When making a film, there are a lot of roles and things that need to be considered before, during and after the film is shot (pre production, production and post production). A film as big as The Hobbit takes a lot of planning and people to make it work (not to mention money). During pre production everything needs to be worked out and tested so that it's ready for filming, such as equipment, storyboarding, casting, hiring a crew and actors and much more. After this is the actual production, where shooting takes place and depending on the film, hundreds of people are needed, which all need to eat, sleep, drink and wash, not to mention getting them all to specific locations on time. This costs a lot of money, so financial backup is usually arranged in pre production to fund the whole process. Planning in pre production is crucial, as it needs to be done thoroughly to execute the production efficiently and correctly. Lastly comes post production, where the whole film is edited and a trailer is usually cut here, as well as branding and advertising, which helps get the film out there and hyped in time for its screening.
This is the video we watched that showed a few days during the making of the Hobbit, which really gives a perspective on how important each intricate detail of making a film is, and shows how large scale the whole operation is too:
This is a table I made which shows all of the different roles/items that need to be considered at each stage of making a film:
Ident
This short video is a dark animation that follows the routine of one individual. I think it's trying to show how people put on a 'mask' in everyday life to change themselves or act in a way which is expected. It also shows other people and how they can change this 'mask'. Overall I liked the style of the animation and it was fun to watch, however it's hard to understand what it's really about as it's abstract and there's no dialogue. Darkness, Light, Darkness
This short video showed a human body slowly being made out of plasticine, by its hands. The animator used real meat in the animation which was unique and strange to look at, and overall the video was abstract but had some humour and was creative. For the whole video the setting stays the same, a small room which after a quick google search shows that it could be representing a cramped style of living or something similar. I preferred Ident to this video. My Own Stopmotion
Lastly, we worked in groups of two to have a go at making our own simple stopmotion using iMotion:
Concept to Shop Floor Timeline of making a product:
Concept
Brief
Research
Decide manufacturing method
Complete your products design
Create Prototype
Test Prototype
Manufacture & Package
Pitch & sell the product
Product:
Skateboard Deck in Shrink Wrap
Price:
Costs about £10-£15 to make each, price varies with size of batch, £50 Retail, Discount if over certain amount is spent
Promotion:
The design on it could be done by an artist, Contains special technology, Show professional skaters riding it, advertise in skateboarding magazines, online (adverts, promotional videos)
Place:
Skate shops, Online, Trendy high street shops Getting the price of a product is incredibly important when selling your own product, as you need to get the highest amount of profits with as little loss as possible. One example to consider is the law of diminishing returns, which refers to the point at which the level of profits is less than the amount of money/energy invested. This point needs to be identified accurately and acted on quickly.
Throughout my first six weeks on this course, I have learnt a lot and started to develop many new skills in a range of areas.
Firstly, in Moving Image and Media Theory I have developed my knowledge about film and the history of film. I've discovered how films have changed over time and how different shots connote different moods and feelings to an audience. I've found out how sound helps to tell a story and make it more effective, and the process of how it's done in the real world, which I didn't know before. Through this I learnt about foley artists and how to use a sound recorder to get my own sounds for my films, and how to edit them accordingly. I've also learnt how to effectively use Premiere Pro (which I had some knowledge of before) so that it backs up my project as I work, and lays out my footage in an organised and effective manner.
In my Audio lessons with Tom Grey I have learnt about audio and sound in more detail. He helped us further understand about sound in film, and how to use Premiere with sound design and music, so that the sound is mastered and doesn't clip. He also taught us about making photomations, and how to edit them in Premiere by importing photographs in a group called an Image Sequence.
Publishing with Ty has helped me learn how to be more efficient with photoshop, as well as develop my knowledge about graphic design and film posters. I already had basic knowledge of photoshop before these lessons, however he let us experiment with the program and discover new things individually. He also taught us a range of keyboard shortcuts and techniques to make us more efficient with the program. In these lessons I've produced some of my own film posters that I'm proud of, and gained some useful knowledge and skills which will be helpful later in the year.
Film Poster Mashup made
in publishing (Design 1)
Film Poster Mashup made in publishing (Design 2)
Sprited Away Poster (Made in Publishing)
Final Design of Spirited Away poster
Lastly, Interactive lessons with Steve Spicer have been really useful in helping me develop my knowledge in design and how I look at pieces of work me or others have made. In these lessons I've learnt a lot about very important parts of Media such as colour, text and design. Steve taught us about colour theory and colour harmony, typography and connotations of typefaces which are very useful to know about, and have helped me in other lessons when designing things. I also learnt the basics of Adobe Illustrator which is a complicated program, made simple to understand in these lessons. Using it I have made infographics as well as gained knowledge on how to use it for making posters and 3d graphics.
Colour Wheel made in Interactive
Image made in Interactive showing different parts of a typeface
Overall I think that in this first six weeks I have learnt a lot about programs and theory which will be very helpful as this course goes on, and now I feel a lot more confident approaching tasks with this knowledge. I still have things to improve on however, one is being more effective at planning and putting more time into planning before getting into a task. Another improvement I could make to help my learning is to spend time doing independent research and work (i.e. outside of college) and giving evidence of this. In the next term and half term holiday I will definitely try to act on these improvements, be it watching a few films mindfully, reading a book or getting outside with my camera and experimenting with it.
This blog shows all examples of all of the skills I have listed, as well as the video below, which shows some examples of skills I have developed:
Over the past six weeks I have improved and learnt a lot. When we first started I already had some basic knowledge of photoshop and had used it before. But by being able to play around with the program and try using things in it that I hadn't used before, I learnt about new things I could do in it. One of these things were layer masks and another skill I learned was the content aware fill. This was very useful and I used it in my photomation that I had to make for another lesson. My teacher also showed the class hotkeys and shortcuts in photoshop so now I can use the program a lot quicker and more efficiently as I don't have to click on every tool to use it. I also learnt a lot about posters like the common conventions of a poster and what makes a poster look good or bad, despite thinking that I knew about film posters already.
Next time I would spend more time perfecting things I make in photoshop and I'd spend more time planning my projects and researching photoshop as I spent a lot of time sitting looking at photoshop not knowing where to start. Overall however I have learnt a fair amount and produced some images which I'm proud of.
Here are the final two posters that I made, which are a mashup of films Léon: The Professional (Léon) and E.T. For the purpose of this task I will be analysing the red one, which I made secondly, however it is my favourite.
I think that at first glance it looks like a realistic and professional film poster, and the red and black colour scheme help it to stand out and connote what the film could feature. It contains a tagline at the top, a common convention of film posters which is comedic and suggests themes of the film. It also shows a very large image of the main character to suggest to the viewer who is going to feature in the film. Because it is so large, you can see imperfections in the poster which are something I can improve on. The glasses and beanie that ET is wearing look scruffy which make the poster look a bit more homemade and unprofessional, as they were drawn with a marquee tool on photoshop. Another thing that the poster could improve of is the blank background, as ET is on a gradient but nothing else so the poster looks bland. This is what others suggested for improvement too, and one peer said that I could add some buildings in the background. One other good thing about the poster is the production credits which I added myself, which make the poster look legitimate and add some life to the poster.
To make this poster I firstly took into account that I was working at a very large scale, so I downloaded a picture of ET and vectorised it into a 6 colour shape using Illustrator by tracing it. This way I could have a picture of ET that could be scaled up to a very large size, and that was my own. I dragged the picture into photoshop and applied a gradient map to it that was red and black, to fit with the colour scheme.
After this I used the text tool to type out the title, and the character window to adjust it accordingly. The font I chose to use for the title was Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro Super as it was bold and stood out. I adjusted the typeface slightly by increasing the tracking, stretching the type to 120% wide, and making it red. I could do all of this in the character window.
After this I added some other text to the poster. I wanted the tagline at the top to look appealing so I looked for a font that looked good in lower and upper case. In the end I used Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold. The white tagline really stands out and contrasts against the red/black so that the audience see it. I also added production credits to make the poster look professional and realistic as this is something I left out in my first poster design I did at the start of my publishing lessons. I looked up what font is used for production credits, but the college computers didn't have it so I looked for a similar font. I ended up using Akzidenz-Grotesk Pro Light Condensed and again adjusted its tracking and size in the character window. It has a subscript button which was helpful in making certain words small.
Subscript Button
To finish off the production credits, I found some logos online to add to the bottom, such as the Dolby Logo, Rating, and Production Company Logo. The logos I found online were transparent however they were black so I inverted them to make them white. After this, I used the polygonal lasso tool to draw glasses and a hat on ET, by making a selection and using the paint bucket to fill the selection. I also added different coloured accents to the shapes I drew in the same way.
After this, I found a splattered brush that I could use to paint a beard onto ET to make it look like Leon. I painted it in three different shades of red to give it some definition.
Lastly, I added a black vignette to the poster to put behind the title. I did this by using the Rectangle Tool to make a black rectangle, then I used the Elliptical Marquee tool with a very large feather on it to cut half an oval out of the black shape. The finished poster looks good in my opinion and I think that by using a colour scheme it looks really effective.
