poster effects

this effect was grayscale. it fits perfectly in with the film as the film is in black and white. it also has the more depressing tone of the film. however i dont know if it would be eye catching enough to be a movie poster, and might have the adverse effect in putting people off of the film.

For this poster I changed the saturation of the picture giving it this red tint. I like this because it gives a more edgy feel to the picture and also could be seen to link to the blood in the film, pragmatically saying that there is something dangourous that will happen in this film.

For this picture I boosted up the contrast and brightness. This gives the statue an almost golden tint. It looks quite artistic and is more striking then the grayscale picture. However it is quite postive which could be good or bad for the film; on the one hand the positivity links to the sunshine at the end of the film and would confuse the viewer into thinking the film is quite happy on the other it could be seen to be to far away from the film and is not linked enough. At this moment i am split between this picture and the red picture.

picture for my poster

 I have decided on using this picture to be the base of my poster.I think that it is intriguing to the eye and looks interesting in portrait position. The statue gives away some aspects of the film like the graveyard and it is infact in the film. I also like the fact that it is a solitary statue that links in with the film of isolation. The man is like this statue stuck in the graveyard for ever which creates a feeling of empathy towards them both. Another minor element of the mans character is also shown with in this statue as he studied art at university and this statue is greatly detailed and quite impressive from an artistic view point.
On these grounds I feel that this picture will provide a thought provoking poster for my film and links in with the intrinsic ideas within the film.

intial poster ideas

 These are some of the pictures I took for the poster ideas. I wanted to take pictures from around the graveyard that would intrigue people but not give the film away.

These pictures of the statues are my favourite as they not only look impressive and interesting but give no hint to the film. They also link to the film as this statue appears at the very start of the film to set the scene and establish the film in the graveyard.

filming and editing the final scene

The final scene is the most vital of the film. This is the twist and whole point of the film is revealed. The scene opens with a long shot of the man and he has gone back to his original topic of why he is being ignored. The music has changed from the energetic music from the last scenes flashbacks to the calm of the track that features in most of the film. This is to create calmness at the start of this scene that lulls the audience into a false sense of security so the twist is more of a shock. As the man delves into why he is at the graveyard he is getting more and more agitated and this is shown with the camera shots.

The scene starts of with a long shot and goes on to end with almost an extreme close up. Before this there are about 6 camera shots and lots of fast cuts around the man, showing his confusion. There is an over shoulder shot of the entire graveyard as the man looks around in confusion. He then goes into talking about this dream he keeps having. The confusion and tension is added upon by the music getting louder and changing to a more emotional song that builds up. The flashback follows the mans gaze as he looks into this bathroom. The camera pans from a close up of a door and then too the open door of the bathroom with 'a man' propped against the bath. This is the audience begin to release and so does the man. I emphasize the blood and the knife with a fast cut to close up of his wrists. The music continues to get louder creating a tension in the film. As the shot cuts back to the graveyard the music continues but his non-diegetic thoughts are interrupted by his diajetic voice. Here overlapped the two voices but faded the voice of quieter to try and give this effect of interruption. As the man realizes he turns to the gravestone. There is a fade to black for a few seconds and the film goes quiet. This was to delay time for the effect of the final shot and song.

The end credits of the film the come from the fade to black. They are over a long shot of the man, sitting dead on his grave with slits on his wrists. The scene is shot in colour to show the reality that the man is dead. I added to the eerie black humor of the film with the Beatles song 'I'm so Tired' with is quite ironic, giving I think a mysteriously relaxed end to the film.

I feel that this last scene is the strongest scene because of the effect of the simple fast cuts has on creating tension in the audience. And despite the tomato sauce blood I believe that as an audieince the film creates a sense of realism despite the man being a ghost. I feel that audience have some kind of link with the man, good or bad which I hopes leads them to be effected with the twist in the film

filming and editing of scene 3

This scene much like scene 2 can be split into almost two scenes, despite how I wrote it on the original script. The scene opens with a medium shot of the man sitting on his grave. He is positioned to the right of the shot and the rest is looking along at the other graves and the person who has come to look at a grave. The man is looking away from the camera making the audience focus on the action of the other person. I did this to highlight the isolation and ignorance the man is feeling. This shot also anchors the film in the reality of the graveyard, which makes the audience think that nothing fantasy about the plot is going to happen; he’s just a drunk washed up man moaning about his life. The start of this scene is meant to add to his life story and the almost autobiographical feel the film has. There is also a small satirical joke when the man is talking about doing a Jackson Pollock at the age of 4. This is another piece of humour that this man has, that only people with knowledge of who Jackson Pollock is would find funny, adding another layer of depth to the man.

When the man is talking about graduating and getting married I wanted pictures to flash up of those events to give the viewers visual stimulation of what he was talking about. However we decided against because staging a wedding and a graduation was well beyond the limits of the film. However I did want to add to the humour of the character when he calls his sister Einstein. Again in the same vein as Fight Club I got a picture of Einstein and cut the split the scene, with the picture fitting in between. This was difficult technically as we had to record a sound bridge over the picture of just one phrase 'for a sister'. We had to get the timing right again and it proved difficult to get the voice coherent with the original. Despite the difficulty I believe we pulled this off with the help of the musical score and by adjusting the volume of his voice. It’s not perfect but it achieves the desired effect.

The scene then follows along the parallel lines with the second scene with a series of flashbacks referring to what his life ended up like. The flashback starts with an over shoulder shot of the married couple sitting on the sofa watching daytime TV. This flashback is signaled by the change in music. This music builds up throughout the flashback highlighting how his life dived into depravity. I used artificial light in the 'family scene' to make everything positive, this is to contrast the next flashback of him drunk and alone, in which the scene a dark. We used a small bedside lamp for the only light in the 'drunk alone shot' in contrast with the room lights and 3 other lamps being on in the living room shot. I also gave another parallel with the sound of the TVs, the first just day time TV mumbling along much like his life, then in the other the horror movie and the screaming symbolizing the idea that his life has been shattered. The music combined with the screaming of the film culminates at the end of this flashback showing how disastrous his life was. There is then a fade back to the present with the scene ending with a close up of him talking. These close ups were used to keep cohesion in the film.

I feel that this scene was on the whole successful, and the flash back scene was more finished then the one in scene two. I feel this was due to the contrast between the shots of him with his wife and the shots of him alone. This portrayed how the mans life had gone from light to dark. I think the weakness was the flash to Einstein, yet it shows attempts at learning and fitting new techniques into my film trying to add other dimensions. If I were making the film again I would have squeezed in a few more pictures flashes, to add more interesting shots and comedy into the film.

filming and editing of scene 2

This scene is cut into two parts opening with the man talking in the grave yard and then a series of flashback showing what he has done wrong. The scene opens with a mid shot of the man and he is centre of the shot. This gave a sort of formal beginning to the scene. There is a transition in this shot from the non-diajetic voice over to the man talking out loud showing his emotion to the audience. This is a feature I used throughout the film to engage the audience. The plotline is in the mans head whilst he interjects with diegetic interruptions of his thought highlighting the key points. There are two more shots after this and I played around with the compostioning of the shot, to add to the interest of the viewing otherwise the audience would be staring at the man straight on and get very bored. I used the Sam mid shot and just moved it the left and then to the right in the next shot. I feel this not only looks good but also helps the film flow.

The scene then moves to the flashbacks going over what the man did wrong. At first there were 5 or six different flashback in this scene, some with the man working in an office, then talking to his secretary and another of his family. He also did have a baby with his wife in the original script. The extra scenes had to be cut for timing, highlighting the difficulty to get across a dramatic plot based film into the conventions of a 5-minute short film. Also on the note of the couple having a family in the first script, that had to be cut because when it came to the final edit there wasn’t really a need or any relevance to having a baby in the script, and in the end was cut too make sure we didn’t procrastinate and complicate the already heavy plotline.

I thought we could show the issue of him having an affair very briefly in one shot, so decided to use a leg in stockings appearing in an almost clichéd way, allowing the audience to bring their own thoughts from other films into this film; basically we didn’t have time for an elaborate romance so left the pretty standard affair story up to the audience. This I feel are factor most short films had to contend with and often rely on comparisons with other mainstream films to fit them into certain genres and aid with the back ground to the story.

This scene had a circulatory structure, ending with the same shot that we opened the scene with. This time however the man is talking and sums up his thoughts on the whole affair; basically he'd do it again. This part of the plot was to give the man quite a difficult personality; I wanted this in the plot because I didn’t want people to feel totally sorry for him as at times he is arrogant and people can also draw certain moral issues with society if they so wish. His controversial character is supposed to divide your feelings so in the end you don’t know if you support him because he lost his way or think he deserved all that happened to him because of his actions.

filming and editing of scene 1

We stuck straight to the shooting script with the first scene as I feel it sets the whole mood of the film. We decided to give the film a very unassuming title of Isolation as this is very ambiguous and the film could have splattered off in any direction from this first scene. We also used the very basic font and placed it at the bottom hand of the title slide. We used white font on a black background to give the opening coherence with the fade to black transitions we used all the way through the film. This gives our film a certain mood, adding to the effect of calm and eeriness. The transitions not only give the film its personality but also give the film a certain smoothness and finesse to the editing, as I wanted this film to be to a great extent artistic as well as drama based; its dual purpose was to get across the story entertainingly and also to get across a good looking, flowing film.

For the opening music I used the band Massive Attack as most of their songs have mysterious and eerie tone. I also put in the sound of the graveyard, with the crows and wind over the top of the title slides because I wanted the sounds of the graveyard to be heard before you saw anything. The song also starts of low a quite. For the first couple of shots I used an establishing 180-degree pan of the graveyard to set the scene. This was followed by a fade to black transition and a close up shot of an interesting sculpture in the graveyard, just to give a detail and beauty to the film. All of the shot in the graveyard where shot in black and white giving the viewer a hint that something isn’t right, whereas the flashbacks and thoughts are in colour. This is one of the minor clues in the film, hinting that this man is actually dead. The black and white also gave the film this more artistic look and gave a good comparison between the flashbacks and the present.

After the shot of the statue there was a fade to black and then we have the first shot of the man sitting by his gravestone. It is medium/ slash long shot with the man to the right of the screen. This is to give the legs of the passer by in the shot the emphasis, using the composition to show the insignificance that the dead man is feeling. The song is quiet at this point with just eerie notes from a piano, but as the passer by exits the shot the bass kicks in highlighting the importance of him being ignored. There is then a fade to black with just the music the it cuts of and the shot changes to the first close up shot of the film. I then changed the song to another massive attack song 'Butterfly Caught' a very apt theme song name; this song has a 30 second quiet intro with no base and lots of tiny weird sounds. It was perfect for the backing track to most of the film.

As most of the talking in the film is done in the mans head and we are hearing his thoughts most of the film has a voice over. We found this difficult and thought at first as we could just record straight the computer, but had to the read the script out in perfect harmony with the acting. This also led to some scenes being cut, as we just didn’t feel they worked. Putting the sound bytes onto the film was far easier as we just had to plug the camera in and separate the sound from the clip (this resulted in many clips of same shot of a chair and jack talking). On the whole I believe that the voice over came out well after we had leveled the sound off and I think we achieved to a great extent the effect we wanted.

The first scene has two flash backs; one is very minor just the man walking down the streets alone and the other far more interesting with him about to kill someone. This first flashback was to show the audience how average the mans life was, he was just a normal guy. This shot is also meant to contrast with the other flash back, which is a thought he is speaking about in his head. The second flash back has two shots, one of the man holding a gun to the screen and one of him holding someone hostage. I got this idea from films such as Fight Club and Requiem For A Dream were the thoughts of the characters are shown in a violent and darkly humorous alternate world. This scene was to give the film a darkly comic side and also to liven it up, which I aided with the use of loud high-octane music and the faster cut to the shot.

For the whole film I wanted the audience to get into the mind of this man, as his autobiography is the plot line, so I wanted them to feel as he does and in doing so blind them to the twist at the end. They are supposed to realize the truth when he does; no soliloquies or skipping to the last page here. I reinforced this idea with the camera shots as well as the gaze of the man. His eyes are almost always looking at the camera in the first few scenes. He follows the cameras position in some shots, like the left high angled shot after the 2cd flashback or the camera follows his gaze in the shot with the cigarette. This was all done on purpose to create a link between the man and the audience.

The first scene end with the man saying he sits around doing nothing then he gazes of shot in thought, followed by the inevitable fade to black to round the scene off. I am very pleased with the first scene and it came off almost to how I envisaged it. The only negative part was the shot straight after the shooting flashbacks were Jacks face is just staring emotionless at the camera. I had a fear that it might make the audience lose interest so cut some of the length of the speech, and now the dead stare is only a short incident in the film.