EVALUATION

Whilst thinking about what I would do for my FMP (Final Major Project), I was originally planning to create an Album cover for groups as my FMP, however, I decided to instead create a teaser trailer for my own made-up movie, as I thought that creating a teaser trailer would give me more creative freedom than creating album covers, as I would have to wait and listen for the music group to describe to me how they want their album cover to look like. Another reasoning for choosing a teaser trailer as my FMP subject, was because I wanted to test out the skills that I have learnt both in college and at home in video editing.

When starting my research for the FMP, I decided to start off with the Secondary Research, as I considered that to be easier than Primary Research. For my research, I started off by looking at videos of horror teaser trailers and analysing features that are present in them which I could utilise in my own FMP, I also used videos that were not teaser trailers to increase my range of inspirations. I also used different websites, such as Pinterest, to try and find specific inspirations without having to watch a video that contains a small portion of it. After finishing my Secondary Research, I started with my Primary Research by creating a questionnaire and then doing a podcast with some of my peers, as doing those two options for my Primary Research would allow me to gain some audience feedback and what they would want to see in my teaser trailer. Overall, I felt like doing Secondary Research was more helpful that Primary Research, as with Secondary Research, every important piece of information has already been found and recorded, meaning that I would not have to struggle looking around for information that I would be unsure off if they would fit in my FMP.

Before starting my FMP, I tried to see if I was able to create a 3D environment by using a 2D image, which I could do when I downgraded my version of Photoshop to the older version. The main reasoning for trying to create a 3D environment for my FMP was because originally, I wanted to make to use a 3D television model in my FMP and to make it look more natural, I had to make the environment feel 3D. Unfortunately, this idea had to be scrapped as the TV model that I found did not have any support for casting and accepting shadows, meaning that the model would look unnatural. Afterwards, I experimented with trying to make the footage that I had look old and retro, and I managed to create such effect by watching a video which not only contained a guide on how to put footage on a TV screen, but it also contained a guide on how to make the footage look retro. Furthermore, I have also experimented with combining two images together to make it feel like they are a part of a singular image, however, whilst practicing, it still felt like there were two separate images. I know that there are guides that can allow me to make it look like 2 images belong together, however, that would require time which I did not have much of during the experimentation process. In the future however, I will develop my skills further so that in the future I am prepared for whenever I’ll be required to put two images together.

Originally at the beginning of the year, I initially thought of creating a short story/teaser trailer, which was about students being chased and killed off in college by a killer wearing a bird mask, like the ones Plague Doctors used to wear during The Great Plague and The Black Death. The video would have also featured an ending where a girl is leaning against the wall whilst bleeding, whilst the killer is looking for her, at the end, the killer would turn around the corner, inspect it and then move along the corridor, passing the girl who has died from blood loss. There were multiple factors which resulted in me not using this idea, the first factor being that it would require specific areas of the college to be available and for the environment to be silent, furthermore for the scenes to properly work, I would need a college which is often used in other movies, those being colleges with wide open corridors. Furthermore, to make the scenes realistic, I would have to get a lot of props such as fake blood as trying to put CGI blood on walls would be time consuming and potentially too difficult for me to do. The second important factor was that I would need a costume that has a complex design, which would also mean that I would have to wait some time so that the costume would be properly created. To come up with an FMP idea, I tried to think about movies and games which I have seen and liked, which ended up with me coming up with an idea of an antagonist committing his murders by travelling through television. Originally, I was planning to have light dangling and flickering from the ceiling, whilst moving left and right slowly to emphasise that the footage takes place in a abandoned room, however, I scrapped that idea as I was unable to make the swing motion of the light feel natural. Furthermore, I also had to scrap the idea of using a empty, abandoned room as I was unable to locate an abandoned building nor did I have the materials to create an abandoned room. Furthermore, creating an abandoned room would require me to destroy an already existing room and give it details that would make it more realistic to a ruined room. However, creating an abandoned room would be expensive process as I would have to buy furniture and destroy it, destroys wall and then repair them.

 

After finishing my FMP, I felt like it managed to live up to my expectations, as I was able to create scenes in a way that I have imagined them to look like, for example, the scene where a man slowly appears on the TV screen, before the footage starts to flash rapidly and resulting in the man holding his hand on the TV screen as a minor jump scare. The only thing that I am not majorly proud of is the length of the video. Although the task said the video had to be around 60 to 90 seconds, I have made my teaser trailer last longer as some of the animations and transitions were featured required long lengths of time so that they would look smooth and so that they could bring impact. Furthermore, the text that was featured in the video also was responsible for extending the lengths of the video, as they were implemented to give the viewer some context.

Whilst doing my FMP, I have managed to learn many scenes that I haven’t been able to do before, such as changing the style of a footage. Furthermore, doing this FMP allowed me to improve some of the skills, such as removing green screens properly from videos. For advice that I would give my past-self, would be to try and not stress out and to simply focus on the task that I am given and to go with the flow.