Significant props used

We used these props within our short film. Alex got them from her grandfather who was amazing help when we needed authentic props. It wasn't necessary for us to get 'authentic' items however we thought it created a real element to the film. These pictures below are actually of Alex's grandfather in the artillery. It's amazing looking and working with these items, feels like we're actually working with history. Makes what we're making seem more important.

What I need to do to round this off.

When I was looking at this as a JPEG then on Photoshop, I realised I need to re-align everything so they are perfect and centred or in my case actually in line with each other. I'm not sure about the name 'George Morrison'. I feel like it should be slightly smaller but I showed this to 5 members of my class and one said they didn't like it where as the other four who were sitting close by suggested that I should keep it because it makes the title stand out.

- The stars need to be repositioned so they're together

- The font might have to change at the bottom of the page so it looks more like a movie poster. If not, it looks lovely (just me being picky)

- The 'in cinemas june' must be in line with the central images and the promoters at the bottom of the page. 

- when I put the rules back on I'll make sure that the promoters/companies are in line

- The lines on the poster / on the actors could be slightly blurred so they don't look so harsh.

Podcast

Mistakes

During the course of our filming, we've edited along the way slipping clips into little places to eventually make up 'War Bound'. The problem we have encountered a few times is that some of the shots we would have loved to have used weren't ideal and had to cut them out. Above this is a small video with 'Shot 1' onwards on it. I will reference the video and explain why they weren't suitable for the film.

poster so far

More story boards

Here are a few of the story boards myself and Alex have been working on. They are very basic and rough but I'm not artist and Alex is only doing textiles (insert humour). They show a clear and brief outline of what our project will begin to look like.

 

Start of the article/review - ideas

Poster step by step

When starting my poster I used Photoshop. These are the custom dimensions for my poster:

On the left hand side of Photoshop there's this tool section which allows me to manipulate the project. The top tool which is selected is the cursor tool which allows me to select any of the items on my document without altering them. For example, it moves them around and lets me resize them.

- The rest of the tools allow me to crop, change the colour the item on the page...etc.

- One of the tools which allowed me to get the background for my poster is the 6th tool down from the top. I used one the badges on his uniform which was a light greeny colour in the light. Selecting the bucket tool, I then put the colour onto my background.

- This is basically what I described.
   This is the tool selection area
   which allows me to manipulate and
   alter my picture according to my                    - (Click on this to get a better and larger image)
   choices.                                                              As you can see, these are the tabs that are
                                                                            open. This means that I have went to 'file',
- A lot of them allow me to change                     'open', and selected the image I wanted. To
  the colour, shape, size, transparency;                then get it in my open Photoshop document I
   basically anything.                                           have to press 'ctrl' and 'a' which selects the
                                                                             whole image, then I can press 'ctrl' + 'c' which
                                                                            copies whatever is selected. 'Ctrl' and 'v' then
                                                                             pastes whatever you have selected. These are
                                                                             just the shortcuts which make it fast and easy
                                                                             when editing.

This is what the blank canvas looks like once I have went onto custom and changed the setting to transparency. I do this
because it makes it easier when I have a white or
coloured background.

This is because the squares
make it easier to see what colour
hasn't been rubbed out...etc.











I coloured in the background white.
I inserted a picture of George which was
a full bodied picture. I wanted to make it
like those old war photos so tried playing
around with it and cut off some of his body.
Personally, I believe it looks rather professional
and if I had a nice sepia effect on it then it would
definitely look like a war photo.











This isn't exactly an ideal image. Not
that it isn't a good pose/angle, it's just
not a good edit. I was just playing around
to see what colour i preferred and what angles, but
i can definitely say that i don't like it.

It looks too:
- faded
- white
- dreamlike
- transparent

The dreamlike thing would work however it just doesn't feel like it fits with the theme of what I'm trying to achieve.

'Hawthorne Care home'

On some older posts we have discussed the possibility of using a care home for our media project. We emailed hawthorne but have yet to receive information with regards to them accepting us to use their facilities. With this in mind, we have decided to move the filming to my house. I have a very blank bedroom at the moment since i haven't decorated and i could just move all the stuff out the room so theres just a bed and it is basically a blank canvas.

This clearly isn't my room but it gives an idea of what it will look like. 

OCR response

On the previous post it states that we emailed the OCR with regards to our A level media project and found images. We knew that a couple of seconds of found footage can be used in general but we were unsure what were the regulations when it came to images. Here are a couple of screen shots with their response. I believe i found it very useful and can help anyone who was in the same situation.

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Screenshot 3:

This made it clear that were able to use other resources to help assist our media project however if we didn't take the pictures then we can't take credit for them. I believe that is totally reasonable and the only reason we needed to use a picture is because there is no where or no way we could take a picture of an authentic WW2 aircraft and make it look decent enough to put on our blog/posters.

Poster Ideas and poster so far

Here are some images of my poster so far. These are potentially going to be the main image on my poster. 

This is a flatplan of my poster. I was looking at all the war posters and other posters I researched, and decided to create a small design of what I might want my poster to look like. It isn't overly detailed but then again, I might go for the minimalistic looks after looking at all of these posters.

Progress with poster: Considering titles

I was on this online website where i could type in a title or a word and surf through thousands of fonts and colours till i came to the one i thought was amazing. I considered a lot of different fonts due to the genre of my film. I believed these all portrayed what I was looking for. Something gritty, complicated, hard, dark...etc. 

I was certain what we were calling the short film so i simply added some random title for now. 'Trauma' would work but i believe it;s too in your face. Gives too much away. 

 Unfortunately, this font looks too old and the way it just cuts is a shame. I wouldn't blend well into the poster which is a shame and it seems to have gone slight pixelised. This could be down to the screenshotting, but i just don't feel like this would work as well as the others.

This one of my top favourites. I like the old complexity it has. Seems like it's too Sci-fi though. IT has that X-files vibe that I'm not going for. Would work for a sci-fi thriller but not for a war/drama genre film.

I actually put this onto my poster to see if it would work well with what i have so far. Like the others, although they look good on plain paper, once it was on the background with some of the existing elements, it didn't seem to fit as well. It captures the 'old' look I was going for but it lacks what i need. It's hard to put it into words but these just don't fit - they don't feel right. As I'm aiming for top marks and to create an effective project, i want everything to work well together. This looks too much like a cartoon font, you can see by the brush strokes...etc.

EMAIL TO OCR

Me and Alex emailed the OCR board as we were concerned with an image on our posters. 
Basically, we were unable to get a primary picture of a WW2 aircraft for our poster, and we were worried in case we used a found image and it would jeopardise our 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am currently working towards completing my A level in Media Studies and I'm enquiring about the use of found images within our Ancillary tasks. I was wondering if we are able to use some found image on our posters. Myself and my partner Alex are asking to use one found image. This is due to the lack of resources as the image we're using is of a WW2 Aircraft and are unable to locate one for the poster.

Thank you for your time,
Kind regards

Rebecca Graham.

PHOTOSHOOT!!

Little storyboard update

Over the next couple of days I'm going to be posting the storyboards we did for the shots...etc / the work we did int he TA centre.

Here is the start of the first couple of shots we did.
Some changes will be depending on how we approach the story. If we aim for an emotional film I would rather flashbacks and more sentimental and meaningful shots were used unlike random establishing shots of buildings. Although they're important when identifying a place, sometimes they aren't that necessary. For example: If we use rooms within the TA centre that resemble and shout out "hey this is where soldiers go" then that's ideal. This could happen by:
- Medals ...etc on the walls
- Old photographs
- The layout of the rooms...etc.

Phone Call

I just received a phone call off George - The main actor and my Sergeant Major. We were unsure if he still wanted to proceed with helping us with the project since he has been unable to make it to the last photoshoot days that we assigned.

He reassured us that he was still committed  to the task at hand and would love to be apart of the short film still. We have set a definite date now for the photoshoot and we will be meeting him at school on Friday the 9th January at 1:30pm.

He will be in his army ceremonials ready for the photoshoot. This will then mean that we just have to get Alfie's pictures, then start the ancillary tasks. I'm currently working towards creating an outline for the poster and review so all i'll have to do is slot it in afterwards.

Email to Hawthorne Care home

Me and Alex were struggling to find somewhere to do the last section of filming. We have all the rest of the fillers for the film and all the in-between sections, however, we are unable to locate somewhere with the same feel of  a care home. So instead of replicating a care home, we decided to get in contact with one and ask if they would be able to help us with our project, and let us film in one of their rooms that are available.

Below is a couple of screenshots from their website and one enquiry that we sent. If they allow us to film it would be incredibly ideal, as we are pushing it for time now with trying to film the rest of the film, edit then manage everything else as well as exam work so we need to get this cracked as fast as possible. The care home is located quite close to my house which means It's easy to get to and if they let us film, they may offer us another time to do it. I do hope they allow us. I understand that it's a care home, meaning that other residents are living there and they may feel uncomfortable about 'kids' hanging around filming, but they won't be included in the filming so their identity can remain anonymous.

Making Plans

So today me and Alex needed to get things planned and sorted, else we'll get nothing done.

I rang my sister Natasha, asking if I could get my nephew - Alfie, out of nursery (he's 3) on Tuesday the 18th of November. This will allow us to take some decent photographs in the studio so we can use them on our poster. I've recently been in the studio because I was modelling for a friends AS media project and although green screens are amazingly useful, I prefer the white background. I'm not sure if it's because to me it seems an easier way of cutting out and editing the pictures, but I don't like the green screen. It made the cameras looked rather dark. However, this could have been down to the white balance of the camera not being correct, and a lot of other factors too. I'm going to go talk to one of the technicians and see if there is anyway to get the white screen back, but I've been speaking to my teacher and he believes it is a great screen, so we're going to see how it works on both of the models.

During the phone call with my sister we established that he has an old pair of school pants that we can cut up into shorts. Alex will be in charge of costume for the most part of this project as she is doing an A level in textiles, and I trust fully that she understands her way around a sewing machine more than I do. Also, on Sunday the 16th, I will be going to his house and looking through all his clothes for stuff that can be used in the photo-shoot and filming. Basically, I'll make a stock pile of props and clothes we have and what we have spare along with things we need to get.

Whilst organising this, I've been talking to George (the main actor) who is my cadet sergeant major, and we are going to film on Wednesday. (This Wednesday failed and i'll upload a podcast about that later). Friday the 21st will be when George is coming in. It'll be between 11:50 - 3:00 which is our media lessons. Doing this next week will give us another opportunity in the next couple of weeks to get them back in, to refilm and get shots that we weren't happy with sorted.

For this photoshoot, George will need his kit and cane. This is general sgt major attire and I will post pictures and a separate post about this on Wednesday or Friday when I get him in his actual kit. He can also help me with the names of them and also potentially why he wears this kit. It's great having someone from the actual army/acf help me with project because it makes a lot of the elements in the short film realistic and authentic.

Wednesday the 12th