Film Poster Draft 2

Today I spent some more time working on my film poster and have created a second draft to move me forward with this part of the ancillary task. I did some quick research online to see what my poster was missing to make it look more conventional. I used this poster below as an example just to notice some of the general conventions a poster has. As you can see from my first draft here, the poster I have already created follows the conventions of having the actors names at the top, the background image as the general location, and the main actors/actresses edited onto that background. My title is also in large font and stands out. The one thing my first draft didn't have that this poster and most poster do have is the small text at the bottom which is hard to read as it is squashed together to fit. This text normally goes through the studio names and distributors, as well as mentioning all the actors in the film and everyone who worked behind the scenes to help produce it. This was something I decided to add to my poster, as well as changing around with the font to help create a second draft.

The second draft for my poster is below:

Reflective Comment:

I think that I am making good progress with my poster and I think that the next post of it is likely to be a finished version as there isn't much else I can do to improve it. Obviously I will need to continue to play around with things like the font and size to ensure that it looks as good as it can, but generally it is nearly finished. My next steps with it are to get some audience feedback so that I can see what people think of my poster and if they see it as looking real and believable.

Magazine Review Draft 2

With the ending of my film altered slightly, I now need to change the content in my magazine review because I wrote it before I'd decided on changing anything. I have already made a first draft of the review which can be seen here. Below is my second draft, I haven't changed many things because I am happy with most of it so far, I've just altered the end of the review so it makes sense with the end of my film.

'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.

Films with low budgets and short durations are a common thing amongst young students either looking to break into the film industry world, or simply creating a piece for their classwork. In this case, Josh Coe's short film 'The Stranger' relates to his classwork. This modern story about a girl who spends all of her time online, hating and ignoring her Mother, and speaking to random people will be more relatable to a younger generation as the film adopts a more modern theme.

Heidi Cooke's character of Clare, the typical teenager who hates her family and locks herself in her room all night is portrayed very well, and young viewers may be able to see themselves in this particular character. Her mother who is never actually named is played by Mandy Coe, and is a character every parent will hope to never end up like. We see her very briefly throughout the film doing nothing but sitting around drinking what we assume is something alcoholic with a tin of opened biscuits in front of her. Her lack of care and love to her daughter is clear throughout and we can easily see the broken relationship these two have.

As the films goes on, Clare attaches herself to a boy she meets online going by the name of Tom. They soon arrange to meet up in a dark alley where we soon realise that Tom is either not who he has made Clare believe he is, or just a complete murderer. As soon as we see the dark alley, as an audience we begin to predict that whatever comes next is not going to be good. What we don't predict is that the person who stabs Clare isn't in fact Tom, or so it seems. The scene of Clare's dead body fades out to reveal her laptop receiving messages from Tom telling her he couldn't make it, so as a whole we are left wondering what is the truth.
Perhaps what stands out as the film comes to a close is the clear regret we see on Clare's Mum's face as she stands over her grave. Their broken relationship is even clearer to us now, and we feel mixed emotions of sympathy for her Mum with losing her daughter, but also anger that she neglected her so much.

Reflective Comment:
Changing the ending to my magazine review was something I needed to do in order for my new scenes of my film to make sense. My next step is to add a third draft for my film with these new scenes included, and then this new draft will make sense with the plot.

Extra Filming

After watching back my two drafts and talking to some fellow students about it, we've all arrived at the conclusion that my film is missing some kind of twist toward the end, and as a whole it could be seen as quite predictable. Because of this, I've decided that the film would benefit more from an extra scene that created some kind of twist for the audience to think about. My plan was to do that piece of extra filming with my actress, Heidi, tonight, but due to circumstances beyond my control this can no longer happen. The scene we were going to film involved Tom coming to find Clare's dead body, and therefore meaning she had been killed by someone else other than Tom which would confuse the audience. Instead, I am going to shoot a quick scene of Clare's laptop sitting on her bed receiving constant messages from Tom telling her not to leave and that he couldn't make it. This will then make an audience wonder whether or not that was actually Tom who killed Clare and add a twist at the end of my production.
By changing the end of my film slightly, it means that the first draft I did for my magazine review no longer works because in the review I've mentioned how the film is quite predictable with the ending. Because of this, I now plan to compose a second draft for my magazine review that brings in this new scene.

Reflective Comment:
I think that adding this scene into my film will help boost it up in terms with the grade due to the development of the plot. Although I would like to film Heidi (Clare) down the alleyway again, this is not possible right now so I will use the messages coming through on the laptop as a substitute for this.

The Stranger Draft 2

With a first draft completed, I've now moved on and added some music at the start and end of my film to experiment and see how it fits. At the start of the film, I've added some copyright free music I found from research online. I used a website called Purple Planet (http://www.purple-planet.com/horror-old/4583971268), which had a number of free soundtracks I could use, specifically scary sounding tracks. I used one called 'Insidious', and put it at the start of my film just to see how it would fit with the opening scene. I then took the already recorded guitar tracks I created with my Dad and began playing around with them and seeing how they sounded at the end of my film where we see Clare's Mum over her dead daughters grave. I found that these all worked well and helped create a more sad ending. For this draft, I've added the 'Insidious' music at the start, and also one of the guitar tracks at the end just to show how my piece will look with some music. However, I do still need to record the foley sounds and add them in, so this is by no means a final draft.
The second draft is embedded below using Vimeo again.
Media from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflective Comment:
I am much more happy with my piece now that I've added some music. I am not entirely sure whether or not the music featured in this draft will be used for the final one, because I do still plan to play around with some more tracks to ensure that it sounds and fits as well as it can. This draft could have been better with some foley sounds throughout, however I haven't quite got around to recording them yet, but as soon as I did I will create a third draft with these added in and perhaps some different sound tracks just to show how I have tried different things.

Magazine Review First Draft

Today I've decided to focus more on my ancillary tasks to ensure that they get done on time, specifically my magazine review. In my previous post here, you can see that I picked 'Indie Wire' as the website to base my review on as they include independent film reviews which works for me. Below, I am just going to write the review as a first draft as best I can so I have a starting point with the text. In normal black font I have begun writing the review, and in red font I've talked about what I've written in each paragraph and why I've used it.

First Draft:
'Stranger' Review: Short budget thriller grips audiences to the mystery created.
From looking on the 'Indie Wire' website, I've seen that every single review starts with a brief sentence about what the film is and what it delivers to an audience. As a starting point I've picked a brief sentence for mine.

Films with low budgets and short durations are a common thing amongst young students either looking to break into the film industry world, or simply creating a piece for their classwork. In this case, Josh Coe's short film 'The Stranger' relates to his classwork. This modern story about a girl who spends all of her time online, hating and ignoring her Mother, and speaking to random people will be more relatable to a younger generation as the film adopts a more modern theme.
The opening paragraph of the reviews typically start with a quick overview of either what the film is about or who the main character is, along with some information about how the film has been made. In this case, I talk about why the film was created by me and also give a brief overview about my main character Clare and what she is like, as well as talking about how the film is aimed at a modern audience.

Heidi Cooke's character of Clare, the typical teenager who hates her family and locks herself in her room all night is portrayed very well, and young viewers may be able to see themselves in this particular character. Her mother who is never actually named is played by Mandy Coe, and is a character every parent will hope to never end up like. We see her very briefly throughout the film doing nothing but sitting around drinking what we assume is something alcoholic with a tin of opened biscuits in front of her. Her lack of care and love to her daughter is clear throughout and we can easily see the broken relationship these two have.
This paragraph in a review then goes on to talk in more depth about the characters and also presses into more details about the plot itself. I followed these conventions in this paragraph by talking about the way that Clare and her Mum are portrayed by the actors, as well as going in detail about the relationship they have.

As the films goes on, Clare attaches herself to a boy she meets online going by the name of Tom. They soon arrange to meet up in a dark alley where we soon realise that Tom is either not who he has made Clare believe he is, or just a complete murderer. As soon as we see the dark alley, as an audience we begin to predict that whatever comes next is not going to be good. Perhaps what stands out as the film comes to a close is the clear regret we see on Clare's Mum's face as she stands over her grave. Their broken relationship is even clearer to us now, and we feel mixed emotions of sympathy for her Mum with losing her daughter, but also anger that she neglected her so much.
The final paragraph of the reviews I've been reading from IndieWire always close the article up by talking about how the film ends and what type of effect this has on an audience. As you can see from this paragraph, I draw the review to a close by talking Clare's death and the effect it has on her Mother and what this makes us feel as an audience.

Reflective Comment:
Getting this first draft completed for my magazine review has moved me forward a lot with my ancillary tasks and therefore forward in getting all of the coursework done as a whole. With this draft now completed, I can work on improving parts, changing parts, and adding parts to eventually end up with a complete magazine review of my film. Generally, I think that I did this draft quite well and I think the voice and tone of the writing works with the format of a review. My A Level in Creative Writing has helped me a lot to do this, and I was confident when writing it.

The Stranger First Draft

Now that I have put together all of my scenes for my production, I've decided to post a first draft of the whole film. Because this piece is only a first draft, there isn't any music in the film. At the start where you can see my main character tapping her feet, I plan to have some introduction music to help start of the film. And also at the end of the film where we see Clare's Mum standing over a gravestone, I plan to add the music I previously recorded of my Dad playing guitar. The post with the soundtracks I made can be seen by clicking here.
The draft itself is embedded below using Vimeo (it seems boring and quiet but sound will be added).
Media from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflective Comment:
I am very happy now that I have managed to produce a first draft for my film. There are some aspects of it that I think may need changing or things that will need adding. Obviously as I've mentioned I need to add sound at the beginning and end, as well as foley sounds throughout to make it seem less quiet and bare. Also, I am unsure whether or not I want the opening scene to be my actress Heidi tapping her foot, or if I will quickly reshoot something else for this part. As a whole, I think I've edited the clips together well and will be experimenting with some sound over it soon.

Music

With all of the filming for my production now completed, I've moved onto looking at the sounds that will feature throughout, specifically music. The last 30 seconds of the film features Clare's dead body along with her Mum standing at her gravestone. In the background of these scenes, I had always planned to have a guitar playing some sad music to help emphasise the emotion within these scenes. There are many ways I went about trying to do this.
Firstly, I began doing some research online into royalty free music, meaning I could use it without having any copyright issues. After looking online for a while, I managed to find many websites that offered copyright free music, however the style and sound of the guitar work didn't quite match what I had in mind for my production, and so I decided not to go with this idea.
Instead, I began having conversations with my Dad, who can play acoustic guitar, about what I wanted in my film and how I wanted it to sound. We then spent time on his guitar trying to create what I wanted (him playing with me constantly talking about what I wanted changing to fit my production). After a while, we were able to come up with some guitar work that could feature at the end of my film when we see Clare dead. I am not entirely sure which one I will put in my film yet, and so as I starting point I have embed them all below within SoundCloud.



Reflective Comment:
I think that having music featured in my film that I have helped create myself will work a lot better for my production because it is much more of what I wanted and sounds exactly how I imagined it rather than having to use a piece from the internet that sounds very different. To improve this post, I could have perhaps include more of a variety of sounds with the guitar tracks, however I need them all to sound similar so that they fit the scenario my film has created.

Foley Sounds

Now that I have all of the scenes for my film completely done, I have begun to think about the sound effects that I will need. I've decided that the ending scene in my film after Clare dies will have sad music playing and so no sound effects will be needed for this. As for the rest of my film, there are some scenes were I require some sound effects, and my first aim is to try and create them myself.

• Message sent sound: As Clare sends each message to Tom, I want to try and have a sound that acknowledges that the message has been sent. With the iPhone, there is the familiar 'swoosh' sound which would be ideal. However, using this would be copyright and so I am going to look into creating my own, or if I can't finding a free effect online.

• Message receiving sound: As Tom replies to each message I want to have a sound of Clare's laptop receiving that message. Again, I can't use any already existing ones as this could class as copyright, so I will try and find something that is 'royalty free; or attempt to create my own.

• Stabbing sound on Clare: When Clare is down the alley she is stabbed by who we assume is Tom. To make this scene as realistic as possible, I want to try and create a sound of this stabbing to shock the audience. After looking online, I've found that there are some royalty free sounds of someone being stabbed, so this is an option for me.

• Footsteps: I've noticed that throughout my film there seems to be a lot of silence, and so adding in simple things such as footsteps will help bring it all together and make it seem more real. These will be fairly easy to create as I just have to record steps on whatever surface the character is walking at the time.

Reflective Comment:

Looking at the foley sounds for my piece has helped to move me forward with completing my film. With these considered, I can now begin to try and create them or if not look online to find them. To make this point better I could have included examples of the sounds, but it isn't easy to embed them from the internet without downloading them and I don't want to do that until I'm sure of what I need. Overall I think this post works well by talking about the different sound effects I need and how I'm planning to create them.

Plan For Final Week

Next week is the final week of sixth form before our half term break of a week, meaning that I must meet some deadlines with my coursework during this half term break. The date for everything to be done is the 20th February.
The trail I have on my MacBook for Final Cut Pro expires in 13 days, meaning that completing all of the editing of my film is my first and main focus in order to export it completely done before the trail ends. I have one final scene to film which will be done either tomorrow or Sunday, giving me the whole of next week to put it together and begin thinking about and creating music.
I have already made good progress with the ancillary task of a film poster, completing a few drafts already and being very close to posting a final completed task. Because of this, not much focus needs to be set on this task as good progress has been made.
For the other ancillary task of the film magazine review, little progress has been made and so this along with finishing the main task of the film are my main tasks for next week. I need to compose a draft of the text for the review, as this is the main focus for the task. Obviously the design and look of the review is important and must be considered, but I am more focused on ensuring that the text within the review matches conventions.