The document provides details about the planning process for a student's Final Major Project involving creating promotional materials for a thriller film. Key aspects of the planning included: - Researching the thriller genre to establish the style and tone of the project. - Developing the narrative/storyline for the fictional film, breaking it down into acts. - Creating extensive shot lists for the film trailer, structuring shots based on the acts in the story and constantly updating the lists during production. - Determining the title ("Omission") and tagline ("Will you run, hide, survive, or die?") for the film based on meanings related to the narrative. - Planning potential video effects and editing

1. Evaluation

2. Contextual Research

3. What had I done
Having not touched much on the thriller genre before, it was key I used this time to go more in-depth on the genre, and how
different people express their ideas and feelings around this sometimes sensitive area, and what not better way than to
explore 3 well known individuals in the film industry, director David Fincher, director Guillermo Del Toro, and filmographer
Thomas Hodge; more specifically looking at a brief background from their involvement in the industry, projects they’ve
produced to offer a slight acknowledgement and appreciation for the skills they bring, and how they express the thriller genre
in their own unique styles from an professional level.
In addition to the key roles people take in film, I had also used this opportunity to explore some of the theories related to my
intentions in the project, to create promotional material, including trailers and posters, for a new thriller orientated film; with
the film industry, audience, and thriller genre on mind for being the most important features making up my project,
researching film theory, thriller (genre) theory, research theory, and audience theory.
With such theories, this helped establish almost everything resolving around film, from the shots, angles, lighting, sound,
editing, and different types (film theory), to enthralling emotions, scenes, speeds, and characters (thriller (genre) theory), and
even comes ideology around qualitative/quantitative data, demographics, psychographics, and social-economic class
(research and audience theory) in hopes of bringing everything together for a better understanding on the broader topic on
film.

4. Strengths
- A lot the information received from researching Guillermo, David, and Thomas was in regards to the roles they take and
what they specialized in for such films they’ve been involved in, but being able to identify some of the techniques used
when reflecting the thriller genre was particularly helpful. Not only was recognizing some of the processes used beneficial
to the research taking place, but understanding why these certain unique processes and techniques are used in films like
these really helped branch out to the wider implications being mentioned; from audience involvement, persuasion, and
emotive feelings, I was able to start applying them to my own project, in hopes that it wouldn’t only show a great level of
expertise and professionalism, but an amazing final outcome in the endgame of things.
- Aside from my key roles research, a lot of the theory research side of things looked into key features when making films,
something I was able to then apply to the planning and production stages later in the project; particularly looking at
lighting, narrative, characters, themes, settings, and even qualitative/quantitative data researching methods, these areas I
hadn’t much experience in so understanding the theory behind there use and how an effective approach would look like
really helped in the later stages where I could really begin to demonstrate these methods.

5. Weaknesses
- Perticularly in a lot of the theory research taken place, I had

6. Time Management
Having allocated myself 1 week going into my contextual research for the FMP, I would consider my organization and
management of time here was not bad, nor good, but okay overall in my opinion. Only getting what was my key roles
research fully completed by the end of the week, or in other words half of my PowerPoint, this was all to a great level of
detail for each of the person’s I had analyzed in the film industry, but this also meant that almost all of the information
currently seen for this documentation was worked on and written up throughout my own spare time in-between other
section of my project; its understandable why I had done this, partially because I had ran out of time which is the obvious
answer here, but doing so meant I gave up this extra time to fully complete both my pre-proposal and proposal which are
considered more important for the project as they sum up to two individual grades aside from the one main grade for my
contextual research.
At the end of the day my time management here wasn’t great by all means necessary, but this was resultant of a butterfly
effect earlier on in the project, as I hadn’t completed both my pre-proposal or proposal by this point, so I would consider the
time spent in these 2 weeks to be productive for the most part, making up that wasted time getting other sections fully
completed so that I could focus on what's soon coming, my problem solving, experiments, and planning that followed.
Its worth mentioning that with the extra work
done in my spare time, this was quite easily
achieved only ever working 3 days a week
(shown beside), so in the space of not too
long after, maybe 2 – 3 weeks once moving
on, my contextual research was fully
completed with the likes of working on my
problem solving and planning.
My Timetable

7. Improvements
Despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to determine many weaknesses to the contextual research documentation
made, I definitely think a few improvements could be introduced to certain sections, either adding extra information or
changing something.
Regarding the amount of written work that’d been produced for this particular PowerPoint, I think there's a suitable
amount with the time given for this phase, however, I definitely think the addition of further written work, whether it
be looking at more theories or key roles in the film industry in relation to my FMP, this would show a greater
understanding and devotion to learning and expanding my knowledge/background experience if the time was found.
Following on from this, looking into theory’s surrounding film promotion (i.e. trailers or print products specifically), I
could have greatly benefited from such research having invested a lot of my time later down the line of the project into
this through planning and production mostly.
Aside from the information and total amount done, its also worth mentioning where I had gotten such research,
because most sources here was online through websites, and I would consider it to be more helpful if I had also
investigated other types of sources, including books, focus groups, or even videos; not only would introducing books
for some of my research broaden the limits and capabilities to the extent of where I'm receiving my information,
almost backing it up from including numerous different perspectives into the industry or whatever topic I'm targeting,
but it would equally reflect a more in-depth analysis and therefore professional approach to my project from my peers,
as I’ve spent the time to get others peoples insights and experiences.

8. Research

9. What had I done
Bringing in some background history and experience to moving image productions, choosing to go with creating my own film
trailer and promotional products for my FMP (Final Major Project) was the smart way to go as I could endorse some of my
own knowledge and ability in this area of expertise; however, having not touched on the thriller genre before, despite the fact
that I haven’t made a film trailer either, still a lot of research needed to be conducted when looking at their structure,
audience appeal, design, color schemes, addressable changes, effects, audio, and many more additional features included in
film trailers and posters more specifically.
Looking at existing products in the film industry – for both film trailers and posters -, conducting a survey of questions
regarding the thriller genre, 1-on-1 detailed response interviews, and the different main color schemes I had recognized in
the media industry, this was enough for me to begin developing my own project under the intention of creating promotional
material for a new thriller orientated blockbuster film I would also theorize a narrative and ideology for.
With these keys areas in mind, I had also looked in depth for each and every one of these elements making up my research,
from: the camera movements/shots, characters, schemes, effects, reasons I had chosen these products intentionally (existing
products research), common features found and influence it will make on myself (existing products analysis), distribution,
questions/questions updated, audience response analysis, graphs and charts, common trends, traits and their influence on
me (questionnaire analysis), interview question intentions, observation, references, and audience appeal (1-on-1 interviews),
and most finally connotations, reflection, audience appeal, and supporting mood boards for my color schemes research (color
schemes).

10. Strengths
- Regarding my existing products research, a lot of the information that I had accumulated holds a great deal of detail about
each of the products, from the camera movements/shots, to some of the effects and color schemes being implemented
into the design of the trailers and posters not only shows the full potential from such elements and their effect on an
audience, but also helps my own understanding with their inclusion into the film industry, and most importantly why these
are considered key components that make up the main final outcome of such products.
- The fact that I have considered everything researched here in this documentation to my own product and the influence it
may hold against me, this makes it very beneficial to the development of my final outcome and more significantly the
quality of the outcome; understanding and defining the purpose of each element in the poster or trailer is one thing, but
reflecting this for the future of my FMP, as I had done on many occasions, shows the progress I had made up until now
where I have a fully finished film trailer and supporting array of print promotion.
- Without a doubt one of my strongest features to my research here, the survey I had conducted was of great value to the
progression and end generation of my products throughout the project; broadening my awareness of what an audience
looks for in a thriller based film, my short yet effective questionnaire showed what elements needed the most attention,
and this was evidently foresee ahead of planning the project when showing a devotion to my narrative, a good level of
action, plot twists, and concurrent to a lot of realism in both my film poster and trailer as shown.
- The color schemes research I had produced, although wasn’t much help during the early stages in my FMP, was particularly
beneficial at identifying a color palette for my film; present consistently in my title and print products, a predominant
yellow and white color scheme, with red as a secondary alternative, was specifically chosen because of its contradicting
style as they typically hold positive connotations, aside from when being portrayed in a negative style to bring controversy
to the genre, something that works extremely well and wouldn’t have been possible without the research carried out.

11. Weaknesses
- Aside from everything else, because I truly believe most things in my research are to the best of their ability and have come
beneficial at some point, my interviews remain still the one thing that hasn’t helped much in the sense that I received
information I’d already known; although some responses were more detailed and slightly different from the people I had
interviewed, my questionnaire held so many questions similar to those mentioned in my interviews that I had gotten re-
occurring answers. This should have been recognized when conducting and planning my interviews to avoid such thing
happening, but following through with the interviews, I got my responses and a slightly better understanding at what each
age category as an audience look for in the film industry, nothing more beneficial other than that; although I had stated
something useful, the amount of time spent on my interviews could have been used for something more time efficient for
the information received at the end of the day.

12. Time Management
With a 2 week time period to get all of my research PowerPoint completed, its fairly clear why I hadn’t fully finished
everything you see to that deadline; getting the majority of it completed, all that was left included slight adjustments and
improvements to current slides, or adding in some extra information where necessary. Although I hadn’t gotten everything
finished for the deadline, I would argue my time management for this section of the project was well managed and organized,
getting a lot of work done in the time offered for this section to be well on track for the foreseeable future of the FMP;
especially when considering I had completed over 65 slides during these 2 weeks, each packed full of information, that would
take me abouts 1 hour per slide, totaling to about 55 hours disregarding the title slides, and putting this number against the
amount of hours I was in college when doing my research, this shows I had done 28 hours in my spare time at home or during
free lessons to get it shifted.
Taking into consideration that I had spent 28 hours of my own free time during these 2 weeks to get it completed shows a
strong dedication to this segment of the FMP, and therefore this justifies my claims for holding a fairly good course of time
management in the particular aspect of my project (my research documentation), despite the fact that I hadn’t fully
completed it for the deadline but soon after in the following weeks where time was found around whatever projects I was
currently working around.

13. Improvements
Looking back at my research document, I think it would be necessary to develop my existing products research with at least
another print film poster analysis, making it 2 trailers and 2 posters; not only would this improve my understanding around
print products more, as I would have accompanied it something likely to be unique and different from ‘the conjuring’ poster I
had covered, getting different insights and perspectives on print promotion in the industry, but I’m sure it would also help
justify some of the intentions made in my own posters and print products at same time of broadening my approach to making
my own print products if I had done this from an early stage.
In addition to this, its worth mentioning the interviews I had done because as already specified in the weaknesses for this
section of my research, the questions I asked and therefore responses I received weren’t any different from my questionnaire
and what I had gotten from them either; this could be done with a simple fix of the questions, changing them to look at more
specific elements possibly, but the fact that I could only take away from this a few things about their age groups and what
they look for in a film, this is definitely something I would consider changing if I was to do some more research in the future
or come back to this.
And concluding the improvements I would make to my research PowerPoint if I was to come back in the future, I would
consider other processes of gathering research and conduct them in addition to everything present if I had the time to;
Including things like looking back at documents or records, and or even attending focus groups, these things would add to my
understanding of the way an audience looks at the film industry whilst broadening my research and therefore supportive
elements to what I’m talking about and creating.

14. Planning

15. What had I done
With that’s extensive to another level, I had done what seems everything possibly during the planning stage, adding through
from when starting the planning documentations, to the end of my production when filming my various needed shots and
changing slight elements at a near constant basis, here is everything I had done in this section:
Thriller genre – With an introduction into my planning section, I addressed the thriller genre having wanted to establish this
in each and every one of my products, so looking at what I’ve recognized across this topic, my intentions in this genre, how I
can reflect these ideals, all in support of a style sheet and mood board, these aspects covered helped determine a lot of the
different things I was to look into further down the line, whether it be my trailer, posters, props, characters, or even setting, I
applied what I had discovered here integrating it.
Story Development – Because I could only start to begin linking and planning my trailers and print products once I had a
narrative to follow, I followed on through with creating a story development section, distinguishing my intentions, some idea
generation slides, the narrative itself from my idea generation, and the storyline separated into acts for ease of
understandability when forming my trailer later on. The narrative is arguably the most important here for the whole project
because it determines what my trailer and poster will end up looking like, so coming out of this section with the work I have
done here, I’m extremely pleased with the end outcome.
Shot lists – Making up the longest part throughout the whole of the planning PowerPoint, my shot lists sections makes up of
two separate narratives, the first one being my initial plan which soon changed into the second one seen; making them so
extensive, I had kept on applying to these slides throughout production when filming my trailer and coming to realization of
some of the decision made early on in this section. Included in this section is a structural breakdown and short storyboard,
but covering each section that resolves into a full trailer from each act as mentioned in my story development section, each
of the shots had constantly been highlighted different colors when filming to help with organization and management to
make the process of everything much easier to handle.

16. What had I done
Title/Tagline – With an interest at beginning the planning towards the film posters ill create as part of my promotional film
products, I couldn’t begin until the main feature to my film as a whole had been decided, so with some intentions, possible
words and fonts to choose from, ’Omission’ became my film title for the project, coming from the desire to have meaning
about what happens in my film, at the same time as including ‘io’ next to each other to otherwise create the number 10 for
extra interpretation and reference to my narrative. At the same time of this, the ‘they perished’ font was also chosen for
reasons surrounding my narrative once again, almost breaking away at the bottom reflecting her past, but in addition to this I
had come up with my tagline, ‘Will you run, hide, survive, or die’, soon to be represented throughout my trailer and poster in
hidden connotations, following with a similar process as to my title.
Potential Techniques – Continuing with the planning of my trailer in particular, I wanted to make sure, having acknowledged
the fact my audience researched adheared to this, that I would involve a plentiful amount of video effects and techniques to
create diversity in my work, whether it be through camera movements or editing to follow through with a strong aesthetic
appeal, this would maintain an engagement and satisfaction as I had also looked into how difficult it is to perform such effect,
and why I had chosen to use it for both these main factors mentioned.
Color Schemes – Following on from my research, I had perused to look into more about the main color schemes you see in
film, yellow, blue, green, white and black, understanding what colors work best with these predominates using the Adobe
Color website to categories their analogous, monochromatic, traid, complementary, compound, and shade reflections in the
universal color wheel.
Locations – Because of there importance throughout a film, to create emotive feelings and atmospheres as seen in my
research surrounding directors David Fincher and Guillermo Del Torro, it was imperative that I had first listed a range of
locations that sensed a thrilling captivation, where they are located, in addition to accessibility, and how they could be
integrated into my narrative for ease of understandability in my wide audience groups.

17. What had I done
Props/characters – Despite the fact that I would have created this section anyways when looking at character costumes, it
had come to my attention that a few of my desirable shots in my shot lists required props that needed making and or
retrieving, so looking at designing and laying out my missing poster prop, in addition to my main character, the costume she
would be wearing, all in support of the conventions it would imply, audience appeal in the choice of clothing, and a style
sheet to reflect my ideas, this was all briefed up with the use of images, concepts, and written information showing my
judgement and intentions.
Audio – With the set intentions of including some sort of speech in my trailer, to help drive the narrative on, a script in
correlation to the shot lists made had been created for each section in addition to how much time I'm working with, and the
style it should be conveyed over to set an emotion and thrilling atmosphere. With every line mentioned here, this was
developed alongside making my shot lists and when structuring the trailer, so that everything makes sense to form a greater
understanding in the final outcome.
Planning Poster – With the end goal of creating a range of promotional material for my thriller film, this included a film poster
for their still effective approach after 125 years in the industry, and so looking at my intentions in this sector, what
tools/methods can be implemented to reflect my ideas, the emotions I want, possible color schemes, and two style sheets
and concept for the design, this had set myself ahead for creating the posters seen with good reasoning and justifications
throughout.
Call Sheets – Of great importance during the production phase, I had created these call sheets ahead of filming days to limit
the amount of time spent on set, and improve the efficiency of filming to avoid as many potential problems as possible;
including an advanced in-depth documentation of timings, personnel's on set, location details, emergency contacts, and kit
movement, I had also supported this with a birds-eye-view of the locations, with a walking route, and a weather analysis
keeping track as the days go by approaching the selected date, with the inclusion of such needed shots to keep track.

18. What had I done
Technical/Management – Concluding my planning documentation, besides from my bibliography, written work regarding my
production schedule from weeks 1 to 8, personnel's needed on set, and a list of resources that I had initially come up with
ahead of going into production and filming meant that all was left is these such technical/management factors to consider,
mocked up in a very detailed set of PowerPoint slides for extra information regarding the next steps I would take into
developing an outstanding few outcomes to the project.
Thriller Genre
Story Development Props/Costumes
Color Schemes
Locations
Title/Tagline
Shot Lists

19. Strengths
From beginning to end, my story development section in the planning PowerPoint is by far one of the most successful
features of the whole project, not only for determining the final form of my narrative which works perfectly with my
intentions from the start, but I had come from having no idea what my storyline would resolve around to generating a few
different ideas and therefore developing the final form; without the planning I had done through from my research to now, I
wouldn’t have been able to achieve the narrative you see, and not to mention that this also determined everything from my
poster designs to the trailer produced, otherwise I'm sure the end outcome wouldn’t have been as successful.
Concerning my shot lists, this was also considerably helpful using the tables made to assist organizing everything, whether it
be the different scenes, sections, acts, or even shots, I used this to manage my footage and track my progress with the filming
taking place; in addition to this, highlighting each of the shots to identify what I still needed to record, what needed
improving, and what I had gotten, this made the process much more time efficient, especially when forming my call sheets
for each filming day, often taking these tables to shooting locations for reconsolidating myself. Its also worth mentioning that
my shot list pages changed the whole structure for my last idea and initial plan I had, for the better as it was more suiting to
the narrative and recording surrounding purposes of ease of production, improving my time management on the project,
whilst sustaining a good level of understandability for new audiences coming to my trailer for instance.
I would also consider the process of determining my title and tagline was particularly great in the sense that I had no idea
what my title or tagline would be, or even the font that I would be using, all up until I had looked at the ‘dafont’ website, used
my own knowledge and background experience, and arranged a plan to differ one name or font I had found against another;
the outcome being ‘omission’ with the ‘they perished’ font choice was a great decision, for reasons surrounding the title
defines ‘someone or something being left out’ which relates closely to my narrative, the font choice almost perishing away at
the bottom to incline a slow process of disappearing, otherwise reflecting my character slowly turning psychotic, and finally
the defining of the letters ‘io’ that demonstrates the 10 days passing in my story, another subtle addition.

20. Strengths
When it comes to the impact something has made on the production phase, aside from my shot lists pages having already
mentioned their use, the call sheets made for each filming day was also incredibly beneficial throughout this section;
discussing what I would be filming, at whatever specific time, in addition to contact details, location accessibility, a birds eye
view of each set with a map route, and even to the extent of monitoring the weather and sunlight direction, this ensured
everything would go as smoothly as possible, avoiding any potential dangers/hazards, at the same time of making the process
of recording and getting footage much more efficient.
Title/Tagline
Call Sheets
Shot Lists
Story Development

21. Weaknesses
I would say the color schemes planning I had done, looking at some of the different
color variations with each of the predominant’s, hadn’t come much helpful for some of
the planning aspects you would expect it to thrive in, such as when looking at poster
concepts which strongly focus on color schemes here; although I had learnt a few
different ways in which colors can work with one another, I didn’t use this working
towards anything, not even during production, making it the most pointless section out
of the whole PowerPoint, and even looking back at these slides, I still cant seem to
understand where it could come beneficial, its more there to simply advocate an
appreciation for every possibility and show an initiative.
In addition to this, I would incline where I had looked into different uses and
possibilities with potential techniques wasn’t much help; although I can fully
understand that its good to list down potential things I could use in either of my poster
or trailer, as this is a planning documentation, this mostly consisted of stuff I had
already know, and despite their listing downs, when it came to production I had more or
less changed and added things that I thought would be suiting when going through and
making my trailer/poster, so in short, I was only stating information I knew already not
helping myself but only serving a purpose to showing my peers my thought process for
each of the methods. Its worth mentioning that even though this doesn’t sound at all a
weakness, in comparison to everything else, and judging these slides from my point of
view, they’re considered weak.
Color Schemes
Potential Techniques

22. Time Management
Unaware of how long I have spent on this section of my FMP, my time management here has remained
extremely complex from the start. Constantly changing aspects to this planning PowerPoint, from the
beginning I had been working on this alongside completing my problem solving documentation,
broadening what I'm look at and taking in every possibility I can think of, I would say I have roughly
been working on this single PowerPoint for almost 12 weeks (3 months), making it the most looked at
piece of work for the whole project, holding currently 675 views from my OneDrive. With this in mind
most would presume I've been extremely unorganized, however to an extent I think I've done
reasonably well because particular during production, I was visiting this page daily, whether it be
changing my shot lists on most occasions, or sometimes looking back at past concepts, changing ideas,
or adding in extra slides for certain things I've decided to do later on, this has made it extremely
complex and therefore impossible to manage.

23. Improvements
Looking back at my planning documentation, the only thing I would mention improving is my time management, not
only because I had gone over the deadline as a result of this, but this also left a lot of out-standing work that needed to
be completed in my own time, therefore this also impacted a lot of the work I was currently working on, whether it be
my production or evaluation; this also demonstrates, similar to those other sections that rolled over the deadline, a
butterfly affect where a past section has affected the next section that affected the following section and so fourth.
Avoiding this would be a significant improvement to consider in the future, and this doesn’t only apply to this section,
because it could also be establish earlier on in the project having carried on to effect further developments; doing so
would offer more time and the opportunity to improve work where it needs elaborating, adding the extra detail and or
information to improve the grade and how I'm reflected as a person to my peers.
Because I can’t find anything wrong in particular with almost all of the written work you see, because I truly believe I
had considered everything that’s to be included in my planning, I would mention adding additional sources and
therefore links in my bibliography; I had noticed that my bibliography seemed extremely empty although I had typed
up so much information throughout the course of this PowerPoint, so whether or not it means finding some sources
across the internet or in person (books/focus groups), I think broadening my bibliography could be of some importance
when showing an initiative and dedication to research with reason.
Surprisingly, I could only point out these two improvements which could be made, although its with reason that
improving my time management covers an extensive amount of different matters, I honestly think a lot of my work
here is both extremely detailed and to the point, but also very descriptive with my own personal judgements following
almost a pathway as you go through the PowerPoint carrying along the way my thought process for my peers to
understand everything much clearer.