Ancillary Poster Research

For our first Ancillary task we're creating 3 posters as part of our films campaign. Researching for poster art, I'm gathering ideas of how i can present my posters, and the conventions of different poster types.

My first look into poster styles is based on a vintage look, i felt for a silent film perhaps a more classic style can act as a homage to early cinema.I've looked at mostly drama or book based films, with some more abstract and creative film genres. This way i can experiment with showing the two sides of my film.




Clockwork Orange is a classic film, with the wacky and disturbing world in it. This poster uses a very creative way of presenting the themes of 'abstract'. It has a clean, white backdrop, with the main image drawing all the attention, the font and arrangement are both very iconic, looking at this example, i can pay close attention to my own use of arrangement to make my poster image unforgettable.





This poster, of a foreign film 'vaduva neagra' has a very stand out design. The image of the lips with the spider legs suggest a woman who is not all she seems to be, an idea that can be used in poster. Its an interesting way of depicting a drama genre with possible thriller. These two posters however more aimed at a film enthusiast audience as they focus more on the art than advertising the film. I would like to include one poster with a more vintage, artist style in the campaign, to be aimed at a film enthusiast audience.




Cat on the tin roof, another vintage film, does well to establish the main character, with hints at the story. One of my main objectives is to portray the power of the woman (Delilah) in the campaign, which we see used in this poster, with Elizabeth Taylor's character seen as a powerful, sensual woman. I've also noticed a pattern or convention in vintage posters based on drama and romance genre's. The font is usually bold, with a red and black outline style. This design would also easily suit my film, and i may use it.






The Great Gatsby! one of my favourite novels and film adaptations.Once again a film poster which suggests drama and romantic themes in the story. The use of the couple in a dramatic pose hint at the scandal to come. This also uses the red and black font as with Cat on the tin roof, and this poster is my favourite out of my research, its clear to the genre, but also leaves mystery into the story.



The details of director, production company etc. are in a subtle arrangement, so the main focus is on the images, but its still included. This is something i would like to re create in my poster. Also despite being a vintage poster, this is open to and will easily attract a female target audience because of the strong themes. This helps me in developing a poster which will both appeal to film enthusiasts and young women, who are most likely to enjoy our film.




For a more comtempary poster i've researched into 500 Days Of Summer, a film that has been a big inspiration to our film, and has had great sucess at both film festivals and in the cinema.This poster focuses on summer, just how i want to focus on Delilah and uses a strong poster layout for the target audience. This is a good reference for me when doing a poster for cinemas and magazines.

During Filming

Filming - how to create a free slideshow

An inside look into our filming days, and how we worked to create our sets, costume and filming :)

Script ~ Final

Pan from the window down to the dressing table, Delilah walks in to the frame and sits down at the table; she has just come out of the shower and has a towel on her head and a dressing gown on. Delilah starts applying her make up on. There are snap shots, close up of her eyes whilst putting her mascara on and also of her lips whilst putting her lipstick on. (This is all shot through the reflection of Delilah in the mirror, over the shoulder shot)
Delilah walks to the wardrobe (tracking shot)

Delilah

(Over the shoulder) Delilah opens wardrobe, we see a front veiw of her from inside as she shifts the clothes from side to side. We see as she moves it, she's dressed. Delilah closes wardrobe.
The camera then goes back to the dressing table and focuses on the pictures of the two men (stuck on the mirror of the dressing table) in the background we see Delilah (reflection in the mirror) slowly approaching the pictures)
Delilah grabs the pictures.
Close up of Delilah starring at the pictures, Delilah looks up (daydreaming)

Daydream (weird lighting)

Shot of Delilah on bed with James and she is smiling at him, wee see James smiling too, pans to Delilah smiling and when we pan back again we see David, then they start play fighting (action reaction shots, every time shot changes the guy changes too) at the end James grabs the end of the covers and pulls it over them.

Reality scene (in bedroom)

Delilah looks down at the pictures again
Close up of Delilah’s hand as she throws the pictures on the bed
Close up of pictures on be (foreground) Delilah walking out of the room (background)

Camera goes to the bottom of the stairs and we see Delilah walking down the stairs , whilst doing so we change to a close up of her feet to see her red shoes, then go back to a long shot as she is coming down the stairs.
Delilah walks past the camera into the dining room.

In the sitting room.

One long take of Delilah setting up the table. Delilah takes the glasses out and lights the candles, Delilah puts the forks and knifes out on the table. Delilah picks up a knife and (casually) and smiles at her own reflection in the knife.

Ding dong (doorbell)

Delilah

Looks up realises that the doorbell has rung and she puts the knife down, as she does so she realises that she has got a string coming out of her dress and she just pulls it out and makes her way to the door.

Abstract scene

Delilah has red strings tied to her fingers and we see David and James tied to the other end of the strings. Delilah starts pulling James forward.
Cut back to reality and James is coming forward through the front door and hugs Delilah.
Delilah grabs James by the hand and leads him into the dining room (go out of the frame) camera stays focused on the door as James left it open by accident.

Sittiing room

Delilah and James are eating and smiling at each other, sitting on the sofa, casual picking food from the table.

Cuts to abstract

Delilah whispering in James’ ear

Cut back to reality

Delilah whispering in James’ ear
Camera pans down to see Delilah rubbing James’ foot with her foot camera pans back up and Delilah lays back on her chair
There is a mid shot of the couple and James passes Delilah a fortune cookie
Delilah takes cookie (happy) she looks down at the cookie

Hallway

Camera cuts to outside the house where David is coming with red flowers. (Over the shoulder) David sees that the front door is open so he knocks and no one answers so he lets himself inside in order to surprise Delilah.

Delilah opens cookie, inside reads ‘The strings of false love will break’
She looks confused and looks up to see David standing behind James, Delilah looks very scared.

James sees Delilah’s face and in curiosity turns around
(Point of view, from David’s perspective)
James turns to see David and looks at him in disbelief
Shot of flowers falling into the floor
Delilah stands up but is lost for words

Cuts to abstract

The red thread has gone very loose and is all over the place, it is all tangled up and the men are spinning around Delilah

Cut back to reality

Men are standing on both sides of Delilah and are arguing

Delilah covers her ears and closes her eyes

James and David

'Were Breaking up!'

(this will not be heard)

Everything gets out of control, David spills the wine and leaves
James leaves stepping on the flowers on the floor

Abstract

See broken string all over the floor (Delilah has lost control) surrounding Delilah.
Delilah closes her eyes (camera blackout)

Shot of the window in the bedroom, camera pans down to the bed where Delilah is sleeping, the bed looks very messy and all Delilah’s makeup is smudged

Alarm goes off
Delilah grabs alarm and throws it to the wall (camera follows the alarm being thrown), camera is slowly panning back to the bed. Whilst panning we see the photos of the two men on the dressing table and they are crossed off, and we also see dead flowers on the dressing table and all her make up is all over the place and it is very messy.
When camera goes back to Delilah she is slowly getting up, there is a close up of her feet and near them are her red slippers, she pushes them to one side and she just falls back in bed.

Abstract

In the same position as she was in the real world, Delilah is surrounded by strings.

Making the Fortune Cookies?

As where unsure of using a pre made fortune cookie, I've looked into recipes i can try

Fortune cookies can be tricky to make - it's important to make sure that the cookie batter is spread out evenly on the baking sheet. Instead of using the back of a wooden spoon to spread the batter, it's better to gently tilt the baking sheet back and forth as needed. Wearing cotton gloves makes it easier to handle and shape the hot cookies. This fortune cookie recipe makes about 10 cookies.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

* 2 large egg whites
* 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
* 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 8 tablespoons granulated sugar
* 3 teaspoons water

Preparation:
1. Write fortunes on pieces of paper that are 3 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 9-X-13 inch baking sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg white, vanilla extract, almond extract and vegetable oil until frothy, but not stiff.

3. Sift the flour, cornstarch, salt and sugar into a separate bowl. Stir the water into the flour mixture.

4. Add the flour into the egg white mixture and stir until you have a smooth batter. The batter should not be runny, but should drop easily off a wooden spoon.
Note: if you want to dye the fortune cookies, add the food coloring at this point, stirring it into the batter. For example, I used 1/2 teaspoon green food coloring to make green fortune cookies.

5. Place level tablespoons of batter onto the cookie sheet, spacing them at least 3 inches apart. Gently tilt the baking sheet back and forth and from side to side so that each tablespoon of batter forms into a circle 4 inches in diameter.

6. Bake until the outer 1/2-inch of each cookie turns golden brown and they are easy to remove from the baking sheet with a spatula (14 - 15 minutes).

7. Working quickly, remove the cookie with a spatula and flip it over in your hand. Place a fortune in the middle of a cookie. To form the fortune cookie shape, fold the cookie in half, then gently pull the edges downward over the rim of a glass, wooden spoon or the edge of a muffin tin. Place the finished cookie in the cup of the muffin tin so that it keeps its shape. Continue with the rest of the cookies.

Note: If you haven't made this recipe before, you might want to check out my Top 9 Tips for Making Fortune Cookies.
Each serving includes (based on a total yield of 9 cookies):
Calories 93, 11 g Carbohydrates, 1 g Protein, 5 g total Fat, 1 g Saturated Fat, 0 mg Cholesterol, trace Fibre, 72 mg Sodium, 18 mg Potassium.

When also making our cookies, I prepared some fortunes for our cookie which we've considered using as tag lines too.
There all concentrated on the themes of the story, we looked at other fortunes to word our's in a mystic way.
With the red string created from the Chinese myth, we felt comfortable using references to it in the fortune.

Title Ideas and Experiments.

Noriane and I had a discussion about our titles today, and what our ideas were after her meeting with Stewart Connen, who's helping us to create our titles, and finding out what we can do with the software we have. After finding out our options i suggested this idea of falling fabric for our opening titles, something similar to what I've seen in Little Dragons music video of twice. After showing Noriane and her liking the idea she's taking our notes to Stewart to develop it further.

Photo StoryBoard

Because our storyboard was split into 3 main sections, for filming practicality, I've repeated the same for the photo story boards.

DATE - flash slideshow maker

The Day Dream - making a free slideshow

Abstract world - flash slideshow

StoryBoards ~ Abstract Setting

StoryBoards - House setting

Location, Location, Location!

Our location for the film is a house. 72 Oulton Cresent.

Its a house being lent to us by a peer where we can film over the two filming days.

The house is the perfect setting for our film! With a young woman's room, which has a red, black and white colour scheme and props that fit Delilah's character perfectly. The room fits to our storyboard angles and idea's with some minor changes to the angles of the wardrobe scene. With the accompaniment of our props to the room the mise en scene will be well suited for our film.
The hallway and living room will also be easy to use for our camera placements and movements, while also giving us easily dressable settings to fit the date scene.
The location of the abstract scene will be in the media studio, which will give us the space to create our black backdrop with fabric and use the lighting available in the studio, which after testing will have a dramatic effect on the look of our scenes.

Location Reece

Weighing up the details, problems and risks we can prepare for using our location and work on the solutions we need to be confident on our filming days.

Casting

The casting for our film has been a difficult process. Without the ability to use any students within Barking Abbey, our search for a reliable friend who was comfortable with acting in our film was limited.

For our main character Delilah we needed a young woman, around 17 to 18 who would feel comfortable and look at ease in her scenes. Our film will depend on facial expression due to the absence of dialogue, if our Delilah can show confidence she'll if the role perfectly.
Because of this need for a complete understanding of the character we found that the other media students we could ask to audition for our film felt awkward and unenthusiact at performing the scenes in our film, which would be likely to show in our character. And unfortunately our other options were unable to give the time to the filming and production stages that we need for the film.

However, considering our need for Delilahs actor to have a full understanding of her actions, while feeling confident and sure of the acting with the rest of the cast, we decided I should play the role of Delilah. With our group of 5 we believe we can balance our roles so that i can participate in acting in the film and the production process. As i developed Delilahs character and the story I'm fully aware and comfortable with what i need to do for us to achieve the portrayal of Delilah how we want it. And being a maker of the film i can encourage my fellow cast into showing there roles to how we want.


How i perceive Delilahs character has been based off of various actresses and characters who i feel would be similar in how she moves and portrays herself.
Zooey Deschanel is an actress i have found to brilliantly play strong female characters. She uses her subtle style of facial expression and soft movements which emphasise her femininity, but she also creates an impression of confidence in her character, with a tendency to day dream.



Although this is a dance sequence, we can pay attention to her character Summer, from 500 days of summer, movements and expressions, they show a calm, confident woman with a fun attitude. Plus some of the moves resemble an almost controlling nature, like how they move each other around, or the sad face motion which then controls Tom into doing what she wants. This way we can see hints of a more serious matter, in her subtle, romantic gestures. This is the kind of actions we want for Delilah.




This commerical with Zooey's also focuses on Zooey's expressions and body language. Again its floaty and dream like, with shots of her gaze drifting up, much like we want to do in our film with the daydream. I can really get a clearer idea of how i should act as Delilah by watching Zooey's performances.









































Although we have to remember Delilah has a vindictive side, and must show in the abstract scenes.
A great example i looked to when experimenting with how to show Delilah's secret side, which she hides from the men.The character Jessica from the TV series Heroes shows an evil side to a woman. Her movements and actions are stronger and seductive compared to her alter ego Nikki. This will be useful in how i can show Delilah in both the abstract and normal world. The way she is also shown in her own abstract world has helped me also. The way she looks to Nikki through the mirror, she's in control and her world is flexible to her, like how she also appears outside the mirror and in different reflections. This can help me have an idea how to act in the abstract world, the still posture, with soft movements and gestures. I can also look at Nikkis character for when Delilah loses control. We see her desparation when trapped in the mirror world, and unable to stop whats happening. Just like Delilah.









For the role of James we have Josh Freeland.We were thrilled to have Josh as a cast member as his a great friend, and a brilliant actor. After seeing him in various drama pieces were confident he'll bring his talent to the screen. He's very easy going and comfortable with our film and us as directors.He was our first choice when considering James actor, and luckily he was glad to help us. I imagined James character as a sweet guy. His romantic and a fool for love. Although his character traits aren't a focus in the film, and aren't exaggerated we can get the impression of his personality trough his actions, like the small kisses and his expressions throughout.
This is a role i think Josh will play well and hopefully have fun doing so,
When offering examples and references to Josh i used actor Micheal Cera.

Micheal Cera's played main roles in many teen romance films, but his acting style is subtle and realistic, with a sense of humour. His characters are how i imagine James, as more of a love struck fool who'll do anything for Delilah.

JUNO, Love from Cavatina_9 on Vimeo.

For David we've created a slightly suaver character, well show this by how he brings the flowers to Delilah, for Akin to play David we'd reffer a character or acting style similar to a Hugh Grant role, although his supposed to be suaver his still been tricked by Delilah, and has to have some sense of foolish blindness to believe her.