New Movie Logo 9.12.09

For the past few days I have been working on the new movie logo. This is because we planed to change the main storyline and so the old movie logo did not suit the opening 2 minutes of our movie. Even our genre has changed to teen drama, where the other one was horror.

Again I have been doing some research on what are the key elements to make a good looking teen drama movie logo, the font, colour, and positions of the title. As you can see below that I have been tweaking quite a lot in Photoshop to make it look as good as possible.

First screen shot shows that I have added two colours to the font instead of one which would make it look boring. And I was just discussing with my Shamedia team if it would look better with the colours of black and red or white and red. And finally decided that red and black looks much better, as the background colour is black it self.

The second screen shot shows that which positioning of the bright flower and the title would look more effective and best for the audience. And so after spending some time playing around with the layer, I have decided that if the title is at the bottom of the image and the flower is at the bottom of the image, it would look really good and professional. I also asked my Shamedia team and some other friends and they agreed with my decision

The final screen shot shows the different positioning of the title, which I and my Shamedia team agreed on.








The Final Movie Logo.



Written and Created by Ahmed Mohammed

Media Studies 8.12.09

We finally finished our Coursework. There are a few little things that we have to make clear before puplishing it on our blog. We worked really hard because we thought we where far behind everyone but apparently it looks like we finished first. Our film opening looks really professional and we'll wait for some critics from other groups to see where we made mistakes or what we could improve.

Please Comment here

Written by Henri Yueksel

Comparison between Skeleton Key and Aftermath

Skeleton Key



Aftermath



When I watched Aftermath I found the scenes very disturbing and scary, this is because the blood and the organs were very well made. I think that the trailer for the film is not very exiting and simple which therefore does not attract many viewers. I have also watched Skeleton Key and I believe that the two films are very much different. Aftermath is more violent and has no back story unlike Skeleton Key where the film has a lot of background story involved. If I had not watched any of these films and was offered to watch one I would probably pick Skeleton Key because the trailer is exiting and very tense.

Written by Sultan Mackinnoin

The Antichrist (2009) Trailer

The Antichrist (2009) is one of the most controverse and shocking movie I've seen. But the cinematography is amazing and they put a lot of meaning in the shots and actions of the characters. For example there is a lot of nature to see and the main story takes place in a forest. The movie talks about a women that has lost her child. Her child jumped out of an open window while she was doing something else. After this incident she gets mental because it was her fault that her child died. She then turns to a satanist (not on purpose) but we are shown that she thinks and acts like described in satanism. In principal it's about women and satanism. The movie will be misunderstood by a lot of persons, the violence and controversial footage is one of the main problem why most of the people are shocked after seeing that movie.

There is one scene for example that represent the fears of the main character (woman) at 0:46. During this scene she explains what she sees in her dreams and what scares her. Several shots are fully edited and gives the audience a weird feeling and sometimes a sort of miscomprehension.

The different shots of "nature" shows us the connection that nature has with satanism, that's why the shots have been edited a lot to project their meaning. There are animals shown that are actually speaking to the main characters to show several meanings.

The shots are often shown in slow motion and with a lot of sfx to give a very creepy and disturbing ambiance. The movie is like a book with different chapters and titles, where the story and happening of the two main characters is shown.

I really liked the movie because of it's controversity and the shot's that are amazing even if the story is really violent and disturbing.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Preliminary Task Questions

Q1: My group consisted of three people, they were Henri Yueksel, Ahmed Mohammad and myself (Sultan Mackinnon). In our preliminary task we each had a main role that we took, for this task Henri took the role as being the head cinematographer. Ahmed and myself were the actors for this preliminary task but as a group we helped each other and gave advise of what kind of shots we should have in the appropriate time. Our preliminary task video consisted shots such as high/low angles, shot reverse shot, point of view and close ups on the face. When there were shots of only myself we always had two or three cameras in different positions, this made it easier to take shots of different angles at that moment.I enjoyed making this video because no one argued in the group and we all got along well with each other and obviously communication is the key to successful in this matter.

Q2: When we took shots of different angles we always had three or two cameras but we forgot about the 180 degree rule, this had slowed our process of editing and taking shots because what we found out half way through our task is that we broke these rules so therefore we had to re-shoot. In our process of filming we did not take enough shots and camera angles so this also slowed us down because we had to re-shoot some in some of the areas. At one point we were so concentrated on finishing our preliminary task that we forgot there were tripods at the end of our filming, this had made us delete a large amount of footage that we took and take new ones to finish our task.

Q3: If I could re-make our preliminary task the areas that I would concentrate on are lighting and maybe acting (even tho you don't get marked for acting). The reason why I pointed out lighting is because we took all the footage in one day, but when we took the footage there were parts were the lighting were dark and some are were they were light, this made our task unprofessional and tacky. Even tho you don't get marked for acting I believe that we could have projected our voices louder and clearer.

Q4: When I used Adobe at first I found it confusing, the computers at that time were slow and this made our job much harder and more frustrating, but as we kept on working we found the editing program much simpler. Henri had started editing first then it was followed by Ahmed and then me. Ahmed and Henri were already familiar with the program so they had very clearly explained it to me.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Preliminary Task Questions

A1) Me and my team worked really well together, as we took turns taking different types of shots, e.g. high angle shot, low angle shot, (for entry and journey) shot reverse shot (for dialogue exchanging)…and more. Henri was the head of cinematography so he had the idea of where to take each different shot. So basically the filming went very well as we worked as a team which is really important in order to make a successful video clip.

A2) As shooting for the very first time we made quite a few mistakes, especially when we were editing, we did not add any transitions, when exchanging the clips from one to another. Also when taking the shot reverse shot, the entry of light came from different angle which looked weird for anyone to watch the clip. So from this we have learnt that lighting is very important in order to make the clip continues instead of it looking like one clip was shot a day and the other was shot on some other day.

A3) I would definitely add some lighting in order to show clear footage and also, if the sound is not very clear, I would of dub the sound separately. Even though there was not a major issue with sound in our video clip. The editing went well; just that we should of added some transitions to it so make the video clip better.

A4) Well, we took turns for editing, first its was Henri, then me, lastly it was Sultan. Because we were familiar with the editing software, we all found it really easy to use the basic editing tools and editing timeline.

Written by Ahmed Mohammed

Preliminary Task Review

Q1: We had a lot of very good camera angles and very good dialogue and match on action. Our Preliminary Task was very fluently and the shot reaction shot has been very well done.

Q2: The light was the main problem. We took different camera angles without noticing that the light was different. Except for this error we didn't make much mistakes.
I learned a lot about filming only through the preliminary task, how to film different shot's, how to use the camera properly and how to edit film footage and to use the editing program.

Q3: I would be very careful with the lightning and the sound, those are the only things I would change. The camera shots we had were pretty good and the editing wasn't a big problem because all of us already knew how to use and edit film footage.

Q4: We hadn't have any problems at all, we found everything we needed, but we could have used more transition's and or we could have cut our task a bit better.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Media Studies 3.12.09

Today we finished the editing part of our film opening. The Title and our production logo have been added to the opening. Our film opening is about 2:20min. long, the problem is we have to have a maximum of 2:00min. so we'll probably have to cut some bit's out of the opening. There was not much else to do than finish our opening today and compare it with other ones.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Media Studies 1.12.09

Today we nearly finished the editing part and have finished our movie's title as well. We worked very fast and concentrated today, that's what gave us a huge advance. The only thing that is left to do is editing the final bits in our movie. We hadn't have much problems in the last few weeks because we teamed up and put a lot of concentration in the work we did to, hopefully, get the maximum of marks as possible for our task.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Media Studies 30.11.09

Today we finally finished filming and started editing our film opening. We went to the Silent Walk and then finally to Michel Kirk's chapel do film the last scene. We got lots of good camera shots and the weather conditions where really good even we would have preferred rainy and gray weather, but we had sunny weather what gave a very good touch to our camera work, better than we thought. We had to get our main prop from the refectory and had no real problems for getting a big meat knife that looked perfect for our film. During the next, final weeks we will be finishing the graphics of our title which is still under construction and we will finish editing the last bit of our film material.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Movie Poster Updated: 26/11/09

I have now took a level up for editing on photoshop, as it now look more Professional. Because the movie opening got to do with blood, I though to add some blood effect on the logo, surprising after adding the blood effect and tuning some bits, it looks too real. Which is great. Now there is a possibility to get more peoples attention toward it.Here is the updated picture of me editing below. However I am still waiting for a picture and the titles to go for the background.



Written and Created by Ahmed Mohammed

Working process

We decided that we divide the work into different parts. Ahmed is going to do the designing bits because he knows and understands how photoshop works, Sultan is going to do the filming and cutting of the movie, of course Ahmed and I will support him but we can't be three cutting and editing the opening. I will be updating the blog and be myself an actor in our film opening. At the end we're all helping each other but we divided the work into parts to be more efficient.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Movie Poster in progress 25/11/09

As I know much about using Photoshop. We as a group decided that I will be also making the Movie Poster. Creating a Movie Poster can engage the audience just by looking at any movie poster, either they will be drawn in and wanting to watch the movie, or find it not interesting even though its only the opening scene of a movie. For example kids aged 10-14 might not find the poster as interesting as it looks,even though our target audience are people aged 15+ and over.

I have started to to some research on which key elements are needed on a poster, in order to catch the peoples attention, and what elements do every poster MUST have in order to call it a Movie Poster. Here is a Screen Shot of me editing the Movie poster. As for now it is not completed yet.



Written and Created by Ahmed Mohammed

Mistakes

Due the fact that we made a lot of mistakes we had to change several things to do it this time the right way.
First mistake was that we didn't plan well if there would be an actress or not and didn't plan the whole work well. We had to change several times the actress and had to look for some one who didn't had a lot of work like we have and that was our main problem. Next to this our story had a female main character what made it difficult filming because we had to film whenever the actress was able to film. That's why we decided to take a male character from our group as a main character, that would make it easier to film and to have plenty of time getting good shots. We had to change the whole story as the main character was female, the role didn't fit a male character so we had to rethink our story. We finally found the "perfect" story, you could think it's boring maybe because of the drab story but the shots make it really interesting and thrilling that's what makes a horror drama. Normally there isn't much story in a horror drama, but all the different shots and (background) music makes the movie totally thrilling and horrific.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Reset of Coursework

New Genre

We changed the genre to Teen drama because of the complications that occurred and the weak storyline we had before.

Title

The title is still going to be "Aftermath" because we're getting the same meaning out of the movie linked to "Aftermath".

Story Line

Film Opening:

The story is about a young couple, Henri Yueksel and Lisa Mitchell that are in love, but Henri cheated on Lisa and now she'll never forgive him for what he did. Henri is desperate and doesn't know what to do. He goes to the chapel to purge himself but that won't help much... What is left to do? Henri is depressed and doesn't know what to do out of his life and thinks about committing suicide. But maybe there will be a last hope?...

Film Story (after Opening, not filmed):

Soon Lisa will notice that her "ex" is going mental and tries to commit suicide, that's why she will do her best trying to convince Henri not to kill himself...

Locations

The locations have slightly changed. We won't film in the medical center anymore neither at the school lake. We thought that too much locations would maybe confuse the audience. We decided to take three locations: One of the boarding houses, silent walk, and Michel Kirk's chapel.

Props

Our main prop will be a knife. We don't need much more because there won't be anything else than the main prop. The knife is really important in our opening/movie because it will decide about our main character's life. There might be other props such as inverted crosses to show the presence of bad karma.

Audio

The music will always be really sad and maybe creepy. There is not much talking in our film opening. The camera shots and the music will mainly explain and tell the audience what the movie is talking about.
There is one main song that will last for nearly the whole opening. That will bring the wanted atmosphere and a feeling of solitude that the main character is living through.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Media Studies 25.11.09

Today we started filming our new Story and it looks like we make huge progress. We already filmed a part of the film opening and now we only need a few more shots to be able editing and cutting our opening into the right order to make it really good.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Coursework Complications

Due several complications we had to change our whole story so that there wouldn't be complications anymore like we had before. The main character is Henri Yueksel. Gabi Paterson will be Henri Yueksel's girlfriend that died in a car crash. But Henri can't take the pressure anymore of this big hole in his life. Depressive he goes to Gabi's grave situated at Michel Kirk's Chapel to say a last good bye... Something terrible will follow...

Written by Henri Yueksel

Filming Officially Started 23/11/09

We have finally started filming today. Lisa Mitchell and Henri Yueksel are the main characters in our film opening. They needed to get changed into suitable clothes. We shot the "Day 1" scene outside one of the boarding houses, to show the audience that how the couple were living a normal life, as something terrible happens later on in the story, and how it has an effect on their lives.

Written by Ahmed Mohammed

Filming problems

We couldn't film yesterday because of several complications. We decided to delay the filming to monday. We are behind every one else so we'll have to catch up the work quickly and start filming/editing on monday.

Written by Henri Yueksel

18/11/09 Wednesday Media Studies

Today we analyzed the locations where our film opening is going to take place. We now exactly know what our story is going to look like and what music we're going to use for the different scenes.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Our Production Logo

TODAY, I have been doing some research on how to make our production logo look professional which is "SHAMEDIA PRODUCTIONS" and what are the key elements to make it look really good, and after doing some research, I realized that the production logo doesn't have to be too graphical, however it must look attractive to the audience, knowing to use some of the professional softwares like Photoshop can help in many ways. So I went to photoshop and made a simple but professional logo.
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Unlike the Hollywood style, our production logo is not animated but is an still image made with Photoshop CS2.







Written and created by Ahmed Mohammed

Story Line

The story will talk about a young girl who killed her boyfriend because he cheated on her. First impression is that it might become a boring movie without a real story but something else happens... After she killed her (ex)boyfriend she gets haunted by horrible nightmares and starts going mental. The whole story will talk about her trying to find out what caused this. Obviously it is the fact that she killed her boyfriend that brought her in this mental being, but maybe there is something else?

The Title of our movie will be "Aftermath" not only because of the meaning but because of another movie called like this with the same meaning used of Aftermath relied to the movie. Both of the movies, ours and "Aftermath: Genesis" have no comparison to each other except of the meaning of the word Aftermath and the violence. The movie relied to ours is called "Aftermath: Genesis". The story has nothing to do with ours and the factor of violence is much lower in ours but the thought about the violence showed in our movie is really sick as well.
"Aftermath: Genesis" is one of the most violent movies I've ever seen and wouldn't recommend it to anyone with weak nerves. But there is a bit of meaning in the movie that shows the darkness of death like in our movie. The meaning of the word Aftermath is that what we are trying to show in our movie/fim opening.

Picture of the cover "Aftermath: Genesis (1994)"



PS: Watch with precaution, it's not a joke!

Written by Henri Yueksel

17/11/09 Tuesday Media Studies

Today we started to create our production logo "shamedia" using photoshop, our storyline is now finished and we will begin to film tomorrow. Our group has watched two minutes of different opening scenes of horror films and we now know how our film opening will look like and at which locations it will take place.

What we'll need to think about is the props we will use like costume and we'll certainly need a knife which we need permission for. We will ask Mrs.Dangerfield for permission to borrow a knife from the refectory.














Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Location Pictures on 20/10/09 Monday for Main Task

Today we have walked around campus searching for key elements that would make a horror/thriller genre film. We captured some pictures of our chosen locations, such as the beautiful living room in one of the houses at our school, we asked permission from the house master if we could take some pictures of his flat, and the majority of opening scene will be taking in the house masters flat. Michel Kirk is an very old chapel that has been built years ago, the chapel will be based as a haunted house, and dead trees which are around Michel Kirk and a long silent walk where you can only hear ambient sound, these key elements will have an effect on the audience. All the locations that we have taken pictures of are an idea that might be part of our opening scene.

Locations




















Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Story Board (Openning Scene 2 Minutes)

The Story Board gives the us an idea what the main task will be about, we will use range of shots such as midshots, close up, extreme close up, jump cut, tracking/pan, low and high angle shots.

Stroy Board scenes 1 to 5
Story Board scenes 6 to 8

Writen by Sultan Mackinnon

Wednesday 14.10.09 Media Studies

Today we had a look to different film openings and could pick out good ideas for our opening. We also found the perfect story and actors plus good locations were the story (opening) will take place. We got some good ideas and are looking forward to the film opening.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Preliminary Task Video and Screen Shots

Genre

For our major task we are planning to use the genre "thriller".

Synopsis

The story is about a couple, where the boyfriend cheats on his girlfriend several times. The boyfriend belives that his girlfriend does not know about this, however the girl knows about the fact that he is cheating on her. Through out the opening of the film the girl does something shocking that will end her boyfriends life...

Written by Sultan Mackinnon.


Location(s)

Our main location will be our HM's flat (if we are allowed) and around the school campus. The movie opening will be approximately 2min. so we won't need that much locations. Our film opening won't depend on the weather so we'll have one problem less.

Characteristics

Our film opening will be a thriller like I already wrote. We'll have dark ambiance(not filming in the night) and really creepy mood. Because the Girlfriend as said will go "crazy" and end her boyfriends life we'll have a lot of close up shots and really creepy and high tension music combined to create the perfect atmosphere and feeling while watching the opening. We won't need a lot of props but the few props we'll use will have a important role in the film opening and lead the atmosphere. The colour will perfectly suite our genre because of the dark and creepy atmosphere that you can find in horror movies too, but there won't be any horror in our movie, it will just feel really creepy while watching it. The actors have been partially chosen we just need 1-2 more actors and we'll be able to film.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Screen shots of our video. By Ahmed Mohammed

Tuesday 6.10.09 Media Studies

Today we have finished our preliminary task. We are now converting the video to an AVI file, then we will convert it into a MPEG file so that we can upload it to our blog, so now the viewers can see it.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Thursday 1.10.09 Media Studies

Today we transferred the whole video material for our Preliminary Task to the PC and have began with cutting the video material together.

Written by Henri Yueksel

Task 1 (Ahmed Mohammed)

One of the genres I am planning to use is action/adventure. This is because there are lots of audiences who prefer action/adventure rather than horror. The horror genre is one of the most uncomplicated forms of entertainment. However I intend to use more than one gene, this give a wider ranger of different genres in which audience prefer. If I only had one genre it would be boring and might not attract the audience that well. The word genre means "kind of" or "sort of and comes from the same Latin root as the word genus.

One of the films that inspired me is “Johnny English” as it has got enough action and adventure, but more humour into it. This is directed by Peter Howitt. The main character in this film is obviously Johnny English as (Rowan Atkinson) with is amazing acting as a role of a spy agent. Unlike drama, where the goal is to get the audience to experience a range of emotions, action has a much simpler goal. The goal is to get the audience to experience a bit of action or an adventure.

There are some amazing scenes which show clearly how an action should be done. No matter if it’s a stunt or just a minor action. And one of them is when Johnny English jumps of a plane and lands onto a building for his mission. When he reaches the building he gets out his gadgets and makes a huge hole through the glass window. This has lots of special effects, but also it has the same amount of action in this scene. However, later in this scene, when he enters the building, he realizes that he is in the wrong building. This film has lots of humour parts including this one. According to me, having a bit of comedy won’t suit my shot movie. This is because normally in a comedy genre, the actor/actress as their personality, they have this humour in them which the audience know. But if you tell a horror film actor to act into a comedy film for some humour, the audience will no find it humorous.

Acton/adventure genre should be a good genre for an audience in school. This is because they get attracted more easily, adding some suspense will keep then focused and interested. Also adding a bit of SFX special effects will inspire them more.



Written by Ahmed Mohammed

Wednesday 30.09.09 Media Studies

Today we filmed our Preliminary Task with success and had a lot of good shots and different camera angles using two cameras.
What we need to do is to cut the film material and put it together.

Written by Ahmed Mohammed

Task 1 (Sultan Mackinnon)

The film that I have watched that inspired me is a horror film called The Ring.

The Ring

The Ring is mainly based on mysterious videotape that is cursed, the footage contains lots of disturbing images. After the tape is watched the viewers get a phone call warning them that they have seven days to live.

When I watched this film for the first time I had shivers down my spine, this is what kind of effect that I would like the viewers to experience when they watch our work (trailer). This gender appeals to me because it is mysterious and also I lie films that have a twist in it, a good example of this is the Skeleton Key. Also films such as The Ring or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre always have suspense, even at the beginning of the film you always wonder what will happen next because you know the type of genre it is, for example if the film is a comedy then you predict that the opening scene will have lively music and a few lines of dialogue, a film such as Bruce Almighty is a good example of these qualities. I also like horror movies because it contains different genre, if you watch an action movie then it will contain action and maybe slight sings of comedy, but a horror movie has its own genre that no other can consist of. The main characteristics that a horror film contains are fear, mystery, action (sometimes intense violence) and suspense. All these characteristics combine together to make a horror film. For our trailer we could use different locations such as the Michael Kirk were there are graves, this will give the trailer a sinister feel to it, also you can use different props such as knifes or guns. In the trailer there will be special effects present so you could make the brightness dark, all these small things will make a difference.

Written by Sultan Mackinnon

Task 1 (Henri Yueksel)

Task 1 Prep,

Movie: The Haunting in Connecticut

What I really like about this movie is the creepiness and the horror factor in it. It's quite like an classic horror movie; Something happened to someone, we don't know what but we are going to find it out while watching the whole movie. Because this "person/thing" has disappeared something is happening in this case there is a haunted house because something happened in this house, somebody died... You don't know how or why. During the movie you're finding out more and more about it. But while this person died in a strange way, and you know that something bizarre happened in this house. This whole mysterious happenings are really thrilling and scary because things happens in this house and the family living in is really scared. That is kind of art to scare people only with a good story, acting and mostly everything else doesn't play a role if you've got a very good story. The characteristics of this movie and most of those movies are the mysterious and often very scary stories that you can follow while watching the movie. Often the actors are really bad but that doesn't matter in this kind of movies, because if they are good camera shots, good music and/or a good story you will certainly be scared even if the actors are really bad. For example: Hitch cocks "Psycho" was one of the best horror thrillers ever! Everybody can recognize "Psycho" because of the background music (Of course there were good actors too...) and the good story. You don't need spooky zombies or monsters, the story etc. tells you everything and scares you often much more than a monster or whatever.

There are not lots of special effects and there's no violence in most of psycho/horror movies, (depends on the exact movie genre, if it's a slasher horror movie or if it's more like a high-tension movie with a good and very scary story...) so there would be no real restrictions for the movie... We just need a good story and good camera shots plus a very good and specific soundtrack. You don't need good actors or costumes for this kind of movie so we'll have a good base to work on and I'm really looking forward to it!

Written by Henri Yueksel

Preliminary Task

Today we have started to discuss our preliminary task.

Our group consists of 3 members:

Sultan Mackinnon

Henri Yueksel

Ahmed Mohammed

Preliminary Task:

Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite, with whom she/he then exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Story

A young teenager is going to a medical centre, where he has booked an appointment. As the teenager enters the room the doctor asks him a couple of questions. After the short interview the doctor gives the medication to the teenager. The patient leaves the room.

Dialogue

Ahmed: "Hello Sir, have you got an appointment?"

Sultan: "Yes I do" (hands sheet over)

Ahmed: (checks computer for details),
(gives medication to patient) "There you go sir, you will need to take it every three houres."

Sultan: "Thank you doctor. Have a nice day!"

Camera Angles (filmed by Henri Yueksel)

In our preliminary task we will have varieties of filming techniques, such as 180 degree angle, shot-reverse-shot…

Written by Henri Yueksel