Rough poster mock-ups

These were quick mock-ups of posters we did using Picnik . These will be a small reflection of what we will do in the final product. These were used just to give an overview of the desired affect and incorporated a few features we liked from other covers.

In this edit we used Vienneting which adds a dark circular border to an image. This gives the audience an idea that the person in the picture is being watched or followed by something. Him on the stairs also signifies him trying to escape.


In this one we decided to make this black and white , gives off an errie feeling. Also we used harsh red "blood" writing as seen in the dracula film cover. This contrasts with the rest of the image which makes it eye catching.

Photosession

We needed images of our main character to create our promotional material.
I was the photogropher and I took some shots of our character around the school setting.
These are the shots that I thought stood out the most. These will later on be edited and might later be re-shot if our final piece doesn't come out as we expect.

Movie Posters / DVD cover ideas

I had a look at different movie posters/covers so that our group could find some inspiration for our own.
In this post I will show some different posters and covers from various horror movies that I felt conveyed the "horror" theme.

Oldschool Dracula cover.

Red writing which symbolises blood.

Saw movie poster. As time progressed in film, more gritty posters / covers have been allowed.
Blood is used in this and shows contrast between the rest of the clean image.

The exorcist movie cover. Use of sillhouetting to create uneasiness / darkness / suspense.

Triangle DVD cover. Ratings used to promote movie. Use of bold fonts exadurating words to entice viewer. Scared facial expression & contrast between blood & no blood.

The red font seems to be a re-occurring feature in horror movie titles..

These are but some of the examples we looked at. In our group discussions we viewed various others. We began shooting our main character so we could create a promotional material such as DVD covers & posters. Once we finish the pictures we will create mock-up versions and then advance on them later on.

Continuity 2 video

Continuity 2 from Amin Rarmoul on Vimeo.

Continuity Piece 2

Today we finished editing our second continuity piece. Again we used iMovie to produce this , we included jump cuts in our piece this time and added some effects into it (slow motion). Now our group is fully confident at using this application and piecing together a clip where everything flows. The continuity piece is currently being uploaded now and I will post it up here once it is finished. Our story boards are also waiting to be scanned.

Once this is all done we can hopefully advance onto our final piece.

Continuity Piece 1

Finished first continuity piece

With out footage completed , I took the camera and imported all the data onto the Mac's so I could edit the piece in iMovie. The interface was pretty easy to get to grips with as it's entirety it is user friendly. It comes with many features and can help you create video's to a professional standard.
We took a lot of takes shooting our continuity piece so I had to choose the best take from each scene, and match the close-ups together and time everything correctly. The application allows you to add smooth transitions between each clip which I think helped our piece flow well. I will upload the piece for viewing at a later date.

Continuity piece

Our group has finished creating out continuity pieces.
This gave us an opportunity to get to understand the cameras and it's practical features before actually starting our own production.
We used a range of camera techniques and a range of shots in our continuity piece as a sort of experiment. All we need to do now is edit the clips together and upload them for viewing.
I will scan the story board and upload the final piece once we are through the editing stage.
We will be using iMovie that comes with Mac OSX to edit our clips. This software comes with a full professional set of features that we can use to get the best out of our footage.

Creating our film's plot

As of yet we have not yet found a definitive plot for out film , but we have some key ideas that we can use to advance our ideas.
Our production will be mainly filmed in school, which won't be hard to create an eerie environment.
I like the idea of the film "triangle" where the audience pick up clues along the way as to what is going on and go as far as to question was the whole film the main characters dream.
With this idea I can create a sort of brief outline of a plot.
A boy who goes into school one day to find no-one there (is he dreaming? is this real? or is this a set-up?) and he wanders around the school, cautious as to whats happening, and it is apparent that he is being watched.
This is only a very brief mock-up , but as the group discus we will advance on this.

Triangle

A recent film I saw which I think our group can draw inspiration from is Triangle. It is a Horror under the subclass of a psychological thriller. The story line has many plot twists within it and keeps the viewer on edge and picking up clues throughout. Also a lot of things done in this film are ambiguous and leave things up to the user to piece things together, which I think our group should draw some attention to. This movie also has less gore scenes as most generic horror films do i.e the "Saw" saga and Hostel. It needs more thought from the audience and I feel this is more useful than just having gore on screen non stop. In turn due to this having less violence as such , other aspects become more apparent , such as lots of uneasy camera shots, "gritty" close-ups, use of sound and notably a scene where she meets herself and there is a 360degree pivot around them. Things which our group can emulate in our own piece.
Here is the theatrical trailer, the example of the camera turn when the characters meet can be seen here.

Brainstorm

To find some ideas on what our movie clip will have and the ideas around it's concept, I created a brief brainstorm (using www.bubble.us) highlighting some various features and aspects of a horror film. I will use this to help my group further create an idea of how we should carry out our horror production and I will also elaborate on some if these points in later posts.

Getting the camera

Today in our lesson we were handed the new camera's that we will be using. It's called the JVC Everio GZ-HD40.Each group was asigned one of these. It's very hi-tech for our level so we had time to play around with it to learn how to use the camera and it's features. We then started to record various camera shots and angles as a test which I will upload in a later post. It has a large hard-drive so we can record lots of different cut's/scenes without having to worry about not having enough memory for leanghty recordings. It also records in HD so our production will be the same quality programs are broadcast at.

Here are the specifications of the camera :

Recording Format:
Hard Drive
Optical Zoom:
10x
HDD Size:
120 GB
Weight:
0.54 kg
Audio format:
5.1 Surround Sound
Optical Zoom:
10x
Digital Zoom:
200x
Lens Focal Length:
4.5 - 45 mm
Filter Diameter:
43 mm

What makes a horror film?

I started to research the general conventions of a horror film and what goes into it so that it is actually classed as a "horror"
Wikipedia has it's own definition of the horror genre which is ;
"Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain."

Further reading has revealed that there are 3 types of sub genres horror's which are usually the main underlying plot for these types of film.

There are films which are "the horror-of personality" for example Texas chain saw massacre , where the main villain is mentally instable. The second sub genre is "the horror-of-armageddon"

which are things such as war films. The third and final sub genre is " horror-of-the-demonic" which are films such as the exorcism of emily rose / the exorcist.

Project start.

I am Amin Rarmoul , i'm currently taking a media studies AS course in which we were asked to produce a 2 minute introduction to a film idea we have. I have been asigned a group which consists of 4 other people and is called "Insight London" Our group consists of Rory , Idris and Sue-anne. As a group we decided to make a Horror film because the general conventions and elements that go into a horror film seem interesting, i.e lighting and unusual camera angles.
This blog will detail the production of this peice and talk about different aspects that go into the decision making and marketing plan.