Filming Diary day 1

Our first day of filming required us to wake up at 5:00 in order to travel to our filming location. As one member of the group and the protagonist lives near each other, they met each other at 5:30 at the bus stop, which then they travelled to meet the second member of the group and together they went to the location and started to film. However there was a specific reason why we had to get up at this time, the sun rises at the time we went to the location. Hence, we needed some footage in the dark to create tension and suspense, some whilst the sunrises and some in the light. We managed to come up with most of the filming as everyone was on-point, and nothing came in the way. We filmed:

• The protagonist leaving his house in the location
• Many shots of the protagonist running in the area
• Shots of the protagonist jumping obstacles
• Many shots from objects such as car mirrors and doors
• Shots that end up in a twist. for example, we filmed a shot of the protagonist running however the shot ends with the number '13', representing bad luck.

Photos Of Us Filming

Here are some photos of our group filming. We done this to show everyone that we are not playduirising, and that we arent copying no one hence its our work that we produced and filmed toghether as a group. We took many pictures of both members in our goup filming, showing that not only both of us done the work together, however produced the work as a team to maximize our marks and make the short film to the best of its abilities.



Finished Production Logo

This is our finished production logo:

Production Logo Images

In constructing our production logo, we wanted to make it feel as urban and gritty as possible and thought about what images we should use to create this feeling. We firstly found an image that represented youth and a little bit of the stereotype of young people today, so opted for this of a teenage boy wearing a dark hoody, a cap and low-slung jeans.

We then modified this image on Photoshop, as we wanted it to be more striking and animated. We did this by quick selecting the different areas of the boy (ie. arm, face, hat etc) and then adding on colour overlays for each section. We chose to do this with the colour scheme of black, grey & white as this fitted in with the urban feel of our film, and also, we wanted to create a slightly menacing, faceless youth, whose grey face seems to represent that it is not always black or white when considering the issue of young people today. This also is in keeping with the main idea of our film.

After modifying the original picture of the boy, we also wanted to create a shadow that offered an idea of the boy's potential future if he chose the wrong path. To do this we created a shadow on Paint, as we found this easier to work with, and wanted it to look quite unreal and cartoonish.

We then looked to combine these two images using Photoshop, so that the shadow appeared as if from the boy.

After initially constructing the image, we then thought about a background that would offer something more than just plain black, so we chose to find a background that was representative of urban London and thought that a set of tower blocks would work well.

We wanted to change this background though and added a Threshold filter to create a grittier feel. We then smoothed this out to help it blend in. We did this on Motion and I will discuss how we animated the logo next.

Using Motion we were able to work with the different layers of our production logo to create a dynamic piece of animation that we felt represents our brand identity, style & content very well. We wanted to have a sinister, edgy feel to the logo, so chose a font that represented this called Bearpaw. We found this free font online, downloaded it and added it to the fonts on the Mac. After this we chose to animate the boy by having the image move in from the left off-screen, and at the same time fade in the background. To make the background more 3D we added a smoke particle emitter that gave the image some depth. We also chose to animate the logo and chose a text animation called static to give us the edgy feel we wanted. A very tricky part was animating the shadow. We knew we wanted to make the shadow shoot itself in some way, but didn't know how to. After discussing with our teacher, we tried adding in a mask over the head of the shadow, animating when the mask came in, and then on top of this we added an ink splash film that we turned red, to represent the blood. Finally we added in another of Motion's ready made films in the style of a larger inksplash that acted as transition at the end. To give the logo even more impact, we added sound effects using Soundtrack Pro, blending a cocking of a gun with a gun shot, and then following this up with a police siren, as if they were chasing the culprit. Finally we added our signature image of the CCTV camera in the bottom corner to continue with our sense of brand identity.

Production logo inspiration

Shadows are commonly assosiated with paranoia so therefore we decided to include this in our production logo. Our shadow of the man has a gun to its own head.

First Draft Production Logo

This was our first logo design , created on a font generating website and developed on the software called paint. Although using this software may have seemed like a disadvantaged approach to the task , paint allowed us to design free hand (making the movement of objects easy) and gave us a simple platform from which we could start and experiment on what kind of logo we were looking for.

The steps which lead to the creation of this logo were as follows:

1. find an image of a 'P' shaped CCTV camera (an object which reflects paranoia and most importantly our brand identity name ; Paranoid pictures)

-After browsing the Internet for a reasonable amount of time we found a black camera which looked right. We then transferred this onto paint and used sepia (inverted color effect) to make it white and more boldly visible.

2.Find a suitable font

After searching numerous websites and countless fonts we found that his bold stencil like urban graffiti one suited best. The letters were to close together which made the title harder to read so we spaced it out and left a one space gap in between each letter to prevent this.

3.Enhance font's effectiveness

To enhance the fonts effectiveness we again inverted the colors which created a likable white rectangle around the letters and allowed us to connect two of these and the camera to form a whole rectangle like shape.

4. Combining the image and the title

This was easy. Because of earlier planning the camera fitted nicely onto the image and pulled of the 'p' which made 'paranoid' and projected our identity and purpose.

After requesting feedback from our teacher , we were advised to further develop a logo on better software and he explained to us that we could do a lot more with the logo i.e. create movement , smoke effects and animate it which would make it even more effective. From this feedback we decided that we would continue its development and call this logo our first draft which will help us track our progress and continue improving.

Inspiration For Production Logo

As it was our first time creating a production logo with the new software's, it was hard to construct and use the program, hence we asked around the school and looked at YouTube for help and tips to use the software. after learning the basic skill of the software we meant to use, we observed the previous years production logo which gave us a rough picture of how our production logo would be. We asked our teacher on how to gain marks on our production logo and he gave us steps on how to do so. Here are some of the previous year's production logo:

Having looked at our previous year's production logo, we thought we could do the same if not better due to our media and program skills

1) Analysis of production logo (form effectiveness)

                                                      (The logo ident is at the end of the video)
Having looked at other production logo's, we chose to talk about this logo as the film has the same genre as our desired one. We had to talk about the form and effectiveness of the chosen logo, how it links to the groups other products, and lastly the aspects and ideas we will take forward using this one.

The colour scheme of the logo is very affective as the use of urban chaotic colours made the audience feel engaged throughout. Rather than using bright colours such as white and blue, they kept using dark colour such as black and grey to signify the genre.

I believe the image used is affective as rather than using a new plasma t.v. screen, they decided to use an old 1900's television to portray the amount of poverty in the urban areas. In addition, the t.v. also was used to symbolise the "new break in, through the old".

The bold font was used in all the characters in the logo and i believe the outline of the bold characters was used to keep the chaotic background of the genre.

I believe the animation was used for many reasons, to begin with, i believe it was used to create a dramatic effect for the audience, however rather than that, i believe they chose it to give a playful effect which gives a "bang" rather than a simple basic fade out effect. In addition, we also thought the animation was used to keep in with the logo and what they are trying to create.

In conclusion, i believe the logo was used significantly and used for many reasons such as the picture, animation, font and the colour scheme.

2) How the U3 links to the group's other products & overall brand identity

This logo correlates to the U3 brand identity and the groups other products because of its black/white color coordination .The TV immediately reflects the genre because soaps are watched on this device so it therefore helps the audience familiarise with what their group is offering. As well as leaving a memorable effect on the audience by placing it at the end of their film , the logo is also sustained in their poster. The old cracked TV may be reflective of the poverty driven lifestyle young teenagers like 'Kareem' live and justifies why they go to the extent of selling drugs... to live a better life. One way in which they could have elevated their logos effectiveness was to keep it consistent throughout all their products rather then in one or two. The logo is sometimes presented only in font form (on the website and magazine) which prevents audiences from familiarising fully with their identity.

3) What aspects and ideas will we take forward to use/improve in your own production logo

After we analysed the previous years production logo, we now have to take forward any ideas that will suit our genre and the production logo. We figured out that our production logo has to have the same contrasting colouring with our genre, hence dark chaotic colours. We also came to a conclusion to say that our production logo has to be creative and not basic so that the audience will feel engaged and responsive throughout our short film. We thought of having a cctv camera to enhance our opportunities and making the logo more artistic and playful. However, we had a very intestive and long dicussion coming up with multiple ideas of our fonts. we thought of having a "sharpy", "slim" font to portray the genre and keep in contrast with our logo.

Sample shot (with filter)



After looking at the overall colour effects on the show 'Misfits', we decided that we wanted to create a similar feel for our own film. We experimented with one of the filters on Final Cut Pro called Luca's Image Adjust. (seen above) We increased the darken & saturate bar, giving a full, warm and intense feel to the shots, really deepening the dark colours. We then desaturated the film, giving a more stripped down, steely, urban look. We chose to use the darken & saturate as well as the desaturate control to ensure that the dark tones in the shot were really pronounced, giving an edgier feel to the shot.

We have embedded clips of the test footage with and without the filter to give an idea of the difference that it makes to the film. We hope to maintain this overall look throughout our film, perhaps shifting to a brighter, lighter shot at the very end, to give some impact for the audience and link in with the twist at the end of our film.

sample shot (without filter)