however with an element of subversion due to it being daytime. (The scene where Laurie is banging on the neighbors door when Mychael is after her). We asked the owner of the house if we could use her door and she agreed so we went ahead with filming. These scenes were successful through shot, angle and mise en scene , however the only downside would be that when Francesca was asking scared there wasn't a sense of urgency which meant it wasn't as effective as it could have been. In result this meant we may not use these scenes however if we remove the sound and slow down the clip it could still work.

Filming from 3:15pm - 5:45pm

- We filmed most of the core scenes with Flora at Afreen's house on Monday the 13th. This was one of our best days of filming as all members were present and all the shots were going well. Safia is a natural when following directions which meant are filming process was fun and quick as time was used effectively. The only downside would be that the fake blood that we used was hard to scrub off, which meant when trying to do more scenes which didn't involve blood on Flora's hands different camera angles to hide it was needed.

Thursday 16th January - P5 & end of lunch time

- Our last day of filming. This scene represents Flora cutting out the faces of her family members and stabbing them with a fake knife. This meant I had to get on the floor as well as use the tripod to film a wide variety of angles in order to get the right message of evil and twisted-ness prevalent in Flora's character across. There was no tribulations when filming this scene, however having only 45 minutes to film everything was stressful which is why in future projects I will make sure all participants are able to film for a realistic period of time.

Day 69 : Shot Lists

SUMMARY

Me and my fellow team mates thought it would be a good idea to create shot lists in order to gain a sense of what shots worked well and what shots weren't successful before we started the editing process.  As the main editor of our group, I decided to take on the main role of creating these call sheets. This meant I had to go through all our clips writing the clip names and a brief description which would be easily identifiable, as some clips are of the same people/objects from different angles. As we have started editing this shot list has proved useful, as I often refer back to this sheet to quickly find the scenes which we plan to present in our trailer. This means less time is wasted and more effort is put into making our "Insanity" trailer.

Day 68 : Changing James

(Umer)

Reason for the change in actors: 

Originally we were going to use a different actor to play James, however due to the fact that he was unable to turn up to our filming sessions we decided to use someone else. Like our first actor Umah is British South Asian so he adds an element of subversion to our piece, as generally Horror portrays the ethnic majorities in the main cast rather than ethnic minorities.

What went well when using new actor:

Priscilla met up with Umer and decided a time for him to film with us on the 8th of January. We met and filmed in our frees period 3 and 4 before lunch and completed the death scene and happy scenes with his wife Jean. I was filming and Priscilla was directing both Umer (James) and Kenrique (Jean) on how they could hold themselves and where to walk so that their heads do not get cut out of the frame. Unfortunately Afreen was absent this day, however this week when she came back we updated her on what she has missed and the feedback our teacher has given us on the scenes we have filmed so far in order to keep her up to date on every decision we made without her.

Day 67 : Mental Ilness & Sensitivity

Introduction

Mental illness can considered deviant due to some societies seeing it as a moral panic, however in the contemporary UK more is being done to enable people to understand those who are mentally ill instead of fearing them especially through media. The fact that Flora's behaviour is inspired by Schizophrenia borders on the lines of distancing a individuals in society, as many know someone who is effected by a mental illness or has one themselves. Even though we are portraying someone who has symptoms inspired by Schizophrenia (originally we were going to make it clear she was) we are not going to make it obvious as we don't want to offend or anyone make feel uncomfortable when engaging in our media trailer.

We plan to make Flora's mental illness ambiguous like Norman Bates from Psycho (1960), who is a likable character who has become ill due to his mother's controlling and manipulative ways. Flora is exactly the same however she has become immoral and twisted due to her father's abusive and controlling relationship with her Jean (Flora's mother). As an audience member I victim identified with Marion Crane in Psycho, however I consistently felt sympathy towards Bates which is the impact me, Priscilla and Afreen want to have on our audience when watching our trailer Insanity. 

Here are contemporary articles which address mental illness I hyper-linked them below:

(These increasingly made me realise it would be plain wrong to address a specific mental illness, as it is an increasingly sensitive topic which effects people on a day to day basis)

Mental health cases 'rose in young' after recession [15/01/14]

An article on the increase of young people suffering from a mental illness

Panorama - Locked Up For Being Ill?

A panorama documentary on how mentally ill people are being treated whilst in police custody

Conclusion 

Our teacher's feedback on clearly using Schizophrenia statistics  in our voice over made me realise that if we made it so Flora was Schizophrenic, our audience would not be happy as in terms of the space and time of the contemporary UK mental illness is no longer considered deviant whereas in the past it was (highlighting historical deviance). When creating our trailer we have to keep in mind the society of which we now live in, as help is most likely to be available for those who are mentally ill which is why we had the psychiatrist scene, whereas in Psycho during the 60s mental illness was less known about which caused more people to fear it. This is why we will not directly address schizophrenia in our trailer through a voiceover as we don't wish to offend anyone.

Hyperlink : http://mentalhealthxdesign.com/category/headlines