Final Typography design

We combined our two typography ideas to create a final typography for our poster, website and teaser trailer. We kept the "scrawl" like effect to mirror the gothic elements in our film and kept the tree "Y" to make the connection to our tree shots in the trailer.

Further Poster Designs

These are refined poster ideas using Serif DrawPlus8 and our new photography!

More filming, more photography

We have successfully done more filming and photography for our posters :) yay! So a BIG thank you to our actress Jenny, who once again had to clamber into a damp coffin, and cover her beautiful face in "dead" make up. Thanks :)



The following images have been slightly edited to contrast the light to create a more cinematic effect. For the make up we darkend around the eyes, paled up the skin and lips, and back combed the hair. We attempted to create the "gothic" look.   

Storyboard 2

Website analysis - The Ring

"The Ring" website is particularly intriguing as a web page because it is completely original and creative. The home page feels personal and relative to the film due to the hand drawn art design. It imitates a note pad of sorts or doodles, but remains distinctively Gothic and quirky. The website is engaging and fun, for example the images become animated when the viewer's mouse hovers over them. It is relatively user friendly, however because the text gives the impression of handwritten scrawl, it is sometimes difficult to read.

http://www.thering.jp/

Website links

Possible link ideas:

Trailer
We will either have the trailer as part of the main home page of the website or as a link. From research we have found that most websites include the trailer as part of the design. However, this can become an annoyance to the viewer if there is not a "skip" or a pause option.

Summary/ about the plot
This link is vital to inform the viewer about the film, and will ultimately persuade the viewer to see the film.

Gallery
Having a gallery is necessary to satisfy the interests of fans, creating intrigue about the film, without giving too much away. They further give glimpses of  the mood and atmosphere of the film.

Meet the cast and crew
Again, this can satisfy fans who want more background information about the film. We can even interview our actress on how she felt filming, which will help to promote our film.

Behind the scenes pictures
This will hopefully create interest on how we filmed the teaser trailer - particularly the coffin scenes.

Link to the blog, facebook...
These sort of links are essential in engaging with fans of the film. They make the fans feel more involved and up to date. They are a great form of conversion.

Website draft



This is our first draft of our web design. We wanted our site to look unique and original. Our favourite design, which we think could work well, is using links around the image of the coffin. The image will look isolated and will satisfy the conventions of our horror genre. The coffin image also has a clear link with our teaser trailer narrative. However, this is just a basic idea, so to take it further we need to experiment on actual websites to create the best layout.

Typography research

http://www.alwayswatching.net/features/great-scenes-television-and-film-told-using-only-typography
This website tells famous and classic films ONLY through the use of typography and sound. I thought this would be brilliant for research.

I thought "The fight club version" was the most effective. It was the particularly engaging with the use of animation. The use of script and diegetic sound is flawless, and having no visuals heightens the sound and entices the viewer's imagination. The lettering becomes more broken up with "splattering" effects, which imitates the use of graffiti, to reflect the voice over. Different colours are used for different characters so that the conversation is clear and easy to follow. Different font sizes are also used to dramatise certain words.

Typography research - Tim Burton

Tim Burton Typeface

Although Burton's films all have different typefaces, the style is always unique and recognisably Burton.

The "Sleepy Hollow" typeface is given a personal touch through the impression of handwriting. Yet, it has a distinctive Gothic sense. This is made apparent through the use of black and the jagged/slasher like motions that the letters create. The typography further imitates the use of calligraphy ink, thus creating a historic notion about the film.

The "Nightmare before Christmas" typeface is a lot more restrained than "Sleepy Hollow". It nonetheless has a distinct link to the film. The type is less horror related to conform to a child audience.The lettering, although not Gothic, does have a quirky feel to it, remaining recognisable to Burton's style of film. Again, the use of calligraphy is used, to make the film feel historic and original.

Typography possibility

This typography idea was completed on serifdrawplus8. It is similar to Tim Burton's style of gothic black type, and feels more personal to our teaser trailer. The symbol of the tree links with our forest shots, and satifys horror conventions.

Sound Research

For our film teaser trailer we want much of the sound to be diegetic to suggest a sense of realism. However, to achieve maximum marks and to give our teaser an authentic feel we must also include a non-diegetic soundtrcack.



The Inception soundtrack for the teaser trailer is particularly effective as it consists of one chord getting louder at a steady pace. It grabs the viewers attention as it is very intense and dramtic. It further suggests the sound of a heart beat or a clock, of time running out. The sound itself is very mechanical, reflecting the atmosphere of the film.


The Uninvited trailer soundtrack is mostly dialouge, however the quick paced editing at the end is matched effectively to the beats, which correspond to the quick flashes of picture. The beats reflect a rapid heart beat, and heighten the atmosphere.

Abyss poster idea

Poster designs in more detail

We discussed our poster designs in more detail, paying particular attention to layout. The bottom two designs were examples of more conventional layouts, and although these satisfied the genre we thought they were not particularly unique. We therefore tried to expand our creativity in our other designs.  

Our favourite design is the top left hand sketch. It is the most relevant to our plot, whilst remaining intriguing to the viewer. We also thought a lot more about where the viewer's eye line would naturally fall. Our next step will be to take high quality photos of our actress so we can develop our ideas further.

Filming =D

Well I personally thought this was a jolly good days filming. Thanks to Jenny again for being our brilliant actress, who is willing to do absolutely anything, even lie in a coffin for hours while we threw dirt at her. Love you Jenny =D

Current News

Buried trailer

Just to be clear, we came up with our coffin idea before this trailer came out, however it will be infinitely useful when researching before we film.



This teaser trailer just shows how important the use of diegetic sound is in horror films. The beginning is a completely black screen, so the use of sound is heightened. Already a sense of claustrophobia is induced just by having no picture. There is frantic breathing and then the sound of a phone call being made. The fact that it is an emergency call heightens the tense atmosphere. The woman's voice remains calm compared to the frantic victim. The flash of the coffin/small enclosure is dramatic and sudden. However, the placement of this image is very important. It satisfies the "golden section" that is used on posters and magazine covers, so the image attracts the viewers eye. More importantly it induces the sense that the victim is far away and unattainable. The audience is made to imagine themselves in the same situation. Barely any of the narrative is given away, it is left unexplained by text or future events. The intriue of how/if the character escapes remains intact.

Buried alive at comic con

On the website for "Buried" there is a link called "Get buried at Comic Con". This is where fans of the film have had the chance to act like they too are buried alive. The viewer of the website can navigate with the mouse to "find" missing people who are trapped in coffins. You are then able to click on a person if you wish and "observe" them inside. This segment on the website is particularly clever as it gets fans involved, and there are many links to facebook and and twitter etc, thus using many forms of convergence. The design of it gives the impression that these people are buried deeper and deeper into the ground. This film and website will be very usefeul for our project as it involves very similar concepts. The lighting in the "coffins" is very significant. They have used redish lighting to convey a sense of heat and urgency. We can also look at some of these clips for acting references.

http://getburiedatcomiccon.com/

Buried website analysis

http://www.experienceburied.com/index.html

completed coffin