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Made by: Olek Nowacki
Because now that I completed every single previous sections, all the way from the proposal to the pitch. I managed to develop some good ideas and I have managed to improve and learn new skills which would heavily benefit my Final Major Project.
To start off this section, I have started off by creating the ending section that will be used in my FMP. Doing this first will benefit me a lot as because my actors are currently unavailable, I will be unable to record their performance, which means that I would not be wasting any time at the very beginning.
To start off, I have used the two images that I have implemented in my 'Research' as reference and attempted to create the film reels which are located on the sides of the 'PLEASE STAND BY' screen. I stayed consisted with them by keeping the numbers (the numbers 20 to 35 that appear on the film reels)
I have then duplicated the reels and then moved them to each side of the rectangle. I have then reflected the reels so that they fit the pattern of the original 'PLEASE STAND BY' screen. Afterwards, I have connected the reels with a black bar, which is meant to represent the tape that is usually used as a way to save footage.
Next, I have replicated the lines that are also seen on the mentioned screen. However, I have not created some of the assets as I have inserted a rectangular bar in the middle of it, as that area would serve as the spot for my title. Because the rectangle is covering most of the background, creating the rest of the background would feel pointless and nothing is being shown.
Afterwards, by using the pen and the curvature tool, I have created my own piece of text rather than using an already existing piece of text. Once the text was created, I have started to try and make it more unique, by trying to fit the theme of my teaser trailer. Because my trailer teaser was focusing on television and the entity living in television, I have gave my text some spikes at the sides, to make it look like the text is being affected by the television's static.
Once the main title sequence was finished, I have added the final details to my title sequence. To this, I exported the file from illustrator to photoshop and a photo of a student that I took whilst recording my scenes (Look at "The Recording" section.) Once the picture was imported, created 2 circles (one white and one black) and put it behind the silhouette to make the image look more similar to the original "Please Stand By" screen.
The final version of the ending title was made after the FMP was nearing completion.
The Recording
Having created my ending asset for my teaser trailer, I have started the proper production of my teaser trailer.
To start off my production, I have started off by creating a script that one of my actors say during the recording. However, do to wording boundaries of what exactly I could write on the school computers, I had to make a turn around by writing up a phrase which was meant to make the actor think of a specific word that they had to replace the phrase with. The word can be seen on the script images.
After creating my script, I have went into the recording studio and prepared it for my actors. The day before the recording, I have practised setting up the lighting and the green so that during the recording day, everything would be perfectly set.
Once the recording day has come and the recording room was available, me and my actors began producing clips and pictures for my FMP,
In total, I have took around 12 different photos of the students and I have recorded around 8 different clips of the actor who was playing as the news reporter, 4 of those clips being complete recordings. The rest of the recordings will be unused as the actors was not fully capable of controlling himself.
Furthermore, I have also borrowed a camera and a tri-pod from my college to take some high quality pictures of my television.
The main reason why I have took a picture of my TV instead of using a retro TV is because it would be too difficult to properly make an image of a retro TV match a different atmosphere. Furthermore, trying to combine images together would take too much time, resulting in my potentially losing valuable time on creating my FMP.
Creating my Teaser Trailer
Having my clips fully recorded and having the pictures taken, it is now time to start creating my teaser trailer, 'Lost Broadcast'. To start off, I have started off by creating the TV noise which would be appearing at the beginning and at the end of my teaser trailer. To create my TV noise, I have used After Effects and use the tools that it had provided (such as the fractual tool effect) to create a TV noise which looks almost identical to the exact same one which was seen whenever old TVs lost signal. However, unlike my first attempt at creating TV noise, I have made this version much better by making movement of the noise particles much faster, that way, it now properly resembles the traditional TV noise. When I imported the footage of the TV noise onto Premiere Pro, I have used Pixabay to find a TV noise, as I felt like I was unable to properly create a proper TV static noise.
Source: Free static sound effects download - pixabay (no date) Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/search/static/ (Accessed: 02 May 2024).
Once I have made my TV noise, I have started to edit the footage that I have gathered to remove the green screen that was featured. This would allow me to properly edit in a background which is often used or rather connected to the news broadcasts which were played then. Once the green screen was removed, I have implemented a blue background which I have found on freepik. The reasoning for using an already made background besides creating my own is mostly because of time constraints, I may not have enough time to create a background in such a short time period. I have removed the green screen by using After Effects and used the pen tool and special effects to remove the background completely. In addition, I have also blurred out the background to give the effect that the camera is trying to solely focus on the subject, that being the news reporter.
Background image:
Free photo: Abstract textured background (no date) Freepik. Available at: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/abstract-textured-backgound_12073047.htm (Accessed: 30 April 2024).
In total, I have edited 4 different videos, with all of them having their backgrounds completely removed and some of them having additional images in them. I am planning to not only used a singular footage, but to also snip and match the best parts of each footage. This ultimately results in some footage having less items present in them, as I will not be using a single clip to its fullest.
Furthermore, after I have completed the video footage by adding and fixing some minor problems, such as lighting of the subject not looking realistic, I have started to make my footage look more vintage. To do this, I have compositioned everything into a singular composition and then duplicated it 3 times, once that was done, I have duplicated the composition three times and then gave each of the composition a shift channel effect, which would allow me to control their overall colour. Once I have adjusted the colours so that all of them have either red, green or blue as their only effect, I have changed their mode to add and then shifted the other 2 compositions slightly to make the footage look like it was recorded with an old camera.
Once the first part of editing the footage was done, I have started to add in the final details. Because the footage that is being shown is meant to look old, I had to make the footage look like it was recorded on a bad camera. To do this, I created a adjustment later and then inserted the mosaic effect onto it, afterwards, I have increased the blocks size to make the screen look blurry. Afterwards, I have created a solid black layer and then implemented the grid effect onto it., resulting in the footage now having hundreds of tiny squares. Once I have finished editing the first footage, I have repeated the process for the other 4 footages to make them have all of the same effects and settings.
Results
Whilst editing the footage in After Effects, I have started to create some additional scenes in Premiere Pro such as the text that slowly appears from the static noise. To create this scene, I have started off by creating a pixeled text by using the "LoRes 15 OT" font and duplicating in three times. To make the text feel like it is slightly vintage, I duplicated the clip three times and did the same steps that I did in After Effects, that being making the text singular colour and then adjusting their positions and lowering their opacity. Lastly, to make the text more Once that scene was done, I have repeated the process and changed the text that was featured there.
For the music for my FMP, I wanted to use a music box that has a dark and sad tone to it and because I am unable to create a music box from scratch as I do not know how to make music or craft a music box, I decided to find music which would best fit the tone I want. This resulted in me finding the musix box music which was created by Kevin Macleod called "Industrial Music Box."
Source: Industrial Music Box (2020) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4a2bM8HB5w (Accessed: 02 May 2024).
For my final scene, I have returned back to After Effects and used the picture that I have took of my television to create my final scene. In After Effects, I started off by creating a new composition and imported my picture into it, once that was done, I have imported a footage of my news report and created an outline going along the TV screen. Once that was done, I have linked the footage with the outline to make it look like the footage was appearing directly onto the TV screen. Afterwards, I have recreated the static noise and adjusted it so that the footage would last longer, then I have put the 2 versions of the station noise into a composition and then I have repeated what I have done and also made the footage fit the TV screen. Once that was done, I have gave a modifier to my previous footage and the static which would result in the footage fading away and the audio fading in, which gives the effect of the Tv static obscuring the TV footage. Lastly, I imported 2 silhouettes into After Effects and once again connected them to the path that I made to make the look like they appear on the TV screen, furthermore, I also gave them the modifiers that would results in the first silhouette disappearing and the second silhouette reappearing.
Whilst editing my teaser trailer, I have managed to record two different videos of the outside and inside of the college to use in my FMP. For the first recording, I had a different student record the footage for me, due to me being unstable to get a steady footage without the me shaking the camera. Afterwards, I have once again gotten the same person to assist me by having them go inside of the room and hitting the door multiple times to make it sound like they were trapped in a closet. Once both of the videos were recorded, I have imported them into Premiere Pro and gave both of them a black border to make the footage look slightly darker. For the footage that contains the person hitting the doors rapidly, I had used the scale and the rotation effects to give the illusion that the camera is zooming and turning side ways.
Once the previously mentioned scene in After Effects was finished, I finished off the work that I have done in Premiere Pro by lowering the volume of the music that I have used to transition into the next scene. Once that was done, I have imported the footage that I have made in After Effects into Premiere Pro and put right at the end of the soundtrack that I used, from there, I have duplicated the soundtrack and edited the part of the soundtrack in Adobe Audition to make it sound like the music box is being unwounded, this would result in the scene feeling more creepy. Once I have timed the soundtrack ending with the footage, I have clipped small bits of the clip and copy and pasted them multiple times afterwards, making the breaks between each clip shorter near the end before putting the clip of the black figure putting their hand on the TV screen. After that, I have put the image that I created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop into Premiere Pro, extended its duration and put a static overlay that I have created in After Effects. Once I have done that, I slowly started to lower the opacity of both the image and the footage so that the scene fades to pitch blackness, which would indicate the end of the teaser trailer. At the very end of the trailer, I have inserted a year date to indicate when exactly the full trailer or the movie is releasing.
Upon completing my teaser trailer, I have decided to include a warning at the beginning of my teaser trailer, which states about flashing imagery and that viewer discretion is advised, as my video contains flashing imagery which may result in seizures. The main reasoning for adding such a warning at the beginning of my video was because I am unaware of who exactly will be watching video, which means that if someone with a seizure was watching this and was unaware of flashing imagery, then the video may potentially result in a seizure.
Final Adjustments
Before finalising my teaser trailer, I thought that I would get some feedback from other people to see what they like and dislike about my progress.
From the feedback that I have received, a lot of them were liking the direction the teaser trailer was going, however, when I showed the footage to the teacher, she gave me some feedback. The feedback that I have received from the teacher was about one of the clips of the outside of the college, she suggested that I could potentially add the effects that I have applied to the news report segments. After some consideration, I thought that this would be a good idea, as it would give the effect that the footage was recorded by the news station. So to create this effect, I have imported the clip that I have made into After Effects and repeated what I have done for the news report segments, that being duplicating the clips, adding the shift channels effect, setting each clip separately to red, green and blue, turning the mode on all 3 clips to add, adjusting the position of 2 of these clips, making the footage pixelated by adding a adjustment later and giving it the mosaic effect and then creating a solid layer, applying the grid effect and lowering the grid opacity.
Teaser Trailer
After completing my research, gathering inspiration, recording and editing footage, I was able to fully finish my teaser trailer for my fan-made, non-existent movie: Lost Broadcast.
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