Little White Lies Cover - Keira

For our review, we have made a quick cover for the whole magazine which we felt would help us to get the feel for the colour scheme inside and what we need to be doing with the layout of the article itself. We chose Tim Burton's 'Alice In Wonderland' as the film of the issue, as it's current and quirky and would be a fun theme to have running through the magazine:We made the image look more cartoon using photoshop and added the Little White Lies logo, a barcode and the title of the film to replicate what it might look like in real life. We will now use this colour scheme and theme as a basis for designing the look of our article.

Keira

Editing Process 4 - Keira

We have now completely finished the editing of our film (as you can see above), and we are very pleased with the product although the sound took alot longer than expected.
The voice over in the end was recorded with myself as the female part and Carl Williams (who also played guitar for the sound track) as the male part, due to availability and for the sake of ease. We had some trouble editing it (particularly in the part where it cuts quickly between the two voices) as there wasn't enough of a gap left between each word so some of them ('love' in particular) seem to end very suddenly.
We also had alot of trouble downloading the video (Scrubs or Brief Encounter) from Youtube, so we had the idea of using a different source to illiminate this problem. I downloaded an episode of Gavin and Stacey from iTunes (episode 1) which Adam suggested would be appropriate to the theme as the final words are:
'I told myself if I ever saw you again that I'd tell you something.'
'If you say it I'll say it back.'
'I love you.'
'I love you too.'
(Watch below, from approx 8:00 onwards):


We cut it at 'If you say it i'll say it to', as in our story Kate is just about to say she loves him and we know Tom won't say it back, so we thought to have that as the last line on the TV they're watching would introduce some cruel comic irony.
Despite the difficulties we faced with the sound we are all pleased as a group with the final product and with the feedback we've recieved so far.

Keira

Film Feedback - Keira

To gain feedback for our film we are using youtube and facebook as platforms for people to leave comments, which we have tried to promote as much as possible via word of mouth and email.
To view our youtube video please click here...

To view our facebook page please click the link on the right (titled 'our facebook group')-->

Once we have a steady flow of feedback we will publish some of the comments on the blog.

Keira

Draft of copy for review - Keira and Adam

Here is what we have written so far for the review:

With time you expect the same generic romance story which always ends in one finding one’s ‘true love’ and living happily ever after in a perfect little cul-de-sac far, far away. Rarely is it that you come across a film of this style brave enough to challenge those boundaries and seek more original ways to entice its audience. From the title, you’d expect ‘Three Words’ to be the former: another timid, sickly-sweet attempt at capturing the nation’s hearts with the words “I love you”. Alas for Kate, the female protagonist, this is not to be as her messy, rude, sexually unsatisfying, smoker of a boyfriend doesn’t quite cut the traditional picture of Prince Charming.

Aimed directly at the modern teen, this edgy yet somewhat-comfortingly-familiar tale of dysfunctional adolescent romance acts as a voice for males and females who’ve been in the same position as Tom and Kate. The frustratingly close-to-perfect (yet just missing that “certain something”) state of their relationship hits the nail on the head as a study of current times, and may be frighteningly mirror-like to many members of the audience.

Not unlike ‘500 Days Of Summer’ in the emotions explored, ____

This film makes no pretence to be what it’s not; there are no fancy effects, costly sets and costumes or gut-busting action, and in that way (amongst many others) it is social realism through and through. However, the film-makers have added a new dimension by introducing moments of humour and stylistic ways of presenting the story which are a pleasant surprise, and help to effectively communicate the emotions_____ . For example, the voice-over acts as our personal guide through the character’s heads, telling us bluntly and ___ their feelings towards each other at different times. This builds up to (in classic social realism fashion) a suspenseful ending where all that we’ve seen must come to a head and it’s those final moments that will really grab the audience’s attention in a chokehold, the awkwardness and nerves practically pouring out of the screen.

For debut directors Keira Smalley, Dominic Michau, Adam Rutherford and Arran Fitzgerald, this is a team teen triumph which is bound to earn them a successful grounding in the film business should their joint endeavours continue. ‘Three Words’ is not going to break any records or change people’s lives, but it will leave you with a satisfying sense of truth and reflection which will echo the feelings of many frustrated teens around the country.

As you can see there are gaps to be filled and it is not yet completely finished, but we are happy with what we've written so far.
We will try to get the next draft or final version posted as soon as possible.

Keira and Adam

Review Template

Here is a print screen shot of creating the template for our review on InDesign, following examples of layout from Little White Lies magazine:

Adam and Keira

Sound Editing by ADAM RUTHERFORD

I have found the sound editing to be incredibly difficult with this film as it's completely different to anything i have worked on before for a couple of reasons:

• We are using voice-overs throughout the film instead of using speech direct from the footage
• We are using are own music rather then the tacky and cliche presets offered to us on garage band

The voice-over have proved incredibly difficult to record as we were hoping to use the actors used in the film, however it has proved to be a problematic feat to find time where we are all available to do so. We have opted for the next best thing and used to preforming arts students to do the voice-overs instead. The task of recording has proved difficult in itself as the voice-overs in the film are all based on very tight timing.

The idea to record our own music came easily, as I couldn't be more fed up of the presets on garage band. "Emotional piano" and "delicate guitar" just weren't gonna cut it, making me realise that recording some actual guitar would be a better idea. We enlisted the help of friend and fellow music student Carl Williams to lay down a guitar part with a real Rom-com "Juno" kind of feel. I couldn't be happier with the final result, as i think it fits into the film perfectly keeping to the genre perfectly.

White Lies Magazine - Keira

Here... is a link to Little White Lies Magazine online, which we have researched in order to start to get a feel for the magazine section of the ancilary tasks. The writing style (from the reviews i've read) is quite formal but maintains a broad audience appeal by being easy to understand by not over-using long words and complex phrasing.

For example, this is an extract of a review of Alice In Wonderland:

"The result is a film both familiar, and inventively different, from Lewis Carroll's nineteenth-century fantasy novels for children, not to mention John Tenniel's accompanying illustrations. Adaptation is not just the medium, but a central theme, as one Alice, half-guided by a book and a vision, is transformed into another."

Some colloquial phrasing is used ("not to mention") but it comes accross over all as a highly intelligent and well-informed review, convincing the audience they know what they're talking about. This is the kind of style we will aim for with our magazine piece, therefore.

Keira Smalley

Editing Process 3 - Keira

The final scene is the climax and most pinacle moment of the 5 minutes, and is the only scene which is present-time rather than telling what's happened up until this point. Because of this, we have decided to keep all the original sounds which were recorded during filming (e.g. Kate kissing Tom, opening and shutting of doors, sighs etc.) to make it more real and tell the audience this is what's happening now. This will also stick to the conventions of social realsim better.

A problem we face with this is that the couple are watching TV in the scene. This is a problem for the sound because when we cut between shots (for example, when it goes from medium long shot to medium close up) the sound of the TV jumps to a different place. Because of this, we have decided to get different sound from Youtube to replace it. We want something that will be ironic or make a point about the scene, so we decided to use a romantic moment from a film that they could be watching to make the atmosphere more awkward.
Brief Encounter seemed a good choice to use, as we all know it so well and it is a classic romance film. It would also show a big contrast to relationships then and relationships now, which might be an interesting theme at the end of the film. If we were to use Brief Encounter, it would probably be this clip (it being one of the most famous from the film):



However, as in the actual sound we recorded during filming is from Scrubs (what is more likely they'd be watching) and which also fits in with the atmosphere, we may decide to keep that. Another bonus of this is that we wouldn't have to delete the original sound from the scene completely, meaning we also got rid of the diegetic sounds i mentioned earlier (walking, kissing etc.). Therefore, I have found this clip from Scrubs that I feel would make the atmosphere most awkward at the point where Kate comes back in the room and they are about to tell each other how they feel:



We can do a version with both and see which works best.

Keira Smalley

Editing Process 2 - Keira

As a group we have almost completed our short film. The moving image editing is completed, but we have had a few problems with the sound as recording the voiceover has proven more difficult to complete than anticipated. On several occassions we have tried to get this done but it hasn't been possible either due to technical difficulties (the voice recording equipment not working) or because the actors have had to cancel last minute. We had considered using different people to record it (for example, just members of our group) but would rather have had the people we originally intended as it would allow us to see it as more realistic. However, as the deadline has now passed we no longer have the luxury of choice we have had to try it with other people (Kiah and Kris from our media class).
The music for our film, on the other hand, works well with the piece and we are very pleased with it. It was recorded on guitar by a friend of the group who made up a very simple tune which (having watched a silent version of our film and being told what it's about) we agreed suited the tone. This will play through the first (approx) 2 minutes, then fade out as the tune could get a bit repetitive for the audience and become a distraction, it also doesn't suit some parts (for example, when Kate's describing the bad parts of Tom). It will come back in for the credits at the end to act as a backdrop and remind the audience of the start. The simplicity of the tune is similar to that in 'The Space Between Us' (the short film which was the main inspiration for ours). Listen here:


As for the foleys, Adam has decided to make a version both with them (for example, birds in the park, walking, the sound of Tom snoring etc.) and without, because he wants to see what better suits the mood of the film. It is most likely that the foleys will be used as they stick to the conventions of social realism, but we felt it was important to test different ideas.

Keira Smalley

Dom Film Poster idea

This poster was originally a poster for the 2007 film control. When doing my film poster research i came across this poster and thought that it really showed that the character had a good and dark side represented by the use of black and white background. This was very similar to the whole concept of our film as there is Kate who is in love and Tom who wants to break up. The binary opposition throughout the film would be well represented by this poster. The colour of the title is also interesting as the use of a rose colour gives two impression; either love or hate.

Poster Draft by ADAM RUTHERFORD

My idea for the poster came from the idea that as a group we would produce two poster's, one with a picture of Kate and one of Tom. We've decided instead to use one poster with the page cut in half with thier individual faces on either side.

The concept for this poster was fairly simple using a screen grab of Kate from the film to show in a reflective mood, an idea I got from the Fish Tank poster, with Katherine Jarvis looking out the window. I really liked the idea of Kate looking into the mirror with determination showing her to be a strong character. Because of the original idea of using two posters I wanted Kate's to really appeal to women by using a effective shot showing her stregnth. Mike Leigh and Andrea Arnold are both well known for creating strong female characters so I drew my influence from them.

The text I used for the 'reviews' isn't as professional as it could have been but because this was a draft I was thinking more about the placement of the words and size of font. I am happy with the way the poster looks and think that it could have been an effective marketing tool if we had of gone down the route of using two posters.

Poster Idea 2 - Keira

This is my second poster draft. This is an image we took as a group quite early on in the process (see earlier posts) as a potential poster photo as it represents the couple's general feelings towards each other. However, it could be argued that this image doesn't look realistic and looks more posed which would not be appropriate for social realism. I have still used the tag line of 'Tom. Kate. Love?' but placed it away from the title, which perhaps doesn't work as effectively. The tagline under the title ('Choose them carefully.') is not appropriate as on reflection it seems more like a thriller tagline and gives off the wrong impression. The colours of this picture are too bright and if we were to use this image for the real poster we would manipulate it to be slightly darker. We would also re-take the photo as a whole as the bowl of chips in Tom's hand is not a clear enough prop, whereas a bag of crisps or something more obvious might serve the purpose better.

Poster Idea - Keira

This is my first draft poster which shows Kate and Tom in bed together (it's a still from our film). As the title is 'Three Words' I have used three words to sell the film 'Kate. Tom. Love?' then the line underneath the title in the bottom right corner is 'A comedy drama about real relationships.' which gives the audience an idea of the genre and content of the film so they can be more aware of whether they'd want to see it. The image itself is eye catching as it's a bit risqé and would attract attention, and also communicates the comedy which we've intergrated. However, this image doesn't effectively represent the story of our film as in the story Kate is the one in love with Tom but here she doesn't look it.

Arran: Poster Idea

This is a layout that i think would work for our advertising poster. I think it is suitable because it shows both the characters which is a trend in most social realism advertising campaigns.

For the title i will need to research fonts further;

Three Words

Three Words

Three Words

Three Words

Three Words