References

Post 15 – References

Images:

DVD Cover Background - (Anon., 2014)

Badger – (Anon., 2014)

Cottage – (Anon., 2014)

Flames – (Anon., 2014)

Tiger – (Anon., 2014)

Back Cover Background - (Anon., 2014)

Disk Label Background – (Anon., 2014)

Skull – (Anon., 2014)

Flames - (Anon., 2014)

 

Video and Audio  Sources:

Abandoned Cabin – (Anon., 2014)

Horror Forest Chase Scene – (Anon., 2014)

Lost In Forest – (Anon., 2014)

Forest Of The Blair Witch – (Anon., 2014)

Scary Forest – (Anon., 2014)

 

Works Cited

Anon., 2014. CG Textures. [Online] Available at: www.cgtextures.com [Accessed 15 March 2014].

Anon., 2014. Science Badger Unleashed. [Online] Available at: http://sciencebadgerunleashed.blogspot.co.uk/ [Accessed 15 March 2014].

Anon., 2014. Tiger Day. [Online] Available at: tigerday.org [Accessed 15 March 2014].

Anon., 2014. YouTube. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoICfsCNieQ [Accessed 01 April 2014].

Anon., 2014. YouTube. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUB4fikjm2M [Accessed 01 April 2014].

Anon., 2014. YouTube. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXG6N3gsYBk [Accessed 01 April 2014].

Anon., 2014. YouTube. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyKI700S_P8 [Accessed 01 April 2014].

Anon., 2014. YouTube. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cmwYleMXxQ [Accessed 01 April 2014].

 

Evaluating My Trailer

Post 14 – Evaluating My Trailer

When I watch through my trailer, I find myself on the edge of my seat and even though I know what is coming next, I still find that it shocks me every time. I think that the clips are in a good order, starting out slowly, with the abandoned hut and then gathering pace around the middle with the scenes of a chase through forest. I think with a horror trailer it is important to start a little slower, because you can’t just jump straight into the action. It would be fair to say that most trailers, regardless of genre, would have a flat, calm clip(s) to begin with so that they can build to some sort of excitement. The chase scene used in my trailer I was so very happy with, it is exactly the way I wanted to show the film to the consumer.

Evaluating My DVD Cover

Post 12 – Evaluating My DVD Cover

I am very happy with the way my DVD cover eventually came together after such a long time spent on it. It took me much longer than I thought to work out exactly what I wanted to do with the cover, but I’m pleased with final result. I think it’s difficult to say you’ve ever done enough but I think the cover has everything I would want to include. I was very happy with the main title I created, when using features of illustrator. I think it really does set the tone for the rest of the project, as it is one of the first things you see. I spent a lot of time trying to blend the badger into the forest and come up with a result I was happy with, but every time I go back to it I alter my opinion a little. I look sometimes and I’m really happy with the way it blends together, but there have been occasions I’ve opened it back up and felt like I need to tweak it around again. I like how the forest comes through the white of the badger but sometimes I’m just not sure about the way black parts of the badger blend with the forest, although I think it’s important to keep it how I have because the badger is quite an integral part, both to the front cover and the film, as a main character of The Wind in the Willows.

I’m also very happy with the logo I created in illustrator for the production company logo; although I don’t think you ever see it in its best light on the DVD cover. To fit on the spine of the DVD it needed to be very small, and it would have looked out of place had I made it any bigger on the back cover. In its full size it does look like a really nice artistic piece, so I’m only disappointed I don’t feel it really came across as I wanted. The picture at the top on my back cover is another one of my favourite parts of the cover and I think this is just for the way it all seemed to go together so well. It didn’t actually take very long to do, although I probably used more tools of Photoshop on that image than any other. It was originally a daytime shot but now seems to look as natural as a night shot in the middle of a blaze of flames.

Wind In The Willows: My Trailer

Post 11 – Wind in the Willows: My Trailer

In making my trailer I tried to look for a combination of different clips to use. I think it’s important in a trailer to have lots of different clips to move between and although having to create a minute long trailer sounds really short, but you need a variety of clips to really convey the mood of the film. It would be simple to place together a few long clips, but especially with a horror movie, the trailer is very often quite jumpy, regularly skipping from clip to clip to add to the tension. I have used around ten different clips at this point in my trailer all at a variety of lengths and rates. There are some quite intense chase scenes in the trailer, with howling screams added in to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. I created some texts in Premiere, in white but with a blood-like red across the lettering. I changed much of the text properties from height, width, slant etc.

I used video transitions between some of the clips to give a professional, more natural adjustment from one clip to another. There are a wide range of video transitions available, although I found that ‘dip to black’ and ‘dip to white’, which are two of the more popular effects in television and film, were two that seemed to work well for me within my trailer. The bright white light is often used in horror films such as the Saw films, and I think it adds more to the tension and fright factor sometimes when moving quickly between clips. I also found the dip to black very useful in a very similar way. With a film of this genre, darkness is often a constant theme associated with danger and plays on people’s fear of the dark, so the dip to black transition worked well when dipping to my text screens that play between some of the clips.

An Introduction to Adobe Premiere

Post 10 – Adobe Premiere

Ripple Edit Tool – The ripple edit tool allows you to change the length of a clip but whilst not shortening another clip or leaving a gap. When the change is made, it ripples along, so if you shorten the clip the following clips would be brought forward by that length. If you lengthen the clip, the following clips will move back by that much too.

Rolling Edit Tool – Rolling Edit will extend the length of a clip but shorten the length of a following clip in return. So it differs from the ripple edit because it can affect other clips than just the one you are trying to change. The clips either side of where you click to make a change will both be affected. You will need to be careful because if you have cut the clip from a source, changing the start or the end will change your clip and bring in different footage than you selected.

Rate Stretch Tool – The rate stretch tool changes the rate at which the video clip will play. By shortening the clip, everything you selected will still be played, but at a quicker speed. Similarly, if you lengthen the clip, it will play the same footage at a slower speed.

Razor Tool – This tool allows you to cut a clip into two separate parts. Simply click where you want to cut the clip, and it will appear as two separate clips which you can then move independently of one another.

Wind In The Willows: My Disk Label

Post 9 – Wind in the Willows: My Disk Label

On my disk label, I wanted to try to do something different from the DVD cover, so moving away from the greenery of the forest I first looked for an image of a small dirt track. I wanted to give the view that this time you are looking down into the forest from above, onto a secluded clearing. I used the brush tool to subtly add a faint redness into the dirt as a typical horror effect. I included an unusual looking skull, which was given horns, and appears to be laid in the secluded area of the forest. An image of flames with lowered opacity and fill subtly spread across the skull and track to continue the theme from the derelict cottage on my back cover. The main title appears as it does on the front cover. I think this is something that should be consistent as it is part of the identity of the film, and I have included the catchphrase for the film, which I have altered using the ‘warp to mesh’ feature which I previously used to create the main title. I think the catchphrase has a more of an importance on my disk label, because the cover is quite busy in images already as it covers such a big area in comparison to the size of the disk label. On the disk label it is a focal point which the consumer is always going to see and read just before they play the DVD.

Evaluating My Disk Label

Post 13 – Evaluating My Disk Label

When I first completed my disk label I was pleased with the final result, but when I looked back at it again I feel like something had changed and that there is something missing. I know there is nothing missing from the work so I find myself wandering could I have utilised the space on the disk label any better, or was there something else I could have included?  All in all though, I think the disk label still has some great qualities to it, like the background I was particularly happy with. I like the way the ground appears with a definite tinge of red coming through which I brushed in. The flames are only very subtle, I’m just not decided if that’s a good thing or not. On the one hand, I don’t think it should be too apparent otherwise it will detract from the effect of the background. However, I think that the flames may be too subtle they are very difficult to necessarily pick up on when you look at the disk label.

Wind In The Willows: Designing titles in Illustrator

Post 8 – Wind in the Willows: Designing Titles in Illustrator

I designed my main title for the Wind in the Willows in Illustrator using the mesh tool. After writing out the text I wanted I then used ‘warp to mesh’ which gives you a mesh around the text which you can manipulate to affect the text within the mesh. I created 5 different designs (see below) but decided to choose the option in the top right because I thought the appearance of the text was the best fit for the DVD cover (as explained in Wind in the Willows DVD Cover Blog).

 

Wind In The Willows: My Front Cover

Post 7 - Wind in the Willows Front Cover

For my front cover I wanted to try to get across as much information about my film as I could. I opted to go for my background of a small path winding down into the forest. I think it shows the idea of taking a path but not knowing where it will lead. I used some of the different effects in Photoshop to alter the appearance of my background, to make the forest appear thicker, but also changing the lighting to really try and set the scene. I used a darken effect to take away some of the original brightness, but then used a colour dodge to give a more vivid white light. I also added in a gentle fog across the front cover, which is only very subtle, because I didn’t want to hide too much of the image, as I decided to use the face of a badger blended into the forest scene. I decided to go with a badger for the front cover as the badger is one of the main characters from the original Wind in the Willows and I wanted to try to stick with that theme as much as possible. I didn’t just want to place a badger there for the sake of it though, and felt I had a good opportunity here to try to, again, get across the horror genre of my film. I used the colour replacement tool to change the appearance of the eyes of the badger, giving them a fire like appearance, and the appearance that the badger is possessed or suffering from a blood lust. I used blood splatters I found on the badger’s face to also carry on this theme, and it comes together well as the badger looks like a very dangerous animal who has just killed in the middle of the forest. I have included my title, which is actually a piece I made in Illustrator, which I think gives, again, a real impression of what to expect from the film. The font I created is a very creepy, eerie kind of font which you may associates with a danger animal clawing at the title, and/or blood dripping from the title.

On the back of the cover, I originally started with an image of a hedge just to set the scene, but I knew with how the back cover was going to be set up, that there wouldn’t be much of it on display. It was just important to have an image of something associated with a deep, thick forest. I blended in the image of a tiger to my back cover background, and I think it blends in well with my background image. Now, this does cut away from the original Wind in the Willows, of course, but I thought the way those images went together was just a really good way of highlighting the danger to expect from the film. I took a picture of a seemingly derelict little cottage, and changed the skyline to appear darker. I then added the flames onto this and was very happy with the resulting picture. I had to make some delicate touch ups to the cottage, the foreground and the background but all in all it came out very well. I tried to include all logos and necessary legislation information required, and included a logo I created, in illustrator, for the production company.

Points to Consider: DVD printing areas and Ethics in Photoshop

Post 6 – Points to Consider: DVD Printing Areas and Ethics in Photoshop

When planning to make my DVD cover I need to consider the bleed and safety areas of my work area. I will add 3mm to the edge of the top, bottom and both sides of my work area for the bleed zone. This is an area which will be cut away when my design is printed. We use a bleed zone to protect our work when it is printed and cut. The background of our cover design will run into the bleed area, which will then give us a better finish around the edges when trimmed because the image runs beyond the edges of the final piece. Of course we must ensure nothing important is within this area as it will be cut away and not be displayed when the DVD cover goes to the consumer.

The safety area is the 3mm area inside the bleed area. The areas are split by the trim line, where the final piece is cut. The reason for the safety area is so that none of the important information on our DVD cover runs to close to any of the edges. If the important information such as titles, certain images or logos run into the safety area they risk being trimmed away when we lose the bleed area, they may become illegible, or they may bound round to the spine of the DVD if the inner safety areas are not carefully observed.

The ethics of using a program like Photoshop are things we regularly hear about in the newspapers or on our televisions. We see it on the covers of so many magazines, especially those that relate to fashion, health, beauty, fitness and celebrity. It is widely known that people use Photoshop to alter images of people in the media spotlight, but why do they do this? Many of the companies criticised for doing this rely heavily on a good image to enhance their sales, but where do you draw the line? In the fashion industry for example, you open up a catalogue and the latest clothing is always modelled by these young, attractive people with the desired look and envy of so many regular people. If these people didn’t look so ‘perfect’, it would doubtless have an effect on the company’s sales. On this basis we can understand why some companies may use Photoshop, giving people something to idolize and aspire to, and planting a seed into their heads that this line of clothing will make you look like the models in the catalogue too.

The other side to this argument though is the suggestion that these images, all over catalogues, magazines, billboards and our television are causing us to become obsessed with this perfect, desired image, with people going to great length to try to obtain a similar body image, even though they are merely creations on a computer program rather than the real thing. I think it is important that people know when an image has been airbrushed, because it will help to protect people to realise how very often it happens, and that so many of the images we see do not show how that person actually looks. I think it could help many impressionable teenagers and young adults to realise they do not have to strive to look like this through dangerous diets, but actually lead healthy lifestyle and be proud and happy with the way they look.

The link provided shows you at the very extreme how it is so easy for Photoshop experts to make you believe something to be something it really is not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnvoz91k8hc

Points to Consider: Intellectual Property Rights

Post 5 – Points to Consider: Intellectual Property Rights

 

Patents - Patents are concerned with industry processes and inventions made by an individual or company. A patent basically prevents another organisation using a process or invention without the consent of those who hold the patent. Once the patent has been approved, the holders would then have the right to either use the idea themselves, or sell it to another organisation for them to use instead. A patent can typically take 2 - 3 years to be approved.

 

Design Rights – Design rights are very much as they sound, they are rights which protect the creator over design they create. The creator holds the rights to it, unless they are working for a company where it is their job. In this case the company would hold the design rights for pieces created by their design team. A design can be anything to do with the colour, material, shape, texture or orientation of a product. It is anything which makes the piece stand out from anything else which is already designed within the industry.

 

Trademark – Trademark law cover unique selling points which we associate with a product from the product name, company slogan, designs, symbols/logos/icons etc. It can take between 6-18 months to get a trademark. A trademark only protects you company in the country it is authorised; however the EU have an agreement which would cover all countries in the EU.

 

Copyright – Copyrights concern themselves with artistic pieces of work such as musicals, theatre, artistic pieces, literature, films, recordings etc. Copyright gives you the rights of use, meaning unauthorised persons cannot just take your work and try to pass it on as their own. It also covers you to take legal action against anybody who tries to infringe this copyright law. Copyright can instantly be applied to any artistic piece listed above once it has been created, although you should properly register so that you can prove clear ownership of any of your works.

Mind Map: Brainstorming Ideas

Post 4 – Mind Map: Brainstorming Ideas

I have been thinking of what the theme should be for my project over the past few days, and I produced this mind map of some of my idea. I originally looked at going down the route of gaming or film. I decided that I could be more creative going down the route of a DVD film. I considered the genre’s and really enjoyed the idea of making a horror film, as this is my favourite genre of film. I felt I could recall on the films I have watched to give me more inspiration with my upcoming project.

I began thinking about films that already exist but would be interesting to recreate but with a twist on the original version. After much discussion and thoughts I decided to use the Wind in the Willows film as my inspiration for my project. As I said, this would not be the typical version everyone has read about and seen before, but a darker, creepier altogether totally different experience. I think I have a lot of scope to take this forward and really get the best out of this project.

Photoshop: Learning the Tools

Post 3 – Photoshop Learning the Tools

 

Spot Healing Brush Tool – This tool is used a lot in the fashion and media industry to try to improve the appearance of somebody in a photograph. Using this industry as an example, when you use the spot healing brush, it will take the area you select and use the pixels surrounding that area to recolour, or touch-up the photo. The result is an area of redness, or an impurity of the skin, is replaced by the persons skin colour so as to look blemish free.

Healing Brush Tool – The healing brush differs slight from the spot healing brush. It is used for the same purpose but you first select any area of the photo which you want to reuse somewhere else. The brush is then set to the same as the pixels in the area you have selected and you can then recreate this on another area of the photo. You could, for instance, select the hair from a person’s head and then the healing brush would brush hair onto maybe a bald person’s head if you wished.

Patch Tool – With this tool you first draw out the area you wish to change in a photo, and then you can drag the selection to anywhere else in the photograph. When you have found an area you are looking for it will then be recreated, using a combination of the pixels properties in the original area, and those in the new area, to alter the photo. You could use this if there was something in a photo you wanted to hide perhaps. Taking another plain part of the image, which may just show landscape for instance, would cause the pixels to blend together and likely hide the unwanted article. I used the patch tool to cover up some tracks in the sand made by a vehicle, and replaced them with an area of unspoilt sand from within the photo of a desert landscape.

Content Aware Move Tool – This tool will allow you to move something from one area of a photo to another whilst also considering the pixels in the area you are moving the content from. I used this to move a truck in the desert to another area of the photo. Because you are moving it to a different area, something must be done to the area the truck came from otherwise it would be obvious the photo had been tampered with. The content aware tool will consider the pixels around the area you are moving your selection and try to blend them together to leave a more natural look from where the truck is moved.

Brush Tool and Pencil Tool – The brush tool and pencil tool allows you to change the colour of areas of the photograph, either across the entire image or by selecting a smaller part of the image first and then applying the brush tool afterwards. In an outdoor image you could select the sky and change the appearance of the time of day, through a variety of different brushes and using different tints of colour from the colour swatches.

An Introduction to Photoshop: Selection Tools

Prior to the beginning of this module I had not had any experience using Photoshop. Therefore for this assignment, I have started very much from the basics. As with anything I am finding my knowledge and usability of the software is improved with each use.

We begin with some of the basic selection tools:

• Rectangular Marquee Tool - This tool, as it sounds, will select an area of a photo by drawing a rectangular shape on the photo. This is useful for selecting a large area of a photo but has obvious problems too. In most cases I have found when using photoshop, when selecting an area of a photo, it is not going to be a perfect rectangular shape. Most of the time the area you need to select is going to be a unusual shape and so you would need a tool which enables you to draw the area you want as a free hand area.
• Lasso Tool - The Lasso tool is a tool that rectifies the problems you may have with the rectangular marquee tool. The lasso tool allows you to draw free hand around an area you wish to edit, giving you the freedom to select any shape, space or area. As this tool is totally controlled by the user it requires a great deal of attention to select the exact area you require and can take time to ensure the selection is made accurately.
• Magnetic Lasso Tool - The magnetic lasso tool is in my eyes and improvement to the lasso tool which will analyse the different colours around the area you are trying to select and snap to the area it thinks you are trying to select as you move around the photo. This will decrease the amount of time it would normally take you using the lasso tool because it will, in effect, do some of the work for you. It does have its own disadvantages though such as it will sometimes struggle to differentiate between different areas of colour when the colours are dark, so you may not get the exact area you were trying to select.
• Polygonal Lasso Tool - This is another selection tool which can be quite useful, potentially when the magnetic lasso tool is unable to find the exact area you are looking to select. The way the polygonal lasso tool works is that it will draw out the area you wish to select with straight lines, but you can start a new line at any time by clicking the mouse. As such, although the area is selected with straight lines like the rectangular marquee tool, you can end up with a much better area selection like that in the magnetic lasso tool simply by clicking at regular intervals as you move around the area you want to select. 
• Quick Selection Tool - In my experience this is my favourite selection tool. As we have practised using Photoshop, i have found this tool very easy to use and very effective at selecting an area you wish to work on. Unlike the other tools, where you are required to essentially draw around the area, with this tool you click inside the area you want and and it will make a selection around that area dependant upon your brush size and different colours in that area. It is very simple to add to the selected area if it hasnt all been found, and in the same way it is very easy to subtract a small amount of the area if you have selected too much.

When you have made your selection using any of the above tools, you can chose the 'Refine Edge' button and use the 'Smart Radius' edge detection and the smooth and feather options to alter how sharp the edge of your selection appears and allow the effects to blend in. This will make the photo look much better when modified and it will look more natural. The best way is to trial and error with these options but it seems to work well when you do not go overboard with these options, keeping a more realistic photo.

Introduction to Digital Imaging

For the Digital Imaging Software module we are required to create a DVD package for a film or a video game. The final work to submit consists of:

• A DVD case wrap for an Amaray style case which is to be created in Photoshop. We will be expected to demonstrate at minimum that we can set up a Photoshop file with correct size, DPI, use selection tools, filters, layers, layer transparency, levels, guides, and apply effects to photos.

• A DVD on-disc label including a logo. This will be created in Illustrator. We are to demonstrate, at minimum, use in Illustrator of the pen tool, type tool, placing images, brushes, clipping masks, guides, layers, transparencies, text wrap.

• A short promotional trailer for our finished package. This is to be edited in Premiere, including previously created elements from Photoshop or Illustrator we may chose to import. We will be expected to demonstrate, at minimum, import images and video, setting up a Premiere project with the right frame size and frame rate (and widescreen), trimming clips, adding transitions to clips, and adding titles over clips. This will be submitted as a Quicktime movie file encoded with the DV codec.