Titles

Few times I have being struck by a title sequence and the BBC's rendition of The Three Musketeers was one of these times. The designers responsible are Miki Kato and Nic Benns. Below are some extracts from their website.





On a simplistic level, I want my titles to be fairly illustrative (In cohesion with my poster), below are some initial sketches. Like Kato and Beans, I will follow a limited colour scheme.
police car

Bearded dragon

I have decided to name the cast solely in the closing credits.

The title sequence I created in after effects with illustrations I had made in Adobe draw. I exported the single drawn vector layer though photoshop.



I used the same font in my title as for my article and poster - creating continuity between my three products. By repeating recognisable icons (such as fonts) within the compositions, a recognisable 'brand' can be created: the poster and article become more effective when used in cohesion.

Each component is a different band in the screen shot below, with each I created a fade effect by key framing the opacity. I also timed them intermittently. With the text and 4th layers, applied the roughen edges effect to varying degrees.

Article - Research and Creation

Below are some extracts from BFI magazine articles similar to my film.

In the Sightseers article above, columned text has being places of a two page spread image. Text has being incorporated into the image; by removing the bottom of the text in conjunction with the hill side, a sense of perspective and depth has being created. As a result of placement and colour, the viewers focus is drawn to the two protagonists. White text over the picture background creates a clean finish.

Below is another article featuring on Sightseers from Empire Magazine.

I have also looked at digital articles (below) - these are formatted in a way accessible for smart phones and tablets, so whilst the content will remain the applicable to my work, the format of these reviews will vary to the two page spread I have in mind.



Content wise I could include interviews with the cast, a description/suggest the narrative.

For inspiration I read interviews with the cast of various Inside No.9 episodes on the British Comedy Guide website

Text content

Below is the first draft of the text in the article, I will edit the text further within InDesign.

Recently released zero budget short, Ratchet, explores the gritty, scaly interactions of bad neighbours. 
Below is an Interview with the protagonist William Spence who plays Halliam in Ratchet.

We interviewed with the protagonist William Spence who plays Halliam in Ratchet.

Hi Billy, how would you describe the character you're playing?

He's a bad egg. Bad bad egg. Not bad as in criminal, but bad as in he's super lame. He's every aspect of an 'annoying neighbour' but in teenage form. 

The character you play is apathetic, egotistic... how much can you relate to the character you were playing?

Haha! Well, I wouldn’t go that far! I didn’t really like the character to be honest, I’ve known people like him, and would hope the character wasn’t moulded on me. I do have a bearded dragon so there is actor - character crossover there but so far, touch wood, she hasn’t being stolen by a knife wielding pensioner. I did enjoy playing the character though. 

We spoke just before the interview and you said you were genuinely scared at some points during the shoot..

Mate. So would you be. It’s a no budget piece so no cash for fancy props, so cameras or no cameras, having a flick knife thrusted towards you is an unerring experience in any setting. Sorry, that sounds like a threat haha.

Well Billy, it's being a pleasure, anything you’d like to mention before we wrap up?

Not that I can think of, watch you reptiles I guess!

Ratchet will be released on the 30th March, and is a 12A.

Creating the article

I am using Adobe Indesign to format my article, below are screenshots from the process of making my article. Working in InDesign as a suppose to Illustrator, you can type into text coulombs that flow into one another, so if you make an edit in text, the whole text is adjusted.

My final article will span a two page spread.

I experimented arranging my text over different shots from the film.

Below is the screenshot I have decided to use; the picture provides natural borders for the text, the bench below a sinister burgundy tone, the protagonist's monotone costume contrasts well with the sickly yellow/pale blue wall.

I used a shape affected by text wrap to shape the content around the portrait. I matched the colour of the text on the upper half of the article to the wall below, and vice versa.

The blue line is a temporary ruler I used to ensure my bold text lined up exactly. As I was creating the article I frequently previewed the project to get a clear idea of the final image.

Which produced a preview such as:

Finer details included the use of spellcheck within InDesign, on a basic level the viewer should not be distracted by typos.

At this point in designing my article I accumulated feedback from my primary target audience, who said;

• They liked the positioning, use of and size of the protagonist profile.
• Furthermore, liked how the interview text wraps around the protagonist's head. 
• "Jeopradous" is not a word. 
• No point in having the date printed twice. 

Having acted on this feedback this was my final article; 

I returned to my article having received feedback; although visually appealing, people found the content of my article did not entirely conform with wider product conventions.

In response to this feedback I have;

• Removed the date, production company, and slogan.
• Re-arranged text and existing content.
•  Additionally created a breakaway box with an image and small mount of text. 
• I have also written about the film in a journalistic way, with reviewing elements, and reference to genre and narrative. 
• Added a director's quote. 

This is the transcript for my final product; 

Inspired by the dark comedy series Inside No.9, (curtsey of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith), director Amy Spence has developed an idiosyncratic short, that leaves the viewer in a state of ambiguity. Comparable to cinema verity; raw, amateur performances create a sense of reality. 

The naturalistic nature of this piece leave you searching for meaning where there may simply be none. Is this a comedy? Or  an insight into provincial Britain? Is there a political bias? The genre and meaning are somewhat ambiguous, we were left curious as to the Director’s true intentions.

I like the bitter truth and honesty that such a low budget film provides. Most of the cast know each other well, in-fact some are family, so there’s an awkwardness to their interactions, this plays entirely in the films favour. It’s quirky, and obscure - a first within it’s genre.

Below - We interviewed William Eyre who plays the protagonist; Halliam. 

Hi Billy, what can you tell us about the narrative and meaning of this short?

Well, it’s certainly unpredictable, plenty of narrative enigma if that’s what you’re in to. As for meaning; it’s how you interpret it I guess. I know that’s a terrible answer, but how I took the meaning, and who I empathised with in the short, was drastically different from Amy’s outlook and the focus groups! So really, I don’t know, work it out for yourself. 

How would you describe Hallaim?

He’s a bad egg. Bad, bad egg. Not bad as in criminal, but bad as in he’s a super lame guy ya know? He’s every aspect of an ‘annoying neighbour’ but in teenage form. Saying that, there is some heart to him, his perseverance to play music  despite a horrendous lack of talent is marginally admirable. 

The character you play is apathetic, egotistic... can you relate to him? 

Haha! Well, I wouldn’t go that far! I didn’t really like the character to be honest, I’ve known people like him, and would hope the character wasn’t moulded on me. I do have a bearded dragon, so there is actor, character crossover there but so far, touch wood, she hasn’t being stolen by a knife wielding pensioner. I did enjoy playing the character though. 

We spoke just before the interview and you said you were genuinely scared at some points during the shoot..

Mate. So would you be. It’s a no budget piece so no cash for fancy props. Cameras or no cameras, having a flick knife thrust towards you is an unnerving experience in any setting. Sorry, that sounds like a threat haha.

Well Billy, it’s being a pleasure, is there anything you’d like to mention before we wrap up?

Not that I can think of, watch your reptiles!

The updated final product is below. 

Editing

I am using Final Cut Pro to edit the film footage.


General editing 

I'll piece together conversation shots without audio, then choose one takes audio to layer over all the
shots. I have applied warp stabiliser to some handheld shots to improve stability.

I have sped up and slowed down shots of Halliam riding his bike so that they match at a higher speed than was recorded - in order to create a sense of urgency around this scene.

Gutted to realise today (25/02/18), that in one of two takes, of the confrontation scene, a character is wearing a hat, and in the other he is not. This deems a painful amount of my footage useless, but thankfully I have enough footage to not have to re shoot.

To foreshadow Halliam confronting the homeless man I layered an opaque shot over one of the search shots. This is for a very short time, in order to create narrative enigma.

To reinforce the characters confusion I used fade transitions of various lengths between jumps cuts.
This also created a sense of time passing.


Colour

Colour is manipulated in film for a variety of reasons, examples include;

• Resolve issues with white balance
• Resolve exposure issues
• Help repair excessive noise from poor ISO settings

I have used both colour grading and colour correction in editing my film. Colour grading, referring to the manipulation of colour for cinematic, or stylistic effect. Colour correction referring specifically to correcting problems in the 'normal' colour from shot to shot.

Below is an example of using colour correction to improve continuity. The grass in these to juxtaposed shots was widely different colours (as shown in the screen shot). At first I tried letting the program balance the colour, but that created an unnervingly orange tone to the grass. So I tampered with manual colour adjustments and achieved some improvement, however it still retains and artificial glow, and the quality of the shot is poor, so I may remove it.


Here is an example of where I have used colour grading, in this shot and the shots that follow I have imposed darker, blue tones, to create a tense, cold, atmosphere.

To grade the films colour as a whole I selected a single clip, adjusted the colour wheels to enhance the blue in shadows and highlights, and yellow in the midtones, saved this as a preset, selected all clips (bar titles) and applied the saved colour setting. I did this to create a "filmick" look.

Poster

With each episode, Inside no.9 has released a promotional poster, below are a few examples.

- Poster above and below by Rob Treen

• The poster above follows a green colour scheme. It contains a merge of two shattered faces - the two main characters. The digital collage has a sinister feel - darker tones (reddish brown) frame the eyes. Imagery wise it can relate to the shattering of the two characters reality, and the merging of personalities, the characters influence on one another is damaging - this poster portrays this well.
• The corners are darkened and like an old poster on a backstage wall, the impression of time, and wear has being suggested through scuff marks.
• Like with most posters the same font is repeated throughout - . . . . . .  Bizarrely, the text is aligned to the right.
• The series logo, and production company logos are stamped in opposing corners, referring viewers to the product.
• Release date

The illusion of ageing has being added to the above poster, I will create this by imposing an opaque picture of withered paper over my design.

I have added the poster above because I dig the way the portrait of the protagonist is influenced by the colour of his wife, and a red light (he spends time in a dark room). I will have light influence the characters in my poster in the same way.

• The poster above (episode yet to be released) uses perspective to channel the viewers attention to the central character. The poster has two sections, connected by text. Section 1 seems to have an influence of light onto the 3 largest characters.
• Each character is holding an object - a glimpse into their personalities? 
• Colourful
• The title is shadowed - probably reflecting an aspect of the storyline perhaps? A foreshadowed 'plot twist'?
• Tag line

An unofficial poster for Fargo

• Minimalist use of colour, stark red has obvious references to blood.
• Illustrative
• Title is spread out
• Characters are all effected by a light source

Conventions within dark comedy posters;

• Cartoon elements
• Dark colours
• Simplistic text, consistent use of a font
• Central alignment
• Illustrative
• Content; Title, cast, production company, 1 image.
• Portrait (although mine will be landscape)

I did too photoshoots to find images for my article, poster, and generaI publicity on Facebook etc. The first photoshoot in studio settings lasted about ten minuets, and was purely to secure some portraits of the protagonist, particularly Halliam either be pointing or playing the violin, so took a few more photos of Billy on a plain background. In the end I did not incorporate these into the poster, but have used them on the film’s Facebook page. 

The second photoshoot was on the same day as the majority filming, this was ideal because; the whole cast were present, characters were already in costume, the lighting was ideal, and details like hair (especially Halliam’s) that are difficult to replicate, matched the footage. The shoot lasted about 30 minutes, and went well - I found the perfect photo for my poster. 

Before I started my Illustration, I got feedback on the photo and plan from a friend familiar with the narrative. They said “That peculiar expression suits the character well, and I like that your using an illustration for your poster, I think it will come together nicely”. 

Below are a few of the images 

The above two photos are tinted blue as a result of distorted white balance, but this will make no difference when using them in the poster.






I will be using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Draw and Adobe Illustrator to create my poster. This software will enable me to create editable vectors from the photos I have taken. Photoshop images are made of pixels, whereas images in Illustrator are vectors (resolution independent graphics).  Importantly for marketing purposes, vectors are scalable.

I have started to experiment with ideas for my poster. It will feature at least one, digital drawn portrait, which I will create by tracing an image on Adobe Draw (for iPad). In preparation for this I have isolated an image from it's background in Photoshop.


I have traced this in a sketch like style, adding colour to create the delusion of red and blue light (foreshadowing the police involvement). Below is a iPad screenshot taken during the sketching process.

To the left is a time-lapse of the sketch.















I will layer a portrait of Halliam underneath this, slightly to the right, and on a smaller scale.
Below are screenshots showing the development and experiments within the creation, of the poster.

I have since updated this title to "WATCH YOUR REPTILES", it's snappier. I used Typekit to find a fitting font, and settled on Urbana. I synced the font with Illustrator. I placed the titles, and developed a basic background before adding the portrait. I was able to transport the vector file from my iPad to Illustrator with Adobe Creative Cloud.

I used the aged paper below to soften the background colours and add texture.

Whilst arranging the composition, I decided to limit the poster to one portrait, it felt too chaotic already without a second image.









The subtle background colours are two drawn shapes, influenced by a feather effect, I matched the colour of these two shapes exactly to the dominating colours in the portrait.

The edit between the above and below screenshot, was made to focus viewers attention to the portrait. I felt the background was too domineering in the extract above. 
Once the basics of the composition were grounded, I experimented with different variations of colour etc.

Below was my final poster...

Since releasing this onto social platforms etc, I have created a credit block, and resized my poster to fit in with standard British Quad poster size (1016 by 762). This was an important addition, as my film poster must conform to industry standards if to be recognisable as a marketing product. I have also returned my credit list to block white.

Within my title block I added a simplified vector of my production company logo (an arrow in a target), and a Dolby logo.

The transcript of my credits are as follows;

I saved this copy as a CMYK file, this restricts the variety of colours that a screen can display, to tones suitable, and expressible on print. Below is my final product.