The second poster (completed)

The second poster, I believe at least, is much more effective than the first. In a genuine marketing campaign I feel as though I would place this poster as the lead poster (so would be the one that you see more frequently, especially outside the cinemas) and then have the second as a backup. Whilst the first poster felt fairly inspired, this was the one that allowed us to have far greater creative potential (though once again I was not responsible for the editing of this work).

To view the second poster, please follow the link: Poster 2

The first poster (completed)

Once the pictures for our posters had been taken they could be edited to take the shapes we had originally designed for them. Unlike any of the other technical areas in producing the different media for the advertising campaign of our film (the trailer and the website), this was not something that I was responsible for making happen (this job having been given to Evie to do), though the original ideas were thought up together.
With the first poster, creating the desired effect was not easy because finding the ideal lighting conditions was not something that we were going to be able to do very easily, leading us to be slightly pragmatic in our approach. However, the poster still fit with our original idea and thus was somewhat of a success.


To view the first poster, please follow the link: Poster 1

Re-recording the dialogue

Date: Wednesday 17th January 2018

Time: 13:45-14:00
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (director/sound operator), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer), Emma Hillier (Silvia Brown)
Props: none
Equipment: Microphone, Computer (audacity), Computer (script).

One of the suggestions for improvement had been that we needed to re-record Silvia Brown's voiceover dialogue (which previously had been blighted with a slight echo). In order to fix this we were going to need a microphone:

Even before starting the recording it was complicated trying to get this right because the microphone itself did not initially want to cooperate with the recording software that we had wanted to use (see picture below). In order to make this work, it was necessary to investigate how exactly to connect the two devices (because it wasn't as simple as just plugging Blue Snowball (the microphone) into the MacBook's USB socket.

Once we had been able to connect the two, we could begin to record. In the process of recording the dialogue I needed to consider a couple of things:
1) Recording the dialogue was not going to be as simple as if I were recording with a camera, because I had to open a new audacity window for each one rather than having something like a camera do something like that for me.
2) Unlike other work that I had previously done with audacity, if something went wrong when I was recording the sound file or editing it afterwards I could not simply get rid of it and re-import the file because this was the ONLY COPY that I had and would need to end up re-recording if something went drastically wrong (an event that all of us wanted to avoid at all costs).

In terms of actually getting it recorded, we were not working in the best possible conditions and could have done with finding a better location in which we could record because we needed to record without the backdrop of everything going on behind us. However, as the microphone was very much a localised device (it would only pick up sound that was within the immediate vicinity if it wasn't loud enough), for the most part we only needed to worry about sound sources that were really making a racket.

The recording setup:
Emma Hillier and Evie Brookes-Payne (left) with Microphone,
Mac with audacity recording software (right)

the filming process day 6

Date: Wednesday 17th January 2018

Time: 11:45-12:15, 15:25-16:30
Moments filmed: Science (Blood test), Science (File), Chase (part 1), Chase (part 2)
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director/Christopher), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Kim Wright (DR Goodwin)
Props: Mya's file, test tubes (in rack), summer fruits squash (for use as blood)
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

Planning (the small additions)

Now that we knew we had some small tweaks to make, we were going to need to come up with a plan as to what we wanted those small tweaks to look like.

The first change was of course to re-record Silvia Brown's dialogue and as part of that we wanted (myself in particular) to shorten down her lines so that we could fit it more easily within the first part of the trailer. 

 

The lines were originally:

 

“Mya, we thought after the accident that we could get through this together, but me and your therapist have been talking, and with everything happening: (PAUSE – 1 seconds) the distancing yourself (PAUSE – 1 seconds) the breakdowns (PAUSE – 1 seconds) we think it would be best if you get further help.”

 

“You’ve been referred to The Trory Anwir Insitution For Mental Health. They have a great reputation (PAUSE – 2 seconds) I think they’ll really help you. (PAUSE – 3 seconds) But I’m worried about you. (PAUSE – 2 seconds) Everyone is.”

 

but that takes 30 seconds of the trailer (25% to be exact) which may not sound like a lot but in actual fact, when you want to show as much of the film as possible (without giving too much of the plot specifics away), taking up 25% of the trailer with exposition/setup for what the film is going to be about is very likely to kill the audience's sense of excitement and would more or less fail to fully whet their appetite for the upcoming release of the film. We also had to consider the fact that the second half of that dialogue can only really fit over one shot, and that was hardly desirable to make the trailer exciting given that the second half constitutes of 13 seconds - nobody wants to be watching one shot for that long in a trailer, it would be likely to bore them and we could not afford to have that.

After much discussion, regarding the nuances of what exactly we wanted the new dialogue to look like, we eventually came up with this:

 

“Mya, I thought we could get through this together, but me and your therapist have been talking, and with everything going on, you need further help. I’m worried about you. [PAUSE] Everyone is.”

 

“You’ve been referred to The Trory Anwir Insitution Of Mental Health. They have a great reputation. They can really help you there.”

As you can see, this new dialogue gets the same point across whilst at the same time it’s going to be significantly shorter than the original dialogue, allowing us to show more in the later parts of the trailer and thus, by doing so, be able to build anticipation and whet more appetites rather than kill them with the same thing for too long.

With that extra time, there were a couple of extra tid-bits that we were going to be able to add onto the trailer which would create a greater sense of mystery and ambiguity showing more of what is going on whilst at the same time not giving too much of the film's content away.

The first bit that we wanted to add would be a scene in which DR Goodwin would be seen in a science lab with some chemicals/ingredients (of which one of them would be red enough to suggest that it could be blood), the purpose of this being to give a hint as to what is going on behind the scenes at the Trory Anwir Institute of Mental Health. This scene would be injected between Mya opening the file and Mya dropping it in horror, both to break this moment up slightly and also to suggest that she has read something within that file which would lead her to having an idea of what is going on in that lab where DR Goodwin is experimenting.

The second bit that we wanted to add was one in which DR Goodwin (in the same science lab, but a little later on in the trailer) was seen with Mya's file (by which connecting DR Goodwin to the file and the file to the experiments). In this scene DR Goodwin would be stepping out of the lab and placing the file back into the file rack - thus establishing the connection. This scene would be injected after Mya Brown's session with DR Goodwin thus implying even just a loose connection between the therapy and the science giving rise to the fact that the therapy aspect is a mask over what is truly going on there.

And last, but not least, the final addition that we wanted to make to the trailer is one in which Christopher (my character) would be seen running down a corridor. This scene would follow on from the moment in which Mya says to Christopher that they need to escape from the Trory Anwir Institution of Mental Health. Because of this it serves the purpose of suggesting that Mya and Christopher do in fact go on with their escape plan to get out of the Trory Anwir Institution of Mental Health (though of course, in theory at least, it could be taken from a more random moment of the trailer and merely suggest this). This moment also serves to give Christopher's character a little more screen time than that which has presently been given to him.

 

Small tweaks

In working on the third draft for our Trailer to the film Subject 984 it was suggested to us that, though the linear aspect of the trailer had gone and the tension racks up at a more impressive rate at the end of the film, there were still a couple of tweaks that needed to be made.
The first of those changes that needed to be made was that Silvia Brown's dialogue (which is played as the backdrop to what is going on for the first portion of the trailer) needed to be re-recorded because the audio sounded second rate (it felt as though her voice was echoing). In order to fix that we were going to need to record the dialogue again in a more controlled environment with better equipment.
The other concern was that we needed to have a few more 'little moments' and 'break up clips' that separated the pivotal moments at the end of the trailer. This could be bigger hints at what the Trory Anwir Institution for Mental Health was getting up to or greater hints that Mya Brown and Christopher feel the need to try and escape. This meant that we needed to go to the drawing board and put together a couple of ideas for other things that could potentially be added in order to make sure that our trailer was the best that it could be.

Photo shoot (Posters)

Date: Friday 15th December 2017

Time: 15:20-16:15 (as part of filming day 5)
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director/Christopher), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Kim Wright (DR Goodwin)
Props: Mya's file
Equipment: I-Pad (Camera)




Location (Poster 1):

Location (Poster 2):

Though taking the pictures for our posters would not be something that would take as long as a filming session, it was still going to demand as many takes and as much thought going into who/what we wanted where and how we wanted them.

When we originally started to think about the idea for the first poster, though we did not choose this idea over any others we might come up with on the grounds that it would be simpler/easier to shoot, we thought it might have been slightly easier to get the right conditions than it was. Of course, creating a sufficiently dark room with little or no light sources was never going to be easy, but eliminating all of the undesirable sources of light proved to be more difficult than we first anticipated. And then getting the right source of light such that it wasn't too dim for the camera whilst also not being too bright to ruin the effect was not easy either. Thankfully, we were eventually able to produce roughly what we wanted (though it was not as perfect as we had first hoped for).

The second picture was much more difficult to get than the first because here we needed to give positioning and space between the two featured characters (DR Goodwin and Mya Brown) some serious thought because we wanted to make sure that both characters fit in the frame (though you might think we'd just take a landscape shot to cover this particular problem, Evie insisted that the shots we take be portrait). Thankfully, we took a couple of shots that we could make work: one that featured both characters, and another of each character taken separately with Evie saying that she would edit the two together at a later point.



The filming process day 5

Date: Wednesday 10th January 2018

Time: 15:30-16:00
Moments filmed: Therapy (DR Goowin)
Personnel needed: Matthew Herriott (Camera/director), Evie Brookes-Payne (Producer/Mya Brown), Kim Wright (DR Goodwin)
Props: none
Equipment: Camera, Tripod

As what would hopefully be our final filming day this one was thankfully quite simple task to do.


Here what we needed to get filmed was a therapy session for Mya Brown with DR Goodwin (as opposed to with DR L Church as we see in the first half of the trailer) the intention of this moment is quite different, however, to the one we saw with DR L Church as here we wanted to create the idea both that Mya Brown has recovered somewhat in her time spent at the Trory Anwir Institute for Mental Health as well as to show that she is struggling to deal with the discovery of DR Goodwin's secret agenda.


The most difficult thing to communicate here was the use of expression on people's faces because we wanted to make Mya Brown appear distracted with what she has just learned whilst DR Goodwin (as a result) is slightly suspicious of what is going on due to the fact that Mya is (naturally) behaving very differently to how she might be normally.
Thankfully, we were able to come to a solution, which involved changing the script slightly (making this moment marginally longer) but at the same time we decided that we were going to scrap the ending chase scene and cut when Mya Brown comes to Christopher and tells him that they have to leave.

Poster planning (Poster 2)

Having come up with an idea for the first poster we realised that it would be good to construct a second so that our potential audience would see a slightly wider variety of images associated with the trailer as well as to experiment with other ideas that we had had.

Poster Planning (Poster 1)

Once we both knew what we wanted the film trailer to look like and understood the more technical details of constructing a film poster we could finally begin to plan what we wanted them to look like.