Find My Past copyright

We have decided that the ideal website to film, if possible, would be Find My Past, as its layout is clear and its headings such as "Discover Your Ancestors" would convey that part of the storyline to the audience quite easily. We have therefore contacted Find My Past in order to get their permission to film the front page of their website; if we were to film it without getting permission, we would be breaching copyright, so it was essential that we got consent. Fortunately, Find My Past replied with the email below, giving us permission to film the website:

Ancestry website

We have decided that an effective way of demonstrating that Sarah is researching her ancestors is to have a shot of an ancestry website. Websites we could look into include:

• www.findmypast.co.uk  

• www.ancestry.co.uk 

• www.genesreunited 

•  www.genealogy.org

New addition to storyline

We have been concerned about the fact that our storyline is still a little vague, so we have created a few new elements to it which we believe have improved it dramatically, and made the overall plot a lot more exciting. This is the new storyline:

• A girl in the 21st century decides to research her ancestors, and finds out about the life of her great great grandmother, who lived in a stately home and was a woman of nobility (close-up of ancestry website)
• She reads a newspaper cutting with a headline explaining that a Lord has been killed in an "accidental fire" which also damaged the stately home where he was staying (her great great grandmother's house)
• She then reads a contemporary newspaper cutting, with a headline explaining that the house has been restored to its original state with government funds
• She goes to the house and finds letters that were previously undiscovered, and are between her great great grandmother and two different men, one a poor butler and one a Lord (who was killed in the fire)
• Through these letters she discovers the dark romance she had with each of these men, which resulted in a turbulent love triangle between the three of them, born of jealous and bitterness. Such a thing would be scandalous beyond belief in the 19th century.
• She also discovers a dark secret that her great great grandmother kept to the grave: the jealousy and confrontation between the men, as well as their attempts to hide their own secret love, cause the butler to burn down the lady of nobility's stately home, in which the rich man is residing; this has always been believed to be an accident until the discovery of the letters.
• The lady of nobility, however, manages to escape the fire, and runs away with the butler, throwing away her title and creating an uproar of scandal. 
• The 21st century girl is shocked and upset to discover these dark family secrets, and the fact that her great great grandfather is a murderer. 

This kind of narrative is a lot less vague and a lot more complex, which is more conventional to typical period dramas, which can be full of twists involving scandal. This will also mean that our trailer will look a lot more dramatic, as we will be including shots of fire. We plan to do this with simply quick shots of a match being dropped and paper burning, as this will be of the least risk and will also look effective spliced up in our trailer. We will also be making a modern and an old newspaper cutting.

Text in trailer

In terms of the text we are going to be using in the trailer, we have decided to have a combination of modern and old text (in modern and old fonts); the modern text will give information about the plot, and the old text will be more atmospheric and will fade in and out, superimposed on a few of the shots. We think that this will create synergy between the modern and old themes of the trailer, and will look atmospheric and effective.

Filming drunken scene

We have now filmed the drunken scene. As we had not already used the maid's outfit we decided to change our idea slightly and make it so that a maid (Lucinda) approached Peter to flirt with him, only for him to push her away emphasising the regret he would feel if he was involved with two women. The fact that he is drunk shows isolation, as well as the fact that there is no one else around. The darkness will also give off connotations of loneliness. We used an empty bottle of wine for Peter to drop, and as it was one that did not break easily it meant we could get him to drop it several times without a problem. If it had broken we did have a spare bottle we could use.

Drunken scene

We have decided to film the drunken scene outside my house, as it is surrounded my tall stone walls that would look authentic and effective in the shot. We have asked Peter to come in the same clothing he was wearing when we filmed at Aske and Kiplin Hall, so as to create continuity and authenticity, and Lucinda will also be dressing up as a maid, as we feel that a shot of a maid flirting with the poor man (and him then rejecting her) shows that he is very emotionally attached to the lady of nobility.

Font of text in trailer

After watching lots of trailers for period dramas, films set in the 19th century or simply films based on classic novels, one of the main things we noticed was that, in the past few years, modern interpretations of such films tend to include a fairly modern font for the text used in the trailer and title. This has become a recent trend, and, in our opinion, is extremely effective.

The 2011 adaption of Wuthering Heights (see above), for example, includes a title font that is written in an extremely modern typeface. This is to make the film (which, as an adaption of a classic novel set and written in the 1800s, may not appeal to a large target audience) more accessible to a larger range of viewers, and helps to encourage a younger audience to go and see the film. Furthermore, aesthetically, it looks a lot more dramatic than if an older-looking, fancier font was used. This is demonstrated in the poster, which is consequently a beautiful poster, and incredibly persuasive towards a younger audience to watch the film.


This is also true of the font used in the 2011 adaption of Jane Eyre (see above), and (to an extent) in the extremely popular period drama, Downton Abbey (see below). The font used in the title and opening credits of Downton Abbey is, despite being made to almost resemble a typewriter font quite modern. As Downton Abbey has started to become quite popular with a younger audience as well as an older one, this could be a contributing factor.





We have therefore decided to use a modern font for the title of our film, as well as for the text in the trailer. This will help it appeal to a younger target audience, and, as our film is essentially a flashback into the past from the modern day, it will relate to the modern protagonist as well.

Constructing my new and improved promotional poster

This is my finished poster:


Here is a slideshow explaining how I made it:
Constructing my film poster

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Constructing my magazine front cover

This is my final magazine:

Here is a slideshow explaining how I made it:

Constructing the front cover of a film magazine

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Market research: Magazine tagline

Here is a survey I have created to help me decide which tagline to use for my magazine:

Magazine tagline market research

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Useful Photoshop tutorials

Here are some Photoshop tutorials that may be useful in terms of improving my knowledge of Photoshop, and may also help me construct my promotional poster and magazine cover.

Taking inspiration from the video above, I have practiced my manipulation and image merging techniques, as seen below:

Although this has been done very quickly and therefore looks quite amateur as a result, it is a mere example of a technique that I may use in my poster or magazine cover; this involves creating two layers, each containing different images, and then creating a vector mask of the top layer and adjusting its opacity. Then, using a black paintbrush to paint around the edges of the bottom image, different textures, colours and details from the top image can be printed on to it.

Results from magazine name market research

Film magazine name market research

Here is a poll I have made and shared on Facebook to help me decide which name to call my film magazine:

Market research: Poster tagline market research

Here is some market research I have carried out regarding the tagline for my poster:

Poster tagline survey

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Poster re-think

I have decided that I am not happy with my poster so far, and have therefore decided to have a re-think and start again. My reasons for this are that I don't think it conforms well enough with typical 'flashback' film posters, such as, for example, Letters to Juliet (I will analyse this poster in a future post). It is not eye-catching enough, and doesn't really give the audience the information they need to know; there is no indication of the plot, and I feel that if I stick to my existing poster layout, this will not become any clearer. However, this is all part of the learning process, and I want my poster to be as professional-looking as possible.

Analysis of Empire magazine front cover

Poster so far

Taking inspiration from the Atonement poster, I have started working on my poster by creating a divide across the middle, and having the modern image of Sarah at the top, and the old image at the bottom. This creates the sense that Sarah is looking down at the people from her great great grandmother's past, therefore creating synergy between the two images. I also made, using Photoshop and after following tutorials, a dark, cloudy background on for the top half of the poster, which helps to reflect the dark themes of the film. It obviously still needs a lot of work doing to it, such as I need to separate the image of Sarah from the background properly. I will go through the whole process of how I constructed my poster in another post.

Photos from photoshoot

Analysis of Atonement poster

Atonement poster analysis

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Results from market research

Here are the results from the market research I did on my target audience's expectations for a promotional film poster:

Expectations for a promotional film poster

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These results will help me to abide by conventions when I make my film poster.

Market research - expectations of a promotional film poster

Here is a survey that I have also posted on Facebook to find out what my target audience expect from a film poster:

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Editing process so far

We have divided our editing between the three of us, each focusing on the shots that we individually filmed so that we can stick to our original visions of how we wanted them to turn out. However, we have made sure to never just have one person editing at one time, so that we can discuss things as a group. We have also made a rule to save any edited versions of our footage as a new document, so that if any mistakes are made, or we wish to revert back to a previous draft, we will always have a more raw footage available to work with. Although we have so far had a technical difficulty in importing the footage onto the Apple Macs (the only way to retain the sound files of our footage is to import them seperately on a memory stick, which means that we are unable to save them onto the Apple Macs), this has not been too much of a problem as there are only a couple of sounds, such as the chiming of a clock in one scene, that we want to keep. We have been told by the technicians that we should be able to add these after we have finished editing the video footage. Apart from this minor problem, editing so far has gone fairly smoothly; we are extremely pleased with the footage, as the actors, acting, costumes and locations have all come together very well. We have cut out all parts of the footage that we don't need, and are currently working on transitions and the order and speed of each shot. We still need to work on a soundtrack, which we will need to further research beforehand.

Footage without sound

Production Company Market Research

Here is the market research we have done in order to see which name people prefer for a production company: Click here to take survey

Garageband tutorials

Although Lucinda is the group member in charge of the soundtrack, Charlotte and I have watched some Garageband tutorials to help give us a better grasp of how it works. This means that if Lucinda encounters any problems with Garageband and making the sountrack, we will be able to offer her help.

Final Cut Pro tutorials

As I haven't really used Final Cut Pro much before, and only for very basic use, I have watched some tutorials such as the ones below to help improve my knowledge of it: