My budget is very low and I want to keep my trailer as simple as possible so that it looks professional so I have only cast 2 people the victim (Emily) and the antagonist (The Piper) This creates a sense of isolation for Emily and signifies all the other have been either possessed by the Pied Piper or murdered.
This is Emily she will be playing the victim in my film planned to film on the 12th October and appear on the poster of the movie photo shoot planned to take place on Monday 14th October
This is Tim he will be playing the antagonist in my film planned to film on the 12th October and appear on the magazine cover with the photo shoot planned to take place on Monday 14th October
Here I downloaded an app called doddle pro off the apple app store to create a more professional call sheet. It allowed me to take my friends information which was already stored in my phones contacts which made the process very convenient.
As well as that by typing in locations Doodle provided a map for them and the weather forecast for the time of the shoot. Doddle pro also gave me the option to email the call sheet to everyone associated with the project.
When I first used after effects on the Friday I was completely lost. At the weekend I watched tutorials on after effects so I could get the basic jist on how to use the programme. I also sampled examples of after effects on video co-pilot for inspiration for my trailer.
I searched tutorials in YouTube however most of them were far too long. So I watched a video put onto our media of a tutorials by a guy called Parker
So I click on the link to watch it on YouTube, found his channel, subscribed and watched more of his videos because they were much more snappy than the ones I had found previously and was much more easier to watch.
The 3 videos I watched were:
on the basics
key frames
and animating text
On Monday morning I began to use after effects more confidentially I followed videos on video co-pilot to guide me. I first looked at a tutorial called Jumpy text. This showed how me as it says on the tin, make the text jump off and around the page. I wasn't really interested about the text flying all over the lace, what I was interested about the flare flashing which I though created a sense of peril and uneasiness. The flying around of the text didn't really represent the horror genre.
I found creating this effect way more simpler than the others I looked at and producing the effect took me just over half an hour . I made this effective by firstly inserting the text and creating a 3d effect by turning on the 3d effect alternating the layer and duplicating it.
To make the flare animate I created an adjustment layer and I then brought more life to the flare by using colour correction manipulating the brightness using curves. Next I clicked on the layer and put the opacity to 50 per cent, clicked the stop watch icon and type in wiggle (5,50) in other word the flare will move 5x a second thus bringing it to life.
The first flare animation I made was a blue one and it didn't really look as intimating or creepy as I had hoped so I tried it with a red flare image this looked much better as red signifies danger and the red connotes the Pied piper as he is seen to wear red historical as I found in my research so I wanted to continue that theme into after effects.
THE Glass
This effect was much more demanding and longer than the flare; I had a real hard time tying to ge the text to stick to the icy texture and had to go back through the tutorial multiple times.
I typed in the text and added a animated blurred effect and enabled 3d properties, by adjusting the off set I made sure that one character blurred at a time. I then manipulated other settings such as the timing in which the text blurs in the sequence.
Here I am adding 3d layers to give the image more depth I added a black solid background first to the bottom layer to make it really dark then added light blue solids with the circle tool on the layers below ice map and the ice diffuse layer but above the text and adjusted the sizes to create light areas and feathered it out I continued to do this till I was happy with the effect.
Here I am making my final adjustments to the production title and I am very close to finishing; I am here trying to make the text clear again. I did this quite easily by duplicating the text and toning down the settings on the displacement map, scrolling the settings really low and putting the blurriness back to 0. I also lowered the opacity and changed the transfer mode to overlay. I finally went on to change the name to cryogenic productions to make it my own.
Reflection
I have learnt loads since using after effects and I felt I have created some very cool inter title that will separate my film from others. Although very complicated for amateurs like myself I find after effects really exciting and I would defiantly use it again. The tutorials on video co-pilot were also really helpful and I would recommend any beginners or pros to it
I went on freesfx.co.uk and downloaded some sounds for my trailer
First I had to make an account to downloads the SFXs which was free to sign up
I then searched horror and downloaded sounds that I believed would be effective for my trailer; I also searched other sounds relevant to my trailer such as church bells
The files appeared in my downloads which I transferred to a folder and dropped them into iTunes so I could listen to them and rename the files from there I organised and narrow down my favourites.
I like this logo of the hand signifying the undead and supernatural. An idea would be to take something like this and animate it on adobe after effects and have the arm of a zombie burst from the ground and the text appearing dramatically or crumbling like rubble
Another option is to have smoke going across the screen and revealing the text. Although this would be pretty challenging I have seen it done on You tube and I could follow the tutorials and play around on after effects to create mine. This effect would signify the mystery and bleak outlook of the victim going into the trailer.
For a production logo I could take an image of some wind up teeth and have them chattering with asynchronous sound by taking/getting multiple images putting them together and speeding it up.
This could be a great logo I could animate the door to slowly creak open/closed with the text fading in at the bottom. I belive I could do something similar to the Light curve logo by having a strike of lighting across the screen producing the name of my production.
I also like this logo, I could have the traditional film reel spinning out of control to signify the chaos of the film. I think the logo for the red hour films is great I could get or create a picture of a Harlequin or a jouster as this ties in perfectly with the traditional pied piper and add a cackling laugh to generate fear.
Other ideas I have on after effects is to have blood dripping onto the text or to have something been smashed like cracked glass to connote destruction and pain.
Here is a spider diagram of ideas for a name of my productions they are based on words you'd associate with horror.
I went on dafont.com which I used last year in search of effective and appropriate fonts to download and use in my products.
I like this font as the style is almost like the classic news times roman. This font to me connotes medieval when the pied piper was original a signifies that it is an old legend. The smudges on it give that classic a font a dark effect and reflect the horror convention whilst being easy to read. This font I think would look best on the inter titles of my trailer although I could use it for the title of my film.
This font is clearly connotes the horror genre. I love this font because it is really big and bold and the dripping effective is really cool because it hints at the blood of victims or gunge; something unpleasant basically. However this font can be guilty of being childish as you can picture it being used in an episode of Scooby doo. Therefore I will not use it in my trailer or for the font of the title of the film. As seen in my flat plans it looks a lot like the sell line at the top of my magazine so this font would be ideal for that purpose.
This is the type of font I would like to use for my mastheads and sell lines although the font may be seen as quite boring so I am likely to use it for my sell lines. The benefits of this fonts are because the sell lines are going to smaller this font will still be so clear and bold making it the most professional font and professional for the job. Another advantage is it will not take the emphasis of the mast head whilst still having an engaging element.
An effect like these on bold text could work for my mast heads. Whilst being easy to read the edgy font suggests the antagonist is slowly destroying everything in the film the font also makes the product look more scary and exciting.
I like this font because it is bold, sharp and really stands out. I love how some of the font has been scratched because it really connotes the torment and suffering of the victim in a horror.
Here are a few fonts from existing horror movies to compare with my choices:
This font carries the same elements as the fonts I have chosen it is bold and strong whilst the eroded look on the text connotes the grittiness of a horror. I love the replacement of the A in dead to a zombie's hand. This is something I could possibly do myself I have already planned to make the P's sharper in pied piper to look like blades but an alternative could be to instead of using a hand I could use the shadow of a rat in one of the letters although I don't know how effective that would be.
Making the black card gave me a chance and a small exercise to remind myself of how to use Photoshop and a few of the basics I learnt last year.
To make the black card I first of all had to open a new Photoshop document and format the size to fit my trailer. I used the fill tool to make my background black I then reminded myself of how to inset and format text. And how to insert and resize images like the 15 certificate by opening them up in a separate Photoshop window and dragging them across and organising the layers.
I had to get an existing black card from Google images to get the signatures of the director and president of the BBFC for my black. I cropped the signatures on a separate document and dragged them onto my black card.
