Analysis of short film 'Cotton Stones'

Jan 27th Blog Update

Initial Editing Sequence

This is an initial look at one of the pier sequences, without sound..

Magazine Review Research

For our project, we need to introduce a magazine review which will serve to summarise our successes or failures, whilst evaluating the process of filmmaking to render our finished sequence. Before we can begin to write or design our review, we need to research into the style we are looking for. 

The layout of film reviews such as the example above are often highly colourful, with a large picture background. Obviously this attracts the eye, whilst drawing the reader in to search for the text. In this particular case, the image shows a close-up of Orlando Bloom's face, highlighting the emotion and hinting at the film in review. 

The text is very much out of the way to the left, which is carefully places as to avoid blocking out the image. Yet the text is white which clearly stands out from the picture background. The initial text is a conventional quote from the article, larger and positioned at the top with quotation marks. This is carefully picked as the most dramatic or revealing quote from the entire article, designed to heighten the desire to read, much like the nature of a TV advert which picks the best bits. We are likely to use this technique with our own review.

The text is formatted into small paragraphs initiated by relevant questions to do with the interview with Bloom.  These questions are highlighted in bold so they stand out and clearly show the divides in text. This diversity in formatting and text style all helps to make the page appear more interesting to the reader. The small image on the top right with a white border again helps to add some more colour to the overall finish, along with a different perspective of Bloom. The bottom right features his name, with complete lower case letters used as a stylistic choice. Perhaps we will use this choice for our own film. 

Here is another extract, this time taken from Empire Magazine. The Bank Job is the featured film for review in this case - a 2008 thriller starring Jason Statham. In contrast to the earlier review, this one does not dominate the page with an image. Instead the picture is much smaller in this case, clearly defined at the top, leaving the text with a blank white background. The title is also much more clear, positioned as the largest piece of text in capital letters - black text on a white background stands out. A defining line of text lies below, differentiating in a turquoise colour. The format of the text is simply paragraphed this time around, without and questions.

Clearly variety is something prominent with film reviews in magazines. Each mag has a different format and layout, so it is important we do not copy complete ideas for our own; rather we should look for inspiration and then incorporate this into our work. 

Filming Photos

Some snaps from our filming can be found here..

http://southdusk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/filming-photos-i.html

Process of Footage Grading

Here is the process from raw footage to a finished render:

Raw footage, with no effects or filters..

 Contrast is added to footage, to bring out the darker colours so the shot appears richer:

Then I added a glow effect to create some more glare, emphasising the light from the sun. It is a very subtle effect:

Finally the colour correction is tinted towards a red/orange colour, to create a more dated and sepia tone:

Initial Filming Snapshots

Here are some initial snapshots from a sequence we filmed recently on Torquay pier. The footage has been colour corrected and stylised: