Early April - deadlines approaching

By April 1st, you must have a draft of your review copy and layout posted to the blog.

You should be gathering TARGET AUDIENCE FEEDBACK TOO.

Your work on the poster should be ongoing.
Don't forget that the final deadline for all 3 parts is Thursday April 7th!

Title and credits

You need to begin thinking about these now, as most of you are now editing.


Remember that you have choices - Tilte and credit on black screen or superimposed over the actual film. Look at existing short films that you have already conducted Textual analysis on and research different approaches. BLOG these and obviously, USE SCREENGRABS. In particular identify those ideas that you like and try to make connections between these and your own work.

Don't forget you need to design your production company LOGO aswell - this should appear both on your film credits and on the film poster.

Ancillary deadline one "Film Poster" - Sunday 6th March

For this deadline you will need to have posted the following :-

1. Each individual of group to upload an initial poster design. Try to develop this as much as you can - pay attenntion to the conventions and layout!

2. Justify/discuss your decisions about the design. You should be considering how it connects with the target audience, what it tells us about the narrative and clearly indicate genre. In terms of any characters, you need to be thinking about the representation.

3. Individuals can also post independent research on posters. Aswell as JUNO and BRIGHTON ROCK, I would like to see original research - choose atleast 2 other film posters for independnet, low budget, similar genre (to your short film) film.

Don't forget to consider format - use screengrabs and subtitles and bullet points - it would be helpful to me and yourselves, if you strutured your analysis around the 4 key areas of narrative, genre, audience and representation.

Use the checklist below to remind yourself of what could be included on your poster

Deadline - 18th February - Filming deadline and further research and planning deadlines.

1. RUSHES to be logged onto MAC under appropriate file
















PLUS

2. Discussions on the use of the camera - new techniques attempted, development of skills from last year (for instance many of you are experimenting with focus pulls and depth of field that was not evident last year), problems with shots, discuassion about lighting. With all these, illustrate with imagery, be evaluative - what went well, did not go well. Anything you would have liked to have done that you were unable to do.














3. Consider which images you can use from your footage for the Poster and Review imagery. Make comparisons to real promotional material and discuss similarities/differences.




































4. Target Audience feedback - post parts of your footage and seek responses.















5. As well as all the day to day decision making and planning taking place.


Make sure titles of posts are clear

Film Poster and Film Title

If you have completed all of the tasks for this deadline, but are unable to shoot, start to plan your film title and especially the design of the title and where it will appear in the sequence. This needs careful research into fonts, sizing, colour, animation and presentation in the frame. It's really important to brand your film, and the title design will need to be carried through to the poster. Don't forget that you need to take photos on your shoot for the poster - this will save you having to call back actors and perhaps revisiting your locations.




This is the title shown in the opening sequence






This is one of the official film posters





Note the similarities in font style and the idea of branding

Risk assessments - be safe when you film

You must consider and document the risks that you might face filming in your various locations. In addiiton, discuss how these potential risks are overcome.

Aswell as health risks, you must also consider other difficulties like filming children or filming in a public place or in sight of the public.


Risk - filming on a pavement running alongside road
Precautions to reduce risk - High vis jackets to be worn by non actors, keep camera away from curb,

In addition, ensure someone knows where you are when filming, always have permission, don't film in such a way as to cause unnecessary risk to yourself - leaning out over heights, not having safety belts on in cars if filming, ALWAYS BE SAFE!!!!!!

Animatics

Apparently, some students have been adding their favourite tracks to the animatic and uploading to youtube! Not surprisingly, youtube is threatening to remove these and students could lose their work. You shopuld only be adding commentary to the animatic (if any sound) to explain storyboard.

Don't forget, it is not necessary to storyboard all 5 mins - you can trarget particular parts of the 5 mins.