For this project, I decided to create a prologue for my FMP, which is going to be a dystopian crime drama with sci-fi elements.
Although that sounds complicated and perhaps somewhat convoluted, a clockwork orange happens to be the exact same thing and that film is insanely well known and praised (for good reason)
I decided to have this prologue represent the fact that the general populous no longer have much empathy and don’t care about things that don’t benefit them.
This is intended to be a reflection of current society, especially those who turn a blind eye to social injustices and planet-killing business practices.
This is shown by the fact that the person sees that the phone is not working properly, ignores the pleas for help (lack of compassion) and promptly throws the phone into the ocean (not caring about pollution)
Later (in my FMP) we will learn that the person on the other end of the phone is the titular main character, a detective who is tasked with solving a recent string of murders following new laws allowing governments to create robots that use civilians’ Internet data to uphold the law however they see fit.
As well as creating this prologue I have started to find statistics for the contextual analysis of my FMP and sources for the general inspiration of the project’s conception.
However, after creating said prologue, I feel as though it is all over the place and doesn’t really work. The look is too “student film” and I couldn’t think of a plausible direction for things to go in. As well as the footage captured is entirely off in terms of tone, to the point of being either laughable or just downright bad.
Although one could contribute this to the fact I didn’t write a script for this prologue, which leads us to the root of the problem, which is that I didn’t feel motivated to do so. With this realisation, I have decided to create something that I would actually enjoy making, in order to improve the production quality and sensibility of the project as a whole.
As a result of this, I have begun to make storyboards and write a script for a fantasy-style that I would much prefer to make and that would make a lot more sense. Below you can see some of the storyboards for the first scene:
In terms of progression routes that are available to me, the way I see it I could make the diploma I’m working towards at the moment entirely pointless and go into full-time work that I wouldn’t enjoy, or I could go to university. Considering Film is what I would most enjoy professionally, I decided to apply for the undergraduate Film course at PCA. Here is the personal statement that I composed for this application:
The reason I am applying for this course is that I find Filmmaking one of the most expressive and arresting mediums humans can engage with. Film incorporates so many different skills, from pre-production through to distribution, all of which are exciting challenges leading up to the reward that is seeing the finished product, and the promise of doing that professionally is what drives me to undertake a degree.
I have always been interested in watching films, but it wasn’t until I created a short film in Year 8 as part of a ‘challenge week’ that I discovered how exciting it is to produce a film.
I believe I am suitable for this course because I am driven to pursue my creative interests and develop my skills enough to be a viable candidate for work in the film industry, whether that’s freelance or with a company
I am presently studying Film, Animation and Media Production at the Plymouth College of Art Pre-degree campus, which plays a large part in my choice to continue studying Film. As well as that I studied Media at GCSE level, which covered a lot more of the theory of making films/TV shows, whereas FAMP is mostly a practical learning experience.
I have taken part in several film workshops at the PCA main campus, which is partially what inspired me to apply for this course. It was interesting for me to see the equipment used in the main campus and examples other students work at university level. As well as that I have attended a few IntoFilm workshops, learning about programming in an independent cinema and watching niche films that I might have otherwise missed.
I am a founding member of the Pre-Degree Media Agency at PCA, a group of second-year students from a range of courses tasked with creating and managing a media agency that would eventually connect with real clients and potentially warrant paid work. I helped in key branding decisions and coordination/filming of film-based projects.
In July I was the producer in a small film crew at Ocean City Sounds, working on behalf of Plymouth city council to produce two social media adverts and one short documentary for the music event in question. I really enjoyed this job as it was the first time I was able to exercise my filmmaking skills in a professional environment.
In order to create this personal statement I looked at other examples provided on google classroom, and I also utilised the UCAS personal statement widget, which provides question prompts. Below you can see evidence of the fact UCAS have accepted my application:
As well as that I have produced a CV as a means to apply to part-time jobs.
I was working on a showreel that included footage from the redux version of last year’s FMP, as well as footage from the Ocean City Sounds advertisements that I worked on, however, I found that I didn’t have much other footage to record. I am currently working on a music video that I filmed at the Eden Project, which I plan to include in my finished showreel.
Here is a screenshot of the current editing timeline for my showreel (including a clip from the aforementioned Eden Project music video and a short video shot at ‘Santa Trees’ in Liskeard.)
I have chosen to apply for the film course because I wish to undertake a career in Film, and I believe that the knowledge I gain on the degree course will aid me in getting the skills and connections to do so.
IntoFilm Workshop
Although I enjoyed seeing what films the Arts Centre would have to offer next year, and it will presumably be interesting in the future to see whether they take up on the feedback given to them by the class, we didn’t really learn or produce anything, so I’m unsure as to how I’m supposed to write any more about this.
I have produced a range of promotional materials for a fictional film of my creation, which includes a website, a teaser trailer, a music piece, a poster, and a vinyl picture disc design. These were created in order to theoretically sell the fictional film, however, the website also provides means to pre-purchase an actual vinyl picture disc with the music piece on it.
The intended target audience for my promotional materials was teenagers in the general age bracket of 16-18, presumably attending college or 6th form, who perhaps, but not necessarily, have a small source of income or at least have enough money the go to the cinema on occasion. In terms of gender, none of the pieces I created for this project are geared towards any gender orientation in particular, hopefully encompassing everyone in the target audience regardless of their identity or self-expression.
I know that my work meets the target audience because I surveyed members of the target audience on their thoughts before finalising designs and making amendments as appropriate.
Furthermore, my work communicates effectively with the target audience as it mimics key conventions from other pieces of work that have been shown to resonate effectively with the same audience in mind. This can be seen from the fact that #aquamanmovie has 30.7 thousand posts on Instagram alone, and Venom made £667,540,313 worldwide at the box office, with the U.K being the 4th most popular territory for ticket sales. (source)All of the work I have produced is accessible digitally, on both computers and more importantly, smart mobile devices, which fits in with the lifestyle of members of my target audience, as an estimated 95% of 16-24 year-olds in the UK own a smartphone (source) I have also ensured that my work follows conventions of other superhero movies, thus meeting the needs of the audience as superhero films, which are classified as action films, which were the highest grossing movie genre in the UK in 2017, and most likely will be this year as well. (source)
Researching different websites, posters, and CD covers directly influenced my creative decisions throughout this project as I wanted my work to feel like a genuine commercial product.
Overall I think this project was successful, as I conducted a post-production survey, wherein 100% of people said they liked the design of my website, and that it would make them want to watch the film and also purchase the associated merchandise, however, only 50% of people liked the music piece that I produced suggesting, quite rightly, that music is not my specialisation. It also came to my attention that my website doesn’t work particularly well on the Dell touchscreen PCs that we have in college. I do not know why this is.
Personally, I think that the most successful part of this is the gallery page of my website, as it most closely matches my finalised design. Obviously, there are noticeable differences, but the change in formatting and using a cleaner layout and colour scheme makes the site seem more user-friendly and less cluttered in my opinion. The only thing that irks me is the omission of the social media links, but this change isn’t so significant as to derail the project entirely.
In future projects, I think that I should focus more on a single element, like a trailer or a website as opposed to both and more, in order to improve the overall quality of the piece being produced.
I have learnt that it is harder for me to focus on a project when I give myself too many tasks, and that to challenge myself in the future I should instead direct my attention to one good idea and make it as polished and finished looking as possible. As well as that I think in future projects I will stick to being more film-focused, as I enjoy them more and I feel they allow for a wider showcase of skills, and thus are more useful moving forward.
For my ‘Design to Sell’ project I decided to create a range of promotional materials for a fictional film. To begin with, I thought to create some website designs on photoshop; to aid the creation of these website drafts I decided to annotate several relevant examples, as seen below:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
After that, I set about creating my first draft of a home page and gallery page. I used a white and purple colour scheme because I felt it was unique and fit the slightly more sci-fi theme I was aiming for, due to the fact that purple isn’t a colour that is often found in nature on Earth other than in flowers etc, and clearly I wasn’t aiming for a particularly floral theme, also the while tends to suggest sterile, clean environments, such as one might find on a spacecraft.
After some consideration, I decided that it would be a good idea to incorporate motion into bot the home page and the gallery page, as to make the website more engaging and interactive. To do this I decided to create a small teaser trailer. I subsequently researched tutorials of how to create a classic film look for my footage, which was going really well on FCPX until it decided to export everything as a green rectangle. I then moved over to Premiere Pro and produced this video
Although, in my opinion, it was less than satisfactory, I decided I would film the trailer on my Nokia phone from 2006 and then apply these effects, in the hopes that the look it would achieve would be more aesthetically pleasing. And I was right. The question now was what music would be appropriate to include in this trailer and that would also not violate copyright laws. Thusly, I downloaded a 4 hour long, royalty free indie rock mix and scanned through it until I found a part that I thought fit. My teaser trailer is intentionally different from nearly every recent movie trailer, as it is shorter in length, being around 40 seconds as opposed to the typical 1 minute 30 that modern teaser trailers are. As well as that, it doesn’t reveal any story moments, which I feel as though is unique as it leaves you wondering what the movie is about. You can view the finished teaser trailer here:
My plan for incorporating motion into the homepage was to have a small red planet orbiting the main image, however, I couldn’t get this to look convincing or go diagonally, so I gave up and left the homepage as a static image. Here is a GIF of my failed attempt:
On the bright side, the integration of my teaser trailer (and several images) into my gallery went well, as you can see below:
After getting some feedback from peers I created another set of web pages, which, upon completion, I immediately disliked, prompting me to create my third and final web page designs.
Version 2:
Version 3:
After I was satisfied with my website design, I wanted to make a poster or two. For me, the best posters are minimalist ones, as they leave a lot of questions to be answered by the film and make those who view them look out for more information, whether that is on a website or through a teaser trailer.
My first attempt didn’t feel quite right as there were too many elements and colours so the overall design was too busy to be properly minimalistic. My second attempt, however, went a lot better in my opinion, as its easier on the eyes and is better at encompassing the colour scheme from the final website design whilst still feeling minimal and leaving unanswered questions.
My peers seemed to agree with my satisfaction with my second poster design, so I decided to move on to creating a CD cover design. In order to do this, I looked at other feature film soundtrack CDs, and noted they mainly consisted of a screen-grab from the film, the title in its signature font and the words ‘motion picture soundtrack’. (the google search in question) With these criteria in mind I took a screenshot of my teaser trailer and produced this:
Zac said that my CD cover was okay, but that it didn’t give him an indication of what the film was about, which is sort of the point so that it doesn’t give spoilers to the people who might see it in a shop having not watched the film, whereas those who have seen the movie will understand the CD cover’s relation to it. He also stated that it “looked edgy”, which I assume is ‘teenager’ for aesthetically pleasing.
Meg also had a positive reaction to the piece, saying that they particularly enjoyed the typography and the way the light affected the image. I’m sure this was not at all biased by the fact they are the one featured in the image. (It is definitely that.)
I then collaborated with a band I met on a GarageBand forum to create the title piece for this fictional film, which we called Reminiscence, in-keeping with the themes of memory and time that would be present in the film.
(also yes, the Japanese is wrong, but Kritical are from India and I’m from Plymouth, so what do you expect?)
In addition, I looked at a couple of Instagram ads on my Instagram, because I’m in the target audience so it would make sense to draw influence from them
Using the first two ads I came across as inspiration, I created yet another minimal and mysterious piece to promote The Copenhagen Effect
I then proceeded to ask 10 people whether they would click on this ad if they saw it on Instagram, six of them said yes and four said no, so that’s over 50% of people that would click on it – I consider that a success.
Furthermore, created a simple design for a vinyl picture disc that I could add to a shop page on my website. I tried to maintain a consistent theming within my design, using the grey tones from the video for the music and the orange from the logos and posters.
In conclusion, I believe I have met all the criteria that I set myself for this project as I have produced a wide range of promotional materials for a fictional film, all of which have received positive praise from test audiences. If it were possible, I would have liked to create the film in question so I could explore the distribution of the film and the real-time effect of the promotional materials I created.
The concept of our advert is an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine that goes wrong and spills a can of Lilt. The can then rolls towards the camera and shows the Lilt logo, ending with someone shouting “You spilt my Lilt” and the slogan “No use crying over spilt Lilt.”
A Rube Goldberg machine is “a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overcomplicated fashion.” In our particular instance we are using simple objects like books and lego in order to trigger a lilt can to spill via a domino effect. like many simple Rube Goldberg machines there are several steps before the can is knocked over.
One of our primary sources of inspiration for this advert is the Honda ‘cog’ advert (2003) which featured a very cinematic, stylised Rube Goldberg machine. We intend to take this idea and apply it to the style of previous Lilt advertising campaigns, which feature tropical, Caribbean aesthetics and green/yellow/light blue colour palettes. This will mean that the brand is recognisable and it will give the advert some continuity.
Based on some research of the Lilt brand, we have found that the primary consumers of Lilt are teenage girls. As such, we will include plenty of summer vibes and some humour in order to appeal to this target audience.
Overall, I am happy with how our advert turned out, in the end we took about 10 takes and this was our best shot. If we had more time and money I would have loved to make a more complex Rube Goldberg machine, and perhaps have a tropical wallpaper in the background to draw more attention to the colour grading profile that I created.
“In an official statement, the company states that the visual identity, including logo design and packaging, aims to give a more up-to-date and appealing image to the brand. The new brand descriptor ‘the golden experience’ is aimed at communicating the unique taste experience that the brand provides to its consumers.”
In accordance with the above statement from Ferrero themselves, we will aim to give our marketing campaign an up to date feel by creating content more appropriate for today’s youths.
We must ensure that our advert pertains to the relevant brand guidelines set out by the Ferrero company, which in regular terms would mean avoiding abuse of animal welfare and making sure we don’t visually neglect the environment.
“We [Ferrero] are committed to avoiding any form of discrimination in our employment practices, in all the Companies of our Group, starting from the initial moment of recruitment.”
Complying to this core value of the company, we will ensure we do not discriminate in any way (even accidentally) during all parts of the production of our advertising campaign.
Our goal with this advertising campaign is to create two short social media advertisements (for Youtube and Instagram) and one larger, TV-style ad that focus on comical editing to appeal to the target audience of teenagers, whilst still maintaining a positive representation of the Ferrero brand and the Rocher itself.
I think it is fair to say that previous Ferrero Rocher adverts, both older and ore modern, all tend to push focus towards the golden colour of the packaging, using it to represent the luxury feel of the confection itself.
We will also use the golden colour in a similar sense, but also convey clearly that the foil is not only visually appealing, but that it is also recyclable.
The emphasis on the recyclability of the product appeals to the more environmentally conscious generation whilst also nicely enforcing company brand guidelines.
Filming:
Our initial plan for the main advert was to film in the lighting studio, to give the advertisement a studio feel and to have a unique and dynamic setting, however it was booked out on both of the days we were planning on filming; so to overcome this hurdle we decided to film in the FAMP room on the empty table at the front and use a prime lens to capture close-up ‘elegant’ shots with a very shallow depth of field.
Because it was loud in the room we wanted to film in, we had to wait until break to do the main ad, as the audio was far more important than in the closeup shots.
The script we used for the main advertisement was taken from Mr Reid’s blog, who is apparently a Teacher. Click below to visit the page we used for inspiration:
George had an idea for a smaller advert, which required us to go into the smaller room and record Allan, Jake and Robbie.
Needless to say, George’s video worked very well, and you can see it below:
Evaluation:
Here you can see my final video for this task:
Despite the fact that the filming went well and quite a few good shots were produced, my end video did not turn out the way that I wanted. Due to some unforeseen issue, the image I was trying to use at the end keep glitching the video, so I decided to use this to my advantage and make the slogan, ‘the golden experience’ into a comical feature. I feel that this worked based on the ‘broken’ feel of the end of the video.
For my manifesto I decided to co-create a comical “motivational business video” with George, as we had similar ideas. The main difference between mine and George’s videos is the editing, as we used the same shots but in a different order with different text effects and transitions.
In order to get the generic motivational business look, I edited the piece entirely on iMovie, which was a new experience for me. I found the program to be quite lacking in features, however this is understandable as it is a free program.
A major obstacle that I encountered whilst trying to edit using iMovie is the fact that the program would quit unexpectedly every time I tried to import something; luckily, it saved each time, allowing me to eventually edit everything together.
Overall I am relatively happy with how this project turned out, but I would have liked to be able to apply multiple text effects at once, which would have only been possible by exporting multiple times and editing over the exported file, which would not only have taken far too long, but also degraded the quality of the original clips and effects beyond recognition.
We decided upon not encompassing a general narrative and instead just featuring the LED light in every shot in creative ways.
As well as that, we thought to “swish” the camera in multiple directions, instead of just one, to make the video feel more three dimensional and dynamic.
Personally I am happy with the outcome of my edit, which I looped slightly to give it a cyclical structure. I feel as though this enhances the motion of the video and gives it a stylised appearance.
As well as that I have produced a CV as a means to apply to part-time jobs.
All of the work I have produced is accessible digitally, on both computers and more importantly, smart mobile devices, which fits in with the lifestyle of members of my target audience, as an estimated 95% of 16-24 year-olds in the UK own a smartphone (
FAMP year 2 blog 