22/03/2010 - 26/03/2010

This week I have been able to get a keyhole shape onto the poster with the main image fitted inside it. I did this by importing a keyhole outline off google onto the poster with the picture placed behind it which made the lines look a lot more professional than when I tried to cut it out myself. I think carried on with putting the poster together and added more writing to it. Then I decided that the purple that I had use for some of the writing was too dark and could not be seen clearly, so I wanted to make that lighter. Plus the outline of the keyhole is not very defined and people may not be able to see what it really is. Therefore I feel that I should make some sort of outline to make it stand out, e.g. making the outline white so it stands out on the black background.

15/03/2010 - 19/03/2010

This week I have taken some photos to use as my main image on the poster I am creating for the film. I used a camera with a fish-eye lense to create a surreal effect on the picture that I was taking. This technology was new to be as I have never used that type of lense before. However, it is the same as using a camera with a normal lense, it is just the outcome that is different.This enabled me to become more creative and do something different to everyone else's products that they were producing by having an unusual effect which in turn will grab the audiences attention.
Throughout the production of the poster, I have been usuing my primary research that I carried out at the beginning of the coursework to help me decide how to set out the layout of my poster. I have also used google to look at more surreal film posters, but did not include these in my research on my blog as I already felt I had enough that I had analysed but just used others as references.
During this week I have designed two mock ups for the poster. One was the first with the unconfirmed title on and the second only had the title changed to the confirmed one as the design/ layout was fine and fitted in with the conventions of surreal film. Also started putting together my poster. I used a dark background like a lot of the other posters I had researched had used as this brings the audiences attention to the main image and the title/ writing on the poster. However, the problem that I am going to have to face next is creating the keyhole shape with the main image placed inside it as my skills on photoshop are not brilliant. I next attempted to make the keyhole shape and this was a lot more tricky than what I imaged it to be. I started by drawing a shape with the auto shapes tool and then opened the picture I was going to use as the main image. I tried to cut the image like a keyhole shape but this resulted in the lines being too wonky and didn't look professional. This was a major problem as this was going to be the focal point of the whole poster.

1/03/2010 - 5/03/2010

- Research and Planning:

This week I have been carrying on with gathering more resources to help me create my own poster to go along with the film trailer and magazine front cover that we are going to produce. I have been concentrating on analysing film posters as this is the product I am going to be producing.

8/02/2010 - 25/02/2010

Weekly record of progress - skills development

- Digital Technology:

1. The digital technologies that I have used in the past week and before half term have been the video cameras and the software in which you can edit the footage that has been filmed. We were set mini projects to carry out and my group had the task of creating a mini film in which a person was seen to be eating something and we had to do it in a maximum of 10 shots. It was to help us become more creative and be able to make the sequence flow without just filming it all in one go. It made us become a lot more specific in the shots and the overall end result we wanted to make. Also we used the editing software to enable the sequence to flow properly as the tape had other footage on it which got in the middle of ours so we needed to delete it.
2. By using these digital technologies it has enabled me to become more creative as I can now use more specific shots instead of one long one. Also it has made me more aware of the different shots which can be used to make the film more interesting to the audience and they can create a different affect on what is happening within the film.
3. The new skills which I have developed have been to use the video camera more confidently as before this I had barely ever used one. In addition I learnt to use a number of different shots instead of just holding the video camera while someone carries out an action which shows that I have developed my filming skills. Also, I was able to use the editing software for the first time. I now want to build on the skills I have got from that so i can then be able to use it more efficiently and create better results.

- Research and Planning:

1. The resources that I have used in my research have been gathered from the internet and include two film posters and one magazine front cover that is advertising a film.
2. I chose these resources as they are two out of the three products we have to produce ourselves for our coursework. The other members of the group managed to look at film trailers for our genre we have picked and when we put all our research together we will have a clear picture as to what we need to create and how to do it. It helps us to see the conventions of these products for our genre and then we will be able to recreate something along the same lines for our own film trailer which we also produce.
3. The research has helped with the planning by showing that on the film posters, the picture is the main focal point and it is always seen to be quite surreal or unusual. So this means that when we create our poster we will need to pick out one main focal point and get a picture which we think best fits. However, the picture does not always seem to go with the title of the film which again makes the audience become more intrigued as to what the film is about.
5. The audience feedback which I have used has been very minimal as there is not a lot that we can ask people to give us feedback of. Our initial idea of the storyline of our film was told to our teacher in which we asked for her feedback as to if it would be a good route to follow. She approved of it and then we had a basis to start collecting our research and resources to enable us to create products which the follow the conventions of that particular genre to their fullest extent.

Week commencing 1/02/2010

This week I have been carrying out research into similar products to those that I will be creating myself for my coursework. I have focused on posters and magazine front covers of films which are surreal or have surreal elements within them. The other members of the group have done some analysing of surreal film trailers as this is the genre we want to use to make our products.