Evaluation Question 4 (Part 2)

Evaluation Question 4 (Part 1)

Research & Planning:

Annotated film:

Annotated ancillaries:

We worked on the YouTube video annotoations as a group.

Evaluation Question 3

Adrian on Themes and Styles:

Jamal on Titles and Target Audience:

Oli on Brand and Target Audience:

Evaluation Question 2

Scott's feedback:

Tom's feedback:

Adrian' analysis:

Jamal's analysis:

Oli's analysis:

Evaluation Question 1

For A Handful of Rocks – Final

So here it is: Our final short film. Enjoy!

Final Ancillaries

Final Ancillary (Poster)

Here is the final ancillary produced through photoshop and indesign. The font took a while to choose as there were so many, for both the title and billing board - we tried to stay away from stylised fonts, as well as "plain" fonts. The spacing of the words more or less fell into place.

Poster Final Draft

After exploring our options we decided to go with the poster that can be seen below. It is mainly based off Oli's draft of the poster as we found that it was the most effective and induced a little bit of narrative enigma.

As you can see, the poster is still missing the title. This is because we yet have to decide on one. After the change from Sweets to Diamonds the title 'For a handful of Sweets' obviously doesn't work anymore.

At the moment it looks like we will go with 'For a Handful of Rocks', but this is not 100% decided yet.

Poster Draft #1

With everyone presenting an idea for our poster, this is what I came up with:

I wanted to show the three characters, all facing away from each other. This tells someone looking at the poster immediately that there is a conflict between the three. It also introduces all the characters.

Short Film Poster Analysis #1

Looking at these two posters of short films, we can observe the following similarities:

The protagonist is not clearly identifiable

However, this is not necessary as the protagonist is most likely played by an unknown actor. Showing their face would therefore not attract fans of said actor due to the lack of his publicity. Instead, hiding the face creates an enigma which the audience will want to see solved when watching the film.

Plain Background

This puts the focus on both the artwork and the title. In addition to this it makes the designing process of the poster easier and by that often cheaper.

Images fit the title

For the poster to raise interest in a potential audience it needs to make sense at the first glance.

Title stands in the foreground

The title, in combination with the image(s), forms the most important part of the poster.

Catchphrase

As we can see, the poster on the right has a catchphrase on it. The purpose of this is that somebody who sees the poster will remember the film because of the witty sentence.

Billing

Similar to feature film posters, short film posters list the names of people and organisations that have taken part in the production of the film.

Short Film Posters Intro

Today we had a conversation with our Media teacher about the characteristics of short film posters.

We talked about:

- Positioning of the title 

- Billing (ie. credits)

- Focus on the protagonist/the actor who plays him

In the following posts we will go into depth how different short film posters were designed.

Wanted: Film Title

With diamonds now replacing the sweets as loot, we had to think of a new title for our film.

We wanted to stick with the reference to the Fistful of Dollars films, so we started brainstorming.

Mind-map showing our brainstorming.

As you can see we didn't go for the obvious choice of "Handful of Diamonds", but instead thought about other words that can be used to describe diamonds.

In the end we went with 'For a Handful of Rocks', with rocks being a colloquial term for diamonds. We found this more fitting as you would think of the robbers as being of a lower social class as shown e.g. by the location and their getaway car, and thus expect them to use a slang term to describe the diamonds.

The idea was to give somebody looking at the poster, or just hearing about the film, an impression of what kind of film this is.

Soundtrack For Our Film

Today we had a look on the internet for copyright free music.

Here are the three websites we went on to look for copyright free music:
incompetech.com
audiomicro.com
proudmusiclibrary.com

One piece of music that we agreed would fit our film particularilly well is 'Beethoven – Egmont Overture Op. 84)'.

As we found out though, even though the Beethoven's music is copyright free, the performance itself may be copyrighted.

We will therefore have to be careful not to use copyrighted material or might have to seek permission to use the music.

EDIT: In the end we managed to find a version of the piece that we were allowed to use.

Editing our Film

The editing of our film is now well underway, so I decided to make a post about the software I am using: Final Cut Pro X. I'm explaining the most important tools in FCPX in the image below.

Reshoot Day 3 (Recap)

Today we filmed the inside scene. With this being the main part of our film, we had to plan in the most time for it.

Here is a timelapse video, showing some of the filming we did on the day:

With all of the filming finished, we are moving on to the post production stage now!

DIY Steadicam

Since we don't have the budget for a camera track (or even a professional steadicam), I built this DIY steadicam out of a tripod and duct tape to ensure a steady shot for when the camera follows the running robbers.

The inspiration for this came from this video which I found when looking online for new techniques that can help us improve the look of our footage.

Me holding my DIY steady cam.

The result can be seen below:

Reshoot Day 1 (Recap)

Today was the first day of our reshoot-marathon.

Starting with the opening scene, we filmed in a completely different location – in the Windsor Great Park.

The Windsor Great Park is only a good 10 minute
drive away from our main shooting location.

Here we found a great place to shoot our first scene showing two of the robbers running away from where they stole the loot while the third one of them is waiting in the car, acting as the getaway driver.

The Windsor Great Park at its most beautiful.

After climbing over this fence, the robbers make their way
to the car.

This is the distance the robbers have to run:
Long enough to allow us to shoot
from a variety of angles and distances.

While Chicken and Horse are fleeing from the crime scene...

...Pig is waiting in the car, ready to drive off.

But what would a day of filming be without some challeges to overcome?

As it turned out we needed permission to film in the park, so we were stopped by the Park Rangers. After a short conversation everything was fine though, as they allowed us to continue filming as long as we inform them the next time we are planning to come there.

The friendly Park Rangers

Tonight I will create a rough cut of the first scene. The plan for tomorrow is to reshoot any shots that need fixing as well as adding any that are still missing (e.g. a shot of the car driving away).

Look what we did to ensure steady footage throughout the running sequence!

Film Riot's Guide to Preparing for Shooting a Short Film

Today, our constant source of inspiration and tips & tricks, Youtube channel Film Riot, uploaded a video that deals with the preparation for shooting a short film:

So, what can we take away from watching this video?
- Preparation is key
- It's important to know what equipment is available and how to use it
- A well thought-through and planned out storyline is essential
- Everyone on set needs to know what his job is

Reshooting our Film – Time Management

As a result of the audience feedback that we have received we decided to reshoot our film.

Here is the the calander showing how we are planning to proceed: