Matthews personal challenge.

OK, so apparently teaser trailers, should only include very limited amount of footage and be 30 seconds-a minute(ish)  as we have already established. However it seems even the big production companies, seem to be changing the face of teasers or just labeling trailers wrong.. Universal pictures for one, ran a  advertising campaign on YouTube to advertise their latest film 'Fast Five' Now it clearly in the advert said TEASER TRAILER (I should of got a print screen, it was on the main banner on the youtube homepage, as well as on some independent video pages and searches, so ya know must of put a fair amount of money into it), as such does it on the video title! So I'm  like oh another teaser trailer for me to look into and research, but NOOO its full of footage, over 2 mins in length!- I have been taught that defines a TRAILER, not a teaser!

So yes this has led me, to try and keep the traditional meaning of a teaser trailer alive. So I've had an idea of creating an after effects masterpiece, where very little if any footage will actually be used. The idea I have at the moment, is focusing on the idea of the bomb, so like the teaser follows the parts of the bomb and like along each bit of the bomb is like something to do with the film..

E.g. Along the red wire could have a chase sequence, which runs into the next part of the bomb e,g. the clock.

So yes thats what I've been thinking, I hope it isn't just my brain being like, ohh lets come up with an idea to avoid revision!.. Hopefully that will still be done!

disgruntled customer MS

First Draft feedback

Today we showed a VERY rough draft of our teaser to the rest of the class. To get feeback on how we could improve. Here is what was suggested...

It was suggested that we maybe not include the production title logos at the beginning, beliving that teaser trailers don't include them, however from the research I have found, that most do actually include them and normally at the beginning. I also think it shows editing skills.

During the chase scene, some were left confused at the editing of the shots, that perhaps we should do an over the shoulder shot (show more of the person against the walls face). We explained we had framed it like this as we had filmed it in Oxford, but wanted to imply it was a London location, we felt that if we showed too much, that it may be clear that its not in London..

The bomber walking into the building. The choice of clothing was considered not appropiate, that he should of actually been in a suit, looking more office like.

Include transitions to change from one shot to another. E.g. Zooming in on something on one clip, then zooming out of something the same colour. E.g like how we did in our AS prelim task where, we opened the brief case onto the camera to a black out so we could include the titles over. SHMOOOTH.

Fast paced with a beat music was also suggested.

Using a digital clock.. Although this has always been our original idea, to include the clock ticking throughout, with the sound of the beap, and like a heart beat.

It was also thought we could include some kind of tint to images, e.g a green tint to connote action, or a red tint to connote danger..

This is all valuable feedback, what we will use to improve our text.

Yours Sincerly MS

Rough Video

Since the last post we have been a bit busy. We have now filmed some more of the chase where Matty jumps over a wall. We have also filmed Conor walking into a building carrying the suitcase holding a bomb. We added these scenes onto the macs at school which Matty then took home with him to edit. On the way back from school I went to Matty's house to see how he had gotten on with the editing and was surprised to see it looking a lot better than what I had thought considering the fact we still had 6 or 7 more scenes still to film. The draft managed to show the rough outline of the story and included a voice over by me (which will not be used in the final piece) and no sound as we felt we needed to decide on sound that matches the piece rather than just putting in any random song just for the sake of it.

This is what Matty has pieced together for the draft ready to show to our media group tomorrow.



PG

Update

Ok, it's been a while since my last post so I decided to give an update and say where we are at the moment. As Matty said before we have put all of our clips we have filmed so far onto the macs. However we are struggling to edit these clips as they are not in order so we need to wait until we have completed all the filming before we can fully edit. Therefore our aim for this weekend is to complete the filming of the scenes we have not yet completed.

PG

The hatred of the macs begin.

So today, we entered the Mac room at school for the first time this project, its own little electric heater, keeping us warm from the freezing weather, but that's where the positives stop.

OK so right there surely must of been an easier way than how we did it. But we plugged in Patricks Camera, clicked import videos from camera.. But NOO, it has to bring up every single video on Patricks camera, what dates back to filming our opening 2 minutes last year. So OK wait for a several minutes, while it gets thumbnails for all the pointless videos we don't need, then when it finally lets us chose the videos we want to import, but then thumbnail images weren't even created!! So we had to manually find the videos we wanted. THEN we had to check box each clip we wanted imported, which took ages, then Import them what took even longer, fair dos' we did have 22 minutes HD of footage.. but STILL!..
tut Imovie TUT.

Anyway I thought that rant might interest you, but the main point of this post was to explain what we did, so today we mainly just wanted to check out our footage, on a screen different to the cameras 4 inch screen, Which doesn't show the whole picture (quite literally) it cuts part of what the lens actually captures and you only find out you have extra stuff when it comes down to editing but also it does not show the full extent of any shake, reflections etc ( like what we found when looking at the phonebox shots.) Yes so we looked at them and had a look at editing the shots we did on Saturday with Jonny (the chase and push against wall)

So yeah that is all, seemed to have some good shots, we could use, but I'll stick to the WINDOWS programs, I know.

My name is Matthew and I made windows 7. MS

How to make a link bar

So as you can see we have a link bar at the top of our page. Amazed.. I thought so.

Now I decided to add this as it makes viewers to find particular things on our blog more easily, rather than searching through a whole load of posts.

So you want to know how I made it. Ok so this is not an easy thing to do, but follow my step by step guide and you'll be an owner of your very own one. This took me a long time to make, so yeah be kind!


VIEW IN FULL SCREEN!!

YOU CAN USE THE ICON AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCRIBD TO COPY TEXT (THE ICON WHAT LOOKS LIKE THE ONE TO THE LEFT!!)

How to Make a Link Bar for blogger

Hard to read download a copy of the original document.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8Z0x_7LzVC5YmFmYTkzZmMtNDhhYS00Mjk1LWI5YzQtOTgxYzExZDcwNjYy&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

and make sure Macros are enabled in word so you can read the scroll down boxes.


Karate CHOP!-MS

A policeman called me Unfit!

So today MS, PG and PM, got down to doing some filming of some shots today we did some shots of a chase and the crash against the wall. I had to be an actor, as we couldnt get anyone else. So We had the legend himself Jonathan (Jonny) Nesbitt dressed up as an MI5 agent and me in a hoody running away and being pushed against a wall.

So we were filming on the side road next to the town hall, with a police car parked outside (probs protecting it from us ugly, badly-dressed student rabble. But yes after a few takes with Patrick producing a smooth hand held shot while riding along on his bike while Jonny chased after me. So yes a police man got out of his car to check what we were doing, had to explain several times, not a 'TEACHER Trailer' but a teaser trailer, he then said something about covering the camera with a line of T shirts or something ( He May of Recognized us from the protests)..  Then he decided to say I was Unfit.. How rude!!


But yes this post is just to tell you we managed to get some good shots done today. Thank you Jonny for helping us out, I would of normally got a picture of the filming process, but I didn't. I apologise.


Peaceful protest! MS

Filming tomorrow (04.12.2010)

As Patrick has already layed out we have filmed a few shots so far.
CCTV, CCTV footage, Phone box, Kick open door.

But that leaves several shots to do, Now my personal feeling towards this is due to time constraints, we just need to get the shots done, even if we go out at a later date, to film them again in a different location, different actor etc, thus making a draft teaser, just to see how our shots will look like, which we can then improve on for our final piece.

It has taken us longer than our teacher would of liked, but its because we have tried to plan absolutly everything we want to do, to give us the best possible plan of action in making the film. So just making a rough edit, even if the characters and the location isn't right we can show the class, basically the idea, get feedback to allow us to go and improve our filming shots get extra shots etc..

So we have a plan for doing filming tomorrow, to get as much as the shots as possible. For example at the moment we can't make good use of Patricks basement, so even if we film it somewhere else, we can get an idea of what kind of camera shots we could use, so when we can eventually film in Patricks basement, we already know what kinda shots to do.

This is just a rant -MS

Possible titles

From my research into teaser trailers I have found that the text which is used in teaser trailers that looks superimposed on the footage (I.E. THIS SUMMER, ONE MAN) is called ''Boards''. In the begining of media films you would hold up a board to the camera an then edit that into your film. A sort of vintage blackout screen. I decided to come up with idea for our groups work so that we could potentially use such methods in our own film. these are:
''What would you do?''
''Terror!''
"No Demands"
To be continued

Filming we have done so far

So at the moment we have done the location shots in London of the tall buildings, also we filmed clips of Conor in a phonebox for the anonymous phonecaller conversation between him (the bomber) and the government agent and today we filmed the clip of the CCTV operator watching the CCTV footage which we have filmed seperately to edit in.

PG

Group Homework

Ok some Matty has asked us all to Find clips of scenes from the storyboard so that we can see how it will all play out. I was asked to find videos of; A bomb being made, A guy kicking down a door and 2 shots of someone on a phone. And here they are.

Making of a bomb:



Guy kicking down a door:
One thing I did find is that it is incredibly difficult to kick a door down in a way which looks good rather than practically and the only video I could really find was this one of a guy kicking backwards.



Person on phone 1: (0:13)



Person on Phone 2: (0:25)



It is actually surprisingly difficult to find videos of things which look and sound simple and here is the best i could find and i hope it is sufficient

Video Guru, CW

My videos for the video storyboard

Well Matty asked me to find videos for the buildings, bottle smash, timer and rugby tackle (as you can see below).

Buildings - I thought we could either use the actual footage we already took in London or otherwise I thought we could use this:



The clips in this video are very similar to the ones we took in London ourselves. The best parts were at 1.37 to 1.42, 2.11 to 2.17 and 2.47 to 2.57.

Bottle Smash - This was much harder to find a video for and I have only managed to find a different shot than the one we want to use just so we cn make the video storyboard:



I also found this video which showed more the sort of bottle smash we would be looking to do:

http://watch2video.net/beer-bottle-smash-video-ypEJBKnw43X.html

Timer - Firstly for the timer I found a webite where you could set in the countdown and it would display it as I personally had imagined it (red numbers black background):



I then found a video for which we could use in our storyboard (it works well from 55 seconds onwards!):



Rugby tackle - For the end of the chase I felt instead of the rugby tackle we should have a wall slam instead where the person is pushed into the wall, these are some of the videos I have got to show this:



From 1.21 to 1.23



From 0:16 to 0:21





PG

CCTV Room

This is a photo we took a while ago for the scene where we show the government looking at CCTV. We wanted to have a person looking at 3 or 4 screens and on a swivel chair as this is the normal situation this person would be in. We then thought we would digitally add in the video footage onto the screen in the editing process. However I feel we should also film with CCTV footage we can find on youtube by putting it on the screen when we first film it.

PG, in the photo MS and the boy who made the bomb CW

Bomb in a briefcase 1

So today Conor had brought in his design of the bomb, which were all really impressed with, very much what we were looking for. Although when putting it in our briefcase, we realised it looked a bit small in there, so we added parts as Piyal has already posted about. Its pretty much finished, but we need to connect up a count down screen, we were thinking of smashing up a cheap digital alarm clock, however Conor pointed out we wouldn't be able to make it count down, so it is thought, not ideal but to have it the timer digitally added to the screen, so I will have to look into how effective that will look and try it out.

Here are the long awaited photos of the bomb as it is now.

We also had some bad boy of a camera take a picture of it, with much higher resolution, so we might get that at some point. (obviously people arent impressed with my 5 megapixel  good boy of a  phone camera)

toodledoo MS

READ THIS GROUP...So I had this idea...

So we have our initial drawn story board, I thought it would be a good idea if we create the story board from videos already on the internet, so we can then have a kind of idea of how well the shot order works together, so we can see if we need to make changes, add things, take things away, in order to improve our filming.

So I'm going to assign people to get these videos, download them and trim it down to the relevant section, so we can put them together.

Matthew - Walking with breifcase, Looking at cctv, chase, I'm adding a shot here (showing a shot of people who might be affected)

Conor- Creating bomb, kicking down door, On phone ( 2 different angles)

Patrick - Building, bottle smash, Timer, Rugby tackle

Piyal - Paper profile, looking at map, placing breifcase, running up stairs.


LOOK AT STORY BOARD FOR MORE OF AN IDEA WHAT TO SEARCH FOR!!

Iteacher- MS

bomb making

We are nearly finished making the bomb. Today we put in 2 more bottles into the suitcase and rapped it with black tape and put it into the suitcase. We are now putting in more wires into the suitcase to make it look as realistic as possible. We still need to also put in an old phone which will make it look like a real bomb as a phone call will make the bomb activate. I believe it is a looking like a real bomb and the effects of the colour we used (black) goes with the background of the suitcase which has a black phome. Matty will hopefully upload the photo soon

ms-edit..  I was also helping create the bomb, with conor and Patrick, but I was also on the computer, researching things, but Piyal didnt seem to realise...

profile techniques continued

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpIOxNUq-xQ&feature=related

"A touch of Frost" is another one of theses old detective shows which had its final episode this year. They use the same type of profiling as they did with New Tricks. Having a look at the picture with an over the shoulder shot by seeing the picture very clearly so the audiences has a clear picture in their minds as well as the investigation goes on.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W3SMAPsBvA

This second show if called "CSI". And this is showing off a lab which has all this evidence and profiling. Even though you cannot see a picture of a suspect you would think we could easily put in a big picture into a room like that where your main focus is fully on the images.

profile techniques

I have been researching many different types of profiling techniques on how to show off the main character in an investigated way. So I looked at many different types of crime scene investigation shows and seeing how they show off the character which they want to catch.

Clip source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWXWK_EsIY




These two print screens, either side of me, are from the show called Spooks. What they do is put 4 suspects onto the projector and then go through each profile of suspect and talk about their past and what why they are suspect. Spooks is M15 drama where they try and stop terrorists attacks happening within the UK. SO they use the most modern technology to profile these people and work out what their next step would be.



This would fit in with our filming as we are aiming to use quite modern technology in this teaser trailer. So we can take elements of how they profile the characters into our teaser trailer.


sourse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6McCmLAiVUo




The second show I looked at is "New Tricks". This show is a a little bit different as they use investigate more in an old fashioned way of investigating profiling their main suspects.

The first print screen of "New Tricks" is showing a very simple way of profiling. They have the picture of him and all the information they need of him will build up and put into that file. The second picture is profiling a person through a old projecter. We can use this sort of image into our teaser trailer by seeing a past of the man we are trying to find before they do damage to the country thats why I have decided to put that in.





I will do some more research by tomorrow and see other detective shows to see the how they profile there characters.

Bomb Prop Building Process

After deciding on the bomb being of a ''Canister'' type I concluded that a modified Drinks bottle should suffice in creating the effect. I then took the top which i had previously cut off and pushed it through down the bottle to provide a solid base to rest the fan on which i had previously tried to secure on its own. This was all after I had covered the bottle's exterior entirely in Electrical tape to change the colour mostly but also to give it a more authentic look.

In this picture you can see that I used GRATUITOUS amounts of Plasticine (Which it turns out is a moderate adhesive if you don't really need to stick anything securely). I predominantly used this to secure wires in place but also to attach the circuit boarding because I felt that Glue cement was a bit 'overkill'' and that this would do!

Here is a close up front shot of the 'Canister explosive'. I first off, painstakingly removed the fan from its original housing. i then found a moderate sized piece of aluminium which we had scrapped from an old laptop computer. This all was pretty much wedged on top of the bottles innards which i had previously Secured in and then the fan was (and hopefully still is, even though its in my bag) secured to the aluminium with More plasticine. I finished the look off with.... MORE plasticine to give it a trimmer and, slightly more professional look to it.

One advantage of using the laptop parts was that they are designed originally to be light weight and compact which makes them perfect for things like this. i was able to cut the metal with Scissors and other cutting devices in my tool kit into a oblong (it was meant to be a circle) but also, it is so lightweight that you barely notice it (makes it easier to transport and more resistant to random breaks) as well as it being able to hold the shape apart due to its Sturdy nature.

Now Plasticine Expert, CW

Bomb Making (Props!)

Ok so after being given the tast to make the bomb prop for our film i came up will or sorts of crazy ideas. most of them being C4 explosives and High-tech precision made Boxes. but of course we do not have the time or the resources to make these. then MS reminded me that bombs can look like anything you want them to, referencing the recent story in the news about a ''Printer bomb''. I decided on building a bomb out of scraps of Computer/laptop and something like a cannister and here is what i have come up with so far:

When i was making the bomb prop I was focusing on the front of it. this is why I believe it looks best from the front and so we should use this kind of angle when shooting

Here is a shot from the top, another of the shots I believe we can use when filming (I.E. When its in a briefcase and the briefcase is open.

I will post close ups of different parts shortly and how I made them.

Bomb Disposal Early Retiree, CW

Bomb electronics.

So basically, we need a bomb. Conor our bomb man, has been researching bombs, how they look, how they're made etc. So we realised we will need some electronics to make it look like a real bomb.

So theres this electronic dump hidden away in school, full of gadgets that work, but the school have to throw away, they don't give them away, sell them donate them. So they are just throwing away thousands of pound worth of stuff, to get obliterated by the British weather. So the good green people we are, we decided we could make use of this equipment and absolutely destroy them to get the insides out. So after a few blood fought fights with it (well it just attacked me-MS), we got our beauties. Circuit boards, batteries, wires.. etc.

Have some pictures.

Circuit boardo

fan

Lots of wires.

messy table

Wires.

More wires

5,6,7,8 it stabbed me in my little finger so.

I also feel we need to smash up a digital clock and rid it of its pointless plastic shell. So we have a timer. :)

too casual?-MS and You lost the game- CW ohh and PG

Locations

This morning I looked at the locations we were planning to use and which ones we needed to figure out or decide on.

Firstly I looked at the only location we have decided on:

My basement:



We chose this for the scene where the bomb is being put together as there is no natural light, the audience has no idea where it is and it is in a damp run down space which is where you would expect someone who is not wanting to be seen to hide.


I then had an idea about where we could film the man entering the tall office building and the phonebox scene.

Man Entering Tall Building:





The reason I chose these 2 locations is that they are both glass office buildings and they both look like the tall buildings we shot in London.

Phonebox:





I felt this phonebox was good as it was against a wall and the pathway to it would be good to film when it is empty as it would show isolation. Also I don't think it had been used as a toilet like the one we used in our filming last year did!


The other locations we need to think about are:

- The office where the bomb is placed
- The Government office
- The Chase down a street
- The CCTV room
- Running up some stairs
- Kicking down a door
- Smashing a bottle
- Profile folder on the table

PG

Where we are at the moment

Currently we have completed the storyboard and have filmed some London location shots and images of CCTV cameras. We need to complete the script, including the phone conversation at the start, create a full list of props and get these ready for when we need to film and decide where each shot is going to be shot (ie locations). We have been given a deadline for filming as Thursday 25th November. However our teacher has put this date as he wants to allow people time to complete the editing in class time and our group are happy to work outside of class time. Therefore since our deadline for the rough edit is on Thursday 2nd November I feel we probably have until the weekend after 25th November to finish all the filming.

PG

Bomb props examples

I found this on a helpfull website involving ameteur props. it shows various props and how to make them for films. a little insight to how the crews actually create things such as this.
this is similar to the bomb we want to create but me and PG consider it to look a little too ameteur and not correct for our film. although it does give us a little more knowlege on what a bomb may look like and how they can come in all sizes and shapes.

Character ideas.

3 government people. Older, Smarter, clever.
Main person: Good leader, strong,
2.
3.

Bomber - Male, Young adult, Casual wear.

Person being chased down street -

Person chasing -

Prop list (First)

So here is a first list of our props that we are going to require (so far) for shooting our film:
Bomb - Circuit board, phone(sim card), Breif case, Clay (or similar thing), Digital clock display, Wires, Battery, soldering Iron (to make bomb with), fuse, cyclinder(type things), Silver foil, modelling tools.

Phone - phonebox?, mobile phone, old style phone, voice changer

Table for Patrick basement.. to make the bomb.

I.D cards/ profile files/ suspect photos

Sugar glass bottle if possible.

CCTV screen/ or screen to do it.
Wicked Sick-CW and [enter something here to give something to my initials] -MS

Storyboard

I have finally drawn up the draft storyboard that we will be able to use to speed up our work. It will also allow us to make decsions as we now know the storyline and how certain decisions could effect points later on in the teaser trailer.









PG

London clips

After looking through the clips we took in London I picked out a few that I thought we would be able to use and these are below:

















PG

Film titles (continued)

London's calling
The eye of the storm
The fresh bomb of London.
Man on the moment
Tick Tock
We will, we will bomb you!.
The Last Action
The Final Ride
Bombamory.
The enemy
East vs West
Bomb gear.
Destination
The jury
Bombwars.
Bang
Bomb of the day.
Big Ben
The Revenge
You've been bombed.
The Metro
Bang! and London is gone.
Parliament Square
Home grown Talent
Twinkle twinkle little bomb.
MI5 destiny
M15 revealed
The Bombs are back in town.
Secrets
Under Pressure
Britains got a bomb.
Court of Law
Rush Hour
Who let the bomber out??
Postman bomb.
Evening Standard
How to solve a problem like London?
D Day
playing with fire
Harry Bomber and the dynamite stick.
Red Light
Canary Wharf
The bomb factor.
Britain against the world
Scotland Yard
Judgement Day
London Bombing story.
Pulse Rate
The enemy
serial suicide bomber.
War against the West
Traffic Jam
Steve and the bomb factory.
The Code
The gadget bomb.
Pride of Britain
Suicide note
London bad boys.
Prison,Enemy,Bang
Hide and Seek
Ten Hours to Live
Mock the bomber.
Detonator
World Domination
Old Macdonald had a bomb.
Power
Bob the Bomber.

Bomb, and how we are going to make it

So i drew up this diagram of how i am going to create a replica bomb for out filming, I added a bit of humor, Im not actually going to leave it anywhere, You can call off the police. But this is the plan of how i am going to make it. The choice of materials should be quite easy to find and PG and MS are cannibalising a Laptop as i type this. The bomb prop should be finished before the end of the week!

Serial Suicide bomber, CW

Videos from London.

Not the real footage, but MY footage, to visually show Patrick the ideas I had in my head. So here they are for you to see my mind as well.



We originally thought a pan up/down would be ideal, like in a way of, it could be this building, or this one, only the bomber knows, but it was only when filming we realized it would be better to do a pan around shot to show to show the devastation the bomb would cause if it went off in any one of these buildings.. which are below..



For some reason, my phone decided to freeze, mid filming. Clever phone.



Obviously these shots are far too long for a teaser trailer, So Patrick and I, decided it would be good to speed up the shot, or just flash part of it up randomly in the teaser. The shot could also represent a man looking up at all the building trying to find the right building, and realising the difficulty of the task ahead.

kerching - MS

Teaser Trailer Posters

This is a really bad effort of me doing a quick poster but it might be something to build on like background colours maybe text on the picture or anything which can catch the imaginations of many people and say they want to watch this film because of this poster. I know this wont be the final poster but it is trying to get us onto the right direction towards making the right sort of poster to back up our teaser trailer.

Photos in Londonia.

Soo basically right, as Patrick has already blogged about our trip to London, I thought for all you nonbelievers out there, that I will provide evidence of our trip and filming (and that we werent just watching the rubbish Man Utd game in a Canary Wharf pub with some right cockney geezers. So here is evidence, as shot on my phone, obviously not going to be used as the footage in the film, But I thought it would be good for me to do some camera work as well to show my AMAZING skills and to give an idea of the shots we want.

We did kinda get stopped by security, for filming fronts of buildings (silly law) but managed to persuade them to let us continue, We were clever enough not to give away the plot line of our film, or the outcome might of not been the same.

So we arrived in Canary Wharf to get some shots, for our teaser and literally as soon as getting off the tube, this sight was to meet us. The right type of buildings we had imagined would be perfect for our teaser.

I thought I should just take a picture of Patrick doing a pan down of the buildings. We originally did a pan down/up but later found out looked better to do a pan around.

Directing Patrick on what shots we could include, not that he needs it.

We thought it would be a good idea, if we showed trains along side the buildings, to represent, busyness and that a journey is going to take place.

More buildings from a different shot

Another.. .building.

Lining up another shot.

MORE..Buildings

Samsung Omnia is useless-MS

Titles in Posters

Posters are a big selling points for films which are being newly released and what it a poster needs to do is capture the imagination of the target audience. One of the key aspects of this poster is how we lay out the information. Font sizes and how the information is written is key. The font size will vary depending on where the information is written. If the title is written in the middle you would want to go for big bold writing. Also there are sometimes pictures which is the central point and the text comes around it. Font sizes vary from size 30-50 if you are trying to emphasise a point and normally the small text which is extra information but isn't necessary. In my next post I will try and do a couple of quick attempts at making a poster a very simple. I will be seeing the group tomorrow to see what pictures and shots the group have got from there trip to London and see how we can make it into a poster.

Shots from London

Our long day in London included a detour due to the underground maintenance work, though I feel we selected the right area for the shots we wanted to get of tall business buildings. I have now downloaded all the shots we took and looked at all of them to see which are the best. I feel we definitely have at least 4 or 5 really good shots that we can work with.

We also took a few pics on my phone to document (the start of) our trip:



Matty trying to look intelligent



Me trying to wake up!



Some digital posters on the roundabout at Shepherds Bush for the new Harry Potter film

PG

Unstoppable Trailer..

Yes this is a trailer, not a teaser, But I just saw it on TV. So have chosen it for its similarities to the ideas we have for our own.

It is an example of an action (crime) film. With authorities racing against time to stop an event happening. The idea of our film the authorities trying to stop the bomb going off and in this one trying to stop an unmanned train from causing devestation.

Though being a teaser we can get a good idea of what shots to include and shot duration. I also have noticed that some of the shots had a green tint, especially on the protagonists, which could show masculinity and heroism..Having a green tint also draws more attention to the characters face, rather than what else in shot.

In conclusion we can use aspects of this trailer into our own, especially the use of tinting. Even though it is a trailer, it does seem to show too much of the film, giving away too much, of what will happen, so should try and avoid such scenes in our own.

Ring me -MS

Teaser Trailer Poster research

I have been researching posters for our teaser trailer and what I have seen is that the majority of the of the titles of the film are placed at the bottom part of the page. The colour seems to be either an white or some kind of bright colour to grab the audiences attention towards the title.

The other place where the title could is normally in the middle. What I have noticed there is that they use more coloured text so your mind is focused on that area all the time.

Depending on the sort of teaser trailer we go down we must capture the mood within the poster on what sort of film this will be going down. So for example if it is a blooded affair maybe having red around the poster or if it is a bomb threat maybe an iconic picture of the city that is under threat or if it is more family based then maybe use more primary colours etc etc... However we show this teaser trailer we need to match that mood within the poster we make.

On the way to London

Currently Matty and I are on the bus on the way to London to do our first bit of filming. We are going to Canary Wharf to try and get some good location shots and Matty has also noticed there is a show for the lord mayor which may allow us to get a good shot of crowds.

PG and hail to the bus driver-MS

Discussions from 11th nov meeting.

So at the moment we havent done any filming. But we do have an initial storyboard which is pretty much finished. This has taken us longer than we expected and originally hoped to of started filming by now, but this has been due to a constant changing and development of ideas, that we havent really had solid idea until recently.

Deciding where the person making the phone call is..
Small dark room
Phonebox
looking over london landscape (dark room with the natural lights forming shadows) (MS - We dont neccesarily have to be in a skyscraper to do this shot, we could do it any room, and replace the view out of the window a photo, to make it look like the person is watching over a city landscape.)


Creating the bomb
What kind of equipment do we need to use to create it?
Type of Bomb..
How it will look?
how much the audience will see of it?

Watching CCTV
Where?
How many screens?
Whats the CCTV watching?

Characters..
Who..
How many.. why..
Names...

good day- MS, PG, CW

Script

Me Matthew and Patrick have been working on the script for our teaser trailer. we are finding it difficult to decide over wether the person planting the bomb's personality and voice patterns. we have so far got that he is crazy (why else would he be planting bombs) and doesnt have any demands. or that he is smart and wants to actually achieve something with this attack.

Like a Boss, CW

Real life terroism application

So recently its been in the news about George Bush, that he used torture techniques to stop terrosims acts in London. Particuarly in canary wharf, which is a location that we have already identified as a good place to film.

Here is a snippet of the news story below...

'Their interrogations helped break up plots to attack American military and diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States,' Mr Bush said. 'Using those techniques saved lives.'

Tony Blair sent tanks to Heathrow in February 2003 after intelligence warnings that terrorists were plotting to bring down aircraft with rocket propelled grenades.

And in 2004 the Daily Mail revealed claims that an air attack on three towers at Canary Wharf in London was planned. It is these two incidents Mr Bush is thought to be referring to.

But his claims that waterboarding saved the day were dismissed by a series of senior officials familiar with counter-terrorism activities at the time.

magic!-MS

Speed collage made trailer

So very early on in our recorded meetings, we discussed about this college made teaser for speed.
Where a phonecall from the bomber explains the story to the audience, over shots of action. Similar to that of what I spoke about in the Harry potter teaser. This allows us to show lots of variety of shots, which neccessary wouldnt fit together, but with the audience seeing someone start speaking then the speaking becomes a voice over several shots, with shots in between referring back to the person speaking, to explain the plot line of the film to audience. To get the audience excited about the film.

Coldsores are annoying! -MS

Harry Potter Teaser trailer

So they wouldn't let me embed the video, so heres the link to it!..Harry Potter and the deathly hallows Teaser trailer . this film uses a completely different technique to those that I have researched before. The first half of the teaser, is a behind the scenes, look at the teaser, talking to the director, showing the film as it is being filmed.


However the cruical part in this teaser is the second half, is the idea we've had for the majority of our planning for a voice over explaining the story.

In this one. Harry asks a man what he knows about the Deathly Hallows, this mans voice runs over several of the following shots, as if explaining to the audience, the plot line of the film, while showing showing shots of action, to enhance the mans words, instead of just showing a single shot of him.

If we were clever we would keep on reffering back to this teaser, when creating ours, to produce an effective product, with similar teaser trailer ideas.

This trailer follows Vladimir Propp sequence of events theory. With Harry called in to action (Absentation), warned about the dangers of the quest (Interdiction)


kisses MS ;)

Filming for OFVM Course

Yesterday we filmed our short film for our course. As you would expect not everything went according to plan. Firstly the balloons that we were using for props had lost their buoyancy meaning they were drooping in the air and not flying high as we'd wanted them to do. Secondly every shot we took seemed to have people debating over whether it looked right and if we should film a different shot instead making each shot take 3 times as long as it should've taken and making us fall further away from the storyboard and production timetable. Therefore we were having to think on the spot a lot which made it hard to judge how good I think the final outcome will be. I'm looking forward to finding out on Tuesday though!

PG

How to make a banner for the blog

As people are asking how I made the Banner at the top, So I decided to make a post on how I did it.

1. Have yourself an image editing program, fireworks, photoshop or GIMP etc..
(Cherwellians the school has Adobe fireworks CS5, you could use)

2. Make the canvas size.. Width 900 pixels. Height 300 pixels

3. Create your design

4. Export design into image format.

5. Go to the 'Design' page of the blog and chose to edit the Header.

6. Select the file, place the file. SAVE.

7.Done. MS

Below you can view a more detailed tutorial on how I made the ppm productions one..

Fireworks Tutorial PDF

OFVM Week 5

This week we were creating our storyboards and also production timetables. We also came up with possible problems that we may face when we were filming on the weekend. We needed to get permission for 2 of the locations, find parking areas for the venues we wanted to work in and also make sure that we had all of our props and equipment including spares.

As we wanted to polish our storyboard off before the filming we met during the week to go over it again and check we were all happy with it. It also gave us the chance to test the face paint we were going to use on one of our actors and organise who was bringing each prop.

PG

Last years motion picture logos

So last year for our opening 2 mins for a film, I also decided to make some motion picture logos to go at the beginning, at the beginnng of a film they are around 20 seconds each at the beginning of films. But I didnt research these last year.



So I made titles for 'Cherwell media' and 'PPM productions', however these were not my own orignal ideas. I actually used http://www.videocopilot.net/ tutorials to create the designs. Video copilot has literally taught me everything, I know about After effects, Expanded my knowledge on how to use After effects effectively.
I will probally be using these tutorials,to help edit the teaser.

5 to go! MS

Adobe On Location

Its always been on my computer, never knew what it was, what it did or anything about it. It was only when I connected up my firewire to my video camera. So when it suggested to view in Adobe On Location, I thought I might as well check it out to see what it was.

In On location you can, use professional on-set monitoring tools to calibrate your camera, set levels, and monitor signals to obtain high-quality video and audio and help avoid time-consuming and potentially costly problems. ( Adobes own description)

So basically this software, is used for at the time of actually filming footage. By connecting your camera to the computer, allows A director or other members other than the camera man to see whats on shot, so that they can get the cameraman to correct itself. The program cleverly detects lighting levels, focus levels angles etc. The software allows for higher quality shots in the end product. The software is also useful for live green screening. E.g. doing the weather as you can replace the chroma key with an image live, without having to do any editing!.. Another key point to it, you can save shots straight to the computer, from filming and order them in to different scenes, takes etc, so the director can quickly watch clips whilst not taking the camera out of action.

If we were to have a laptop on location with this installed this could be very beneficial and time saving for us, so that we can see shots quickly on screen and sorting it out. Also as the cameras we use have a very small screen it would only be the camera man judgement if its a good shot, and the camera screen doesnt always show the full picture as it would be when editing.

wonderkid MS

Location ideas.

As we have discussed before, we're considering using London as a possible location. As the Mise En Scene, is more dramatic, more busy, more high rise buildings, just if a bomb went off, it would have the potential of affecting and destroying so many. Whereas If a bomb went off in Oxford, no one would really care, well unless it takes out KFC!!..

So me and the Patrick decided to look on Google maps to find some good locations in London, we used google street view when ever possible, to get a better idea (as if we were walking down the roads ourselves) seeing which buildings, where we could film etc.

The place what fits the criteria best is Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf contains many of the United Kingdom's premier office spaces and tallest buildings. Located in Greater London, if a real bomb was to go off, the devastation it could cause would be catastrophic!

However we hopefully will take a trip down to London before filming, so we can find the right locations ready for us to film.  But we need to decide what kind of weather we want to film in.

A squirrel with toilet roll stuck to its tail MS and PG

Started making an initial storyboard

So we've finally a fair amounts of ideas that we can incorporate into our teaser. The center of our initial idea is a bomb left in a location, with attempts for it to be stopped before causing mass destruction. With this idea we tried coming up with possible synopsis for the film. But we found it hard to do, so started to have idea of what we could include in our teaser, then build a story line from the teaser, rather than build a teaser from a synopsis. Its not the best way for it to happen, but it was the best way for our group to advance forward.

So This week we have started planning an initial storyboard for our teaser, at the moment we are slightly worried that its turning out to be more like a trailer, rather than a teaser. However we would prefer if we had to chose to get good marks for shots and editing skills, than sticking to the criteria of a teaser with little skills shown.

Expert MS and PG

Making a bomb research

So we have been researching how to make a bomb, and we found this video, of a similar situation to us what we want, in a breif case and I found this on youtube, this has the perfect design for us. So we can use this into how to to make one..





Headshot MS and PG

Motion picture logo - inital ideas

As we have already discovered that teasers often have motion picture logos within them, generally at the beginning. I thought it would be a good idea to come up with my own ideas, and draft them out, so that the others could get more of a vision of my ideas

So far I have created 2.

Patrick Greenberg Photography - For this one, I got inspiration from watching, Channel 4's "RudeTube" where when counting down, individual rectangle clips of video, fly in and make a 3D number out of them. So this gave me the idea and as Patrick is a good photographer and filmer! I had an idea of creating a camera out of photos hes taken, then for the camera to seem like its taking a photo to bring up text graphics.



Obviously I used black rectangles to replace the photos, for an initial idea. I think it gives the idea of what I want, but at the moment it looks rubbish and cheap, So perhaps making the flash better to bring up the text and maybe a better looking camera.


The other one I made was "Matthew Springett Effects"



I have a 'puppet tool' on after effects what can turn pictures into animations. So I thought I would try it out with a simple image, of just someone writing.. So I did. I need a better idea for this.

I have also had an idea, but not visually created the idea of a cherwell school one. For this idea I've had a vision of A swan, the cherwell schools logo. Drifting along the sea, dragging along 'Cherwell media' with it

When researching Motion picture logo's,  I discovered that when watching them alone that they were in and around the 20 second mark. However I have now realised, well realised that I was right the first time, that on teasers, motion picture logos are infact  around 3 seconds. So when coming up with the final ideas, I will have to take that into mind.

Oxford brookes accept me please. MS

I have a green screen with proffesional lighting.
So I was thinking if we ever wanted to do any scenes, what involved digital effects, that my green screen might come in handy, say if we wanted to do any scenes of; someone flying through the air of explosion, to be put into a MI5 setting, that the green screen will give us an option of doing that.

Although our experience and with our equipment, green screening may look amatuer in a film. Although A noticeable example of using a green screen in a trailer, is from 'The other guys' motion poster, where its like a comical sketch of them flyying through the air 'slow motion action shot'

So we could maybe try green screening.
ummhhmm MS

Possible names of our film.

Hell to Pay.
How to blow up a city..
Impulsive
Decisions
Time pressure
Peek time
6'O Clock
Public Enemy
London traffic
Prevention
Operation 5pm
Repercussions
Judgement evening
at the center of destruction
The Maelstrom
Revenged
Retribution
2 hours to spare
Final countdown
Decision Time
Suitcase Nuke
Hidden motive


Everyone!

Antonio Gransci

Antonio Gransci was Italian philosopher, writer, politician and political theorist and he was the leader of the Communist Party of Italy and he was imprisoned by the orders of Mussolini. What Gransci writing was about culture and political leadership. He was inspiried by working on Marxism theory. His main believes were

The capitalist state to remain.

To get the best out of the working class by developing them and educating them.

The difference between political society and a civil society where leadership is excepted through ideology or my the majority of the people.

"Absolute historicism". Which is a theory that events are determined or influenced by conditions and inherent processes beyond the control of humans.

"economic determinism" is associated with Kaul Marx's work. The theory works likes this primacy to the economic structure over politics in the development of human history.

In our teaser trailer we could make it into a political theme terror attack. M15 and MI6 work is very secretive and an attack to the UK is an attack to the top of society of well as the bottom. Also we could link some countries wanting to bomb the UK because of its capitalist system. I am not sure if we will be going down this area in our teaser trailer but I feel we definitely should consider an attack on certains groups, like the upper class or some ethnic group etc.