Filming session 2.

18th January 2013
Today we decided to film at Maxine's house. We prepared  her room by adding revision notes on the walls, and posters of typical boy bands such a JLS. This was to show the geeks personality within the room. The first shots we took was the ones of the character Eden reading out the cursed email. We tried a close up shot suggesting a webcam but when looking back at the shot on the camera, we believed that this shot was to dark and looked extremely unprofessional. So we decided to use a mid shot of Eden reading out the poem.
  As we had this space for only one day we needed to film the character Eden waking up with the character jess within her body. I found this hard to shoot as we needed to shut the curtains just at the right amount, otherwise the room would be to dark, or to light for the morning. While filming this we tried out a variety of shots such as close ups, longs shots, and low angle shots, hopefully these will be effective. Another thing our group found hard was filming the character Eden looking into the mirror as we wanted to use an over the shoulder shot but we kept getting in the way of the mirror.
  We also filmed shots of Eden funning down the stairs and meeting the other character Jess, We thought these shots were of poor quality and didn't see how this would link to the trailer, this filming might also make our trailer too long and boring, but we will see in the editing process.

How we created the girls look.

Planning process

 Locations

Amie’s house, Maxine’s house, school

Risk assessments

No risk assessments were needed for the locations we have chosen to use.

Filming permissions

Asked house owners permission to film in there house and asked the teachers to lend cameras out for filming. 

Roles of the group

Filming: Rebecca, Maxine, Amie and Aimee

Editing: Rebecca, Maxine, Amie and Aimee

Actors: Amie, Aimee, Alex and background people (undecided)

Prop list

Alarm clock (Rebecca and Amie)

School equipment e.g books, lab equipment, test paper 

Laptops x2 

Costumes

  Amie looks I more edgy and like a bully whereas Aimee is more preserved, as she is less confident. 

  We have chosen Amie to be the popular girl as her hair cut is more edgy as it is short. Whereas Aimee    has long hair in a ponytail, which fits the character of a normal/ geeky girl.

 Also when applying makeup we thought about the character for Amie we used lots of makeup to fit with the stereotype of a popular girl. Whereas on Aimee we only used a small amount of makeup, to fit with the character.    

Filming schedule

Date	Location	Filming
Tuesday 15th January	School	The grades and meeting the characters Props: test paper with grade (Rebecca)
Friday 18th January	Maxine house / Amie house	Waking up scene and poem scene
Monday 21st	School	Series of moving scenes
Tuesday 22nd 3-4 5-6	school	Group scenes Upload recent footage (editing)
Friday 25th	Maxine/ Amie house	Waking up scene and poem scene

 

Filming sessions 1

15th January 2013

Today Our group started our filming. We have decided to film in chronological order as we believe this will be the best thing for our film, so we wont get confused by the changing of order for our film. We filmed within the school today, these were the shots introducing the two protagonists. One of the shots was the 'bad girl' called Jess walking down the corridor looking tough. Then we filmed this character getting a test paper with a marking of a U on the front, she screws it up and says, 'whatever.' This is a really shows Jess's personality well and I believe this is an exaggerated character, which is a typical convention of a comedy film. We then filmed the shots of the character Eden one was a longshot of her reading her books near the lockers stating she is the 'geek' while the 'bad girl' walks in and pushes her against the lockers. We also filmed a medium shot of the character Eden, answering a maths questions we great emphasis this shows off the geek in an exaggerated way again typical  for comedy trailers. We choose the mid shots due to our research into comedy trailers, stating that mid shots are the most effective way of showing a characters expression. I believe this filming session was easy and quick to do as we planed our shots accurately. Lets see how they look when edited.

Trailers that inspired our group.

Juno Trailer

The trailer starts off with the green rating sign this is apparent in a typical trailer. it then fades into a black screen. After there is an establishing shot with two award signs within it, for example the 'Sun dance award.' This signifies that this film is a indie film. This is also reinforces by the music as it is cheerful and country western, at the end of the trailer there is also a popular indie song called 'All the young Dudes' by david Bowie. The lighting is very light a sunny, this enhances the movie genre of comedy, another factor that shows the audience that this film is a comedy is the funny clips within the trailer. Due to the fact this is a story about a teenager getting pregnant shows that this film is targeted at young girls. This is also represented by the text, as the text is set on a white and orange stripy background with bubble writing. One title that shows the production company is within a pregnancy test stating the narrative of this trailer. Their is also a variety of shots within this trailer. The title of the film is the same bubble writing as the other text within this trailer connecting all the titles together. Afterward there is a funny clip, this is a typical convention of comedy trailers. Then it cuts into a picture of the film with the text saying 'Coming soon' this is obviously another modern film as there is a website under this text, with the production company logos at the sides of this clip. The music and titles of this trailer have inspired my group to think of a 'indie theme.' We loved how the country music represented the main protagonist, and how it was somehow comic and we will develop our using further to include a cheerful atmosphere. The titles are really fun and quirky and that is what we want our trailer to potray. We then decided to use cut out letters and take pictures then upload this as a movie to create a 'indie' 'do it yourself' vibe. 

     

It's a boy girl thing Trailer

What is peculiar about this trailer is there is no green ratings sign. I find this very off putting and as an audience member didn't realise at first that this was a trailer. Other than this, the trailer has inspired us in  a huge amount. The aspects we liked about the trailer, was the obvious spilt screen showing the audience that they are completely differen't people and that they have swapped. This is a effective way of subconsciously showing our audience our narrative.  Another factor we liked and decided to develop the text within our trailer. As we got the inspiration of our titles from the trailer juno we decided to make the title of 'Mixup' different and mixed up. We would swap this around to foreshadow confuesion and the two protagonists making things right. What I liked was the voice over introducing the narrative and breaking the resistance to the audience, but as a group we decided that it will be hard to include a male voice over that is typical within comedy trailers, but as we awoke in the wrong bodies we would use our own voices to show the change. Some of the shots were lopsided or spinning this shows again the confusion within both characters.  

Freaky friday trailer

This trailer again has the green rating sign. Aspect of this trailer we were influenced by was the alarm clocks, as well like the fact of the two protagonist waking up and realising they are in the wrong body. Another factor of this trailer our group really liked the idea of was having one girl wake up in the wrong body but had their same voice, this shows clearly to the audience that the girls have swapped bodies. Again this trailer used slip screens. My group Think using as least on slip screen will really increase the interest and understand of the trailer. 

The change up

Our animatic

Text for our trailer

In order for our trailer to look 'indie' and unique we looked at trailers that had a similar narrative to ours or trailers from the 'Sun dance festival.' While looking at these trailers we discovered that in order to connect and sell our movie to our target audience of 12-25 year old girls, we needed to make our titles cartoon like, and interesting. Our colour scheme was pink white and black. We had chosen the colour pink as it is a girly colour which most girls prefer, the font of the writing and the colours also set the genre of our film which is teen comedy/ fantasy. While looking at the trailer 'It's a boy girl thing' that has a similar narrative to our own movie I noticed that the titles were slanted to provoke confusion and that sense of a world being turned upside down to the audience. We decided to create this text by cutting out individual letters and take pictures of the text building up. Afterwards we would put these pictures together within final cut express and run it smoothly. At first our group was hesitant about this idea as we thought this would be to time consuming and hard, but we decided to give it a go. This was a brave and smart move as I believe and i'm sure my group will agree that the titles are what makes our trailer look unique.
  Constructing the text.
Firstly, we went on 1001words.com; a non copyright website. This website was very helpful as it showed us a range of fonts to choose from, we chose to use a different font for each letter to make it more wacky and innovative, this will also ensure that the audience will not get bored, as the text is forever changing. Once we took the pictures of the indidvual letters, we uploaded them and saved the pictures as JPEG files. This was to ensure they were accepted within final cut express. We places the pictures onto the time line individually and cut them all together, we also compressed them so that the titles appear quickly so the audience doesn't get bored with the titles being so long. This process did take a long time but it shows how dedicated and hardworking our group had to be to ensure everything was perfect. 

New line cinema presents text.

This text was our initial idea for introducing the production company of our film 'New line cinema.' We were going to include this at the beginning of our trailer, as that is a typical convention of any trailer to introduce their production company first. Each letter was going to come up individually and we would take many pictures and make a movie out of the pictures. While looking through more trailers due to audience feedback asking if the company use their own logo, we discovered that they unfortunately do use there own logo so we had to scrap this idea, but instead of scrapping it completely we used this technique for our other titles. After this we found a short clip of the new line cinema's production logo and inserted it into our trailer. I believe in the end this did make it look more effective and professional.

The poem that will feature within our trailer.

Bad girl = red
Geek=Blue

Two different girls, who don't get along
swapping bodies? what could go wrong?
One is good, and one is bad.
One loves her work and one loves her lad.
They need to see what they should do.
To put there foot back in there own shoe.
Who knows if they will ever change back?
Let's hope they don't have a heart attack.


This is the poem that will feature within our trailer. After a lot of discussion our group finally decided that we would include a poem that the two enemies receive by an email, they both read it out and when the have woke up they have swapped bodies. We thought this is an innovative and modern idea that none of the films that have a similar storyline to ours have thought of doing. This idea also connects with our chosen target audience of 12-25 year olds, as they love to use the internet and send emails.   

Final Magazine cover.

This is our final Film magazine promoting our film MIX UP. We added the characters face a layer above the title 'EMPIRE' as previously discussed most Empire magazines don't need all of the word showing as the magazine is global and recognisable. I believe us following that convention of an empire magazine has worked in our favour as it looks professional.
   Following this point I believe having the characters face over the title with there eyes staring at the viewer adds a connection and I believe this is a promotional factor. As I have said before in my blogs, I believe this picture is the best picture we had taken, the one that showed of the character, and linked well in with the poster due to the outfit the brick wall the title of the film and we even added one of the doodles onto the characters coat. This is effective as these factors make our film recognisable to the audience.
   Our sub headings have a variety of colour, boldness and size. I think this makes our film magazine more interesting and highlights certain points we want the audience to read. Another point occurring from this would be that a person doesn't ant to spend ages looking at a magazine cover, they just want to scam it and instantly they will know what's inside, and if they would like to buy it. We have used several over conventions of Empire magazines such as the layout of a 'U' for our subtitles, and the promotions of other films, we have used films that have been released this year to make our film seem modern such as 'Life of Pi' and the 'Hobbit.' We have also promoted one of our classes films called 'Queensdown Warren.'
   The Language we have used within this film magazine is short, and it frequently used in other film magazines. Sometimes the magazine Empire doesn't have the film title they are promoting within their magazine, but we decided to include ours due to the fact, we wanted the name to stand out so people will be intrigued and want to know more about the film, we also liked the quick link to our film poster.
  We have chosen the colour scheme of red, black and mustard as it is slightly harmonious to the two title within out magazine, we also thought these colours represented the character we where trying to portray. We Added a heading which is also within out poster, 'Will they ever change back?' This is a rhetorical question that will make the audience want to watch the film to know, as they love to be in control.   

Print screens on final magazine progression

Our group put the picture as a JPEG File, so that it was compatible with Photoshop. After this we Had to cut around the actress's face with the laser tool. We had to be extremely careful with this and take our time as the viewer will be drawn to that part of the magazine immediately because of the title. We decided to cut the face out so we could layer it over the title within the next step. Our research found that the magazine Empire usually has the actors head over the title like previously discussed.

After this we had to set the empire title as Layer 2, in which the Empire Title was behind the actress. We achieved this by using the Adobe Chroma Key. I believe this looks extremely effective and professional.
Thirdly by Using the Adobe Chroma key, we added a Layer 3. In which we created subtitles for our magazine cover. We have used the same font but have changed things for example the colour and made some of the works italic. This adds body to our magazine.
We has chosen the colour of mustard as this would go well with our title of our film. As we were discussing this we decided that having just the two colours mustard and black together would make the poster look a bit bland, and the text may blend into the brick wall. After this we decided to conflict the typical conventions of not having the same colour font at the magazine title as we believed adding some red text within our magazine would be most effective as it draws all the colours together.
I believe the red also connects with the characters red jumper. We decided to use a heading above the magazine title as it gives the viewer an idea of the film and teases them by asking a rhetorical question. I believe that this works well, and that we should consider making certain words in different colours or make them more bold. Our group also decided to add our title from our film poster within our film magazine to connect our promotional package. Again we used the laser tool to cut out the words carefully, and I believe we have done a good job at making our title look professional. We had a lot of discussions on whether to overlap the title over the character but looking at my film magazine research, I believe this is a great idea as the titles are just as important as the stars. After this we inserted the barcode in the bottom right hand corner because that's where we could fit it after adding our titles, we also added a website below the magazine title, and within the 'M' we had included the date, and issue number.

First draft

This is our first draft of our film magazine using the character of the 'geek' as the main actress of our film. The positive outcomes of this draft is the titles, I believe the titles are strong not only due to what they say but the colours we have used and the types and variety of fonts we have used make the poster more interesting. Sadly I still believe this picture doesn't meet the conventions of a typical film magazine due to the lack of character, and the quality of the photo. I believe this has created a positive turning point within our group.

Our magazine Layout

This is the layout and titles we would want for our magazine.

These are the titles and layout we would like for our magazine. We have created a U shape which is conventional in most film magazines. The language we have used is also typical for film magazines as it promotes not only the main film but other new releases. We hope our titles work well within our film magazine.

 

Magazine photo's

During our photo shoot for our magazine our group discussed whether we would want our magazine cover to have both actresses within it or just one of them. We decided to take some pictures showing both characters and just one and see what type of picture worked and what one was most effective. This photo was our favourite one of our duet shots, but during our lesson after we looked at some more magazine conventions and come to the conclusion that most only have one 'main/most popular' star on the front page. We also analysed our own picture and believed that it would be hard to add text in a typical 'U' shape around without overlapping the characters all the time. I also added this isn't an effective shot as the characters are both looking somewhere other than the viewer and the connection between magazine and the viewers purse is missing.





This is one of our single shots showing the 'geek.' we decided to make this in a first draft which you will see in my blogging later. We liked how there is a lot of negative space around the character so it would be easy for us to add the text and bar code. The one thing I personally didn't like was how the actress wasn't entirely in character and this wouldn't convey the conventions of a typical Empire film magazine. I also believe seeing the floor and not just having a backdrop of the wall looks unprofessional/messy and makes the picture not look straight.











This is our favourite picture of the 'Bad girl.' Later on you will discover that this photo will be our final photo for our magazine. Our group liked how the actress was in character and had a strong eye connection to the viewer. We also thought the colour of the jumper was effective towards the character and would match the colour of 'EMPIRE.' Unlike the photo above of the 'geek' there is no floor showing which I am happy about as it does make this photo look more professional.

Film magazine analysis

The title of the magazine is in bold block capitals and is coloured with red (a primary.) this makes the title stand out. It is also at the top right and the actors head covers the P out of Empire. This is interesting as some film magazines do not allow this as they want the name to be seen, but as this film magazine is such a worldwide name, people recognise it without seeing the whole word. The actor is in the centre of the magazine and is in character. The text around the picture of James bond is in a 'U' shape, while looking at film magazines this seems conventional. The text also advertises other films such as 'Twilight' 'body of lies' ect. The text also varies in font this looks really effective and doesn't make the text to boring, it also highlights main words for the viewer so they don't have to fully read the front page to know what's inside. The title is stretched across Daniel Craig's chest, this symbolises how the film title is well known and this will attract viewers. The date is inside of the 'M' of the word 'EMPIRE' there is also a barcode within the left hand corner. I have also notices a website under the title 'EMPIRE' and above the magazine title there is a heading 'JAMES BOND IS BACK' this is also going to attract an audience as its a well known film, that has been out for a long time.



Again the title is the same colour and font, this shows the magazine keeps the same consistency which brings me onto my next point, which is the actors head covering a bit of the title. As the magazine keeps their title consistent, this means the viewer will always know what magazine it is. There are also other film advertisements again such as 'captain America' and 'Sherlock Holmes 2' this shows that empire not only advertises one main film, but advertises all of the new releases. The text is in a fainter 'U' shape but still follows that same convention. Empire is a different colour to all the text within this magazine making it one of the standouts of it as well at the other primary colour yellow. The colour yellow states the date of '2011' and the words 'biggest year' this is a strong advertising technique and I believe it works as it promotes this magazine. The bar code is on the other side of the magazine this shows me there isn't really a convention for this the editors must put it where it is seen and isn't in the ay of their advertisements.

Final Poster.

FINAL POSTER

 

The photo

 The aspect within our trailer that I believe stands out the most is the picture. Instead of using Photoshop to create the picture we went out and took many pictures and we choose the most professional one, and the one we could fit a heading, a title, doodles and a billing board on.  This photo was inspired by the film poster 'it's a boy girl thing' as both characters are sitting on a bench. We have used exaggerated poses to show our characters to the viewer. Our costumes also show each  character, but I think we could of exaggerated the geeks costume more because she just looks like a normal girl. Within the photo we still used the idea of a brick wall which enhances our location of  school. Another aspect of the photo that I love is the lighting, we picked a really nice crisp day to have our photo shoot, and I love that fact that the sun is shining on the bad girls face, for shadowing that she will turn 'light.' I believe this photo looks utterly beautiful.

The title and heading

  The title has worked extremely well with this poster as it does symbolise happiness and represents our genre well. I believe the mustard colour is bold but also is harmonious to our chosen photo. It also believe it connects with the doodles within our poster. We decided to use a catch phrase within our poster which is 'will they ever change back?' we places this above the title as most movie posters have a convention where they has either a synopsise, heading, quote or review above the title. I believe our heading works well to enforce the narrative to the viewer.

 

The Names

 We decided to include the names of the actresses within our poster as we wanted them to be well known within the filming industry. This will make more people want to see our movie as they will have a pre conception of the film due to the actresses within it. Before we had the text 'starring Amie Hartland' but while we were looking at film posters within our genre they only have the names so we changed the text to ' Amie Hartland' and 'Aimee Vaccarello.' I believe the colours within the bubbles surround the names have worked well because even though our characters haven't swapped In the poster the colours within the bubbles have, surrounding the bubble of 'Amie Hartland' there is the angel wing doodle, this contrasts the devil horns on her head and this for shadows she will turn into a good girl.

The doodles

  I believe that the doodles I created have worked extremely well within this poster. not only do they cover up black spaces, but they fit in really well with our movie genre, the location our film is set, the characters and the essence we were trying to create with this poster. I believe the doodles work in favour towards our target audience of 14-25 year old girls as everyone remembers doodling in there school books, or still does depending on the age.

 

The billing board.

   While looking at film poster conventions we decided to make our billing board noticeable but very small as it's not the most important aspect within our poster. At the bottom of the billing board we incorporates our production logo 'new line cinema' but this could be a bit to small.