3. DECISIONS
After brainstorming through my different options of ways that
I can present my trailer through media, I’ve decided on the
platforms I’m going to use.
1. I’ll make an Instagram so I can make use of screenshots
from my film and make a short video to use too.
2. I’ll write a script for a director’s commentary style video to
delve more into my inspirations for my trailer and other
points with appropriate footage to watch too.
3. I’ll create a new website to show all of this collectively with
the links and content as if the film would actually be made,
along with other future content.
4. Public screening to be arranged for the class’ films.
4. INSTAGRAM
I decided to use Instagram because I thought that it was
probably my best option. I did consider Facebook but I knew
that more of my target audience was more likely to be on
Instagram, at least more regularly. It also meant that the
image or video shows a lot of the information with only a bit
of text, rather than the primary aspect being text as often the
case with Facebook.
5. INSTAGRAM
I spent some time in Photoshop, picking out a screenshot and
a picture I took on set to be used as promotional posts for the
Instagram account I created to put on my website. I recreated
the title text as best as I could since the settings are different in
Premiere and Photoshop. Since the picture I took didn’t have
the adjustment layers from Premiere, I did a slightly simpler
version for the poster that still gave a good effect, while also
using the 15 second section of clips I used in the commentary
as an Instagram trailer for the website and main trailer.
6. DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY
Before I started to write the script for my own director’s
commentary, I wanted to listen to a few others to give me
some ideas of things that were talked about and how the
directors spoke. Since I couldn’t find any for ‘The Hunger
Games’ that I was sure was actually the director, I ended up
listening to the starts of the commentaries for ‘Captain
America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. I
found both of these to be helpful in thinking about what to
include in the script, especially talking about characters and
what certain things can suggest about their personalities.
7. DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY
• I set No Man’s Land during a time where society has collapsed, and the inhabitants have turned against each other. I made my project like
this because I enjoy the dystopian genre and watching media in that style made me wonder about how something like that would affect the
UK. I’d noticed that films, shows and video games like this were all set in America and I thought that things could potentially be quite
different.
• Last year I made a one-minute short film on a similar concept that I called ‘Lost and Found’. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a lot of time to really
think in depth of how life would be for anyone would live and ended up being not very proud of the result. So, when the opportunity came
around, I quickly took it to put a lot more research and thought into what life would be like. I wanted to take just the concept but change it
by researching different inspirations, though still making a few references to it, such as her shoes and hair being the same. A lot during of
inspiration came from watching dystopian films such as ‘The Hunger Games’, but also from video games such as ‘The Last of Us’ and even the
‘Borderlands’ games that featured a society where there weren’t any diplomatic governments. It meant I could see what a lot of people did
and, in most cases, resulting in groups and gangs fighting over resources and places to live. I didn’t have the cast size to be able to visibly
portray this but since I’d already decided I wanted a similar character to the one I had last year, hence why my actress is the same, and be on
her own I was able to use this to my advantage and possibly prompt the audience to wonder why she is on her own. I wanted to be able to
hint at lots of different things which is where the idea of creating a trailer rather than a short film came to mind. That way I could hint at a
much larger and hostile world limited by the audience’s imagination. This way I could also suggest that there is much more to the story that
the main plot and the main character surviving, but also at sub-plots that could lead to future films and spin-offs as I’ve seen films do before,
especially in the Marvel franchise. While the Marvel films aren’t really the same genre as my project, I’ve realised in hindsight that I probably
took more inspiration from them than I realised. Especially, something I realised was that a lot of Marvel trailers have a section of comedic
relief so that it isn’t completely serious throughout. It was something I used in my trailer and possibly one of my favourite parts.
• The most time spent on making production was optimising the opportunity to use some creative colour grading. I enjoyed testing with
different colour grading that can really add to the atmosphere and I felt it looked a lot better than with a more realistic grading or none at all.
During researching through different inspirations, I used from various shows, I noticed that there were different kinds of colour grading
across what I was looking at. One that ended up being a big aspect of the final look was in the show ‘Supernatural’ when the characters go to
what is called ‘apocalypse world’. The colour grading is drastically different from the rest of the show, with hardly any saturation and
occasionally looking as if it had an orange tint. While making an adjustment layer that was a combination of the one I saw on a tutorial and
the look from ‘Supernatural’, I thought to try around with different temperatures, feeling that the warm temperature was an effective colour
to try and ended up using them both. Of course, the main problem I had was the sky as a result being completely white. I thought that it
could be used to represent her being alone, but I felt it looked too harsh and was distracting which led to my lengthy masking job. The effort
was completely worth it and it’s one of my favourite parts of my trailer. I made sure to put across her being alone in other ways, through
facial expressions and using quite a lot of wide shots and framing her in the corner of shots to leave a lot of empty space to represent the
loneliness. However, the framing becomes closer when she encounters another person. I wanted her to initially hostile to him to express how
she must act to survive but to then realise that he’s in the same situation as her and seems to know something leading to the main plot. With
me initially feeling that she would naturally be hostile to strangers, I started to think about weapons. Being different to the US, I knew that
guns would be less available, especially to someone on her own. This is where the idea of the hockey stick came in, which was also a bit
different to a baseball bat, another common weapon in the American films. It was also a little quirky and versatile in an environment such as
this she’s attached to. I wanted the character of the stranger she meets to be quite mysterious, so that the audience wasn’t sure if he was
trustworthy or not and what the clips following from his introduction was hinting at. On the other hand, I wanted to add another bit of depth
to the characters even for the trailer. This is where the end of my trailer came in, so that I could show that even in a desolate situation such as
this, not everyone is serious all the time. This is one of my favourite parts of the whole project. Even though it’s quite a contrast from the
otherwise serious nature, I feel it’s a good relief that can make the characters more relatable and likable and that when the feature film would
be released, suitable for other audiences too.
8. DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY
Once I’d recorded my commentary, I added it into my
premiere film. I didn’t want to just have my trailer on repeat,
with it being about 7 minutes long once I’d cut it down. I
decided to pick a few of the inspirations I talk about and use
some clips to break up the footage which seemed to work out
well in the end to add a visual aid to what I was saying.
9. WEBSITE
When thinking about my website, I initially just thought about
making a page with a link to my trailer saying that the film
would be ‘coming soon’. However, I then decided that I
wanted to be able to add a bit more to it, such as having
sections for future content and having more about the actual
film besides the trailer, Instagram feed and director
commentary. I then got the idea to include the music from my
trailer as I haven’t used that feature before and since I enjoyed
editing them I could put them on my website as I thought it
could be something a little bit different.
WEBSITE LINK: https://qwertystudios45.wixsite.com/qwertystudios
10. WEBSITE
The other thing I wanted to add onto my website, in
reference to what I talked about in my commentary, was the
music I used for my trailer. I didn’t think it was necessary
but I thought it added something extra to my website.
Especially because I talked about mixing two tracks to get
some of the music for my trailer in my commentary, I
thought it was a nice feature.
11. PUBLIC SCREENING
As opposed to the other ways my film is being shown: such as
YouTube, Instagram and the End of Year show, a separate
event has also been organised. On the 24th June, our class will
be screening everyone’s films openly to the public as another,
organised way of presenting our projects to people outside
our friends and family that is different from social media and
college orchestrated events.
