Final Poster

Final Feature Article

Above is my final feature article, since the construction post I have made some little changes such as playing around a little with the contrast and exposure of the smoke effect I also added page numbers which I had previously forgot. The final thing I changed was the typography of the title.

Premiere Pro Short Film editing

As there was a lot of editing stages for the short film I have condensed it down so I am taking the main features undertaken during editing process of our short film.

When starting to edit the first thing I  did after importing the film clip and putting it onto the time line was to go onto the razor tool, this allowed me to separate parts of clips and then by selecting the selection tool I could click on a clip I wanted to delete. By using the selection tool I could select the wanted area and then by pressing the backspace button I could delete the unwanted clip.

The two screen shots below show you me doing this very process.

After cutting out a section I also had to use the selection tool so that I could move the clips so there are no breaks in the timeline, if I didn't do this you would just have a black screen which most certainly does not look professional. Below I just a screen shot showing me doing the process of moving a clip.   

The final thing that my group and I did when editing was adding other clips or music on the same part of the timeline, by this I mean we have the main timeline where we have the film itself, we then had a selection above and below where we have the music which was playing at the same time as the film, we also had other video above the main time line, for example this meant we could quickly switch from a medium shot to a close up of a actor, the only problem with doing this though was instead of moving the camera to the shot you wanted while filming you did have to go over the same scene a couple times, however in the long run this does not really matter as it has meant we have finished with a more professional end product. 

Reflection Process:

When looking back over all my practical work, I think I have made two very successful products individually, the poster and double page spread and contributed to a good group film.

What I think works well about my two print tasks is that they advertise the film well and fit the genre conventions I looked at in my research.

The reason why I think my poster worked well is because:

• I have used the colours black and white which connote the genre and are featured on professional posters like the posters I analysed.
• I used a medium shot for the main image of Delcua and this follows conventions of film posters for films like shutter island because they also did medium to close up shot on their poster. 
•  I have put the film title in the bottom part of the poster in a fine typography style to show the genre and this follows conventions of other film magazines I have seen as they use similar typography style.
• I have put the names of the actors in the top part of the poster and this follows conventions of posters for films like shutter island which also did this.
•  I put the credits and release date at the bottom which is a convention all film posters follow. 

The reason I think my feature article went well is because: 

• I have used a medium long shot for my main image that is on the left side of the double page spread. This shot is of Delcua and this follows conventions I saw in other double page spreads because normally they place the main image on the left.
• I included film reel with other pictures from the film along the bottom of both pages of the article.
• I have written a clear review that shows my personal opinions in a style that you often see in film magazine review articles.
• I have put my article on the right side of the page in two columns.   
• I have used a colour pallet of black and white to connote the genre of the film the article is about.
• I have put the title in a larger font and positioned it at the top of the page and made sure the typography is right for the genre.

What I think went well with out short film was:

• The unique storyline we developed
• Following genre conventions
• Trying out interesting shots
• Getting the dialogue right
• Geting the sound right
• Creating a unique title

However, some things could have gone better like the setting choice and filming in the middle of the day, this was not the original plan but due to weather problems and actor issues we had to adapt the script to this and it does not really fit the conventions of our genre. I cannot help thinking this was a mistake because it does not make our genre clear enough as pathetic fallacy does not add to the mood.   

Final Feature Article Draft

Deluca is a British short film that has met with mixed reactions from viewers and critics due to director Alex Prynne’s controversial decision to burn a Bible within the first two minutes of the film. Seen in context it is easy to see how this decision fits the narrative but like with anything that touches too closely on religion it was always going to get some Christians hot under the collar. And it is not just the burning of the Bible following an interesting animation sequence that brings to life the first murder depicted within its pages that has offended some religious viewers, the themes and narrative of this psychological thriller have also stirred up mixed reactions as murder, sex outside of marriage and homosexuality are dominating themes.

Controversy aside, the film has a lot going for it. The cinematography, sound and editing by; Alex Prynne, Ryan Clark and Dan Goward creates a dark tense mood through out the piece making this both gripping and artistic. While Jess Dootson’s animation artwork adds an additional dimension to the visuals of this film.

In terms of narrative, writer/director Alex Prynne has certainly proved he is a future talent to watch out for as this piece, set within the dark back streets of a poverty stricken small Cornish town, tells the intense story of Delcua played by Travis Brown, who is torn between two lovers, his girlfriend Sarah, played by Rose Harris and his controlling male lover Hugo, played by Ryan Hearn and leaves viewers on the edge of their seats and intellectually challenged.

The narrative starts with the dramatic murder of Sarah by Delcua only for a number of strange and unexpected twists to then occur before the film concludes. In short, this is an intelligent, clever story focusing on inter guilt and betrayal brought to life by three talented young stars making their big screen debuts.

Speaking exclusively to FilmFreak, Director Alex Prynne said of the controversy; “I did not set out to offend people (laughs)…I am quite surprised people were so offended by it. There are no laws against doing it and it certainly fits in with the narrative because I wanted people to link the themes of the film with the themes of some biblical stories to give it an extra hard hitting dimension. This creative choice was also perhaps heavily influenced by my interest in Mexican short films/animations because a lot of these feature animations with a religious message.”

In a nutshell, this film is hot property and definitely worth a watch when it is screen at Bodmin Town cinema later this month. If you miss this screening, you can always find it online at on are YouTube channel or catch it at the Cornish Film Festival next October.

feature article construction

For the first step I opened up a Photoshop document and then used the paint bucket tool to make a black background.

As you can see above the next thing I did was get a film reel image, once this was done done I put in scanned images of the drawings (used in the burning of the bible section) in each part of the film reel so that it looks like the screen shot above on the right. 

For the next step I started to add text, I used American Typewriter typography for the masthead to make the masthead  I used InDesign. One of the main reasons I used InDesign was the American Typewriter typography is not have available on my version of Photoshop. InDesign also helped me add a thick line under the text, I also used tools such as the transform tool which helped me add my own twist onto the text, I also made the text bolder however in thickness not size on InDesign and  having done that I saved the text and  put it onto Photoshop adding it on my feature article, however for my feature article I just used a simple Myriad Pro typography text as I believed it fits well into conventions of feature articles I have looked at.

Once having done this step I got a screen shot of the bible burning and put that under the first section of the feature article. The reason for doing this was so I could break up the article.

Next I added in the final parts of feature article as you can see above and took a quote from the article and put it in-between a part of the article, by doing this I could break up the article so the feature article looks more attractive.

For the next step I used the rectangular marquee tool to make a line to put above and below my quote on feature article. (Shown above)

For the next step I put this image above of the main character Delcua  on the Photoshop document. Bbefore doing anything with it I first of all cropped the image so the image went from a medium long shot to a medium close up shot. I then went image>adjustment>black and white to make the image black and white. 

For the next stage I went onto brusheezy and got a smoke brush once I downloaded the brush I used  a overlay texture to go over the image of Travis playing Delcua. On the brush layer I also turn the opacity down to 67% so it became transparent I changed the fill to 86%. I also in this step used the rectangular marquee tool to make a border for the burning bible. 

To finish of the feature article I add in some text to go above the image which just tells you who is in the image and who he is playing, this is a common convention I found when looking at other double page film articles, I also added text in the top left corner to just show the title of the magazine.