Trailer Construction

Above is the fourth cut of my trailer. I corrected the mistake with the "S" in the last sequence. To add something extra and more edgy, I tried increasing the contrasts of the shots, but that didn't really seemed to work and it lost the look that it had before, so I reverted back to the previous settings. I invited people who could be in my target audience to comment it on youtube, to give me some audience feedback. I have gained some feedback that it is still a bit long and that there is a shot near the end (1:47) that features the subject talking, but there is no audible dialogue. I don't think this is a negative point, as there is a dialogue over the top, and it could be read as him not being paid attention to/ being ignored, which would again echo the purpose/ idea behind the film. Below are some comments that I received in response to this cut of the trailer and nobody seemed to have any criticisms of the trailer when I showed it to them.

Below is a short clip of one person in my target audience who I asked their opinion of regarding my trailer. The clip isn't very long, but they didn't have any criticisms and their feedback was very positive. They understood the message and meaning of the trailer straight away - also commenting that it appealed to trendies and indie scenesters and explaining why. I also had other chats like this one with other people who could be in my target audience to find out the strengths and weaknesses of my work, but sadly I didn't film them.

This is the third rough cut of my trailer. I have gotten rid of the soundtrack that I made in Garageband, and imported some sound files that I recorded myself; one on an acoustic guitar and one on an electric using a "FuzzBrite" and "Danelectro" pedal. These pedals gave quite a good 60s/garage sound, which sadly became slightly distorted when I recorded it through an amplifier using a microphone. Below is a picture of the guitar and equipment I used, recording the sound into a laptop.

Despite this fact, I still think it sounds much better than the Garageband soundtracks and I think it fits in with the tone of the trailer much better, giving a more gritty and home-made sound. I used one acoustic and one electric track to reflect the variation of emotions that would be in the film really; low feelings like sadness and despair, and more edgier, hard-hitting feelings like anger or happiness. I also managed to cut down 27 seconds of the trailer, making it more the length of a real trailer. I got rid of a few shots which I thought could be irrelevant and hinder the audience understanding it, such as the shot of the sky turning round and this also helped me to make the trailer more like a real trailer length. I lost the rest of the time by cutting shots down to the bare minimum that they needed to be seen. I think I have improved it a lot from the last rough cut and I'm pleased with the outcome.

However, after asking my peers what they thought of it, a couple of people pointed out that they aren't sure what the story-line actually is. This could be a problem, because the point or the idea of the film was that there was no story-line; it is just about a young boy growing up but not identifying with anything and trying to find a way through that - it's meant to be like real life. So, I think this problem could be solved by creating or inserting some text to create a bit of a narrative thread throughout the trailer. I could possibly add another voiceover, with a different speaker to give the audience an idea of some kind of narrative, but I don't want to over-complicate things, I want to keep a kind of simplicity that mirrors the life of the character in the trailer. Also, I don't want there to be too many sounds; when there was no soundtrack, the trailer seemed dull, but it seemed acceptable and I liked the background noise in everything, but if I add too many sounds, I don't want to lose that feel. I have also noticed that the in the end sequence of letters and short shots, the "S" is too big for the area it is in, so is cut off and then fades out, which I will need to go back to and correct.

This is the second rough cut of my trailer. I corrected the colour issue that was present in the first rough cut, and added a soundtrack. I created the soundtrack using Garageband, but I'm not really very happy with it. Below is a screenshot of me using the software to create a trailer song.

It sounds really dull and I'm not very competent at using the software at all, so I ended up looping the same instrumental sections over and over, which I don't think sounds great. There also weren't any sounds that I could find that sounded especially 60s or nostalgic. I think that to overcome this I will try recording myself playing the songs that I originally wanted to use on the guitar and see what they sound like in the trailer. I also added a shot saying "presents" after someone commented that it would enhance the trailer and make it look more professional. However, after seeing in the trailer after uploading it into my blog, I have to say that I disagree and I don't think it really fits as I had to use the font Arial to have continuation with the text at the end of the trailer, and it just looks dull and unnecessary. In addition to this the trailers that I used in my textual analysis did not contain this feature, so I think I will cut this out of my trailer.

This is the first rough cut of my trailer. Basically, so far I've captured/imported the footage and institutional logos, putting them in order in coordance with my storyboards and uploaded it to see what it looks like so far. I used the "desaturate" tool in Final Cut Express to make the footage greyscale, but as you can see I missed out one shot by mistake. There also isn't any soundtrack, so it looks a bit dull and boring, which I will try to change. It's quite long at the moment, at 2 minutes 32 seconds, so I may have to shorten some shots as trailers aren't really that long normally. I think there are some good shots in my trailer however, and I am pleased with the voice-overs/monologues and how they fit with the footage. I need to alter the sequence of shots towards the end of the trailer, which I can't do until I have a soundtrack, because I intended them to be fast-paced and in time to some 60s sounding music. I like that the look of the trailer is quite rough and plain and I think it fits in well with the narrative.

This is a screengrab of using Final Cut Express, which I am using to create my trailer. I'm suprised at how quick and easy the process of getting used to the software has been and I enjoy using the programme. However, there are still alot of features that I have not used, or featured in my trailer. I plan to do so during the process of making the trailer.

Soundtrack Problem

Today our media class was told that our teachers have been informed by OCR that we aren't allowed to use a copyrighted soundtrack, regardless of whether or not we had been granted permission from the artist to do so. This means that I will have to create a soundtrack myself, which will be a problem as I am not very competent at using Garageband, as I have previously found out. The soundtrack was what I was hoping would thread my trailer together, as the lyrics and nostalgic sound contributed to the narrative. However, I will nevertheless have to spend some time using the music software and getting to grips with how it works. This will probably eat into my production time as it will now be the largest chunk of production taking up the most time.

Shooting

11 September - 12 September

I really like this image as well. Pete isn't positioned the same as in the flatplans, but I think it still looks good for either the film poster or film magazine cover. I took all of the photos on location at the car park, instead of out in the open as I intended to for the magazine cover image. I did this because I thought it was a great atmospheric location, that helped to reflect a lot of the sentiment that I wanted to be in the film trailer.

I would have liked the above image for the film poster, if it wasn't for the fact that you can see myself reflected in Pete's glasses. However, I could use this image for the film magazine cover and collage over this reflection, which I think would look really good, but it may be abit too close to/similar to the image I want to use for the film poster.

I really like the above image and I think it would look great with text over for the film poster. Below is the image in greyscale, not heavilly edited, but just to give a rough idea of what it would look like, which I think looks pretty good. It was a lot harder to take photos from this position, which was the one I had planned to take it from, than I intended. This was partially because I'm not as tall as Pete, and partially because the sun kept reflecting in his glasses, or casting my shadow onto him. So, there is still some light being reflected, which I couldn't really help. I also like the "UP" written on the floor in the background as it matches the film title "Rise.":

These are some photos taken during filming, showing me capturing shots of Carol leaving the house as shown in the storyboard.

Shooting Schedules

This is a scanned in shooting schedule that I used for the stills camera on the days of shooting. I didn't actually stick precisely to it however, and I just took as many shots as I could.

Below are scannings of the photoshoot plans that I used during the course of filming. I used them to record when each shot was taken, and what each shot was of, which will be useful and make the footage easy to navigate my way around when it comes to the editing stage. I wasn't really sure about editing decisions as of yet, so I made some notes about what I think would work with each shot, but they aren't anything definite, as I think it would be very hard to tell how to edit the footage without watching it properly yet.

During the filming, I decided to get rid of the shots where passers-by in the street were shouting "Oi wanker" at the main character. This was partly due to not being able to get all my models together at the same convenient time, and it was also partly due to the fact that I had quite a lot of footage and I thought for the purpose of the trailer that it wasn't needed and it would save time, leaving more chance to get other good shots.

Alterations to Plans

On the Tuesday before shooting, my main actor (John) dropped out of my project because of an important enagement. I asked my friend Pete to step in for me, which he agreed to, and below is the model release form and call sheet for him.

This change also meant changing the main character's name, of which he now has none. I thought that as there are no names mentioned, this wouldn't matter and also adds an absence/sense of removal that could reflect isolation. Also, other films that I like have the feature of nameless characters, such as "Withnail And I" and "Is Anybody There?" - a name adds identity and a past which I don't want my character to have because I want him to be purely relateable.