2. Context
• Before I started my research for my project, I started looking at relevant film directors and relevant
posters to help me guide my research in the right direction.This is something I have never done
before and at first I didn’t quite understand the difference between context and research but as I
started writing about the context behind my film, it made me realise there is a big difference and
the context and the research and the context made my research document a lot more focussed on
what I needed to look at. For example, looking at the practitioners was good because I then went
on to research their work more in depth and take parts of their work and incorporate it into my
own. I also decided to write about my own experienced in the context.The whole inspiration of my
film was my own paranormal experience, and from that I made a post that gained some attention
and started explaining things to me like possible causes of my experience. This got me researching
lots of different ghosts and mythology, which is how I ended up with the idea I have now.
• It did take me a while to fully understand what the context was for, which meant I did overlap a bit
into the research, but even though those two sections of the fmp are different, they slightly linked
to each other so it was easy to transition to one to the other, so I didn’t lose much time doing my
research because I was behind on context.
3. Research
• I think the research for this project has been my strongest point.To make this project successful, I
needed to conduct a survey to see what my audience will enjoy and do lots of research on horror
trailers, as I have never made a trailer for a film before.The survey I made was mainly about the
preferences of my audience and what they enjoyed and I learned a lot and got a lot of
recommendations of horror trailers to watch just from my survey. I asked weather people found
“Found footage” Films scary or not and based on that answer I changed my film. I was originally
not going to make any of it found footage and make all of it in the normal filming layout, however
my audience suggested the films paranormal activity and Blair witch project which both are found
footage and from that I decided to alter my original idea slightly. Overall, this has made my film
trailer better and more like the genre I was going into. A lot of paranormal films have found
footage elements and I think by adding this to my project, it fits into this sub-genre better.
• Researching posters made me realise how little I know about the conventions of horror posters.
From this, I started researching codes and conventions of horror posters and realised each horror
poster is very similar to each other.This made me want to do something more unique and maybe
something involving more colours, that is how I got to my final project. I used the conventions of
horror posters and just added a twist to make them stand out more.The use of colour in a project
that is stereotypically dark is very interesting to me and I think it turned out really well.
4. Research
• Throughout the production of my project I had to a lot of “on the go” research. Particularly when
editing in photoshop and premiere.To improve on the editing on my project I had to research a lot
of techniques I didn’t think of researching when it was actually my time to research. For example, I
was struggling with lighting when filming and realised it was to difficult to film in the dark, so I have
to film in the light and edit it to be dark.This went very well and looks realistic enough to pass as
night time. I researched this by watching different tutorials onYouTube until I found one that suits
the lighting that I wanted.
5. Planning
• I feel like this was the part in the project where my motivation went down slightly and it was
harder for me to focus on my work. I think you can definitely see the change in my work between
research and planning. However the research has really helped me visualise the project.The main
thing that helped me was the story boarding. I followed my story boarding in the production and it
helped me to have that visual aid. However I definitely think that I could have made more storyb
boards. I only made a couple of story boards for the more drawn out scenes in my trailer, and
didn’t plan for all of the filler content.When I got to production this made me struggle because I
was a bit lost on what to film and where to film it. I ended up doing some more research on trailers
and watching more trailers for some extra inspiration and this helped me figure out what I was
going to do for my trailer. By watching the extra trailers, I also figured out that I wanted some
form of voice over to go with my music too.This ended up being a good idea because it added
more depth to the trailer.
• I do definitely think I could improve on planning in the future. I would definitely leave more time
for it and try have more focus when I am doing it.This would lead to a more focussed production
and it would have probably gone a lot smoother, if I had planned it better and more in advance,
rather than during production.
6. Problem Solving
• The problem solving was something I needed to leave some time for as I knew I had some
problems I needed to plan for, such as lighting and filming in the dark.
• For me, the experiments were the most helpful part of this process. In my experiments I learned
how to do physical lighting using things I had in my room such as an LED light and a salt lamp, and
then I learned how to do the same thing using photoshop.This gave me lots of options because I
knew if I couldn’t achieve the physical lighting there was always a way to get it while editing.This
put my mind at rest because I had several solutions to my lighting problems.
• Something else that was really useful was my contingency plan and all my problems and solutions.
This task made me write out all possible problems and then write what solution I would have for
this.This was so useful to me because I had to go through everything that could go wrong and
brainstorm things that could help solve that problem.This was helpful because some of the things
that I thought could go wrong actually went wrong, then I went back to my contingency plan and
used my solution or alternative way around the problem and it ended up helping me a lot.
• One thing I could have improved is that I could have made some video experiments rather than just
photo and print experiments.That could have helped me be more comfortable with my camera.
7. Production
• My whole production process was a bit of a rollercoatsrer. It started off really positively and
everything was going okay and I managed to film the main scene of my film, but when I watched it
back, the lighting was too dark and the camera kept going out of focus. I tried to edit this footage
but it just wasn’t looking how I wanted it to look. So from this, I did a bit more filming with my
camera to see if I could get any footage that I liked/was good quality but I coudnt seem to do it. I
then realised it was the dark and shooting in the dark was a mistake.
• I planned another production day but this time I did it in broad daylight with the idea that I am
going to edit in the night time. I did an experiment where I did this and it turned out really well so I
tried it and it looked so much better when I was editing it.
• I started out by using my camera. But I couldn't quite keep it in focus especially with a moving
subject/actor so I was really struggling getting some footage I could actually work with. As a last
case ib decided I was going to film the entire thing on my phone.This worked because the whole
idea of my film was it is a found footage film and it actually worked out really well. Because I had
such good lighting and the way I edited it, you really couldn’t tell that it was made on a phone.
• Even though I had lots of ups and down I still managed to get all my footage and edit it all in time
and still have a really well put together final piece.
8. Post-Production
• The editing part of the work is always my favourite part. I enjoy seeing a piece of work being
assembled and changed from that raw footage to something really amazing. I always love learning
new techniques and different ways of doing things more efficiently.
• Editing my posters was the most fun thing to do. I really enjoyed adding layer onto layer and seeing
them slowly come together. All of them look exactly how I imagined them to look apart from the
orange one. I couldn’t get the shadows right, no matter how long I worked on it it looked too
smooth to be good. I tried for hours trying to fix it but nothing would work. However the
background of the orange poster is probably my favourite.
• Everything on premiere ran smoothly apart form a mistake I made. I made the fatal error of
forgetting so save for about an hour and then premiere crashed and I wasn’t able to recover my
work and I ended up having to redo like an hours worth of work.This was really frustrating as it is all
work I did before and I could have spent that hour doing new work and I could have developed my
editing skills even further.
• Other than that, the whole editing process was the most enjoyable part of my entire project, I really
had fun doing it and I think my work paid off because the trailer and posters both ended up really
good in my opinion.
10. What was the theme of your project and what
attracted you to it?
• The theme of my project was a paranormal trailer. Or just paranormal activity sort of thing.This
attracted me for a number of different reasons. First of all I love all things paranormal and horror is
my favourite genre of movie. I think paranormal films are the most scary horror films are there is
nothing to protect you against ghosts, whereas in slasher films there is always a solution but the
characters never take the solution so it is frustrating to watch. Paranormal films are scarier to watch
as they make you feel more helpless.
• The second reason why this attracted me is because some paranormal things happen to me at
home so it is based on a true story and I want to make a real life version of it. I found it really
interesting to do research on it and learn more about the genre itself, but doing paranormal
research maybe helped me figure put what I experienced myself. It is kind of like my own
investigation as to what happened to me.
11. What research did you undertake and how did it
help you develop your project?
• My research was the most thorough part of my project. I spent the most time doing my research
and I think that is obvious if you look at it compared to the rest of my pieces of work. I split up my
research into different parts. Production research, primary research, secondary research and
market research.
• Each of these helped me develop my project in different ways. In my opinion the most helpful was
market research. Looking at different existing products was the most helpful thing because it
gave me lots of inspiration on posters specifically. I was doing research on more generic posters
and then I came across the ghost stories posters and that is what inspired me the most, they were
the best posters I came across and I took massive inspiration from them.
• Production research was also very interesting for me and helped me develop my project a lot
because I never really looked into colour theory too much and never really took into account how
much colour generated meaning. I then decided to make colour a really important art of my
project and used it to put across really subtle messages in my production.
12. How did you develop and improve your ideas
throughout the project?
• Throughout the project I came across a couple of unexpected hurdles that made me change my
project in different ways and each idea I changed, the better the project got. I had to do a loot of
research on the go and learn how to do different things on premiere pro as I went a long. For
example, at the start of my project I filmed in the dark because in my head it would come across as
more authentic then editing in the night time.This turned out very bad and looked very low
quality. I wasn’t sure how to edit something to make it look like night time so I had to do some on
the go research and re shoot all of my footage in the day time. It actually looked very realistic
which is not what I imagined. I also learned how to add coloured spotlights onto the work so I
could include some colours, rather than it being just dark and gloomy. I wanted to make it more
aesthetically interesting and have some sort of link to the posters.
• If I had just stuck to my original idea and my original shooting plan rather than adapting everything
throughout, I would have a project that is not as good as it could be, I am very glad I made those
changes and stuck to what I thought was right, even though it meant I was a bit behind and went
off plan a little.
13. What was the outcome of your project/ task?
• The products I ended up creating were 4 posters and 1 movie trailer. I really think this is some of
my best work, especially the posters. I spent a lot of time hand drawing backgrounds and trying
new things I learnt how to do on photoshop and I think It really paid off.
• I originally set out to make a trailer and a opening scene for a film but that didn’t end up
happening. I ended up with posters and a trailer. With posters and a trailer I think it shows off
wide variety of my skills, such as graphic design, editing and filming. Post production and editing
are always my strong points. At the start of the project I thought I was going to enjoy filming and
editing moving picture more but I really enjoyed coming up with designs for my posters, they
were so fun to make and I had lots of fun using a graphics tablet and drawing on all the little
details myself. I think I want to do more graphic design projects in the future because I enjoyed
doing it so much. I definitely think editing on photoshop is one of my strong points.
• The outcome of the posters were 4 colourful posters that are still scary and still obviously
advertising a horror film, but in a non conventional way.The outcome of my trailer was a 2
minute long video, that hit all the criteria for a horror trailer (suspense, jumscares, dark colours,
silence)
15. How did you feel about the project before you
started?
• Before I started the project I was very confident on it. I know I have skills on photoshop and skills
on premiere and I wanted to do a project that covered a variety of things that showcase all my
skills. I was very excited to do a horror project because it is something I enjoy watching and maybe
I would like to work with horror films one day so this was a very exciting project for me.
• At the start of the project I was a lot more motivated than when it got later on in the project. I was
rooting for a distinction but I think as things got more difficult for me my motivation started
disappearing. Before the project started I was very eager to get on with it and I handed in all my
work on time, but as the project went on I started missing deadlines and I didn’t hit a single
deadline after research. I managed to get all my work done but it was very last minute. I wish my
mentality stayed for longer because when I was In that mindset, doing work was so easy and
finding the motivation to do work was so simple.
16. How did you feel when the project was completed
and why?
• When the production was completed I felt very relived, like a weight had been lifted off my chest,
but I was also very happy and very happy with what I had created. Seeing all my finished products
together made me very proud of what I had accomplished and it made feel likie I have a good
chance of getting a good grade.
• I did feel a little upset that the project was complete because it is my last project of my time at
college.This project reflects my entire 2 year period at college and the grade I get for my entire
stay is based on this 15 week project so I do feel very nervous about it but I am also confident. But
having so much being based on this (getting into university etc) makes it a nervous process.
• Overall I was relived when the project was finished, all my hard work had paid off and I was just
happy to have some products that are of high standard.
18. What were the good points about the project/task
and what did you learn from them?
• One good point from my project was learning from my mistakes with lighting, and then learning a
whole new technique which improved the overall quality of my project so much. Reshooting did
set me back a couple of weeks schedule wise, but if I didn’t reshoot it I don’t think I would have as
much as a chance of getting a merit as I do now.The trailer feels more professional and the
colours really add to it too.
• Another good point are the overall look of my posters.The colours make them really unique
posters and I think they really stand out compared to most horror film posters. I think the
production quality is really good and the font I use is very fitting for the poster and the fact I stick
to a strict colour scheme and don’t defer from it makes them look really good. Considering the
photos I had to work with weren’t exactly the greatest photos, I think I did a really good job.
• Lastly, I think my research on this task was really strong, I am very interested about the
paranormal and doing research on it was really interesting to me and it just made me want to
learn more and I loved analysing different posters and watching trailers. It gave me so much
inspiration for my project. I think my research is probably the strongest point.
19. What challenges did you face and how did you
respond to them?
• I faced multiple challenges on this task, but I managed tp overcome each of them and I have still
ended up with a very good project at the end of it.
• One challenge I faced was having to reshoot my work.This did end up being a good thing but it
set me back a couple of weeks, at the time of my reshoot I should have been doing my evaluation,
but instead I had to edit my work I reshot and it took me a really long time because I wanted it to
be the best standard, because I think the product I create is the most important thing I need to do.
• Another challenge I faced was losing a good proportion of my work due to premiere failing and
not being able to recover my work.This was my fault and I should have been more careful and
saved my work more often, but it just slipped my mind because I was so focussed on editing all my
work.There wasn’t really much I could have done, I just had to re edit all of my work but it did end
up being a better standard than the first edit.
• Another challenge I faced was my time management. I ended up being very behind on the project,
not because I wasn’t working but because I spent too long on parts of the project that I probably
could have cut down my time on.
20. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the
lines of poor, satisfactory, good or excellent...justify
your rating]
• I think I would rate my final piece good/merit. I believe I deserve a merit because all of my work is
up to a good standard and not one of my pieces of work brings me down. I think there is a good
standard of work throughout and the quality doesn’t differ. I even think some of my work could be
excellent but I do not think I had an excellent quality of work as my standard. I do not think I
deserve a satisfactory grade, as I think I do go into more detail throughout and the final pieces are
something I am really proud of. I use techniques in my final pieces that I have never used before
and I think they turned out to be something really good.
• I think my writing work brings my grades down. I think I am a lot better at practical work and if it is
juts based on practical work I think I could have gotten a better grade. I am, not good at
expressing things through typing and I don’t know if my writing work is good enough standard to
get me the grade I want.This project I have put a lot more effort into my writing and I really hope
it pays off.
21. What is your opinion of your final piece?What
elements do you think are successful and why?
• The most successful element of my final piece are my posters. I think I am better at graphic
design than I am video editing, although I really enjoy filming and editing. However, for this
project specifically I am so proud of my posters and I think they are the most successful part of
the entire project as a whole. I do really enjoy my trailer, but I would like to see it from an
outsiders perspective. I cant fins my own project scary because it is my actor and my editing, I
know everything that happens in the trailer so I cant possibly find it scary.
This poster specifically is the most successful part of my final piece. I think it
really fits the criteria of a horror film poster and it is exactly what I envisioned
when I set out to make this poster. I am very happy with it. I think the colours
work really well and the swirl in the background is very fitting and it makes
you think of some sort of mind control of hypnotising, which links to the
trailer and getting lured somewhere, as if you are in a trance.
22. How well did your project apply the characteristics
and conventions of the medium you worked in?
• In my research I looked into the codes and conventions for horror trailers and horror posters. I also
looked into conventions of trailers as a whole. I think I applied the characteristics for the trailers
really well. I included, suspense, jump scares, dark colours, title cards and music that has lots of
build ups. I also went away from the conventions and decided to add some colour to my trailer. I
think adding colour to my trailer makes it more unique and more visually interesting to look at. I
also think blue and red have lots of meaning that go a lot deeper than just looking pretty. Blue and
red are conflicting colours which are used in lots of things such as games and films. I wanted to use
this to show a conflict in my character in the trailer.
• Conventions of horror posters are the main character in the foreground of the poster, looking
vulnerable with their face lit up and the rest in shadows. I followed these conventions in my
posters as I think it is a good way to establish who is the good character and who is an evil
character. Red is also used in a lot of horror posters. For one of my posters I used red as the
predominant colour and I think it makes a very good poster. However I wanted them to be more
unique and stand out from other posters so I added lots of colours to all of my posters, but didn’t
make them look bright and colourful, I used darkened versions of the colours to still have that
element off horror.
24. In what ways was the overall project a success?
• Overall, the project was a success, I ended up with 5 products total that are good quality and I
believe will get me a good grade and will get me where I want to be. However I do believe that my
writing work and analysing work brings me down. Overall, my production work was really
successful and I have learned new skills and I think they will help me in the future too when I am
making posters. I am also really happy with my trailer and think it is really successful.
• The research was also a really big success for me. I have never split up research into sub categories
but by doing that I think it made my research more focussed on my research because it got split
up, so it wasn’t just like one big document. It made it easier to split my time up and manage my
time. I think if I did this with every document I would have been more successful and maybe could
have gotten a distinction. I do now think a distinction is not in reach for me.
25. What elements did not go well and why?
• I think the least successful elements were context, planning and presentation.
• First of all context.When we started doing context I did not understand the difference between
context and research. Particularity when it was practitioner research. I was confused why it was
on the context and not on the research. Because I didn’t really fully understand the whole concept
of context I don’t think I did the PowerPoint to my full ability. I think I would have done better if I
did a “Initial ideas” PowerPoint.
• Second of all, I don’t think my planning was done to the best of my abilities. I think I could have
done some more visual planning and it would have really helped me in production. I really think I
should have done more story boarding. For me, story boarding is thr most helpful form of
planning because i can draw out exactly what I want it to look like and where the camera angles
should be. I didn’t have a lot of time to do my planning as it went over into my production time. I
only managed to do 2 story boards and they were for my longer drawn out scenes in the trailer,
but I really needed to story board the filler gaps.
• Lastly, the presentation really confused me. I wasn’t sure how to present my work, or what to do
to present my work in a way that is consistent with the rest of my work, so I really struggled with
this.
26. What meaning and messages did you want to
convey and were you successful?
• The main messages I wanted to covey were in the colours I used and the poses in the photos for my
posters. I used colours that are opposite each other in the colour wheel to show some sort of
opposition. I was trying to make it clear that the opposition is within , the evil is you or some sort of
mimic to you.You never actually see any evil, you only see the main character.
• I also wanted to make the man in the film itself seem the most vulnerable in my posters. In all of my
posters he is looking away with a scared expression on his face. However the girl in my posters is
the girl I used for the voice of the evil in my trailer. I made her stare directly into the camera with an
evil laugh on her face.This shows she is not a good character and does not have good intentions.
• I think I was successful in putting across subtle meaning through colour, everyone associates colour
with something and the main colours I used were red and blue. Everyone associated red with the
devil or evil and blue with goodness or even sadness. I think it worked really well and even if you
don’t understand the messages, it looks visually aesthetic.
27. What feedback did you get from your peers and
viewings?
• “I think the music is really well put with it, the self recorded bit looks cool and the lighting and
flashing effects in the tense bit are cool. Also the audio is done well. But the footsteps at the end
sound strange and I think the frame rate needs to be lowered to 24 because it looks a bit like a
vlog, like too fluid”
• I fully agree with this feedback. I am very happy with the audio and how I edited to the sound of
the audio but the footsteps at the end are too loud and the music is too quiet. I wasn’t sure how to
make the footsteps audible without turning them down too much. I was told they are like an audio
overlay. I wasn’t sure how to smoothly blend the sound of the footsteps to make them sound like
they were coming from the ceiling.
• I don’t really understand what frame rates means and what he meant by making it look more fluid.
I cant really see it being more fluid and I am not sure what lowering the frame rate would do, but
next time I do a project I will look into fram rates and more technical things because if it was
noticed and made it look worse, then It is definitely something I need to take into account.
28. “I think to improve the red poster could’ve done with something more,
when compared to the rest it feels more on the bland side.The facial
expression is excellent, I just personally believe its missing something
that gives the rest an edge”
I agree with this feedback, I do think it is a bit bland in comparison to
the rest of my posters, they each have something that makes them
unique and stand out and this one doesn’t. However I do really like the
colour work and the shadows on this one so it is one of my favourites.
29. “I like the style these posters are done in, using highly saturated colours
to achieve a creepy vibe is a nice subversion, the bright colours only
adding to the uncanny nature of them.The green poster is my favourite
of them all respectively as it feels the most uncanny, especially with the
hue making the characters face bright green.”
This poster is my personal favourite so I definitely agree with this
feedback. I think the green and the purple really work together and it
makes the face really stand out compared to the background.
31. If you were making a similar project in the future,
what would you do differently?
• If I was going to make a similar project in the future I would do a couple of things differently. First
of all I would get more footage. I need more filler footage and I need to make sure I film each
scene more than once.This is difficult to do when filming, but whe it comes to editng int makes
my life a lot easier. It is better to have too much footage then to have gaps all in your project and
no filler footage to fill it with.
• I learned this the hard way because I had to go back and shoot more footage on several
occasions. I originally planned on having one shooting day but it ended up being about 4 shooting
days, and then in the end I only used one days worth of shooting.This definitely means I need to
plan out my work more. If I had more of a plan then I probably wouldn’t have been so lost when it
came to shooting.
32. What personal attributes could you develop to
ensure you are working at a professional level?
• I definitely need to work on my time management and hitting deadlines on time. Being able to hit
deadlines is a crucial part of working in this industry because films have release dates, trailers have
release dates and you cant have people waiting around on you to get your part done because it
will delay the whole process.Working in film andTv involves a lot of teamwork and you needf to
be able to pull your own weight and keep up with a team in order to be taken swrousoly and
progress in the industry.
• Time management is a crucial skill I need to work on because it is one of the most important
things. It is always good to have some leeway and not leave things until the last minute because
that never ends up well and it will cause unnecessary stress for yourself.
