IV Trailer

We uploaded the video to Elena's brothers Vimeo account, Vimeo is an easy video sharing site giving us the opportunity to upload videos wherever and whenever .

IV Trailer from Louis Christodoulou on Vimeo.

My individual analysis of everything i have done so far

Trailer

Overall i believe that we have learnt many things along the way during the experience we have had in making the trailer.
From day one filming where we where extremely unorganised, even though we had created plans they was no where near as detailed as they should have been, looking back to the filming day one akll of the footage we shot hasnt been used, that really shows the unprofessional approach we began with. However, we learnt from out mistakes and began planning properly, we word processed everything leaving it easily edited and corrected. We added fades and dissolves where we wanted which helped benefit during editing, we also planned more than one shot for most of the filming in order to give us a wider variation when editing.

Despite our trailer not being an exact follow from the plan, it still created a basic structure for us to follow giving us room to expand on ideas and our knowledge of the camera work/skills.

Website

From just learning how to use iWeb this year im very proud of my success within helping to create a website for our soap, with all of our combined creativity we was able to create a unique web page which best represents our soap and targets its specified audience. With the bright colours and big shapes and writing we have targetted it at an age range of 16-25.

We showed the trailer to a number of teenagers and recorded their feedback, this is also uplaoded onto the website for other teenagers to see what others think about it.

Front Cover

I recently learnt how to use photoshop , i used youtube to get onto step by step guides on how to use photoshop. i also bought a Photoshop starters manual aswell, and so i began structuring and designing my Television magazine front cover. i researched other magazinge guides and i decided to stick to the more sophisticated and modern front cover, despite our audinece being youths i still felt that with students they like to handle things they would never usually buy.

The Planning For Group Filming Day One- Three

For every filming day Me and Natalie M organised a plan in order to make our filming days run smoothly.

Day 2- Filming Schedule Sheet

FADE IN

1. Wide shot

- Thegla sitting on the bed, crying, everything in shot.

-Hair down, make up running

-Props: tissues on bed scrunched up, notes on bed, artificial lighting.
2. Close up

-Front shot of Theglas face, crying red eyes, looks down at notes
3.

(i) Point of view shot

- looking down at notes, Theglas hands and legs in shot.

(ii) Over the Shoulder shot

-Side of Theglas head in shot, her head begins focused, notes can be seen but out of focus, she picks up note “WE”, note focuses, head unfocused.

FADE/DISSOLVE

4. Low shot (floor)

- Feet walking past the camera, shadows help to add to the dreary effect
5. Wide shot


- (i) letter box, post dropping

- (ii) Post drops, Thegla walks into shot picks up post

- Props: Newspaper, note: “WE”, basic letters, leaflets (-focus on newspaper to allow audience to understand note later on)

FADE/DISSOLVE

6. over the shoulder shot

- (i) See Thegla putting the note “WE” away from the other notes

-(ii) same shot, Thegla in focus, picks up the note “KNOW” , she fades out of focus, the note focuses .
Props: tissues on bed scrunched up, notes on bed, artificial lighting.

FADE/DISSOLVE

7. Side shot, panning around Thegla from right hand side to over the shoulder-

-Thegla sitting at the table- sorting out her books, getting a pen out of her pencil case.

-when camera stops over the shoulder she opens her folder, turns pages, sees post it note with “KNOW” written on it, goes to pick it up- assuring the audience she has seen the note.

-Props- Folder, pencil case, phone, pens, highlighters etc

FADE/DISSOLVE

8.
(i) Reaction shot-Close up, shocked, loud breathing closes eyes, tear falling.

(ii) Pans around from front shot to over the shoulder- Theglas head in focus puts down note “KNOW” next to note “WE” which is separated from the others, notes out of focus.

(iii) Thegla picks up note “WHAT”, as note is brought closer to her, it focuses- shows her hand shaking.

Props: tissues on bed scrunched up, notes on bed, artificial lighting.

FADE/DISSOLVE

9. Wide shot-

- shot from the hallway, (sound of keys) Thegla opens the door walks into the house carrying shopping bags, walks directly past the camera.

10. side shot-


- Thegla walks into shot, stands with the camera on her side, tips open one of the bags onto the table, and she picks up the clothing- now on the table, as she unfolds clothing, note falls out drops onto the floor- doesn’t take much notice of it.

Props: keys, shopping bags, clothing, note

FADE/DISSOLVE

11.

(i) Reaction shot-Close up, shocked, loud breathing closes eyes, tears falling.

(ii) Wide shot - Thegla picks up note “DID”, as note is brought closer to her, it focuses- shows her hand shaking.

Props: tissues on bed scrunched up, notes on bed, artificial lighting.

FADE/DISSOLVE

12. DID - outdoor scene walks in note is in pocket


13.

(i) Reaction shot-Close up, shocked, loud breathing closes eyes, tears falling.

(ii) Pans around from front shot to over the shoulder- Theglas head in focus puts down note
“DID” with the other notes.

(iii) Point of view shot - Thegla looking at notes in order of “WE KNOW WHAT DID”.

(iiii) Reaction shot – Thegla looking confused but still worried, tears and make up running down
her face.look of recognition appears.

FADE/DISSOLVE

14.
(i) Wide shot Thegla sitting watching tv, phone beeps

(ii) Over the shoulder shot – Thegla opens text from unknown sender

(iii) Point of view shot – text on the screen showing just the word “YOU”

(iiii) Reaction shot – looking worried but not taking too much notice of note. Puts phone down

Props: tv, phone

FADE/DISSOLVE

(v) Wide shot - Thegla gets up off bed and gets her phone

(vi) Point of view shot, phone in focus, hand shaking – text seen earlier with the word “YOU.”

(vii) Thegla places phone in place between notes “WHAT” and “DID”.

(viii) Reaction shot – Thegla looking terrified, panic in her eyes

15. Point of view shot- all notes including phone.


Props: tissues on bed scrunched up, notes on bed and phone, artificial lighting.

BLACK OUT/FADE IN

15. Close-up of dead body, camera zooms out showing a wide shot of dead body lying in the street.

FADE IN

17. I.V appears on screen

FADE OUT

by Elena Christodoulou

Group Filming Day Three- Photos

Theres a picture of me and Natalie M dealing with the lighting issue, there is also a picture where Natalie M is laying on the ground, we believed that this position particularly was to staged and unrealistic so we opted for the more rundown end of the alley, which really added to the realism.

Finding The Music

There was an OCR sheet that had a number of links for music websites, many of them had to be bought and prices ranged from $30-$50.

I found a track i liked from "West One Productions" however after emailing them if it would be possible to use there track i decided to take the safer option and just carry on searching for copyright free music.

I remebered that from last years music problem we found the London Grid For Learning (lgfl) website where track downloads are free and downloadable via the school, however they where still low priced so i decided to just purchase it from home and get on with the editing straight away.

Editing progress

EDITING

We chose to use Final Cut Pro because i feel more confident with this programme and feel more comfotable using it.

I ingested all the film from day one and two filming including the interview scene too, within correct time codes and waited for the clips to render. i used keyboard shortcuts to cut in (I) and cut out (O) of the film in order to save the clips i renamed them in order to make editing easier. For example, during the interview scenes i renamed them as Question one Take two, Question two Take three, Question 3 Take one, etc...

I arranged the scenes in order of the way they come up, for example, the note DID comes before the note WE is found.

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Yesterday (Monday 1st February) I ingested the film from Day 3 filming and watched it through to make sure the sound was alright, because during filming we noticed that the sound was jumping, so we changed the tape just incase it was faulty.

I went through the clips and marked them in and out, renaming them to make it easier to establish between the different scenes. I began editing together the clips adding fades and black outs, i decided a dissolve effect was better than a fade in fade out effect because it looks more dreamy, asif the character was having a flashback.

Our planning was beneficial because i new exactly how the group wanted it and was able to follow through faster. The group came round to see my progress and gave valid points on things which they felt needed to be added and changed.

With the music, i found one which best suited the video, its low percussion, piano with a slight beat 30 seconds in, i like the way it fitted perfectly with the scenes i have editied so far and i wont need to edit the music as it ends dramitally already.

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Today (Wednesday 3rd February) I did a bit more editing, i experimented with a few random shots we'd filmed, arranging clips in order to confuse the audience more, i added a few more fades/dissolves and edited a bit more of the interviews scene, the interview scene is by far the most difficult, we didn't plan it very well and so the shots are all over the place with no real structure to show where everything goes.

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Today (Saturday 6th February), i set myself a target to finish all the editing for the trailer today and i did. I began with picking out all the clips that looked best again trying to avoid the ones that had the mic boon at the top, after i had found all the good clips, i began arranging them from where i wanted them to cut in. i experimented with the saturation, mids, blacks and highlights, adjusting the warmth of the pictures by adding oranges and more blues to make it colder.
Under Video filters- colour corrector then i had a choice of yellows, greens, blues etc.
I took down the saturation by about 15% , shifted it slightly to the blues.
This was all a part of colour grading perfecting the lighting in order to create the moods we wanted. giving it a uniform feel, making some scenes warmer, for example, the scene with the dust and the sun coming through the letter box. i changed the colour magnitude making the door richer in colour. bumping up the highlights made the sunlighting coming through the letter box sparkle more.


With the IV Natalie N came up with the idea of having IV written along a line, so i downloaded a Font called Neon, under Video Generator effects, i clicked Boris then text scrambler, i increased the reveal time , decreasing the opacity creating the effect on IV....................
I experimented it with 3D by adding a spin in the axis, i then decided to add INDEPENDENT VARIABLE to the IV effect i did the same making it 3D nd put it underneath the IV line...............

To create the words, i clicked Apple V (paste) to keep pasting new clips and on each one i typed different words that best represented our soap, For example, like Love, Revenge, Hate, Success.etc it was rendering slowly so i created new sequence and pasted the words in because the text requires rendering and laying them all on top gives it a lot to do at once so it takes longer.
However one problem i had with the words was when the computer froze, after a quick panic, i was thankful to have saved it just before it closed but i still couldn't add anymore to it but i think i had added enough words anyway so i am grateful that worked out too.

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Some of the techniques i used:

• Additive dissolve- added the pictures together, and as a result the contrast inbetween becomes lighter


• in order to render i typed Alt- R


• During the bag swinging in the trailer i changed shot making it look more effective


• Snap time line, blade it and click A to select it


• One problem was with the mic boon in the top, so we zoomed in inorder to cut out the mic and keep the shot we had selected


• experimented with blurs, motion blur, wind blur, slit scan, bad tv, we finally chose effect light rays because it worked better than just a blur, it gave a dreamy/confusing effect.
• In order to make editing easier for me, i printed off a shortcut guide for editing.

Group Filming Day Three

Sunday 31st January 2010

Today was the day we planned to finish off the filming for the trailer.

We all met up at my house and began discussing the props, we spoke about the lighting outside because we was going to film the dead body scene aswell and we wanted the most beneficiallighting we could get.

We decided to film a few of the note finding scenes before going outside to use the powerful glare of the sun throught the window.

The first note was found through the letter box. We set up the camera up on the tripod and prepared for the wide shot, we positioned it at an angle to the front door which best benefited the effect we aimed for. The camera was positioned by the side of a plant, we decided to have a part of the plant in shot as well to add to the dark atmosphere, we focused on the plant and then focused on the post (pull focus). we also decided to use the dust in the air as another benefiting factor. the overall outcome was extremely creative.

Natalie N was posting the letters through the door, we filmed numerous different shot, wide shot of the hallway, close up of the letter box, close up of the floor underneath, wide shot of thegla walking into shot and picking up post.

In a number of these the note blew out of the pile, we used this to our advantage and took a number of close up shots, narrow depth of field etc in order to show the audience the notes. However the light became too strong so we decided to cover up the window with dark paper in order to eliminate some of the glare.

The next note was Thegla (Andrea) walking into the house, as she goes in her pocket to find the keys she finds a note, we again took a number of different camera shots, wide shot, over the shoulder, tracking shots close ups and reaction shots. With the tracking shot, in order to create a steady cam effect we dismantled the tripod pole and attached a clamp to it in order to gain weight at the bottom in order to equally weight out the camera. attached

The third note was found with Thegla sitting at the table about to do some work, she has her folder and laptop etc in front of her, with our added props like the pens and highlighters it looked very realistic. As she flicks through her folder she sees a post-it note stuck on one of the pages reading another word. For this shot in particular we decided to film from the side establishing where she is and what she was doing and then panning around to over the shoulder, in order for the audience to see the note at the same time as she does. For this shot we had a slight problem with the lighting it seemed very dark as we was shooting against a window again however we turned up the brightness of the camera and it fixed the problem substantially.

For the fourth note, we filmed Thegla walking in with shopping bags, tipping them out and a note being tucked in between one of the items of clothing. This was filmed as a wide shot, and then a zoom/pan of the note.

The last note we filmed in the house was the one she received via text, we chose a realistic acting with Thegla watching television when she receives a text, she simply picks it up to read it and it cuts, a fairly quick and easy scene to shoot. then when she receives the text a close up shot was filmed.

The day ran smoothly and the weather stayed dry, for the final part of our trailer we decided to film a dead body. Natalie M played the role of the dead body. We found a alley way with all sorts of rubbish and graffiti around it, it looked dark and dreary and with the advantage of the beutral density filter it looked even better. We filmed extreme close-ups, panning shots, wide shots and low shots, shots behind trees and branches and experimented with focusing.