Website typography

For the website we needed to create typography for the quotes and also additional titles.

I used the same font design as the poster for the additional titles 'You're invited to Lucy's birthday party'.

I once again used Photoshop to edit this title to look the same as the tagline on the poster and trailer. This kept the titles consistent throughout all the products we have created.

For the quotes they needed stand out against the black background so thought white would do this best but I used the satin effect on Photoshop once again to create the tonal effect so the text didn't look so flat.
The font is in italics which highlights more so that it has been quoted. 


Amy Freeman

Final website

Our final website includes the same image, typography and bright pink colour scheme as the poster to keep a sense of continuity and consistency. 

After looking into other film websites we noticed they include lots of social networking links so we included Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Google+ links. 
As well as this a twitter feed showing current tweets made about Bitter Sweet. 

Another convention is to have quotes about the film and ratings displayed on the website.

This is the website address for our film website which promotes our teaser trailer.

http://amyamydaisylibby.wix.com/bittersweet

Amy Freeman

Music Box.

• For part of the sound we recorded a music box playing. It was a traditional music box which played a child like tune. This helped our trailer conform to the stereotype that child like music is played to make something become creepier. There were two music box sounds we could have chosen, the first being the pink one which is being used in the teaser trailer as it is more girly.
• For the second music box we recorded the sound as it was a better lullaby which was more appropriate to use in our trailer.
• At first we recorded almost 30 seconds of the music, however we only needed to use around 5 seconds so we split the sound clip until we had just the right amount and it began and finished at an appropriate point. 
• We decided to place the sound of the music box playing as the production company was fading out, so we started the tune quietly and increased the volume as different clips started playing.
  
  
  Reversed music box.
• Half way through we added a synthesised drum beat which was played alongside the opening credits 'It's all fun and games' when this is played we reversed the music box sound so that it became scarier, we also increased the volume so that it built up suspense for what was coming.
  

Winder on the music box.

• For part of our sound within our trailer we decided to record the music box being wound up. With this sound we placed it at the beginning of our trailer when the production company 'Twisted Pictures' was being played. To make the winding sound more repetitive we split the whole clip until we only had a small sound clip, and copied and paste it next to each other so the same sound was repeated.
• Once we had our initial sound we were able to experiment with the placement of the sound. As our production company was 'Twisted Pictures' we placed the winding alongside when the wire wound round the screw.
• We then changed the pitch and volume of each clip so that at the beginning the sound slowly fades in and slowly increases the volume so it builds up the suspense of what is going to happen after the production company.

Editing - Underwater

•  We used an underwater camera for the bobbing for apples drowning scene
• We wanted to use an underwater camera to show the victim and we thought it would be effective within our trailer
• When we came to edit the underwater footage we found that because the container we used was fairly shallow, the actors face was very close up and was sometimes unclear
• When editing we decided to show more footage of the actors face plunging into the water instead as this was more effective and much clearer
• We also tried reversing the footage of the actor bringing their head up from the water to see if this looked better
• We chose to include also an over the shoulder shot of the antagonist forcing the victims head under the water to show that it is bobbing for apples which reflected the torturous party element

Amy Freeman

Tag line

We feel that is necessary to have a tag line. In research we have found that most films in all genres have a tag line and for ours, as a horror, it would create further enigmas in conjunction with the name.

Here are some of our initial ideas combining the party and torture themes:

The party to die for

This party's dead

Welcome to the party

The party you can't miss

You're invited

The party you won't miss

It's all fun and games till someone gets hurt

Final Decision:

We like the cliché "It's all fun and games till someone gets hurt". However, we feel that this is too long and not catchy enough for a tag line so will use "It's all fun and games" on our poster and the longer version where appropriate such as titles and website.

Final poster design

This is our final poster design which has been edited using Adobe Photoshop and iPiccy a free online photo editing website.

I firstly edited the photo on iPiccy increasing highlights and shadows to make it look more dramatic. I also increased the vibrancy of the colours in the photo. 

All fonts were found on MyFonts and have been minipulated on Photoshop make the typography look designed and overall more professional looking. The idea of the typography was to make it look like wispy candle smoke and so I used the smudge and blur tools to achieve this look on both the title 'Bitter Sweet' and 'coming soon'.

For our tagline 'It's all fun and games' I used a simple bold font as this is what I noticed was conventional from my poster research. I put this in pink to twist the horror convention of typically having red and to suggest the girly/princessy element of our trailer. I used a satin effect on photoshop to create tone on the tagline image rather than one flat colour. By having the tagline to the positioned to the side of the image it draws the eye around the poster.

At the bottom of the poster to make it look more professional I added some production titles also.

Overall I think the poster does convey what we wanted to suggest of our trailer and does follow certain conventions to make it effective for the genre.

Amy Freeman   

Poster photoshoot

• Our final poster is having our antagonist holding a grotesque, disgusting, mouldy looking cake 
• We want our antagonist to have vibrant make up on to create a princess, girly appearance
• The antagonist will be looking directly into the camera as this will look the most scary and creepy
• Also having the antagonist bend there head down slighty created a more intense look
• The lighting for the poster will be candle light so that there are dark shadows creating enigma as to who the character is
• We varied the amount of candles lit as we found when they were all lit the surface of the cake became too bright and the detail was lost and so the mouldy surface was not noticeable
• We found having one back candle lit up the face the best and created the right amount of shadow but also lit the cake so we could see the mouldy detail
• We are pleased with the result of the photoshoot and choose one image to for our poster

Amy Freeman

Poster photoshoot - preparation

For our poster we are having a grotesque, rotten birthday cake to create the horror aspect and suggest the birthday theme. 

Stages:

• Firstly I dug parts out of the cake and then made these parts of the cake look mouldy by using green food colouring
• I used a paintbrush to apply the food colouring and also put some of it around the holes also
• I decided that there wasn't enough tone so added some brown paint to the food colouring to make a murky colour which looked more mouldy
• I made sure I did this all over the cake including the sides
• The I melted down the candles to get the wax melted down the sides of the cake
• Some of the candles melted down to stubs which looked quite effective for making it look exaggerated and grotesque
• The heat of the candles melted the icing also so it was also dripping down the sides which I didn't know would happen but looked very effective as this merged the food colouring with the icing better which made it look mouldy

Amy Freeman

Typography

Original font

To look for fonts which would be suitable for our typography I used the website MyFonts.

Blurred font 

After our idea of using melted, dripping wax for the title I looked more into creating a smokey look for our typography.

This was continuing from the candles idea and to try acheive a more eerie, spooky effect.

I used Photoshop to edit and minipulate the orginal font from MyFonts.
I used the blur tool and smudge tool to change the font to create different possible typography looks. 

Smudged font

 

 Amy Freeman

Typography idea

This is further testing for our typography from Libby's initial typography research into using melted candle wax.

I used hot glue initially to make the 'Bitter Sweet' so that it was raised becoming easier to see.

I then melted wax dripping it over the title, using white candles firstly to make the title noticeable on the black background. 
I then used red, blue, green and yellow candles to add colour.

When I edited the photo to make the black background darker the title became unclear and not easily readable. 

It did not work out as I'd hoped when edited so will not be used for our typography however was helpful showing we should use a font rather than hand drawn typography. 

Amy Freeman 

Poster initial ideas

After looking at posters of existing films of our film type (horror, female antagonist) we started to think of ideas for our film's poster. We wanted to include hints as to what our film is about. We initially discussed possible ideas linking to out party theme and what could work for a film poster.

Possible ideas:

• Antagonist holding mouldy, disgusting birthday cake so candles illuminate her face - eerie effect given from the candle light creating shadows
• A party invitation 
• Overall image of party table with victims - over exaggerated mise en scene with party decorations but gruesome element of tortured guests

After looking more at the examples and our ideas we decided what we wanted from our poster. Including:

• Antagonist - forefront of poster, main image
• Designed typography rather than standardised font
• Details such as production company titles and names to give an overall more professional look
• Decide whether we would want to have a tagline
• Gives hints to our plot - have a birthday theme within the photograph
• Have a gruesome/grotesque element to portray the horror genre

Amy Freeman

Editing Equilibrium

To reflect the general form of a horror trailer, we began ours with slow-paced equilibrium. To do this, I:

• added the best clips from the footage of the victims disappearing
• trimmed the clips to a reasonable length of which we'd want them
• rearranged the clips so shots of the victims and the antagonist were intercut to create enigma and tension
• chose to reduce each victim's disappearance to 2/3 shots of which the first 2 shots were shown of each to start a story. I used fades between the shots to emphasis the slow-pace and mystery
• then when the titles create more tension and disequilibrium is beginning to be introduced I included much shorter clips of the victim's being spied on or disappearing to quicken the pace. 

Daisy Edwards

Final storyboard