Evaluation Assessment Of My Final Project.

The finished trailer can be viewed on this link here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foV632I4TVY. To assess the trailer I wanted to get peoples views on my trailer to do this I designed my own Questionnaire.

I gave people the link to my trailer and then a link to a questionnaire on Google Forms. At the time of writing I have 5 responses from people including myself as I wanted to use the Trailer as a tool to assess my own work also.

What do we learn about my trailer from these results? 

People think that the trailer was at a perfect length, and if we compare my trailer to an average length of other movie trailers this does appear to be true, This is a good thing I personally did want my trailer to meet the 2 minute mark however. Most people think that the trailer had enough content in the trailer and it does appear to show off several key points we wrote from our script, The text also has a positive feedback also showing that it was related to the content in the trailer and way it was displayed and animated was accurate. The main negative that I noticed people had from my feedback is that the effects were not very good and the way they commented on the trailer basically says "If you watched the trailer, you wouldn't of thought it was for a paranormal horror." Unfortunately this is something I do agree with.

Strengths About My Product: 

• I think the content we used in the trailer has enough content and effects to not make the person watching it entertained and not bored. 
• I think the length of the trailer is perfect. It match the length of most trailers around for this genre, but it also is long enough to give the viewer some information about what the film is about. 
• I think the text and the animations I created adds a certain aspect to the film that I was looking for.

Weaknesses About My Product: 

• I think the eye opening scene near the ending of the trailer could be of better quality. If I had more time to work on this scene I would of also liked to add my own sound instead of one that I had downloaded from the internet making it more realistic as well as not as loud.
• The lighting is defiantly a weakness in my trailer. When we were filming we weren't exactly thinking about unfortunately and in many areas it doesn't appear right. White balancing is also a big issue with my product. A lot of it was corrected when the edit was done. But it's not perfect.

Comparing my final product with the research I worked on:

In my research that I did at the start of my project, I noticed that in many paranormal horror film trailers near the ending of the trailer there tends to be a jump scare just before displaying the film title for example. This was attempted in my trailer which is good as its a popular feature but I'm not sure its 100% effective as well as being quite loud and slightly annoying. In my research I noticed that quite a lot of close  ups are used to add suspense to the film. I think I did this in the eye opening scene which I did to make the viewer jump. 

Quickly Designing The Trailer And Editing It Together.

Having saved my Sequence it made it a lot easier to edit the trailer together, I simply created a new sequence within in the same Premier Pro file and then I could grab the original sequence and cut the bits I wanted out of it. However this is when I reliased I hadn't actually done any planning of how the trailer it's self was going to go. Unfortunately I didn't have much time as such to do this so I quickly did it below.

Below is a copy of what I had written as a quick trailer design, Knowing of course what I had from the sequence I had already made.

"Trailer begins with Amy saying she found a cool place to Ric and Tobias. The Trailer Shows A Background with some text saying “There’s One Place”. Then It shows Caleb claiming he heard something and goes away to look for it. The Trailer then shows the text with the background saying “We All Regret Going”.

The Trailer then shows Tobias looking around upstairs. Looking lost and confused finding nothing. The Trailer then shows some text saying “They Don’t Know What They’ve walked into” Show the clip where Tobias is in a room and sees something with a red robe around them.

The text background appears again and shows “When One Dies, All Of The Die.” The Trailer then shows Amy being dragged away by something and the Caleb stabbing her which admittedly is a different shot but I think it will work.

The Trailer then shows off each character and them speaking in the film. (Or our already filmed sequence from the film.) For example it will show me acting out in the trailer pausing and shows some text saying “Kyle Wilkinson as Ric”.

After it's gone through all the main characters in the trailer. The trailer then cuts to the clip of Caleb sleeping and here's a banging and opening his eyes. This makes the trailer come to an end with what will be an image I’ll make on Photoshop. Saying Coming this fall and Kyle Wilkinson studios or something similar on it."

I also made a quick storyboard graph on an A4 sheet of paper which I have scanned in below:


After The Design was complete for how my trailer was going to go, I used the sequence which I had made as well as my trailer planning to create the trailer using Adobe PP.

The start of my trailer was very simple to complete, and then I started the bit where I needed to making a backing image for some text to appear on the screen of the trailer. For this I decided to grab a photo of some trees I took in a forest in Photoshop and then see what I could do with it. Unbelievably the original image is the one below;

I then added Threshold adjustment too the image this added a black and white and very strong hardness to the image and then I added a Gaussian Blur adjustment to the image also but set the radius to 1. I liked the image I got but then I came up with a better Idea. What if I made an animation with a transition effect on the text. 

To do this I saved the picture with the Gaussian blur adjustment set too 1, then once the image was saved I changed the Gaussian blur radius too 2 and then saved this image. Now all together to do this I ended up with 96 Versions of the image to create the animation. Each of the images was going to be one frame in the video and together all the frame created about a 4.5 Seconds animation. 

Having created that small animation I needed the text, to do this I downloaded a font off the internet called "Feast Of Flesh" bit of scary name but it had the horror effect which I was looking for. On the title properties section for the text, I customized the  Fill to a 4 color gradient added the outer stroke to Linear gradient with depth, as well as switching the shadow on for the text. 

To create the animated text effect I used a cross Dissolve Transition effect at the beginning and ending of the text. I then added a Cinemon Converter effect and altered the 10 bit white point number for the beginning and ending of the text when it appeared on the sequence. I also had clicked the Animation button to add the effect. In my opinion this system of using the Effect Controls to animate things within PP, is very similar to how it works in Adobe After Effects. 

After creating the animation for when the texts appeared on the screen for the trailer, I then followed my trailer design plan adding all the correct clips and text from my sequence that I wanted. The bit that took me the longest following this was creating the section of the trailer where the actors names appeared with there character names. 

This is because for each of the main characters I had a clip that they acted out and then a screenshot of the last frame, Using this last frame I added a Gaussian blur and then a pen tool around the person so that it would blur everything out apart from that one person in the spotlight. It was a function similar  to the tool I used when I lightened up Oscar in a the sequence creation. 

In my opinon after this was all done the trailer was complete!I had checked the sound levels and the the clips in the trailer and in my opinion it didn't look too bad.  I then rendered the file in and out on premier pro and then saved the trailer as an MP4 in 1080p Definition. 

Analysing My Rushes & Editing My Sequence.

The first thing I wanted to do after filming all the rushes for my trailer was too go through all the rushes and analyse them. This way I could work out what rushes were needed, which ones were useless and which were of the best quality.

I made myself a table on Google Drive which this table had the file name on it,  Details of what was happening on the shot, the quality of the shot and the shot angle. Whilst the table is not necessary for the completion of my project I believe it will be easier to organise the files better in specially when it comes to the editing of the project.

You can view the Finished Table here on my Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wfVkXJRBxs7zV99vf5C5OdUwL2dsNQ10m2hcC9Gz6j8

The one other thing which I had noticed straight away on several of my files is that the white balancing is incorrect on them. This is something which will have to be fixed when editing the trailer on Premier Pro.

After Analysing the rushes I wanted to edit all the shots together into the story sequence we had written for our trailer first. The reason I wanted to do this is because then It makes editing the trailer easier as its all in a story order. Also because it means when I do edit the trailer the lighting and effects needed in the shots will already be done (corrected) as well as the sound required.

I started a new Premier Pro Project and opened my Analysed Shot Table as well as the script. I followed along with the script and located the correct shot that I needed from the table. I cut down each clip to the right bits I needed it. Below you can see a screenshot of me working on the sequence by doing exactly that.

One problem which I had with quite a few of the shots in my trailer was that the white balancing wasn't correct causing some of the colours to appear incorrect in the trailer. This surprisingly is an easy fix. I had to go to the effects pannel on the bottom left and locate the one named "Fast Color Corrector", Dragged this on to each clip snippet that I wanted to correct. This would bring up a new menu in the effect controls for the selected clip. Shown like below.

The White balancing is easier then it looks too complete. As shown below everything in the blue box is what we are mainly focusing on. You select the tool which the orange arrow is pointing too and using that tool you select a white area in the shot to use. A good example in this shot is circled in orange so I would click here. If the correction still does not look fully correct you can the wheel below to alter it a bit.

Below you can also see how much better the shot looks after color correction is done. You can see much more detail in the image on the left and the one on the left also has an unrealistic shade of blue on it.

Another small issue I wanted to fix was when Oscar was talking too the camera in one shot, however what we didn't realise at the time of the filming is that the shot was filmed facing the light and Oscar just appears as one black blob, essentially ruining the shot. This is the best version of the shot so I'm going to attempt to lighten him up in the shot a little bit so it's better then before.

To do this I went too effects and selected "Brightness and contrast" and I clicked the "Free Draw Blazer" This allowed me too create points around Oscar so that I could only brighten him up. Once I had gone all the way around him, All I had too was slightly turn up the brightness number. This worked but it also didn't look the best. If we had time we should of gone back and rerecorded the shot really but unfortunately we couldn't so this had to do.

Altering the brightness of an object in PP.

There were some minor things I also did during the editing of my sequence for my trailer, these are listed here:

• I created a Text layer with the time on it, this was then animated to fade in and out using the effect controls. 
• In some areas to add effects, I added an Audio gain to some parts of the clips.
• In one shot I had used the color corrector to correct the white balance, However I decided to cut the clip so that when the bang of the window shutting went, the light would change back. I also increased the sound of the window shutting, This is increasing the scary effects I aiming for. 

After this was complete, I rendered the Sequence into a video and instead of creating new file I created a new sequence within the file. My next blog shows me editing the trailer together. 

Pre-Production Work.

Before we could go and Film our sequence that is going to be used for our trailer. We needed to get some of our production work done first.

Below is the link to our Risk Assessment for the location which we filming at as well as any risks getting there and whilst being there.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MuhmVOLgX4mgPENAdwblQOhDg225Urtrw7GIS2yNEaw

We also needed a location Reece done of where we were filming. This was done at the same time as the Risk assessment. Below is the link to the Location Reece.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=13hZjcIZVSSEHFlbKEZzUHvwhGxLmqBFGnLhg8eslPnQ

The last pre-production thing we needed to do was a shot list table. We made this after Nikol had finished the Script for the sequence. I then read the script and went through all the shots we would need to do with her. You can view a .PDF of my annotated script here, unfortunately the scanner did scan the document in the wrong order.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_wtyewGWwp_VzNvS0lqd0lkWTA
The shots list I also put together on another document on Google Drive which can be viewed here.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1odEnOEvbpZQRl-tEDykcFBDohmdfnBQcWT56ljo0HZk.
On the shooting schedule it lists all the shots we were planning to do as well as the charterers that were required for that shot.

After the shooting schedule was completed it meant me and Nikol were ready to begin the filming of the scene for our trailer. Luckily we got all the pre-production and planning before the production date we booked the equipment for (10th May 2016). We got all the people we needed for the trailer and headed over to the filming location that evening

Working On Haunted Places. Nikol & Kyle.

Me and Nicole listed all the characters which were required in the trailer. This came up to six thus meaning we needed six people to act out in our film. We managed to get six people to act in our film and this is listed with our charterers on our Character List Document. This can be accessed here.  (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AU2Jpv2nTU552JClv4QIXIVusxHPUmFc45Ga_vm9GF0)

One of the people who was acting also was able to provide the location which we could film at so that sorted our location out.  At this location we could get the shots we needed at daytime and the night time shots.

I have a link to one of Nicols final documents which includes the original syposis , character list and some of her idea development work here, ( https://drive.google.com/open?id=1viVypknFznj86X91Rs9-tA8nitGCQSDosJctT3BL8lM ).

Meanwhile Nicole begun writing the script for the sequence which we would be using for our trailer. She created this using the Celtex software.
The completed script is available to read here as a .pdf
https://drive.google.com/open?
id=0B_wtyewGWwp_cWlkZERkTzQyZnNFM3BuMTNQcUtGdWYzZ2tN

While she was completing the script for the sequence of our trailer, I was starting our pre-production work this is all above on the next post.

A Message Following my "Design Development".

I had developed my idea further at this point of time and decided which one I wanted to use. However me and Nikol we're working as a team and we could only produce one of the ideas as we didn't have enough time to do both. We had a talk and compared both of our ideas. We decided that Nikols idea would be the best for us to create. Going by what we had and what we could complete within the time we had.

Nikols Idea which we were bringing forward is called "Haunted Places". Her original Synopsis file can be viewed here. (https://drive.google.com/open?id=17ulTlMmuLKDOTihO-m21q1EqneSS2yQ3ClqHHKEnr-A). As this was the idea which we were bringing forward we then needed to start making a plan of how the trailer is going to work including a script for the trailer as well as pre-production. Of course we don't want the trailer to give too much away to the story so when writing a script this is something we have to think about.

Development of an idea.

Development of an Idea.

I need to think about what I think will be the idea out of those two to be used for my trailer. In my opinion I think I should go for The House of nightmare film as out of the two of them I think this one would make the most successful and interesting trailer. I asked my friend Chelsey to read them both and tell me which one she preferred out of the two. She said she liked them both and that there good, but she preferred The House of nightmares simply because she doesn't like cliffhangers and it would really bug her.

Having decided which one I was going develop further I needed to begin work on it. I thought the best thing to do was to grab a pen and paper and do a story bored sort of thing for each of the main scenes in the film. These scenes are likely to be the ones that would be included in the trailer.

Below is the scanned A4 for my story. This is the development and is in more detail then my synopsis.

This is what the text in each box says, you can click the image to see it in better detail however the writing is a bit difficult to read and scruffy.

1. Normal college days, we meet the main characters  from the film and see the main area's.

2. Robert starts  to get mystery phone calls and notes appearing from no where. He then starts to research into how these are happening.

3. He gets a clue where all this is coming from and he decides to look into his theory. He takes himself and his friends over there to the house.

4.  Nothing happens in the building and it leaves Robert puzzled.

5. Things turn to a worse for Roberts Lifestyle, He starts to wake up everyday at night, at 02:03 in the morning. He starts to get nightmares of people being tortured in his sleep. He started going grey. (At the age of 18.) and mysterious things start to happen around the house.

6. Things get even worse the furniture banging and moving starts to become more violent. He is no longer waking up at 02:03 in the morning however.

7. Eventually Robert realises the cause of all the events impacting his life and him and his friends go back to the haunted building to see what they had missed out. When they enter the building they get trapped in.

8. Things in the building turn to the worse, They never manage to find what they were looking for and one by one they get killed by a demon in the house.

Desinging & Ideas.

Using my research I now had to come up with some ideas of what I want my trailer to be about. As my trailer is going to be of a Paranormal horror I want it to be as scary and realistic as possible. I decided the best start to do this was to do two ideas for two films. I wrote two synopsis of two possible films that I could think of.

I wanted my trailer to go something along the lines of this; (Trailer basic plan as I named it)

This plan would give me an aspect of how the flow of the trailer needs to go. From that plan the trailer would show the basic aspects of the story and the characters without giving to much information about the plot away. It also has the scare factor that most trailers have.

The first synopsis which I wrote for a film is called, "The house of nightmares".

The House Of Nightmares (Synopsis).

General Plot:

A typical college boy, average life into the average stuff. He gets drawn to a house that’s in the middle of nowhere and deserted. Claims he had a dream about it and takes his friends over to have a look. They don’t find much in the house but he starts to get phone calls and text messages from the empty house. All his friends go over to the house to investigate one night time and it’s when the movie really changes. They get stuck and locked in the building all six of them. A Massively haunted house. Dark and Erie, and the longest night of their lives!  Banging on walls! Creepy man being seen in the dark, feeling like there’s someone standing right behind you when there's not. And two deaths.

Character(‘s) Possible:

Six friends, who are all the main characters. Robert is the main character in the whole trailer however and it is his idea to go to house in the first place. All the six friends are around 18 years of age and go to there last year of sixth form at school.

The second synopsis that I made is a different sort of film. Showing a year of a gentleman's life in one film and how a spirit in the  house haunted him before killing him and his girlfriend. I named it "The fourth house in the neighbourhood."

The Fourth House In The Neighbourhood. (Trailer)

Second Synopsis.

A Businessman who recently moved to the suburbs in America to do some work over there. Typical nice house perfect for himself.

1 Month into staying at his house he starts to notice strange things in the house, things were not left where he left them. Strange tapping noises at night.

3 Months After Moving In.

He throws a causal party for him and his neighbours. Nothing too extreme just a get together, a drink and some music. At the party Matthew notices one of his neighbours is near the corridor at the front of house, they appear to be just stood there focusing on something. Matthew asks her if she’s okay, Looking out for her. She just turns to him and says “You have to leave the house”.

6 Months After Moving In .

The Noises and strange things around the house no longer happen. However for about two weeks, every single night Matthew was awoken at 02:07 am. For no reason at all. He couldn't work out what was causing it.

1 Year 1 Month After Moving In.

Matthew was quite enjoying his american life, He met a nice girl and today was the day she moved in with him. This is where the paranormal effects within the house start to get worse. Doors are slamming and bigger things are being moved around. They admit they have a problem. The movie ends after the most horrific night ending on a cliff hanger of does the girl die or not. The Scary effects that haunt them at this time include her cleaning her teeth and grabbing something from the cupboard and nothing being there. She’ll then put something back in the cupboard and something will be stood there in the reflection of the mirror.

Main Characters:

Matthew, The Main Business Man Character.

Sophie, The Girl that Matthew ends up with.

Louise, The neighbour who notices something in the house.

This trailer/film would need several extras for the party scene.

Comparison:

In both films they feature various different jump scares and scenes to make the viewer feel frightened or nervous. This is using visual and audio effects.

A Short Message Following my research.

Having completed my research I will now go on to jotting down some ideas of what My trailer will be about. To do this I need to briefly write a synopsis of a storyline that I will make.  As well as a short bio of some of the characters ect. This will be done from above using spider diagrams, drawings and writing on Microsoft Word.

How My Research Is Useful And What I Might Use It For.

How My Research Is Useful And What I Might Use It For.

In most trailers for paranormal horrors right before the ending there is a jump scare which would then end the trailer or show the films release dates. This is something I think I should most defiantly include in my final project. From my research I know that I defiantly need all the most thrilling points from the film but not give it away too much.

In my research I found out what some of the best techniques would be that they use in Paranormal horror films. These will be useful for getting the best shots and scare factor as I will call it for my trailer.

Research Report.

Report on my research.

I am writing this report so I can conclude on what research I have done and collate and to discuss my findings. Once I have completed this report it may be that I may want to do a little bit more research and this would be written on an additional newer blog post. 

When we realised what the tasks were me and Nikol grouped up and then went off to do some research, As we were both pretty set on doing a trailer for a film we went from there. I began by grabbing an A3 sheet of paper and using a brainstorm I jotted down every idea that I could think of to do with film trailers as well as any research I could think of at the time which I would need to do below is the scanned sheet of paper.

Me and Nikol then decided that we wanted to do a Paranormal horror trailer. I made a plan of everything I thought I needed to research on a word document and then went off by myself to research and jot down any ideas that came on my way. It involves what content and technical research I plan to do. My research Plan can be found here; (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XyXKICaxhK1ODKI4rzSGro-EnhA4sK4hxbReRn6Id6k).

I created a new document which I called "Researching the content of Three of Paranormal Horror Films". I decided to make a table where I could research three paranormal horror films. Summing up the storyline as well as some of the features and effects used. I watched three different films and then filled in this chart. After doing the chart I then went on to compare some of the features of the three films and discussed what I thought was really important in some of the films. This is including the lighting and the setup of the film as well as what gives the scarefactor if you will to the films. You can find this document here, (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aJsZzhrdN87EJCR6K4ZlsquNR7St9IrwJ1WsU3SW2A0)

I have an scanned images of some notes we made when we watched paranormal activity 2 below. It includes about the storyline and notable events.

During my research I also had various talks with my tutor to discuss my research what we had and what we think we needed to have next to research below is the notes we created scanned in.

I also did a small amount of technical research for my trailer and this is the attached document to go with it, (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUdJaOxBLwDTaJIGz4iyCNWBPrQJCxWYNPsmTxRByLo)

Project Plan.

I am also working with Nicole for the production of our project. 

Link to our project plan on excel:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HB6Z_Udq7KPOkra88movECnOTXLEJZzEI703XuUGMzU