Designing the titles

Designing my title was a longer process than I thought it would be, but interesting at the same time because I learnt a few new things. I wasn't quite sure about having my title just over a black screen, so I considered having it over the top of the final moving image of my trailer and then maybe to move on to a black screen. I got this idea from one of my influences: "Precious". Here is a picture of what this trailer does:


I really liked this idea because I think that it's different and quite nice to have the title over a moving image of the trailer. But whilst editing, I discovered that I couldn't do this on iMovie. So I used another program called LiveType. I had to import the scene that I wanted the title over from iMovie and open it in LiveType, then in there it had lots of different options for titles, so after spending a few lessons playing around with the program and the hundreds of different titles that it had, I finally chose one for my teaser trailer. The font is called Kaileen, its a font that is similar to a childs handwriting, which I thought matched perfectly with my teaser trailer. Here is a picture of the editing process in LiveType:


So once I had finished my title, I saved and imported it in to iMovie and I am pleased to say its gone well! And to carry on from this I am going to have a black screen with: "SUMMER 2011" on it, in the same font and the same colour as the title: "Home". I decided to keep the font and colour because I think that it has given it a nice flow from the final shot of my teaser trailer to when it will be released. I looked at some ideas from various different genre trailers to see how they presented their release date, such as "I Love You, Beth Cooper" and "The Lovely Bones". "I Love You, Beth Cooper" had "SUMMER" at the end of their trailer and "The Lovely Bones" had "DECEMBER". So because it is a teaser trailer I haven't given it a specific date, most teaser trailers are quite open and usually say something similar to the examples that I have looked at. This is usually because the film isn't going to be released for a while yet so they haven't set a date, it's just to raise awareness of the film. And then when the main trailer is released they usually give the audience the exact date. Here are the trailers for "I Love You, Beth Cooper" and "The Lovely Bones", although they are a different genre to mine, I was focusing mainly on how they showed their titles:

A few changes..

Although I organised how everything would be and how it would turn out for my teaser trailer: "Home"; not everything went to plan.. But I suppose this isn't a bad thing, it happens a lot in films. The first thing that I changed was the location of shot 1. Originally, it was going to be in a garden with lots of lighting to give it a happy feel; but when it came to filming, I thought that it just didn't look quite right in the garden, the light wasn't effective enough. So I made the decision to move it inside and I filmed it in the living room, I thought that this looked better because it gave a cosy and homely atmosphere.

Another thing that I changed was removing and adding shots. I removed shot 15, which was a close up of the girl asking her mum whats happening. I filmed this shot during my filming session but when I got to the editing stage, I didn't think that it looked as well as I had planned, so I decided not to use it and add some additional shots instead. I added a shot of the young girl in her room sitting on the floor upset, holding her teddybear. I added this shot because at the time of filming I didn't feel that there were enough shots potraying the emotion that I wanted, so I thought of having this shot of the young girl, which turned out to be successful and I feel that it was effective. Here is the picture of the shot:

I also changed the length of most of the shots. When storyboarding, I planned for most of the quick cut shots to be about 4 seconds, I wanted them to be short to create the effect of a trailer and build up some pace and imagination for the audience. But when I came to editing, I realised that 4 seconds was too long. So I cut most of the shots down to about 2 seconds, after doing this I felt that it fitted in with the pace and ran more smoothly.

And the final small change that I made was moving a few of the shots around. When I put all the shots together and played them back, I felt that a few shots needed to be moved so that it all fitted together properly and acted effectively.

Music ♪♫

As my teaser trailer is a family drama with a sad storyline, when thinking about what music to use, I thought that a sad non-diegetic sound would fit it best. I wanted a sound that was quite smooth at the beggining and then changed its tone a bit to make it sound slightly more dramatic throughout the trailer, to match the fast pace shots that the trailer has at the end. I also looked at some other trailers for drama films to try and get an idea of what they used. Two trailers that I particulary liked the way they used their music was: "Remember Me" and "Million Dollar Baby". "Remember Me" is a drama about a young man with family problems. I like the way that this trailer used its music because it started off quite light and sad and then got more dramatic towards the end. I think that this was really effective and similar to what I wanted to create. "Million Dollar Baby" is also a drama about a distressed boxer teacher who lost his daughter. This film is quite different to mine but I really like the way they did their music in the trailer, it changed throughout the trailer as the emotions got tougher, I think it worked really well. Here are the trailers for "Remember Me" and "Million Dollar Baby":

So, after looking at these trailers, with the help of my dad, I created a sound for my teaser trailer. We used a program called Reason 4.0, it was a really good program that allowed us to play around with all different sounds and put them all together to make the sound that I wanted. We started of with quite a subtle sound, using different piano effects. And then towards the end of the trailer we put in some drum effects and some more piano effects to make it sound more dramatic. Here is a picture of the program whilst we we're editing my music together:

The top half has hundreds of different things that we could play with to create different sounds, and the bottom half is where my track is with the different levels and parts to it that we put in (variations of piano, drums, etc.). Here is the final track the we created:

Choosing a production company name

I have finally put together a production company name and logo for my film "Home"! At the beginning of most trailers, there is a short space of a few seconds where the production company's name is shown. As my film is a drama, I wanted quite a subtle and soft production company name, nothing that draws too much attention but still states a point. I looked at some examples and found a few that I really like. These are Dreamworks and Lionsgate:

I like the way that Dreamworks and Lionsgate use clouds as their background and then their production company name in the middle, I think it easily states who the production company is but also is very subtle by having the clouds as the background. So reflecting on these production companies, I decided to create a similar one for my film. I used Photoshop to edit it. I have called it 'Sky Motion Pictures', with a small 'NDP' below it; Niamh Dilworth Productions. I got this idea also from the Dreamworks logo; underneath Dreamworks it says 'SKG', which stands for Steven Spielberg, Jefferey Katzenberg and David Geffen; who are the founders of Dreamworks. Other companies also use this. So I thought about doing this for my production company. Here is a picture of my production company logo:

First cut

Here is the first cut of my teaser trailer, "Home":

This cut is after I had put all the scenes together and worked out how long they need to be and cut them to the exact second that I need. I have also got a sample of the non-diegetic music that I am going to use. I created a quick sample so I could get a feel of how it sounded and if it was the right choice of music for my trailer, and luckily it was! I still have a lot more to do on my trailer. Such as the transitions; which will help the trailer flow from shot to shot and all fit in properly. I also have to create the production company logo, create the titles at the end and then do the final touches on the music track so its fits each shot. There are a few things that I am not quite sure I like at the moment; such as the black screen shot of the arguing, but once I get closer to the end of the editing process I am going to analyse whether to keep it or not. So hopefully soon you will see the full and final trailer on here!

Second filming session

I had my second and final filming session for my teaser trailer "Home" on Friday 8th October 2010. Again, I was very pleased with it. It went really well and I managed to get all the shots plus extras that I needed. The only thing that we found tough was getting in to character for filming. It took one of my actresses a while to stop laughing! But then after a few shots she got in to character and played it very well. In this filming session I filmed shot 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18. It was a very long filming session! I also got quite a few extra shots that are not on my storyboard. I did this because after watching a few examples of different trailers; I found that a lot of them have 1-2 second shots of random objects in the scene/setting. So whilst filming I spontaneously did a few of these shots. I did one of the young girls teddy bear, one of lit candle and one of some colourful flowers. I also did this so whilst editing I had a variety of shots to chose from and see whether they fit in with my trailer or not, hopefully some of them will be successful. I also found my storyboard very useful in this filming session, again it helped me plan and schedule what shots I needed and how long it would take.

First filming session

Filming has now begun! I've had my first filming session of my teaser trailer: "Home". I feel that it was very successful and I managed to get the shots that I wanted. I found that my storyboard helped me a lot through filming because it gave me an idea of what shots I need to film and roughly how they need to look, without the storyboard it would've been harder to film as I would of had to quickly try and think of the shots there and then. In this filming session I filmed shot 4, 5, 7, 8, 12 and 15 from my storyboard. I filmed each of these shots two or more times, I did this just incase one of the shots went wrong, so I had a backup. I also filmed a few of the shots from two different angles, so whilst editing I have a variety of shots to choose from, to see which one fits best with my teaser trailer. Here are some photos of whilst I was setting up the camera and starting to film.