Practical: Making the Billing's Block for the Poster

In addition to creating a teaser trailer for our chosen genre, it was necessary for our group to create a promotion film poster which conformed to common conventions. My task in this process was to create the Billings Block and production company logos to be placed in the bottom third of the poster. This post details the steps that I carried out in order to produce these.

Research:

In order to produce an appropriate Billings block for a film poster of our genre, I carried out some research, attached below.



Film Poster for "Smiley", a 2012 Slasher Horror

Film Poster for "Mirrors", a 2008 Mystery Horror


 

Example of Billings Block from "Gravity" Film Poster

 From my Research, I concluded that Billings Blocks are often faded or blended into the poster itself slightly in order to refrain from attracting the audience's attention first. The chosen fonts are often elongated, making the text look stretched out and difficult to read; this is to also prevent drawing the audience's attention whilst still being recognisable. Finally, they are always positioned at the bottom of the poster, often in a faded white font; the use of white will also conform to common conventions of our chosen genre as commonly, the colours red, black and white are used to depict horror and gore.

Creating the Billings Block:

Firstly, I typed out the different names that I wanted to use in a Microsoft Word Document, using the font 'Calibri', as this looked most like the examples investigated. I then centralised the text and made the whole block size 9 to accurately represent common examples. Once this was completed, I then manipulated the size of the job roles, such as 'Producer' or 'Director' so that they were of a smaller size, accentuating the names of the lead stars and conforming to common conventions of Billings Blocks; in order to understand the examples of job roles explored, I looked closely at the 'Saw' film poster, as this film is of a similar genre to our own piece.

This image shows the exported Billings Block .JPEG file

I then copied and imported the text box into a paint document in order to manipulate the text and elongate the font, as shown in my research above. To do this, I simply pulled the text box size downwards to elongate the font. Using the Paint software also enabled me to remove the background of the image to make the implementation onto the film poster much easier. Once this process was completed, I exported the image as a .JPEG ready for use on the film poster.

 Making the 'Featuring' Names:

 I then created titles for the poster which featured the names of the stars featuring in our trailer; this process was carried out in the same manner as I created the Billings Block, explored above. However, after further research into film posters of the horror genre, we discovered that many of the actors which feature in the films are not displayed on the film poster aside from in the Billings Block, particularly as many directors choose to use infamous names to promote the sense of realism in the film. For this reason, we later changed the names to 'From the Directors of...' as this was a much more common convention of horror film posters. 

Creating the Production Company Logos:

Since the logos for the production companies and associations that we used in our trailer rarely change, we decided to use examples that were implemented onto an existing film poster. Due to this argument, I decided to use the logos from the 'Saw' film poster, as the examples used for this type of genre were similar to that of our trailer.

 Firstly, I imported the film poster into paint and cropped the file to just show the logos found at the bottom of the poster. I then cropped this image further to show the 3 companies which I wanted to feature and saved these images as 3 separate .JPEG images.


This image shows the 3 exported .JPEG files for the companies which will feature on our film poster

The following image shows the completed Film Poster with the Billings Block and Company Logos positioned at the bottom:

Evaluation:

Overall, I feel that I created a successful and appropriate Billings Block for our chosen genre and trailer narrative. I feel that I was able to manipulate text and images well in order to produce the task as desired, as well as experimenting with different software in addition to just Photoshop and Final Cut. Once the images exported are implemented into the film poster, I believe that our promotional film poster will be both professional looking and conform to common conventions.

Website Buttons

We created our own buttons to place on to the website down the right side of the site. These will resemble the recommended buttons that usually send different links to other videos that they viewer might also like to see.

• Firstly I took close up images of the recommended for you text bellow the name of the image, however this is the only section that I will be able to retrieve off of YouTube. After selecting these areas I placed them into a new image on Photoshop and used the text tool to create the titles of the videos. We will have links to home, gallery, film and plot, behind the scenes and meet the crew. We selected these names as they were commonly seen on websites that fall under the horror genre.

• Finally I had to add the images to create the ‘thumb nail’ of the video and link. I selected images that would refer to the section that they want to go to, for example for the home page I included an image of an abandoned house. When making the buttons I had to make them individually in order to place them onto the Wix website creation service that we are using for our project.

These were the final results for the buttons:

Practical Poster layout

When creating the poster layout we had to be very specific as to where we placed the information. In order to obtain the idyllic poster we completed a lot of research that we used to style and design our poster. We wanted to conform and subvert to certain conventions depending if they followed our genre.

• Firstly we took into consideration the image for the poster, we took a series of images for our final photo shoot. We experimented with multiple angles to change the lighting, I took images from lower angles and straight on. I took the lower angled images to convey the idea of inferiority as the antagonist would be seen in a higher position. I also looked into the different effects that I could create through framing. The lens will be the main focus point of the image once I have completed the poster in photoshop, this was something I had to take in to consideration as I did not want the lens to be perfectly centred within the image. I used the rule of thirds principle, the eye naturally rests on the top left of an image and slowly follows lines in a 'z' shaped form. Therefore I slightly places the lens of the camera to the right of the image, forcing the audience to look at other details other than the centre.

• Once I had taken the image the location for the title was my next main priority as it is the main aspect in promotion, the common conventions demonstrated that the title is usually located at the top or in the lower half of the image. When looking at our own image we came to the conclusion that the title will most likely have to be bellow the camera lens, this helps to draw the audiences attention down towards the lower half of the poster. Not only this we included a tag line, this was placed on the far right of the image bellow the title, the text is considerably smaller to the title. However this is to help intrigue the audience and to give a small amount of information to the viewer. The tag line "smile for the camera" is also a small form of comedy for the antagonist and shows the he is recording his victims.

• For the billings block we placed it at the bottom centre of the image as this is one of the main conventions of posters that is seen across all genres and is not specific to the slasher horror. We made the text white so that it would be visible to the audience on the dark background, although we didn't want the block of text to be predominant on the poster, Therefore while I was placing the text at the bottom I reduced the size of the text to be as small as possible, not to mention that I changed the opacity slightly to make the text appear less obvious. Though it was a small alteration we noticed this technique to be used in other horror posters to keep the focus on the main subject. Originally we placed the production company details bellow the text. Due to this the text was pushed higher up on the image and therefore covering the poster, after considering different ways in which we could alter this we moved the billings block down and reduced the size of the production companies. In doing this it allowed us to place the images either side of the text.

This is the final product:

Practical Recording (PICTURE PLEASE)

Our teaser trailer includes some dialogue towards the end of the trailer with the victim saying "That will be £10.65 then please". When originally filming this section we wanted to use the sound from the video. We believed it would work well as we were allowed to film after closing time with no one else in the warehouse. However we had issues with the camera picking up the sound as the camera was kept further away from the actor due to the shot being an over the shoulder shot. Due to this we had to completely remove this speech although we were adamant to keep this scene.

The Software

• We used the software that was offered to us in order to create the speech after the filming had been completed, we would then layer the sound over the top of the video to create the appearance that we caught her speaking in the shop instead of behind the scenes.
• Final Cut Pro allows the user to record sound straight on to the system while also saving previously recorded sounds. It also allows the user to edit and distort the sound for their liking. As we know the system as I have used its interface for the past two years we chose to record directly onto the video.

[PICTURE]

How we did it

• During the recording we ensured that the room was empty with only myself and the actress who was being the voice actor. As students we did not have access to professional hardware and could not obtain a microphone for our recording. We improvised with the use of a microphone that is attached to headphones, this allowed us to get clear sound instead of speaking unnecessarily loud for the distant microphone on the computer to pick up the sound.
• The system offered a countdown and played the video on screen as the actor spoke. This allowed her to say the phrase in the same pace as she did in the video. Through doing this it did not require much editing, however we did take multiple versions of the reading to ensure we had the best possible quality for the video as we wanted it to be as realistic as possible.
• Once the sound was placed we reduced the sound so she wasn't as loud as it originally sounded. By doing this it made the dietetic sound appear as if it was not recorded separately from the video itself.

[PICTURE]

Practical: Own Production Company

In this task, I designed and created my own production company to be used in our 'Captured' Slasher horror Trailer. The concept for my design was to use a light bulb which is seen to fade as the light is turned off. Importing the clips into Final Cut Pro, I was then able to edit the footage together, slowing down clips and adding effects to create the production company sequence.

The Process:

Firstly, I imported the clip into Final Cut, as shown in the screenshot above. I then split the footage into two different clips so that I was able to speed up the first clip (showing the light itself turning on) and then slow down the duration of the second (showing the light bulb as it fades).

This screenshot shows the final two clips in Final Cut Pro once editing on the duration had been carried out.

I then added the title, or production company name, to the sequence; our group had decided on the name prior to creating the production company sequence, which was 'KAB Media Productions'. I had difficulty in creating this title initially as the 'Productions' part of the name ventured onto a second line; this meant that the title faded in, using the 'fade' text selection, all at once rather than line by line.

For that reason, I decided to add a secondary text line, this time using the 'Typewriter' option. This then allowed me to manipulate the settings in order for the title to appear as desired.

Once the sequence was previewed, however, I noticed that the text labelled 'Fade', detailing the 'KAB Media' text, faded out as well as in whereas the text labelled 'Typewriter' only appeared. As the image on the left hand side shows, I was able to deselect the 'Build Out' button under the 'Fade' settings to appease the problem.

Finally, I added a 'Fade to colour' transition to the end of the sequence so that it would fade to black; this was so that when I implemented the sequence into our trailer, the transition would be more gradual between production company and trailer footage. The screenshot above shows the final sequence in editor mode of Final Cut Pro.

Evaluation:

In summary, I feel that the production company sequence that I created was successful in creating the desired effect for our chosen name. The overall look of the fading light bulb shown in slow motion is highly effective and the contrast against the black background coincides nicely with our chosen genre. I feel that the sequence created reflects our chosen name and trailer rather impressively.



Poster- Creating the Title

Our poster required the title of the film we were making a teaser trailer for. To create the title I used paint. As our trailer and website show the YouTube logo distorting within the title I wanted to follow this theme with the poster. After looking at horror posters they normally use sans serif so I decided to use this as well. The YouTube logo was then placed instead of the 'E' and I left the colour of the logo red as red is a common feature on horror posters.

I selected the middle of the logo and moved it slightly to the right to give it a distorted effect.

I then used the white pencil tool to add a few white patches to make it seem more distorted. 

The final title looked like this:

                                                                         

The black text will need to be white in order to make it visible on the background of the poster so the colour will be inverted.

This is what the title looked like on the final poster:

Practical: Assembling the Additional Pages for the Website

In this task, I created the corresponding pages for the website, including a page for 'Gallery', 'Film & Plot', 'Behind the Scenes' and 'Meet the Crew'. Although our homepage contained the majority of the key information and content required on a promotional website, it was imperative that we produce such pages to encourage the audience to watch the film.

The Pages:

The process for creating all pages was the same; by clicking the grey 'Page' box found along the top panel, I could add and label new pages. 

The first page I created was the Film & Plot page; the background image was maintained across all pages and thus, we were limited with layout. Where the black screen is situated would be the root location for all information regarding each topic. To differentiate each page, I changed the title from 'Captured' to the corresponding page title.

This image shows the Behind the Scenes page. Potentially, going further, we could alter the black video area to show a gallery of various videos, containing different interviews or backstage footage.

For the Meet the Crew page, once again where videos can typically be found on the black area, we could include different links to character and crew profiles, with images and descriptions about their personality. This is a common feature for many promotional film sites as it allows fans and audiences to see directors and actors that they may like, thus allowing them to immediately identify as to whether the film could be one that they would enjoy. 

Finally, the screenshot to the right shows the Gallery page created. On this page, as indicated in the image, I inserted a Gallery feature found in the control panel on the left hand side. On here, we would upload various photos taken from the film itself but also of the crew and the filming and production stages throughout the film process. 

Evaluation:

We carried out vast amounts of research into investigating different promotional websites in order for us to have a better indication as to the sorts of pages usually available for our genre. For this reason, we were more prepared when creating our site and thus, the different pages created were appropriate for our genre, allowing for a professional and successful promotional website. 

Practical: Assembling the Website

In correspondence to our trailer, we were required to produce a promotional website containing the trailer. I was in charge of the placement of the relative components on the site, such as where to position the trailer and title. The overall look of our website was to look like the YouTube site; this was to coincide with the narrative of our teaser trailer, whereby the online blog used to submit the torture videos was YouTube.

YouTube Site:

As mentioned above, we wanted our promotional website to resemble that of the YouTube website. Attached below is a screenshot taken of one of the videos from YouTube:

As the image shows, the video itself is the main feature on the page. There are then comments and descriptions underneath the video and other video links and advertisements in the right hand panel. Like many successful websites, there is also a header at the top of the page containing the YouTube Logo, a search box and typically, account details for regular users.

Setting Basic Aesthetics:

Firstly, using the control panel on the left hand side, I chose the image created in Photoshop (highlighted above) and clicked the button 'Change Background'. This then created the background of the website to look like a YouTube video page. I then added the title, using the 'Text' option on the left hand side to insert a text box and input the film name; using the settings option, I was able to manipulate the font and size to make the title more appropriate for our genre.

When previewed, we found that the background would move with the scroll bar, whilst the test and video would remain in the same place; this did not look professional nor provide the desired look in terms resembling the YouTube website. For this reason, we made the header and footer for each page smaller and also set the background image to 'Freeze' under settings (pictured above) in order to fix the screen. I also inserted the social media menu using the same control panel, which is situated in the right hand margin of the website. 

On the same panel, I selected the 'Video' option and from 'YouTube', attached our trailer onto the site. We wanted the look of the website to resemble the YouTube screen as much as possible in order for the website to coincide with our plot and hence, we placed the video on the black screen where uploaded YouTube videos would be found. The title was then placed below this to represent the title of the trailer, much like would be on YouTube also. 

Animating the Title:

The 'YouTube Play' logo, as evident, was attached in place of the 'E' in the title 'Captured'. To make our site more interactive, I added animation to the image; this was completed using the 'Settings' icon which appeared when the image was selected. From here, I selected the animation 'Fade'.

Additionally, it was possible to customise the animation set by manipulating the duration and delay. As the image depicts, I set the duration to 0.5 seconds so that the fade was obvious when the site loaded, but not so it was too slow where the effect would be lost. 

Adding Buttons: 



This image shows all of the buttons once they had been inserted onto the site

The buttons were creating using photoshop prior to assembling the site. Under the control panel on the left hand side, I was able to insert the pre-existing images created that were in a 'JPEG' format. In order to continue with out YouTube theme, I positioned the buttons on the right hand side of the screen, in the panel where additional links to YouTube videos would normally be placed. I then repeated this process for the remaining 5 buttons.

By selecting the 'Settings' icon once each button image was selected enabled me to add links so that when clicked, the website would transition the user onto a different page. As the image attached above shows, this was done by selecting 'Page/Anchor' and then setting the 'Which Page?' option to the desired page. I repeated this process for all remaining buttons.

Getting the Final Look:

When the website was then tested in the 'Preview' view, I discovered that since I had assembled the buttons only on the homepage, there were no navigation buttons on any other pages. To improve this, I discovered that when each button was selected in the edit mode, there was the option to select 'Show in All Pages', as indicated by the orange slider in the right hand settings panel. By selecting this option for all buttons meant that they could be viewed and accessed across all pages.

This screenshot shows the finished website in terms of positioning for the first draft

Evaluation:

Overall, I feel that I managed to achieve the design desired as, when the website is accessed, it clearly looks like the YouTube website. I would also say that this specific design was very creative and innovative, which captured our concept extremely well, coinciding appropriately to the narrative of our trailer. Since many people are familiar with YouTube, our website will be easy to understand and navigate as well as effectively promoting our film. 

Captured Glitch Effect

For our website we decided that we wanted our YouTube sign to glitch within the title. For inspiration I looked at the Cabin in The Woods website. The full website glitches and the home button also has it's own separate glitch. 

Firstly, I went onto Photoshop where I created the Captured title. We decided to replace the ‘E’ with the YouTube sign, which would eventually glitch. The font I used is Serif and the text is in black to conform to the common conventions of horror titles.

The next step as to put the title into After Effects in order to create a gif.



The glitch would need to have a distorted effect. The YouTube video told me how to distort the whole image so I had to find a way of only distorting the YouTube logo. I did this by making the adjustment layer smaller just to fit over the logo as seen below.



The glitch wouldn’t be happening the whole time. On the Cabin in The Woods the glitch happens around every few seconds but there is an irregular pattern. So I cut the length of the glitch down and duplicated it. Then I was able to stagger the glitch out so it happened irregularly the timeline below shows this.

The Cabin in The Woods website didn’t just show distortion. There was also noise layered on top of the distortion. Therefore, I tried to recreate this.



However, due to the logo being curved around the edges it was hard to make this effect. So I tried to make it so only part of the logo had noise over it when it glitches but the shape still didn’t fit the logo.

I tried adding different types of noise to see if it looked any better. But the shape was difficult to work with and the noise didn’t fit correctly.



I decided that the distorted effect looked the best so I rendered the clip. Lastly I would need to change it into a gif. To do this I had to save this idea as several photos and transfer these to Photoshop where I made it into a gif.

    

The final step was to place the gif onto our website design. I put the gif on loop so that it would keep replaying.

                           

 This was the final gif: