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Mailing list for press pack
After putting a little thought into my press pack ver the last few days, I’ve decided that today I’m going to be thinking about what I’m actually going to be doing with it. Press packs are an important part of film promotion but are virtually useless unless they’re being sent out to people and are being seen. Today I’m going to be doing a little research into who and where these press packs can end up so that the public acutlaly know about my film. I think I’m going to mainly be looking for local print publications such as newspapers and magazines and possibly even sending the press packs out to schools because as I’ve said before I think it could be a really good way to get both exposure and be used as a druge abuse prevention tool. Whilst looking for publications to send out my press pack to I’ve stumbled across quite a few colchester-based blogs. I think it’d be a great idea to send my packs out to them as its literally their job to show people what’s going on around colchester.
I’ve also looked into local film festivals and film oriented businesses in my local area, anything that will get people talking about the film will be worth sending the information out to.
Mailing list:
Colchester film festival: https://colchesterfilmfestival.com/contact/
Colchester Gazette: http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/contactus/
Colchester Sun: [email protected]
Essex chronicle: Essex Chronicle Media Group, 1st Floor, Kestrel House, Hedgerows Business Park, Colchester Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 5PF
Signals: http://www.signals.org.uk/contact/
Colchester Life blog: http://colchesterlife.co.uk/blog/ @ colchesterlife on twitter
Colchester chronicle blog: http://www.colchesterchronicle.co.uk/contact/
Ben Locker’s Colchester based blog: http://www.benlocker.org.uk/contact/
Colchester high School: [email protected]
Colchester royal grammar school: [email protected]
Colchester county high school [email protected]
Philip Morant School: [email protected]
St. Benedicts School: [email protected]
HARWICH FILM FESTIVAL : 07425 145022
FILM SUFFOLK: [email protected]
Lookeast: [email protected]
Itv Press centre: @itvpresscentre
Channel 4: https://www.channel4.com/4viewers/contact-us
Channel 5: [email protected]
Radio one: 03700 100 100
Bbc essex: [email protected]
Heart east anglia: 0345 481 00 00
Hear esssex colchester: 01245 52 52 52
Smooth radio east anglia: [email protected]
East anglian daily times: [email protected]
Essex life: [email protected]
Halstead gazette: 01376 343344
Clacton gazette: 01255 221221
Braintree and witham: [email protected]
Chelmsford weekly: [email protected]
University of essex: [email protected]
University of essex rebel radio: [email protected]
Essex spirit newspaper: https://twitter.com/Uni_of_Essex?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.essex.ac.uk%2Fessexspirit%2F
Essex blog: [email protected]
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Making the poster (update)
after writing the first blog post today i decided to go through the research I’d already completed to refresh my memory and had a look at the drafts and sketches I’d done to get a feel of the original ideas i had for this poster. After this I scanned through all the footage that my client had provided me of to look for a still to use as the main focus of this piece of work. I then chose my still and imported it through into photoshop where I satrted to work away at the picture and manipulate it in a way that would suit the genre of this film.
i started off by using layers to darken up the image. I took the picture and inverted the colors so that the white curtain turned to black and then decided to blend the curtain out into a black block colour. I really like the soft spotlight effect this gave to the poster- I feel like it would draw someones eye in and have then start questioning what is going on and encouraging them to see the film.
I followed the genre convention of using a human as a main faeture of the poster and although i do like how it turned out, I would have preferred for it to be an extreme close up. I was supplied a lot of close up footage from my client however because of their technique of filming with a shaky camera, I wasn’t able to get a clear and high quality frame to work with. I settled for this frame beacuse it depicts the scene where the main character wakes up from being drugged and is quite clearly in a situation. The blood and gore on her creates questions for the audience and shows that the film is quite clearly of that nature. i really would have preferred to have the character looking at the camera so that the audience could make some kind of connection and also convey a little bit more fear however I’m quite pleased with how sheepish she looks, i think it makes the audience feel a little more worried for her and it also conforms to the effect that I mentioned in my research into the use of sihlouettes in posters- a concealed identity.
I didn’t entierly follow the convention of using silhouettes to create enigma around the focus of the poster however i feel like by blending the photo out to black I’ve still got the same effect, by leaving the poster a little bit more plain I’m giving the audience room to project their own meaning onto the poster and think about what the film could be about and create their own personal buzz surrounding it.
so after darkening the photo and changing the background, I accidentally used the smudge tool and dragged the colours in her body in a downwards motion, like i said this was an accident but I really liked the effect it gave the poster, i feel like it added something a little more abstract and spooky. after using the smudge tool I decided to move onto insertung a title and a tagline, originally i was a little worried about the title as i feel like this was going to be a key element of the poster and so i wanted it to look as effective as possible. I then got in touch with sam to see if she had any input or direction or a general look that she wanted to see in the poster and she told me that one of the actors had actually animated the opening scene to the film which Included a title graphic. She sent over the animated opener and I took a look. I tried to get in touch with the guy that animated it to find out what font he used but I got not reply so instead I took a screenshot of the opener and imported it into adobe illustrator, from there I traced the graphic and imported it over into the poster document in photoshop. piece by piece the poster seemed to be coming together, I added the tagline beneath the title as i’ve seen this in a lot of other horror film posters. After this i took a small break from poster making and came back to it. When i came back i realised that the poster was a little plain, i knew i was going for a stripped back vibe to conform with what I’d learned in my research but I felt like my poster was lacking.
I had another look at my research and tried to analyse the posters further, how they’ve made the plain parts of their posters look a little omre interesting and I noticed that in many cases they’ve added textures. I didn’t know how to add textures so that was a real learning process (one that I will write about in anther blog post) I added the textures to the background of the poster and another one to the red lettering in the title. I love how these turned out. I feel like it emphasises the eerie vibe that I’m going for and makes the poster look worn and old. The texture also lies across the tshirt of the main character which at first i wasn’t sure if i really liked but i spoke with my client and she said that she thought it exaggerated to “rough and torn up” look which was what they were giong for when filming that scene.
If i were to do this again then I’d defintiely make sure that I attended the film shoots with a dslr to make sure i could get high quality photos to use for my poster- that way I’d have been able to collaborate with my client a little more and see what she wanted and what she thought looked good whilst also use a little creative flair of my own and gathering materials that I needed and wanted. Along with that I’d makes sure I co-ordinated a little better with sam so that I could have had the exact copy of the title graphic so that it matched with the film. However saying that, I’m still really pleased with the final result and I think it’ll make a really effective material in marketing this film.
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Trailer Evaluation
Today I finally finished my trailer! In this blog post im going to be talking about how i made it and what influenced my decisions when making it. As i’ve mentioned before, I’ve never made a trailer before so I kind of went into this part of the project a little unprepared, however after researching and watching a few trailers from the genre im studying I quickly picked up on conventions and codes that I could transfer to my own work. My client supplied me with the footage from the shoot as she’s still in the process of editing the film together, I would have really like to have seen the full film so that I could match the editing techniques for continuity but I feel like i need to realise that’s not always going to actually happen in the real world when working. I started by going through all the footage and marking everything that was potentially useable, i then went online and found some composers who make royalty free film music and downloaded a short piece that I thought would build tension.
I then started piecing the footage together in a way that showed a narrative, starting with an establishing shot and then focusssing on the main character, but didn’t give too much away and just like i had read in my research, ended the trailer where there’s a point of disruption. I then realised that the footage I was working with didn’t have the right atmosphere and so i colour graded each clip so that they were a little more drab and dark. I noticed when doing my research that the title of the film usually goes at the end of the trailer, I also noticed that one piece of footage i had was of a character looking like he was about to stomp on the camera, I used both of these and decided to black out the screen and fade in the title when this stomp was going to happen. Along with this, on that particular transition I made sure that the music was perfecrly in time with the screen cutting to black which adds a lot of suspense and mystery as to what’s going to happen next.
One problem I did encounter when making this trailer was that I feel like i didn’t have enough footage to make a full length piece. I think I managed to make it look alright however I feel like it could be just that little bit better if I had more to play around with. I also feel like I’m comparing my trailer to the ones I looked at when doing my research and this could have given me a skewed opinon as these 2-3 minute trailers are for full feature length films with a LOT more material to experiment with.
About halfway through the trailer, when I blacked out the screen a second time i thought it would look cool to add text as i have seent his in many different trailers, i added the words “arrowtofilm presents” and I feel like by breaking up the sentance and making the audience wait to find out the name of the film, theres a small amount of suspense being built up. After this black out i made sure to significantly speed up the pace of editing like the convention I learned about in my research and I think this was a really good tool in giving off a disorienting feel to the whole peiece, because it’s moving so fast it’s hard for the audience to catch a grip of what’s going on and therefore should be more inclined to see the film because they want answers.
All in all, I’m really pleased with how this turned out and I’m very excited to show it to my client and hear their feedback.
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Making the film poster
I’ve dedicated today to making my poster, I’ve taken a look at the drafts i’ve done and the stills I’ve got from the footage that my client haas given to me and I’m starting to put things in place. I’ve read through the research I did into posters again and I’m becoming more familiar with the conventions of the genre.
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Making a marketing campaign
A few weeks ago I made a post around my uncertainty on whether making a merketing campaign was the right move for me and how i thought it was a problem that i’d have to overcome. I looked into possible solutions of teaming up with another group and asking to be part of their production instead but decided that it would probably be better to stick with my marketing project for two reasons;
1) being that I’ve already put a lot of time and effort into this project and If i were to join another group at this stage I’d probably not have got on as well and wouldn’t have been as dedicated to the end result because i wasnt there for the whole journey
2) carrying on with this project, although it is difficult, will push me to learn more about this area and ultimately care about it a little more as it’s completely independent
I am really glad I chose this path and followed through with this solution. I feel like by going backwards a step or two to make a more thorough plan of what I need to do and what I need to learn and enforce strict deadlines on myself I was able to actually push myself to work to the best of my ability and make the project to the highest standard I can, whilst keeping the stress to a minimum so that it would not impact my mental health. Along with that, by doing this and putting more effort in to be assertive and ask my teachers for help I almost instantly became a lot more confident in my work and what I was making. Talking more about what I was doing and how i was doing it opened me up to constructive cirticism and a view of my work from a different perspective. I didn’t realise how much weight another persons opninion and thoughts hold for me, getting feedback on my work was almost like a little bit of primary, experimental research. I was able to practice and discuss what I was doing and then collect my own original results and put them into prectice, constantly developing and changing direction to mold the path I was taking. in conclusion, I think that sticking to this solution was the right decision and if I were to start this project again I would have spent a lot more time at the start dividing up my time and taking a little bit more care of myself in the process.
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Film trailers
Today I’m looking into starting my trailer for this film, I’ve never made a trailer on my own before so i’m not too sure what to expect but I think I’m going to do a bit of research into genre conventions like i did with the poster and hopefully get and idea of what i need to do from here and what direction i need to take with this next step of the project.
Narrative esposition- a very common convention for film trailers, a compliation of title plates and dialogue from the actual film. The narrative exposition of trailers follows the Tzvetan Todorov theory of film conventions where there is an equlibrium, a disruption, a resolution and a new equilibrium. This exposition of trailer usuallly ends athe the point of disruption to cause suspense and enigma in order to encourage viewers to be intrigues and watch the film. and example of this would be the trailer for the film “Gravity” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTiKOy59o4)
Editing Pace- Another common convention in film trailers is the editing pace, horror and thriller films such as the one im marketing tend to have a very varied editing pace. usually quite slow and building the pace considerable as the diruption occurs. An example of this would be in the trailer for the film “the conjuring” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10ETZ41q5o)
a very common convention of trailers is to include non-diegetic soundtracks fromt he film itself, this helps to conotate the mood an feelings of the charcaters. for example when watching the gravity trailer that I spoke of earlier, you can see that the trailer opens with slow non-diegetic orchestral music to set the tone of a calm and peacful situation.
Lighting is again, a big convention of horror/scifi trailers and often gives an insight into the atmosphere of the scene. As you can see in the trsailre for the conjuring, a horror film, the lighting is very low and there’ s a lot of contrast with the colours and general image of the picture. this give the audience a feel of mystery and helps to build tension. On the other hand to this, classic romance films generally have a much lighter feel to them, scenes ocated outdoors in the summer and using rooms that have light flooding in give connotations of a postive and optimisitc atmosphere.
I’ve also gone onto youtube and watched a number of horror/sci-fi trailers and made a mind map of all the common factors that I could spot, I will make sure to attempt to include all of these in my own trailer
https://hellhorror.com/movie-trailers-2016/
http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a24605/15-sci-fi-films-we-want-to-see-in-2017-and-4-we-dont/
http://www.scifimoviepage.com
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Press pack planning
Today I’m starting to put together my press pack, I’m going through the footage that my client has supplied me with and im looking at taking stills and trying to put together a synopsis and gather information about the cast and crew to make biographies
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Poster Problems
I’ve been looking at making my poster and encountered a problem. I’m really struggling to find a place that will print my poster for a reasonable price. This is a problem beacuse I want a nice visual aid to promote the film for my client but I don’t think it’ll look half as effective if it’s not large and glossy and on flimsy paper.
A solution to this problem would be that I could pay to get these posters made up, they’d be of good quality and probably a very good way to gain attention to my film. however as im a student with only a part time job and no budget set for this film, I don’t think this is a good idea unless I’m ordering the posters to be printed in bulk which is probably not the best idea as I’m not sure I’d be able to move 500+ posters. I could give a few to local cinemas and have them put up around college but that would still leave me with an absurd amount that I’d only be able to move by selling them as merchandise and as this is a smal production I don’t think there would be many sales.
Another solution I could attempt would be to keep the poster as a digital copy and incorperate it into my press pack. I feel like by doing this I’m still making the content to promote the film but I’ll be able to hand it over to the filmmakers and let them make the decision as to whether they want to make the poster.
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On set with the film makers
Today I decided to join the film makers in the production of one of the scenes. I really enjoyed sitting in and seeing how passionate everyone is about making an amazing final product. There was so much attention to detail in terms of set up, make up and quality of footage they were getting and it’s really made me quite motivated to do this film justice annd make it seem as appealing as possible to as many people as possible.
It was cool to see the shots they were taking and get a raw picture of what I’m going to be including in my campaign, since there’s an IV drip in the background in this scene I think I may include it as a main part of my promotional materials.
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Poster printing
Today I’ve thought more about the practical side of this project, specifically making a promotional poster. Ideally I’d like to get one printed up so I’ve looked into businesses in my local area such as vistaprint, tradeprint and printessex to find where offers the best service.
https://www.tradeprint.co.uk/index.cfm/landing-multi-products1/large-format-posters/?gclid=CjwKEAjwse7JBRCJ576SqoD7lCkSJABF-bKubBRQh3RFTMzSJLjXczn4wG9snSKKSUVKi2R0tnUMzRoC1Unw_wcB
http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/banners
http://www.printessex.org.uk/posters/
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Using photoshop
Today I’ve realised that during this project I’m going to have to make some marketing materials such as a press pack and posters. This is a potential problem for me as I’m not very confident using photoshop because I’ve never really needed to use it before. I’ve spent a little bit of time looking at different ways that I can approach this problem, for example, I could try using software that I’m more familliar with such as adobe illustrator, I could make the posters by hand and scan them into a computer or I could watch some tutorials online, talk to my tutors and peers and learn the basics of photoshop.
I don’t think illustrator is completely suited to making the materials that I need but I think I still may need to include it in the practial side of this project, therefore I’m not going to rule it out completely.
Making the posters and press pack by hand and scanning them to make them digital is not an entierly bad idea. It could make them look a little more eerie which would be good because it’s for a horror film, however I don’t think I’m going to be able to get exactly what I want by making materials this way. This way of attempting to solve the problem will also be very time consuming. It will also make editing it very near impossible whereas if I were to make them digitally I’d have full control of them and would be able to chage things around very easily if myself or the group actually making the film didn’t really like the way they were looking.
Having said all of that, I feel like the latter is the best option in this circumstance. I think I’m more likely to create quality materials through photoshop. I’ll also be learning about the software and developing skills that I can definitely use in the future.
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Time Management and my well being
In my last blog post I touched on the subject of time and how little i have left until the final presentation. I’ve been thinking about this pver the weekend and it’s motivated me to get going and make some progress.
Over the last year or so I’ve really struggled with my mental health and genereal well being, because of this I’ve missed a considerable amount of college and therefore not only have a few gaps in my knowledge of the course and a lack of confidence in my ability but I also feel like it’s made me a little uprepared for the intensity of this project. this is a problem because in order to be successful I need to be able to organise my time and get a sufficient amount of work done int the time i’ve got.
At the start of this project I made a very limtied and basic plan of what i needed to do and when but I’m not sure that I’ve stuck to it to the best of my ability. although I can’t fix my mental health I know that if i make a more detailed plan of what I need to to and the objectives I need to fulfil i can chip away at this project in an effective and managable way.
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Not making a film
This past week I’ve had to take a step back a look at this project in an analytical sense. I’ve been thinking about the practical side of this project and how I can do it to the best of my ability with the resources I have at hand. I’m trying to anticipate problems that i may encounter and how I can overcome them.
At the moment I feel like I’m struggling a little in terms of the actual concept of my project- because I’m making a marketing campaign instead of an actual film like everyone else on my course I’ve found that the lessons I’ve been in with teachers aren’t particularly helpful to me and that things like hand outs and worksheets aren’t tailored to what I’m doing. This is a problem as I’m having to do a lot more work to actually find out what I need to do and how i can do it.
An obvious solution to this problem would be to abandon ship and decide to make a film instead, the knowledge that my teachers and the people in my class around me would be very useful in doing this and I’d be able to use those to facilitate the work I’m doing.
Along the lines of the last possible solution I could join another group and try to be a production assistant to their work, again this would mean that it would be easier to get help in completing my work and I’d be able to bounce of other people in a way that meant I could learn about different concepts withing filmmaking
Although these would fix my problem of not exactly knowing how to complete a successful marketing campaign I don’t really think these are viable options. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this project so far that scrapping it now would be a real waste. Along with that I don’t think I have enough time to plan and make my own film to the standard that I’d want it. I also think that because of the time left on this project, attempting to join up with another group would be very difficult- if I were in a group making a film I would feel annoyed if someone else decided they wanted to join in and have an input at this point.
Although these are potential solutions, I feel like my only real solution to this problem is to work harder in facilitating myself and working independently, If there’s something I don’t know how to do i need to do deeper research and push myself to learn more and bring my project to the highest standard it can possibly be. If research isn’t helping I’m going to need to actively ask for help- from my teachers and possbily even industry professionals. Regardless of how much i know or how much I think i don’t know, I nthink the only way to get through this is to push through and better myself in my weaker areas and use my stronger areas to the best of their ability.
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Research into Advert Influence and it’s effect
This past week I’ve been looking into adverts and trying to analyse how they affect our daily decsion making. If I’m to understand what makes a particularly compelling advert then hopefully I should be able to transfer this into my own work and produce a successful marketing campaign.
“Adverts are one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our life today” Is the first line of Judith Williamson’s book “Decoding advertisments” This is obviously quite a bold statement to make but I don’t think that necassarily makes it any less true. In our day to day lives we’re constantly bombarded with campaigns from all directions; Tv, Newspapers, billboards, social media, etc. The omnipresence of advertising in urban environments makes corperate influence quite literally inescapable. I think it’s going to be really interesting to take a step back and question what it is in these adverts that pushes us to consume products (media, entertainment food etc)
Advertising is the act of using persuasive techniques and sometimes manipulation to call public attention to a product. By using strong branding, celebrity endorsments and emphasizing advantages, advertisers are able to influence their target audience to spend their money on items that aren’t fundamental. In today’s society, because we aren’t living in an era of poverty, daily objectives are not primarily about the bare necessities but about owning the most desirable stuff.
The article “We Buy, Therefore We Are: Consumerism and Advertising”(1) questions whether advertising creates desires and discusses that we want more than we actually need. This gives advertisers and optimal oppurtunity to piggyback off this attitude and exploit the concept.
The same happens in the film industry. By using press releases, trailers, interviews, & merchandise marketers and advertisers anre able to create a buzz around the production and persuade people to buy tickets.
From this piece of research I’ve learned that trailers are an excellent way of making people aware of an upcoming film and attracting them to it, creating a buzz from an engaging film trailer is hugely important in marketing a film. Especially if your target audience is young adults, making the fim seem desirable and trendy.
Before this piece I was uncertain about the practical side of this project and wasn’t sure whether a trailer was something I’d need to make. Now I am certain that it’s going to be a vital tool in encouraging people to watch the film.
Bibliography: DECODING ADVERTISMENTS, JUDITH WILLIAMSON
(1) Article title: We Buy, Therefore We Are: Consumerism and Advertising Website title: 2012books.lardbucket.org URL: https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-ethics/s16-03-we-buy-therefore-we-are-consum.html
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