Flat Plans

In order to find the best layout for my poster and double page spread, I thought it necessary to design some flat plans so I could decide on the layouts to go for. 

Of the three flat plans I created for my double page spread, I've chosen the latter image because I find this design busy, but not too busy, and original in its presentation of information, for example the caption in a blood splatter. It is also the perfect mix of image and text, with enough text to make the article interesting, but also with enough images to bring the colour and the interesting visuals to the article as a whole. The previous two lack this harmony, with the first having too few images, and the second having far too much text. 

Of the three poster designs, I prefer the last one because it has the explosion of the subject's mind. This is similar to the first flat plan, which has a mushroom cloud, symbolising the explosion, but I think the one of the latter image is much more controlled and easier to be more experimental with, making it more a symbolism of mental illness than of war. The second image features the antagonist of the film, however my audience feedback told me that I should feature the protagonist, and the use of the antagonist would mean restrictions in the design as it would have to have likeness to the film. 

 These flat plans have allowed me to very easily visualise different design ideas I have, and I will endeavour to create a digital version of my favourites for my final products. 

Draft Review Article

As my double page magazine review is a promotional product for my film, writing a positive article discussing mostly the pros of the film is going to make the reader of the article want to watch my film, No Escape. Therefore I wrote a draft version before putting it straight on to my double page spread: 

     For a debut short Brit film, this horror-thriller hybrid is not the worst Blair Witch inspired film we’ve ever seen.  Original, unexpected, and with real ghost orbs, the psychological short is still one of the most popular, and constantly surprising, genres for first time film makers.

     What really makes this film is the acting. I don’t know where they got these kids from, but they seem to really bring the characters to life. Franklin (played by Blaine Gosling) is a 16 year-old boy who has been diagnosed with paranoid-type schizophrenia, with vivid hallucinations both auditory and visually that ruin a night documentary making with his best friend, Sam (Jordan Overal). Franklin is consistently aware of his mental illness, yet not being consumed by it. When it comes to the [spoiler alert!] climatic fight scene, he revolts, and the camerawork captures the emotion he’s showing perfectly.

     Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, it’s just another film where a kid sees and hears things that are not there and tries to make a film about it, blah blah, we’ve seen it all before,” but no. You’ve not seen this yet. Yes, the filming plot is just a plot device to let the real action happening, and it is quite clichéd, but when the action parts from this, the narrative takes a turn for the better.

     The main setting for the film is an abandoned asylum, filmed at the dark, historic attraction of Bodmin Jail, Cornwall, and this realistic location gives the whole film a sense of reality. Not only this, but the bustling café scene and the use of a Super 8 camera in the pond scene, though slightly irrelevant to the plot, allows diverse mise-en-scéne to really add to the build up of the narrative. Not only this, but the SFX make up looks real enough to have been done by a Hollywood professional!

     The short ends with a scene so unexpected that I had to take a step back; this a plot twist you don’t want to miss. Despite its evidently amateur appearance in places, this really isn’t a bad first shot at making a short film, especially when made by some A Level kids. Take five minutes of your time to watch and appreciate this film, you won’t regret it.

On review of this article, I think that this is the best article I could have written, being humourous and informative, and therefore this is the version I am going to use for my final product. 

Poster and Double Page Spread Audience Research

Before starting the creation of my poster and double page spread, I created another survey so that I could make my ancillaries most appealing to the target audience. I put forth four questions, two relating to the colour palettes, and two relating to the images. 

Black and white were chosen the most, closely followed by blue, yellow, and orange, and therefore those are the five colours I will use to create my poster. The black of the costume of the main character could work here, against a blue and white background, and incorporating yellow and orange will be interesting.

Unanimously, black, white and red were the all chosen by everyone that took the survey, which is quite typical for horror review pages, therefore this will be simple to do, and using black as the background colour will work really well here. 

Three images deemed popular, which is a result I agree with, especially when having a large main image on one page. 

The final question was about the content of the image: who/what should it be of? The unanimous decision received if that the image should be of the protagonist of the film. This follows conventions well and will be an exciting way to use imagery to connote the psychological theme in the film. 

Original Images

On set, we took many images, to use for the creation of our posters and double page reviews. Some were taken in between takes, and some were taken by one of our group taking images whilst the filming was taking place. We thought it was important to have a range of different images, so that each of our pieces are unique and we have a plethora of different images to use across the ancillaries. 

Some were also used for the evidence board in the police interrogation scene. 

These pictures of blood/wounds won't be used in my work, but they will be helpful for the creation of the set in the police interrogation scene where we could use real crime scene photographs for the evidence board to make our interrogation room look more realistic and to add some detail to the room.

These images are of the gate and the lock, which were broken via hammer by Sam in the film, and therefore these would be good to use as crime scene scene photos.

This photograph I really like because it shows depth, placement, and is visually interesting. This photograph will be used in one of my group member's coursework and the photo will also go to the crime scene board in the police scene. 

These photographs shows the enormity of the location in which we were lucky enough to film in, and how real the location looked. I'm using the latter on my spread to show the location as a whole, showing the believability of the location, and also because I really like the authenticity of the crumbling jail. 

These three stills from the shoot show the fight scene, and therefore the main part of the action in the film. I will use the third photograph on my double page spread because it connotes action, drama, and therefore quality in the film, which may advertise the film to the audience well. 

This is the still I'm going to use as the image on my poster because it's simple, there isn't a lot going on, and I could cut out the subject fairly easily. This will allow me to edit the photograph on my poster to make it look surrealist and abstract, and thus unique and intriguing to the audience. 

Brand Logo

To make our film No Escape recognisable as ours, I have come up with a design ideas for our brand. 

The simplicity of them will link us well to our audience of our generation, as the words 'Level Up', the typography of the text, and the symbols of arrows facing upwards are symbolic of the famous phrase, to 'Level Up'. 

The only possible problem with these designs are that they could mislead the audience into thinking we are a gaming brand, however I think the link to the audience we cater for, our generation, will outweigh this possible problem. 

Overall I think the logos are simple, professional, and relatable to young people, and this is the look I'm going for with the ideas. 

Editing Research

Something that we were aware of from the start is that all of our film shoots would take place during the day, and therefore if we wanted the main scenes at the asylum to take place at night, we would have to edit the footage to make it look like it was filmed at night. This tutorial I found by Surfaced Studio does exactly this, and this step-by-step visual tutorial of Adobe AfterEffects is very easy to follow and very easy to do. 

Now, because I've used the main software I'm using, Adobe Premiere Pro, before, it's fairly simple to just get stuck in with editing. In November, I had to make this one minute video for a show reel in a university application and this allowed me to really get to grips with the software and experiment a little before I jumped in with this short film. 




In terms of following editing conventions in the horror/thriller genre, one thing's for sure is that it ranges from long take shot to short take shots in order to build up suspense through dramatic scenes, and this technique goes along with the research of genre conventions I did earlier in the project. This also coincides with what I found in my analyses of existing short films, so I know for definite that this is something that will be effective. 

Another technique is using jump cuts in places to break up footage and allow the viewer to be slightly on edge at times. As horror/thriller films are supposed to keep the viewer gripped in the suspense, throwing in a few jerky shot transition shows the significance of things in shots and builds suspense by using quick shot transitions and giving the illusion that something scary is about to happen. 




This advert is a little group project I participated in, creating a moving image advert for a local camera shop Clemens Photography. This advert was fun to make, and we got to study the conventions of other camera adverts, as well as independently taking all of our equipment to the shop to make an ad without supervision to see what we could do. This allowed us to experiment with camera angles, shots, and movements, and create a little narrative, i.e. the young man walking to the shop and browsing. The editing involved animating images laid over the footage of the spinning cameras, and this was a interesting skill to learn, using the rotation effects on Premiere Pro. There were some challenges whilst making this, for example the cameras spinning on the platform, for which we used a pottery wheel, and spinning this at a constant speed was difficult, as well as making sure the focus was absolutely perfect so that each camera was in focus at every point of its rotation, but in the end I think we did a great job for an amateur moving image advert.  

Journal (edited as shoots completed)

Film shoot 1 - Waffles Coffee Shop, 21.11.2014

The first shoot for our film went very well. We weren't entirely certain of what shots we wanted and how to move around the coffee shop so our shot list wasn't strict, however there were some really good opportunities to get good shots, for example the reflection of the two characters in the sweet shop window outside of the main location. There was also no dialogue in this scene, so no extra sound equipment was necessary and therefore all three of us could focus on getting the best camera work we could. 

Film shoot 2 - Bodmin Jail, 28.11.2014

The second shoot went as well as the first, and we used our shot list much more, but still experimented like before with interesting shots. The day as a whole saw us film most of the film, and although the day was cold, we managed to do it to a good quality. We filmed the scenes chronologically, because this was easiest for us to follow and allowed us to move from outside to inside of the old structure like the characters do. We finished the day and went into the the main attraction for some find, and I managed to get a really good shot of the outside part of the establishement which we filmed in form above and this will be a really visually interesting shot in our film.

Film shoot 3 - College, 19.12.2014

Our third shoot was the final scene in the film, so here we delved from our former chronology, and this was much easier to access due to it being in the college. The shoto went particularly well, as we gave the actors mostly free roam to say what they wanted and improvise this scene and we think the overall effect of this was much better than the scripted version because it allowed all reactions to be sincere and allowed the police detectives to give as much information as possible.

Film shoot 4 - College, 02.03.2015

The fourth shoot was the doctor's scene that allowed us to have some footage overalayed on other footage to make the film visually interesting. This scene consisted of using a spot light and a dark room to get a dark and eerie shot of the doctor diagnosing Frankin. This allows us to see into Frnaklin's mind within the most tense part of the film.

Film shoot 5 - College, 25.03.2015

The final shoot was the car scene, as finding someone to play the roll of Franklin's mum was difficult. This was an interesting shoot that allowed us film in a moving car to get the real effect of this. This differs to Hollywood film shoots where they mostly using greenscreening, so it was more difficult to control for us, but we had fun and got all the shots we needed.