WELCOME, MODERATOR

Welcome moderator! I am Bryn Williams 9156 and I worked entirely on my own.

I hope you enjoy my blog, which contains my work on my G324 Advanced Portfolio. I chose brief 10, a short film which I named GOTCHA as well as my two ancillary products, a film poster and a radio trailer. 

The research, planning and final ancillary products are in  individual 'pages' above.
My four evaluation questions are also above.

RADIO TRAILER

My radio trailer can be found here

MY FINISHED FILM

My film can be found here

POSTER

When making the final design for my poster I opted to make a design which positioned the boy as in control. To start I chose a font which was appropriate for the film. I then decided to put an image of the three girls into the letters. The girls are all looking up (which will be where the boy is) creating a sense of distrust towards the boy.

Here I added the picture of the boy. I positioned him so it appears as if he is leaning on the word 'Gotcha'.  He is then seen as the person the girls are looking at. He is positioned with a smile to make him appear slightly smug and proud of himself which matches the character he plays in the film.

Here I changed the font of my tag line to make it more casual. I added the twitter, Facebook and Instagram symbols. Then finally made the 'Coming July 2015' match the colour of the boys tie to make it stand out.

I repositioned the social media symbols. I also added a silhouette of 2 martini glasses and a beer glass as they are used in my film. I positioned them in the open space under the tag line. This is my final poster for my short film. 

RADIO TRAILER

clink of beer glasses
'its always the girls that cheat'
Butt, sometimes 1 girl just isn't enough
3 dates
3 girls
So whats gonna happen when they realize its the same guy
'i know what we need to do'
Gotcha, a new short film by Bryn Williams Certificate 15
Premiering next month at the BFI Future Film Festival on the 21st February 2015 at BFI Southbank London as part of an exciting day of affordable screen fiction for young film makers and audiences. 

• Firstly, an Introductory soundtrack with key sound codes that signal genre
• An Introductory voice over which often specifies the genre
  One go-getting guy. Three great dates. Three great girls. Each thinks they're 'the one'. But what happens when Amy goes to her Zumba class and finds that Bella's been drinking Bellinis with her man and Cindy's been snuggling up to him in the cinema. Blindsided, a new short film by Bryn Williams Certificate 15
  
• A section of dialogue from the actual movie, this is usually dramatic and sets expectations and key themes
• especially when Amy goes to her Zumba class and finds that Bella's been drinking Bellinis with her man and Cindy's been snuggling up to him in the cinema.
• The musical soundtrack is usually from the movie and it underpins dialogue the dialogue

• Spoken tag line from the poster
• They finish with a voice over giving information on when and where the film is showing. Premiering next month at the BFI Future Film Festival on the 21st February 2015 at BFI Southbank London as part of an exciting day of affordable screen fiction for young film makers and audiences.

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING FINAL SCENE

When viewing my original filming of this scene I noticed that the lighting was to dark so I had to refilm with better lighting

POSTER: INITIAL IDEAS

This is the original picture taken which I planned to use

At first I planned to place the main characters on a white background. However, on photoshop it was difficult to precisely isolate the characters.

CONSTRUCTION: TEXT MESSAGES

Originally, I tried to make the the texts come up on the screen in an imessage style. However, when doing this because i was adding layers over the original video which affected the colour of the original image.

 Therefore, instead of using the imessage bubbles I opted for text on the screen. This allowed the colour of the film to remain the same and still allow the message of the text to be passed onto the viewer.

PROPS FOR THE WINE BAR SCENE

CONSTRUCTION: DESIGNING THE TITLE

I chose Coolvetica

PLANNING: MONDAYS SHOOT AND CREDITS

Text: hey babe

miss you loads!
Jerry

Girl 1: Aw, Jerry, how sweet
Girl 2: Jerry? let me see.
Girl3: What, Jerry? The scheming cheat!
Girl 1: Right girls, I know what were going to do...

Cut to FB page

Cut to CU of Jerry, face in hands dismayed. His face breaks into irrepressible smile: Tomorrow's another day


taking from tomorrows another day, dating websites for credits

TRELLO

PLANNING: PHOTOSHOP

Today I spent some time practicing using Photoshop. A possibility for my poster is to have a picture of the man with within his torso. Therefore, I tried to practice doing this on Photoshop. As you can see from the picture below, alignment of the image of the girls is difficult however, it is possible to do.

EXPLORE FILMAKING: NATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL

I have signed up for a Future Learn course. What attracts me to the course is the opportunity to explore film making and learn from professionals how they take a script to the screen, how they use film language to deliver the plot and theme and, in particular, the special qualities of short films. I hope that it will improve both my film making and my quality of articulate reflection.

In week 2 I learned a good deal about short film making from Destiny Ekaragha in the unit called Having Vision, Telling Stories. Destiny Ekaragha's first short film, Tight Jeans (2008), was chosen for the London Film Festival in that year. She then went on to make her first feature film, Gone Too Far (2014) which was given cinema release is 2014.

What I learned from this introduction confirmed what I had already researched about short films

•  They differ from feature films not just in length. In a short there isn't enough time for such extensive exposition of themes or introduction to key characters.
• Shorts require real economy of action, dialogue, plot and locations to be effective
• Shorts require film makers to work within limitations, most obviously of budget.

What I learned about the difference between plot + theme

• Theme is main points of the story, an idea that runs throughout the entire movie
• Plot is what happens to the person

What I learned about visual language

Gone Too Far (Destiny Ekaragha, 2014)

Gotcha (Bryn Williams, 2015)

• In my two shot, the boys discuss the themes that run through the film (relationship issues, dealing with women, men's roles)
• I chose my camera angles very carefully: like Destiny's camerawork, I leave the camera "flat on them". I place my 2 characters opposite each other and I leave the camera on them for a long time. This signals to the audience the significance of this scene as the exposition.
• Considerations for my target audience lie at the heart of my film: it shows a scenario that concerns my target audience very closely - the pitfalls and challenges of the dating scene.
• I use over the shoulder shots and reaction shots to show the boys' emotions towards the subject.

PLANNING: POSTER

I have researched short film posters and identified a set of codes and conventions which I have used to inform my initial planning of my film poster.

• Producer's name: A Bryn Williams film
• Film Title in large font: GOTCHA
• Production Company: Hands On
• Names of actors: Elliot Hogan, Agatha Parry, Amber Saville, Georgina Self, Bryn Williams
• Written, directed and produced by: Bryn Williams
• COMING SOON
• WWW.HANDSON.COM/GOTCHA
• Twitter
• HANDSON PRESENTS GOTCHA STARRING BRYN WILLIAMS   ELLIOT HOGAN   AMBER SAVILLE
  GEORGINA SELF    AGATHA PARRY   WRITTEN   DIRECTED   &  PRODUCED   BY   BRYN WILLIAMS
                                                                                                                                                              COMING SOON
                                                                                                                      WWW.HANDSON.COM/GOTCHA

CONSTRUCTION: IDENT

In today's lesson I made my Production Company's ident. My idea was to use 2 articulating hands and use stop motion to create  the ident. I used iStop Motion to assist me, this program compiles all the individual photos together into a movie resulting in what looks like a moving image. I called my Production Company HANDS ON

SNAPCHAT

Throughout this year I have been watching Casey Neistat on youtube and snapchat. He is a film maker with 480,000 subscribers on his youtube channel. I looked at his use of snapchat stories. As a result I plan to use snapchat stories to document some of my creative work.

FEEDBACK PUB SCENE

I received very positive feedback on this sequence from the rest of my group and from other members of my year group, especially the boys. My male target audience immediately picked up on what i was trying to achieve: male bonding and boasting over the subject of female conquests. Two aspects in particular were singled out for praise: the realistic mise-en-scene of the pub environment, props like beer and the warm cosy atmosphere and that encouraged the "boys will be boys" atmosphere. The use of visual codes such as the symmetry of the chairs, boys and glasses was also noted. this functions as a device to show how much in tune the boys are in their attitudes to girls and equally importantly as a visual bridge and match cut to the next scene which opens with 2 cocktail glasses.

CONSTRUCTION: CORRECTING FOOTAGE

During my edit, I was faced with the technical challenge of cropping some footage that was framed in black. 

 

 To over come this I had to crop the video when editing. I did so in a way which still started with a close up of the glasses then zoomed out to reveal the girl and man.

After cropping, the image then filled the full required space.

PLANNING: COCKTAIL BAR MISE EN SCENE

In order to get an idea to create my mise en scene I looked at Degas' painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. I will use tighter framing as illustrated by the red box. Recently cocktails have become more popular among younger people, therefore it is ideal for my target audience. When I create this scene i will use more bottles and glasses within the frame and only have the bartenders hands visable.