AS Media Production Company Practical

Production Company Practical

Brief

Lately, we have been trying to decide on a genre for our film opening, hence I decided to create a production company inspired by our ideas of a genre we are mainly focusing on. We have been focusing on urban dramas with horror elements and previously with my experience of text manipulation, the below production company title has been created to be suitable for our film opening if we continue with this genre or similar and be the genre of the film opening.

Research and Planning

For our film opening we decided on creating an urban drama or social realism film instead of a horror. These are usually considered to have a 'niche market' due to being specific to certain audiences, hence narrowcasting. For example, films like "London to Brighton" are specific to the British public. In order for our film to be produced we would most likely have to consider a less popular production company specific to this sub genre.

A production company is considered as an organisation which provides funding to create and help develop films. These usually cover the expenses of props, sets, equipment, crew and cast. This allows an idea for a film to become an actual film. Consequently, marketing and promotion is also usually produced by the production company. Films can have multiple production companies to share fund and ideas. Bigger companies like "Warner Bros." provide initial funds, marketing and distribution tactics, while smaller companies for example "Urban Apache Films" and "Revolver Entertainment" are specific to urban drama films, like "Sket" and "Shank", and are usually the ones to develop ideas.

For our film we would rather use "Film4 Productions" instead of "Revolver Entertainment", as "Revolver Entertainment" produces more comical urban dramas like "Adulthood". We would prefer to create a more 'gritty' British social realism film. "Film4 Productions" is usually known for funding these types of films. Below is its current opening:

For our own production company we decided on calling it "CANE Productions". For our production company logo like the above, I had the idea of using a brick wall as I thought it linked with urban areas. Other ideas included the passing of a train or graffiti. To also link to the title of the production company I thought of perhaps smashing lights, bottles or even a brick wall with graffiti on it with a bat or some sort of cane, linking with the "CANE" idea in the title. Consequently, the following was produced.

Post-production

Using the above ideas I chose to create a smashing brick wall in "Adobe After Effects CC 2017" guided by the below video:

First I opened up "Adobe After Effects CC 2017" . While this program was loading I collected the following font from "www.dafont.com". Its title is "Living Hell" and although, it is fitting to the horror genre I felt the blood splatters may link to the violence of urban dramas and also somewhat looks like bullet holes.

Also from the internet I selected the below brick wall image and inserted it to a new composition layer called "brickwall" in "After Effects".

Next, I added a new layer called "text", and using the "Living Hell" font, typed out the production company title. After altering the font, I opened up the layer to add pictures of cracks I found online. With all of these in place, I followed the tutorial and generated the "Fill" effect so all of the text and cracks in the "text" layer were filled in a solid grey.

Returning to all the layers, I then used the "Colour Correction" effect on the "brickwall" composition to turn the image into black and white, inspired by the 'dingy' hues of the "Blumhouse Productions" opening and creates a 'dingy' atmosphere. I then put the "text" layer on top of the "brickwall" layer and selected the multiply mode so it resembled the colourings of the brick wall image.

Then similar to the tutorial video, using the effects, I altered the font. This included using "Inner Shadow" and "Bevel and Emboss". Applying a large shadow seemed to fill in the text a bit more while an "Outer Bevel" made the font appear 3D and engraved into the bricks.

Next I selected "Alpha Matte "text"" on the "brickwall" layer. This created a mask of the font, allowing the brick wall image to only appear in said mask layer called "brickwall1". This was a new layer called "textbrickwall1" containing the "text", "brickwall1" and "brickwall" layers. With this composition I then used the "Shatter" effect in the "Simulation" drop down list.

I changed the "Shatter" effect to have "50" "Repetitions" of the "Glass" "Pattern" this was rendered to the text within the "textbrickwall1" layer.

Selecting this "textbrickwall1" layer, I then created a new layer called "brickwalltext2" and moved the "text" layer into it along with the "textbrickwall1" layer that had the "Shatter" effect applied to it. I then selected "text" to have the "Track Matte" "Alpha Matte "textbrickwall1"" so that the font I created was layered with the smashing brick wall text.

With this layer I then had to match the smashing brick wall text to the image of the brick wall and the font that will appear when the "Shatter" effect plays. The font sizes were slightly out but I managed to resize them.

When all of this was sorted, I added a 'vignette' around the product to make it seem more professional rather than just smashing font on an image from the internet. This was the final style.

Afterwards, I imported the file to "Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017" and using the "Blade" tool I split the video up in to two sections. The first section played normally and then for the second section I slowed down the video. Then I pasted the video again but reversed it and sped it up so that the bricks quickly reformed the wall. With the "Video Effects" I changed the scale of the video to "65.0" and then added the "Dip to Black" effect for 10 seconds.

I then used the below sound:

A snippet of this sound was added to the clip and split into multiple sections. The speed starts at "100%" and then with each section it decreases by "10%" until "10%" where the video is slow. When the brick wall starts to rebuild itself the "Speed/Duration" of the sound clip is sped up to "250%" until it fades using the "Constant Power" effect.

Outcome

Below is my production company title:

Personal Comments

I felt that my title was fairly successful, despite the confusing and time consuming method. Upon reflection, I wish I chose a different font and kept the original colours of the brick wall, however, I still felt that it looked quite professional for a first attempt at "Adobe After Effects".

If I was to use the program again, I would definitely take more care naming the compositions/layers, because things easily became confusing due to inappropriate naming.