FUTURE LEARN: GUERILLA VFX COURSE

During half term I started a Future Learn Visual Effects for Guerilla Filmmakers. I decided to start this course because I really want to expand my skills as a filmmaker and this is a perfect way to do so. I have never fully worked with proper visual effects until I started this course. 


The first week was incredibly interesting with a few short videos from FutureLearn explaining what I would be covering during the four week course. Most of the first week was reading different articles on a variety of different techniques and filmmakers. Towards the end of the week I got a chance to practice my first piece of visual effects using a free software that FutureLearn provided called HitFilm 3 Express. I followed a very simple and easy tutorial video that taught me how to create a fake flare effect. This sort of visual effects is very helpful for filmmakers as it doesn't endanger anyone on set by lighting a real flare and it also means that there is no need to go through hundreds of flares and them constantly burning out. 

I haven't yet started the second week but I am very excited to start and learn even more about visual effects.

Here is the effect that I created whilst following the course tutorial:

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RESEARCH: TRAILER CREDITS

Nowadays trailers are the biggest part of the marketing campaign of most films. Every trailer is differently suited to each film and genre. Trailers end in many different ways, some showing just a release date and other giving a list of cast crew and directors. I think it is very important to look at all the different ways that trailers can end before coming up with a decision of how to end my trailer.                              

In this collage I have chosen six different ways in which very recent film trailers end. This makes me very skeptical when it comes to learning the codes and conventions of film trailers and deciding on how to end my trailer. There are so many different ways that professional filmmakers end there trailers that it is all a matter of personal choice and what suites the overall theme of the trailer the best. If it is a very detailed trailer showing off a lot of the film then there is usually and lot of detail in final part of the trailer. If it is a short simple trailer there is usually very little detail in the final screen of the trailer. This is also the case with a lot of trailers for comedies, they usually end with a very simple end slate. But reiterating my first point it all boils down to decisions on the parts of the editors and the studio on how much detail there should be in the end slate.

Also recently there has been a lot more emphasis on social media in the end slate of trailers. This is evident in the end slate of the trailer for the new film in The Divergent Series: Allegiant.

In this end slate they reveal the month that the film will be released in and then the rest of this end slate is entirely purposed at connecting people to their social media accounts. They show that they have an account on all of the major social medias, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. They also introduce a hashtag for the film that is a perfect model for viral marketing as it can be used on all social media by anyone with an account to spread free awareness of the film across the internet.