WELCOME EXAMINER

MAX GREEN
CANDIDATE NUMBER 1629
CLAREMONT FAN COURT SCHOOL

Welcome to my blog!

I worked with LUCY SPALDING 1666, YUE CHUNG CHAN 0972 and SARAH MILLARD 1648

Our brief was to make film trailers for a fictional thriller film. The title of our film is III Days.

All my RESEARCH and PLANNING follow below on the main blog roll, in reverse order, starting with the latest first. To present my research and planning, I have used a wide variety of platforms and tools. These include; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Adobe after effects, Scoopit!, Piktochart, Final cut pro, Slideshare, Canva, Prezi and Visme.

EDITING

I have contributed into the overall editing process of our production. However, the main focus of my editing contribution can be seen within the voice overs and suspenseful, fast paced editing- leading to a climax within our trailer. The editing includes fades in and out of audio and fast paced hard cuts, showing an elliptical method of narrative. To edit this I used Final Cut pro.

DIRECTING

We all took responsibilities in the directing of our film opening  working together as a team to direct specific scenes. In particular I lead the directing in the scene where Jack Masters is being interviewed by the police. I told the actors how to say their lines with what tone, speed and volume to speak with along with the facial expressions. This all accumulated to help create the tension we were aiming for.

CAMERA WORK

When it comes to camera work, I excelled in the the shots for the clue board. I decided the angles and movement of Camera work which involved close ups, extreme close ups and tracking shots. This gave us time to incorporate the credits we needed along with giving smaller pieces of a wider event that is revealed at the end of the scene. Similarly, I helped angle certain mirrored or reflection shots which were essential in creating the idea of an invasion of privacy.

CONSTRUCTION: MY FILM TRAILERS

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING

From my research, I discovered that the theme which was most intriguing to me was the trailers that focused on an invasion of someone's life or privacy. We tried to convey this concern within our film through the plot, and more specifically, through the camera work. 
The issues that the trailer opens up involve society’s sense of insecurity about our personal safety in an age of surveillance and internet cybercrime. Jack’s home, a warm haven with soft lighting, locked doors and a comfortable buffer of wealth, is disturbed by unexplained threats and intrusions. He is plunged into a state of uncertainty and vulnerability in the very place where he should be safe. This is suggested by visual codes like reflective surfaces (the mirror, the silver globe bowl) which imply that someone else is spying on him, that there is a voyeur in the house.

CONSTRUCTION: INVESTIGATION BOARD

In order to film a montage of extreme close up shots which lead up to the climax of the trailer, we needed to have a detailed prop of an investigation board. We cut up newspaper, used sticky notes and red string to construct the board. We decided on the red string as it was sinister and is a striking colour, captivating our audiences.

CONSTRUCTION: SOCIAL MEDIAS

I discovered from my research into film posters and website that each production has a strong social media presence- predominately on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We created our own, dividing up each social media between us:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

CONSTRUCTION: PROPS

NEWSPAPERS

For the scene where Jack Masters discovers the death of the woman from the first letter we were sure we wanted the information to be found from a newspaper article. In the construction phase of this prop, I used Photoshop to curate an A3 realistic newspaper article. 

I began by choosing an article from the internet:

Although we were aware this article had no relevance to our trailer, we really liked the layout of the article. Within Photoshop Yue Chung replaced the image with a photograph that had been previously taken of Jenny Mann (Olivia Blake) which I sugguested edited into black and white in order to make the article more realistic. We then inserted a black box over the text discussing the election and replaced it with the text 'Olivia Blake, mother of two, gone missing.'. In order to further make the newspaper article more believable, we copied an element of text and pasted it over the election figures seen on the left hand side along with the bar code.

My production team and I found that after printing it did not look very realistic due to the harsh white the paper presented. In order to make it look a little more like a newspaper article Lucy and Sarah used tea bags to tint the paper and then stuck it onto a newspaper which had already existed in order to make the thickness realistic as well. Overall, I am very pleased with this prop.

LETTERS

CONSTRUCTION: BBFC CERTIFICATE

We first consulted the BBFC site to decide the age rating for our film 'III Days'. I based my decision that it is suitable for 15 years or older on the criteria below.

I then make our own BBFC certificate through photoshop, where I find a similar font to make it look more realistic.