CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Pre-Production

You have now completed the ‘Development’ stage of the filmmaking process, next is Pre-Production. This is the final part of your project before you start filming the raw elements of your teaser trailer.

This is a vitally important part of the film making process as it not only establishes your three products layout and style, but also confirms the potential successful of your trailer with your intended target audience!

There are SIX main areas you must cover for Pre-Production:

1. AUDIENCE RESEARCH2. MOOD-BOARD3. STORYBOARD + PHOTO-BOARD4. ANIMATIC5. DRAFTING – POSTER6. DRAFTING – MAGAZINE

It is important to assign different tasks to the different members in your production team. This can involve a lot of work so share the workload. (Remember you are marked individually)

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Audience Research

For your film teaser trailer, you must conduct some audience research in the planning & research stage.

What this requires is that you must speak to your target audience to find out what they exactly want from your trailer.

This is a very important stage of any design process. After all… they will be the ones buying tickets to see the film!! (Your trailer is simply an advert for your film).

The traditional means of collaborating audience research is to design a questionnaire that highlights a range of open and closed questions. You would then distribute these paper questionnaires to a range of people. All results would then be displayed using pie charts, bar charts, & other varieties of graphs.

This method of collecting information is very dated, un-inspiring & not that useful for creative work.

You are required to hold a discussion with your target audience, & record it VIA ELECTRONIC MEANS. This may be through Facebook chat, twitter, iPhone message, or a conversation using Blackberry messenger.

Social network market research is currently very popular within the creative industry.

Example 1

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Audience Research

During the

conversations with your target audience, you should include visual supports. When dealing with creative work, the most effective form of audience research is to provide visuals that may help you in the construction of your product. These can include:

Existing Media Texts Typography/Fonts Mock Ups/Layouts

Images/Photos Colour Schemes Convention Examples

Example 2

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Mood-Boards

A problem for designers has always been how to express their creative intent in the early stages of planning a piece of work. Words fail miserably when trying to translate design concepts. What one person calls “edgy” another might see as chaotic. Visuals communicate things that words cannot. A picture is worth a thousand words, and mood boards are a great tool to create that picture for your client.

What exactly is a Mood Board?

Mood boards are used in a variety of disciplines. Most commonly used by Interior Designers and Fashion designers, who group samples together on a poster to show a client (homeowner or fashion designer) what type of feel or atmosphere the work will create. In essence they are a compilation of inspirational elements used by designers to flesh out ideas at the beginning of a design project. Mood boards are so much fun, they hardly feel like work. Designing loosely lets you brainstorm, explore and play with different styles without all the limitations a layout (and coding realities) will later impose. They also keep revision cycles to a minimum, something every designer can appreciate.

Things that can be explored in the mood board include photography style, color palettes, typography, patterns, and the overall look and feel of the site. Soft or hard? Grungy or clean? Dark or light? A rough collage of colors, textures and pictures is all it takes to evoke a specific style or feeling.

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

How Do I Create One?

The first thing you should do is evaluate the project and pick the mood board style that will work best.

Loose Collage

The most commonly used mood board style in the design industry is the loose collage style. If you are a big thinker who is not obsessed with the finer details, a loose collage will work just fine to convey the type of look and feel you are going for.

This is the most time-efficient and fun way to create a mood board, as it does not force you to make serious final decisions about smaller details. You can grab bits of inspiration from anywhere you choose. Scan in things you find around you or search online for suitable pictures and textures.

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Mood Board Checklist

Your first step of putting together a mood board will be to define a colour palette. In simple terms, decide on the key colours of your magazine pages, and include them in your mood board.

Secondly, you must come up with a list of adjectives for each board. An example might be: Dark, glossy, slick, modern, edgy, hard, aggressive Soft, muted, round, layered, elegant, realistic Colorful, rough, sketchy, bright, illustration

Other elements that you may include: Typography/Text (Serif or San Serif)/Font (Headings & Masthead for example), Photos, Downloaded Pictures, Sketches/Drawings, Scanned in textures etc.

Examples

Now that you know why they’re useful, it’s time to make them a part of your process. Not quite ready to jump in? Check out a few examples to get your creative juices flowing.

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

Storyboarding

Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images, which are displayed in a sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture. Storyboarding is a useful tool for getting students to plan and visualize their ideas, ensuring they make use of a variety of shots and angles.

FilmA film storyboard is essentially a film comic. Produced in pre-production, it helps film directors visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Often storyboards include arrows or instructions that indicate movement, and provide a visual layout of events through the camera lens. Most technical film craft details can be efficiently described either in picture, or text.

AnimaticIn film and special effects work, the storyboarding stage may be followed by simplified mock-ups called "animatics" to give a better idea of how the scene will feel with motion and timing. At its simplest, an animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence. More commonly, a rough dialogue and/or rough sound track is added to the sequence of still storyboard images. This allows directors to work out camera positioning, shot lists and timing issues. Often storyboards include zooms and pans to simulate camera movement. This will highlight the need to either include or cut shots.

CreationStoryboards can be created by hand drawing or digitally on the computer. If drawing by hand, the first step is to create or download a storyboard template. These look much like a blank comic strip, with space for comments and dialogue.

Each storyboard frame must include:

1. Type of Camera Shot/Angle/Movement 2. Frame/Shot number 3. Editing notes - SFX/Music/Dialogue.

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

CTK – A2 Media: Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework

DRAFTING – Poster & Magazine

Just like in your AS year, the marking criteria states that you are required to produce mock ups/drafts for all print products. As a group, you shall be constructing a Horror Movie Poster for your film, and a Horror Movie Magazine featuring your film.

BE CREATIVE! Add captions, annotate your ideas, use colour, produce a variety of drafts exploring different poses etc.