Photoshop Tutorials

500 word Article

Reasons for the Shadows

Here, in the director’s words, the inspiration for this emotive masterpiece of a film.

Everyone’s faced some sort of trauma in their past, that changed them from a person they could never go back to being. But imagine if that trauma haunted you day and night, with your eyes open or closed, or so much that you had to learn to escape reality through your thoughts. But what happens if you think to such an extent that you can no longer differentiate your thoughts from reality. Getting caught in a limbo of life and death, where you know you’ll barley survive in the condition you’re in.

Pain is relative, depending on the person and their own individual emotions, therefore the impact of trauma effects each individual in a different manner and sometimes things occur in life that cause you to lose yourself – mental health illnesses like anxiety, depression , schizophrenia (to name a few) are often results to such trauma. Where you’re so scared that you no longer know how to reach out for help and the people around you don’t seem to pick up on the signals.

How often do you here people, “it’s not really an illness”, “it doesn’t really hurt”, “they’re just being dramatic”, when they talk about mental health illnesses. Mental health illnesses aren’t to be taken lightly and that’s what I wanted to convey to an audience, no they aren’t as ‘scary’ and ‘dangerous’ as most movies portray, they are in fact way more harmful for the individual suffering that the people they encounter.

Imagine your worst nightmares coming to life right in front of your eyes but nobody can see them but you. Imagine the trauma of the past following, no matter how fast you run, it keeps on following you – most mental health illnesses feel like that. Too many people suffer in silence and don’t reach out for help for the sole reason of thinking that no one is going to understand how they feel.

Most people don’t understand the scars on many others just because they didn’t understand what the other person was feeling, what it is like to be them. That’s what this movie was meant to help to do, help other understand how dark it can get in people’s minds and what we need to do to help, it helps those suffering from mental health illnesses, I wanted them to know they aren’t alone.

Remember that time you had that one fight, and no one was around to help you out? Would you wish that upon another poor soul? What if it’s even worse for them? I’m not sure about many other people, but the last time I had to suffer in silence the pain became so unbearable that I slipped so far out that it seemed your illness was your only friend. All I needed was someone to help me, by simply acknowledging what I felt as valid, gave me strength with their hope and I’m still standing tall today, after a darkness I thought wouldn’t end. Not everyone is so lucky to make it out of things that hard, so we should help as many people we can.

Here’s the message, plain and simple; there are so many people in this world who are suffering in silence be careful with what you say, because everyone is fighting their own silent battles and you don’t know how a single cruel remark can push them over the edge. 

MEST2 Progress Report – 20 January

Work Completed since 6th January

• made the script (final)
• created the first draft of script, mise-en-scene, shot list.
• Bridge shot we needed
• Re-viewed finalised shot list 

incomplete;

• Finalised storyboard drawings

Next steps;

• Complete rest of shooting (park, home and school) - start with the park 

• fiming will be complete by 29th January

Full Narrative Pitch - Kiss of Death

The movie opens with a date scene between Katie (the protagonist) and her Boyfriend. This love story slowly develops whilst revealing the psychological disorder of schizophrenia the protagonist suffers from, and what affect it has in terms of her relationships with her friends and family and the impact it has on other things such as school. Around the third act/climax of the movie the protagonist kills her boyfriend, however through various shots explaining the reality of all the events that took place previously in the movie reveals that her boyfriend was in fact a fragment of her hallucinations. This movie ends with the protagonist jumping of a building, supposedly taking her life, due to society not being able to provide her with the support she desperately needed.

Finalised pre-production

Project Schedule & Mise-en-scene;

Script ;




Shot List;




Storyboard;

MEST2 Print brief

Research


Write an analysis of this BFI Film Festival programme front cover. How many of the 12 key conventions of magazine covers can you see? In what way does this print product differ from a traditional magazine cover? How have the designers made this programme visually interesting?

The title of the publication's typography is carefully chosen and placed in the center, this helps it act almost like a central image highlighting that the key focus is on the actual festival. 
This therefore differs from the typical 'top third' location of the title and a more interesting central image of a key aspect or article of the magazine. 
This is made visually interesting by the front colour containing an image of what seems to be eyes which works in synergy with the concept of it seeing of a 'film' festival. 

Another aspect of the above print is its carefully thought out colour scheme which consists of a fairly greyish background to the title colours which consists of the colour scheme of the BFI logo which we can see in the top left. 

Much like magazine front covers it is so that it is easy to read and aesthetically pleasing having a direct appeal to the audience. 

The leaflet also has the date right underneath the title. This is an important aspect to the leaflet as it is giving the date of the festival which probably has the most importance in the whole leaflet therefore carefully placed in the front.

Magazines also have the date on the front however it is seemingly so the audience can understand if it is the latest issue or not rather than giving a date for a certain event. 

There is also the BFI logo in the top left which is a lot like magazines and their headers. 

This product is mostly different from a magazine print due to its simplicity regarding how much information is given in the front and has more text than actual images. It therefore seems much more sophisticated without parts of what may be found in the text and trival things such as competitions as the audience targeted with the leaflet is vastly different from a magazines target audience. 

This simplicity is therefore also the aspect that makes the design so appealing and interesting. 





Find at least 5 arts centre or cinema programmes/brochures aimed at a similar target audience to your project (arthouse cinema). For each one, pick out one design idea that you could use in your own print work.

Find at least 5 contents pages from arts programmes or magazines. How are contents pages designed? How do they use a combination of text and images to create an effective design?

 
Planning and sketching

1) Create a spider diagram or bullet point list of all the things your target audience might be interested in. How can you use this information to create a main feature about your film that will appeal to your target audience?

Main aspects of Target Audience- 

• 15+ (or more specifically 15-32) 
•  16-24 year old's being prone to mental health illnesses 
• secondary target audience of parents to help 
• broad aspect of mental health, and the equal balance of male and female characters 
• idea of romance, therefore suggesting a 52% female 48% male target audience.
• Aspires as it is a young audience
• mainstreamers as the idea of psychology is becoming fairly mainstream especially within young audiences
•  reforms as the seek knowledge on all issues
• explores as they would willing like to explore the human mind and emotions.

What the Target Audience may therefore be interested in -

• psychology
• romance
• society
• complex issues
• mental health illnesses
• support/help/aid
• knowledge
• tumblr (huge psychology fans)
• films like black swan
• photography/art/writing 

Main Features that could appeal well to the audience interested in the above-

• Artistic(through both photographs/art and writing) layout
• Detailed article on schizophrenia 
• inspiration for the movie
• any emotional attachment present to the movie
• main message of the movie

2) Produce an A5 sketch of your front cover including the key conventions and design tricks you have studied in existing programmes and then planned in planning task 1 above.

3) Produce an A4 sketch of your double-page spread contents page. In terms of the text for your contents page, you will need to find out the names of the films of other groups in your class. The other films in the class will make up the rest of your contents page.

4) Create a spider diagram or bullet point list of ideas for your double-page spread feature. Write a list of potential headlines and sub-headings for the article you choose to go with.

potential ideas; 

• Reasons for the shadows - inspiration for writing the script
• I am not my disorder - mental health issues awareness campaign 
• Perception of it all - my take on the mental health illness

4) Produce an A4 landscape sketch of your double page spread design now you have chosen the subject matter.




1) Which of your main characters will appear on the front cover of your programme?

The Protagonist, Katie. 

2) What image or images do you need for the contents page?

Side pose of Katie blowing (gently) with a lost and distant look to her. 

3) What image or images will you use for the double-page spread?

Standing in the distance with long shot, wind blowing her hair
Shadow over Katie's face


4) Write a shot list for the photoshoot. Make sure you plan a variety of camera shots you will look to capture - medium shots, close-ups etc.

• Long shot - Katie's hair blowing as she stands in the distance (back view)
• Medium Close up - Kaite's red lips with half her face in the shadow
• Medium close up shot - Katie holding her face in frustration.
•  MCU - smirk 
• MCU -  fear 
• Medium shot - Katie holding a piece of paper allowing only her eyes in view  
• Medium shot - Shadow over katies face. 

5) What costume, props or make-up will you require for the photoshoot?

• Red lip stick 
• Black hoodie
• Black jeans
• Black laced trainers
• Mascara 
• Eye Liner
• Hair spray 

The Kiss of Death - Planning

Shot List;




Script;




Project Scheduled / mise-en-scene




Storyboard;