Project Overview

Project Overview

Calming the Storm

By Gemma Seager & Heidi Wood

Our brief was to create a film to promote designer Marko Mitanovski’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection, in a melancholic way, with the element of wind. We began researching our designer who we were instantly inspired by. We chose to work together as we are equally determined and motivated. Due to pre-booked holidays we strategically made our own timetable to split the workload, which was effective. Through constant contact and working together on weekends we successfully produced Calming the Storm. In contacting Marko Mitanovski we were invited to view his promo film in London. This was extremely valuable for our styling and creating his look. We came away enthused by his film and to create an amazing representation ourselves. Focusing on key shapes from Marko’s collection our styling evolved into a black morphing into white concept. Powerful, constricting, flowing, beautiful, fierce were how the garments had to look to be Marko worthy. Steadily we achieved this!

Through tutorials and lessons we gathered starting points for research walking away with a large list of films. In splitting the film load we were able to analyse in depth then report back to each other with specific clips and reviews. This way we could target the most influential and important aspects faster. Directors Peter Wier and David Lynch, had the most impact on our vision with their unique techniques in powerful layering, fading, blurring and flashing imagery to create awareness of time and place.

Our concept grew into a love loss story that developed through 3 storyboards and even changed whilst editing. Immediately Camber Sands was the perfect location, with vast unforgiving landscapes, romantic sand dunes and stunning skies nature was clearly going to be the second character. The story starts with a melancholic individual whose unrequited love for Marko and his creations transforms. The story moves from a black constricting over whelming out fit and head piece combo, moving through stunning sequences of roses and dripped ink, hand written mysterious love letters and illustrations. They work in the narrative loosely to build the characters thoughts out loud and filmed using techniques Lynch and Wier have. Through myself being the character for our film we were able to develop the looks to perfection, and I was able to translate what was in our heads affectively, reviewing the footage all the way.

There were days of re shooting, car injuries, and makeup disaster due to weather. Writing lists and itineraries helped to maximize the use of our time daily in relation to the tide of which we wanted as far out as possible.

In editing, the film transformed with the sound track by Muse. The combination of fierce clothing, melancholic emotion and scenery, was further enhanced by the tracks soft melody. The process was exhausting including fluctuating moods of being extremely proud, to plummeting disappointment. The editing was the biggest challenge on top of the filming adventure. Selecting the most amazing pieces we layered the visuals adding cross dissolve affects and what we refer to as our ‘Lynch’ moment, a flashing beam of light to create a story that builds with emotion and ends with serene peace in a beautiful way. I have learnt a huge amount, having no previous skills with final cut I found it a struggle to learn in lessons only, but with Heidi we over came this and learnt the key techniques to produce the effects inspired by our influential directors.

Finally we produced a Look book for Marko’s ‘Black Collection’ this little book contains the most stunning shots from our film and rounded off the project nicely as a part of a press pack. I found it extremely easy to write a press release with Heidi bouncing ideas off each other and a press pack seemed an enjoyable finale to our project, complete with DVD cover and little hand crafted accessories.

Hand In Requirements

• The final edit of the film as one hi res.mov movie file
• The Out come from the mini project, the final edit as a .mov movie file
• One word document or PDF file with the back up of the text footage from the blog including a link to the actual blog.
• One press release for your film at the film screening event in the form of a word document or PDF file.  

This is just for myself to make sure every thing is handed in on a dvd/ cd. 

DVD COVER

This is the DVD cover Heidi and i designed with one of the most high impact images from the days spent filming. Measuring the paper cover from the sleeve of a dvd box i was able to get the measurments to create a new document in Photoshop and then through layers implement a background a croped image and three layers of text. We included a couple of lines from our press release, adding the bonus track from Muse that is actually in our film. I have edited in a way that makes sure the character is in the center of the front cover and that the text of the title does not interfere with our styling. This is something i enjoyed doing a lot as i have never made a DVD cover before and feel it has turned out well for our fashion film.

The Look Book

So here is our Look Book is is quite simple but effective. I'm sure if it was our brief to get imagery down in Camber for a look book we could have got some stunning images of the white dress also and created something wonderful. This is a taster of what we would love to do if we had more time. These images below are print screens from the Indesign document during the process of making our look book. We called it Marko Mitanovski 'Black collection' to reflect his clothing interpreted in our film. We had more successful images of the black out fit so thought it better to have a book with a theme. If we had time we would have taken some close up images of the clothing in clever compositions also the headpiece and makeup even closer. 

Film Title Possibilities

Throughout the day we had been conscious and thinking about a film title. Looking at the film from beginning to end no longer had impact for ourselves who had watched it so many times. We spent a long time brain storming thinking of definitions for the word melancholy, descriptive words for what in our film and appropriate song lyrics. Denis suggested we look at the stills from our film, currently in the process of being made into a look book. Here are our favorite ideas:

• Calming storm (alot of these are titles from MUSE songs-our chosen music for the film)
• Calm before the storm
• Comfort in sand
• Butterflies and Hurricanes
• Lucid Dreams
• Tied up
• Love Blind
• Blinding love or Blind love
• Touch the Sky
• Losse control
• Platinium Blind
• Eye of the storm
• Calming of the storm (this is a favourite so far...)
• Melancholic romance (this is too obvious, we want something more subtle)
• Metamophesis
• A state of Melancholy
• Unrequested Love (this is too historical and old-fashioned)
• Calming the storm (THIS IS OUR FAVOURITE)

Looking through the least thinking about the film, its press release and the relation to promoting Marko Mitanovski, 'Calming of The Storm' felt most appropriate as a punchy title that said enough about our film . Using a title with the obvious words or theme of melancholy and love loss was not a direction we wanted to take. Our title needed to be mysterious mimicking the start of our film (a dramatised gothic silhouette with an avant guard a hair piece loyal to Marko) and also the sound tracks eeriness. Who is the character? is the question we are trying to show. The visuals of the film mirror this filming also with scenery, props, and noises. 

The imagery build up the initial confusion and mystery for the audience to wonder what is happening and see how the scenes join as a narrative. The title is true to the clothing and the films narrative, dark to light clothing dark to light emotions. The metaphor in the title is that the character is actually calming her own storm down, from sorrowful longing and anger to peace and reflection, from her desire and yearning of our designer and his creations. 

The word 'STORM' reflects a mood, that is mysterious, and sombre in the black grey clouds that come with a storm, and our continuoius reference to black and white colour through our film. Therefore the clouds can easily represent Camber Sands, the melancholic setting, and the romatic/beautiful sky after a storm when everything is clearing and light is shining, (as it literally does in a scene of our film.)

Heidi and I think our title works really well and i am quite happy to now for get about our film for a while and come back to it and be surprised by it!

Final Film With Credits

Editing process: Part 7 OUR COMPLETED FILM WITH SOUND TRACK

We came away yesterday thinking that we had a successful film that just need music implemented. To add the track i brought our favorite songs in on a usb stick they had to be converted from mp3 files to 'AIFF', This is because Final Cut pro does not take mp3s we got Olle to show us how to convert them which turned out to be quite simple and dragged our chosen track into the 'audio folder' When we we found it really tricky to work with sound in final cut the visuals seemed far easier to edit than the sound clips. We were advised to edit with the layers locked so that nothing moved out of sync and our film would still flow correctly.

After much thinking and listening we decided to be brave and go with the Linkin Park 'Session' track for our final film. We did not however encounter the amount of editing that would follow just  to fit the track with the events in the film. The opening to the film is soft and slow and builds up so we had to make the peek of the song reflect something happening in the film. This section to the end was for some reason not as powerful as the first dress in the beginning. The white dress sequence needed refining and possibly adding extra footage, brightening it and improving the contrast was also needed. We were taught to do this using ( effects...colour correction...drop...click...use colour spectrumto darken) We used this in the scene where the rose bounces, and the sun had come out momentarily when filming causing the black lace to appear brown on film. Through this technique the problem was fixed.

We spent a fair amount of time going over and over the film blending and merging sequences to fit the music. We had to be careful not to loose the melancholic visuals to the angry vibe in the track. Linkin Park session gave the film a power and raw quality, and the styling with the visual expressions and body language kept the film melancholic, which was unusual for the track. Muse was much softer and feminine it was a more stereo typical melancholy. 

 It was so interesting to see the film change just from the track, we tried to edit the film to be perfect with the track and by the time we had finished and had a tutorial with Geraldine, something was not right. We had got to the stage where is was mentioned to add more footage which would over step our time limit and make our film much more jumpy pulling away the melancholic smoothness entirely. We had over shot our brief and the film was now to angry and hysterically sorrowful, instead of the calm sorrow of melancholy. We did not want to travel  any further in the wrong direction and to get the most out of our footage the Muse song now seemed more appropriate. Although frustrating we hadn't come this far to just stick with the Linkin Park track out of convenience, and the film would have to be shook up again with the new sound track. We learnt that the film visuals should not be dictated by a sound track.


Whilst attempting to work with Linkin Park we could hear the gust of wind from the layer of sound that was captured through filming. We could also hear inappropriate sections of talking where Heidi was directing me. Some words sounded quite unusual and could work but there were few of them. On changing the track to Muse: 'Exogenesis symphony Part 3 redemption'  Geraldine heard even more noises that were masked by the Linkin Park track. Heidi felt embarrassed at the sound of her own voice however Geraldine loved moments of whispering and even rewound slowed down and sped up sections of talking. We heard the roaring wind, petals being pulled off and thrown, letters shuffling and ripping and the natural hum of the beach when all was quiet in the air, all of this could now be edited and heard along with the calm muse track. The whispers and unrecognisable rewound sped up talking gave the film a mystery, and almost ghostly atmosphere at times so we kept these parts.

Geraldine had some slight alterations for our film that were easy to implement in minutes. Things such as leaving the screen black to begin with as the music starts so it sets the tone for the audience and they are introduced to the film. This is something we tried before that lacked something, however with sound it works really well. The music enters the film calm and serene with a slightly eery quality setting the scene for the viewer building them up gradually for the high impact visuals. Using music and the natural sounds of wind etc was something we wanted to play with, so Geraldine showed us how to change the sound and use the 'pen' and mark 3 dots on the pink line which controlled selected areas of sound. when you mover the middle dot up down or left and right right it changes the sound file on the film. We moved the dots up and down until we got a fade effect and changed the volume which effected the power of the music. This allowed the natural sound track to be more predominant for the entire film.

We still needed to cut little bits here and there to shorten sequences that were to long and lost interest after a while. This felt really annoying as we had basically had enough of starring at the film and doing and redoing sections of it. Looking at the finished film now though it was totally worth it. The film would be nothing with out the time consuming picky bits! There was an overall agreement from Geraldine, Olle and ourselves that the ending was not there yet it was lacking something and needed to be more punchy to match the strong beginning.

Through a process of moving little sections of clips of the white dress into a different order and also moving the cropped image in the center not the side of the screen for impact started to solve this issue.
Some of the clips needed to be elongated and we all agreed that the best high impact shot was the one of sand skimming across the beech and the white dress blowing in the bottom left corner so your eye follows the sand as if the dress points to it. We made this our final shot to equalize the panning of the beach and sky scenes at the beginning of the film. This decision seemed to work perfectly with the music and all the little bits of editing flowed appropriately. It was immediately polished and had its impact back as a complete film. Relief and extreme happiness are the words to describe how we felt!

The whispering and backwards speaking were attributes of our film that made it unique and interesting. The film now flowed correctly, jumping in unaggressive ways and layering to build the affect we wanted. Despite these positives we still found issues with the music and became quite frustrated I could tell Heidi was starting to get quite stressed out and disheartened as we were so so close to a complete film this was just another hurdle we needed help to get over.

We had planned on coming in early and completing the film comfortably by 4pm as i frustratingly once again i had to leave for work. Things had not gone to plan at all and we were slightly anxious at the fact we were after a whole day of editing still having issues with the music. Heidi assured me she could get help to do what we had been trying to throughout the entire day, and i completely had faith in her to do so, I just felt awful leaving at such a critical time, even though worst case scenario we could work on it monday. It felt like everything we attempted to do required assistance and teaching at every stage, as we kept forgetting little things when editing like unlocking and locking the visual layer to edit the sound and moving sections of music and then the film playing in the incorrect order. We knew what we wanted and we discussed different ways of over coming the lyrics in the climax of our chosen Muse song including fading them out and replacing them with a natural wind sound then fading the song back in after the lyrics, but it was not in the correct place for the big change in our film. We had to some how cut them completely from the track then edit so that the ascend of layering music and descend gelled appropriately in the middle fitting our film. The beginning and end of the music were perfect and we were definitely using them, it was just this troublesome section near the middle. The beginning fades in and the ending naturally fades out with the movement of the sand along the beach. We wanted a build up of sound to fit what was going on in the story of the emotions getting angrier, the net dropping, the sudden flash of white as the character has a realisation and it is shown through the metaphoric white dress and change in weather with slight blue sky and sun she is moving on and the narrative continues. This tiny section of the film you could say was the most important we got quite desperate in attempting to edit the song having tried copying the built up sequence over again sounded to jumpy, having a sudden fade was to clumsy and unprofessional. We were determined to make the track work as it was perfect and symbolic for our mood.

After i had left for work Heidi managed to get help from Geraldine to look at how we physically could do it? Heidi informed me at 10.00 pm after work how they went through the film frame by frame speeding up sections in a hyper careful way. She said they just had to go through it slowly as it was something that needed a lot of time, something we did not foresee and have definitely learnt from!
They eventually achieved our desired effect by slowly dragging frame by frame and dropping sounds then over lapping the odd note here and there to make it all work. She said she even now doesn't know how they managed it as it was a case of sitting for hours giving individual notes attention, to which I am very grateful on Geraldine's part for staying late and Heidi's determination. WE know feel the film ascends with the music and descends to the peaceful state portraying our characters emotions and narrative through clothing.

Although we had a lot of issues producing this film when we watch the final thing i personally fill up with pride and am very proud of Heidi and myself for producing what we have. Especially as i have never made a film before and could not have dreamt what we have achieved up in the beginning. Ultimately we think it promotes Marko Mitanovski really well which would be the reason for producing this film in the real world.

All it needs now is for the credits to be placed on and the Title: Calming The Storm

Below shows our final draft of our film, with the soundtrack:

FINAL Press Release

Credits

Produced, Styled, Directed and Edited

by Heidi Wood
and Gemma Seager

Filming assistants

Charlotte Quittiam
Danny Ford

Make-up by

Gemma Seager

Hairdresser

Heidi Wood

With thanks to

Coast Guard David on location at Camber Sands
J.A & J.J Hyatt at Marina Cafe, Camber Sands

Tailoring assistants

Debbie Wood & Debbie Rains

Clothes sourcing
Stephanie Strause
Wesley Conner
Bex Caudell

Finalising the Music With Our Film

After playing our film with both tracks to friends and tutor Dennis, we found our initial reaction was correct in that both track could work really well in the final film, but one had something more than the other.

(FILM+MUSE)

This is the Muse 'Exogenesis: Symphony Part Three Redemption' track with our film. This track we felt was beautiful and gave the film a feminine soft melancholic film. It was perfect for letting natural sounds of wind waves and talking layered into the film with out having to play with the volume to much. It is a naturally calm and open song with areas of quiet slowley layering and building to a peak, then descending and dwindling to a finish. It has a section of singing in the middle with main lyrics 

Lets start this over again

Why can't we start it over again?

Just let us start it over again

And we'll be good

This time we'll get it, get it right

It's our last chance to forgive ourselves

These are really meaningful powerful lyrics at the peak of the song and we think they sound melancholic themselves applying to many things relationships, the world and its climate etc both things that would relate to the film. 

(FILM+LINKINPARK)

This is the Linkin Park 'Session' track with our film

There is something about this track that works so well with the film transforming it into a completely different one just through the music. We learnt how much an affect music can have and how powerful it is at translating a mood and atmosphere. This track has no lyrics but builds up with a drum beat and electronic sounds( not your stereotypical melancholic track) the smooth steady introduction of a pianos tune brings a ghostly calm to the track that feels a little sorrowful and works in that way. The layering of other instruments makes the film more angry and edgy. I can imagine this film having more of an impact on big screen with our visuals. The track itself stops its beautiful piano melody and self destructs with digital, scratchy sounds. We can include this or fade it out some thing to confirm.

Dennis felt this is a case of personal preference. Showing Geraldine may help our decision.

Press Release Draft Comments

Today Dennis took a look at the first draft  Press Release Heidi and i had written. We had taken quite a while to implement the necessary elements of a press release and found ourselves grappling around for the appropriate phrases at times.

Denis said that all the information was there it just needed editing and moving around.

PRESS RELEASE TEXT

Key things to change are:

• Change the beginning so it is punchy and interesting:  Your invited to view the extraordinary collaboration of up and coming fashion designer Marko Mitanovski, and film making duo Heidi Wood and Gemma Seager.
• Put dates and times in a later paragraph
• Don't reference long lists of magazines Marko's clothing has been in: ... every where from Ponytail to Glass Sublime! 
• Change the Font so it is more appropriate to fit the film and designer: We must make sure it is universally fitting for the market we are aiming for, but also others who read it.
• Read the whole thing out to each other and make sure it makes sense and flows.
• Refine the description of the visuals: (When describing the purpose of the landscape in relation to the clothing) ... the combination of landscapes and the narrative help give the clothing a life force of its own. 

PRESS RELEASE IMAGE

The image was a success. We printed a colour version for Dennis to see the original. We thought the colours in the original were much to strong and pulled away from the melancholic feeling we were aiming for. However Denis thought the vibrant blue sky was strong enough to differentiate the image if it were sat on a desk with many other press releases. It was suggested to edit the image from colour to part black and white leaving the vibrant blue sky (as shown below)

We think this image is really effective and will have to see on printing it if it is better than the entirely black and white one. I think due to the fact the character is in high contrasting black and white and that she has a melancholic expression and body language the colour of the sky may not interfere to much. This image needs further editing once more with lightening shadows in the background and removing unwanted blades of grass!  

Editing Process: Part 6

Today we focused on making the film flow and work smoothly. Unfortunatley we had not forseen how long the overall event The Cut 2010 meeting werre going to take and Heidi in particular being the PR leader got really stressed. I think it was because we were so near the end of our film we just wanted to get on and finish it making it as great as possible! We finally sat down together at 2pm with solid editing i had bought my lap top into uni so we could muti task on editing the film and finalising the  press release. This was a really successful way of working as we could do sections of the project at the same time bouncing ideas off each other.  Heidi has very strong strengths in the final Cut Program as she has used it before so it was far quicker for her to sit at the computer clicking and doing it and i could help direct and evaluate every other minute.

Whilest we were finalising our film we got a technician to show us how to take High Quality Tiff screen grabs so that i could move on to the Look book we wish to create. I have strengths in photoshop and during the course of creating this film it was so clear we had enough stunning still imagery to create something and we both felt it would be a shame not to make something out of it for a press goodie bag. The tecncian went through the following process of (file...export... quick time conversion...curser on timeline on clip... format...still image...tiff) Sadley the white dress images came out pixelated from the film and we had many more images of the black outfits. Heidi and i made tohe desision to make a look book for what we would call, Marko Mitanovski's 'Black collection' We grabbed come wonderful scenic clips of the beech and also the roses which will be nice to reiterate the film. Creating this  Look Book became extremely fun and rounds off the project nicely. We were careful in the decision to produce one making sure it did not pull away from the important element of the project, our film. During the day and later this evening time flew by as i played with the imagery using black and white, fading lighting, high contrast and blurring our images so in the end i had quite a range to use not only for the look book but also Dvd cover and finalised press release tweeks like removing blades of grass and lightening shadows.

Through the time we spent editing Heidi managed to smooth the flow even further shortening scenes we were advised to and ones we both felt were dragging chopped unnecessary chunks off also.We also thought cross fading from selected clips and layering images over to change scenery polished the film further. We kept bugging our tutors where possible to get constant constructive criticism, we found that where we spent long days at a time staring at the computer screen and all the footage we had the impact was not a strong as when we had first watched it we needed fresh eyes where possible. It was easy to spot something thats amazing that worked, but to correct and find out what is wrong with an 'ok' bit is far harder.

The sequence in the film was changed with swapping small sections near the end but also importing old clips we had discarded last week. Music was the next hurdle to go. We had as blogged brained stormed through a large amount of music finalising on two tracks, one by Muse the other Linkin Park. Both pieces gave the film completely different qualities and changed the viewer perception of the characters emotions in different ways.  We played the film with both tracks through it several times playing it to tutor Dennis. Denis mentioned that it is a personal thing at the end of the day and that we ultimately have to decide. It was decided Muse was the song most fitted to our brief but also allowed us to experiment with natural sounds which worked well. Tomorrow we will get Geraldines opinion on the film and song choice as she is a film expert and can help us with fresh critical eyes get to where we want to be.


We like other groups have found it a struggle to create the project using just university time in the computer rooms, its a shame we could not put our money together and get the final cut program however we didn't  have £800 readily available so cramming into the working day was how it would be.

Below shows what we hope to be the final draft of our film:

Look Book- Choosing and Editing The Images

Deciding to make a look book is a really good way of showing potential clients, VIPs and any other viewer the clothes up close and gives a strong still image that encapsulates key moods of the film. We chose the best images for mood, composition and quality, then edited them in photoshop. We felt the following images are the best.

For this image i changed the colour to black and with and have used Photoshop to remove a stray blade of grass that was at the front of the dress and lightened up shadows in the grass and sand dunes. This image is our favorite for the press release as it is powerful in atmosphere and contrast. We like the way the character is off to the right allowing a nice space for the text of the press release.

This image has been edited by taking the colour out of it and lightening shadows. We loved the spacing in this image completely different to the first image it has potential to be a front cover for a Dvd. This image conveys the sorrowful side to melancholy in an overwhelming way using the clothing as a metaphor, the volumes of fabric swamp the character as does the emotion in her face.

We really liked this image as a close up of the makeup and hair styling and the details on the top half of this first look. The image has been cropped and the colour taken away to be black and white, which as with the other images creates drama and high contrasting colours. The problem with this image though is it was taken by chance, and that i am infact on the phone. If I had not just typed this you may not have noticed, but we don't think we can afford to risk this image as it is going into a final proffessional look book. 

STILLS FROM OUR FILM

Testing out black and white, lighting, saturation and tones

Finalised Press Pack and Costings

Look Book

Gifts

Business Cards

With Thanks Card

Costings for Press Pack

Rainham Sewing Centre: Black Fabric, Sequins, Beads- £6.29

Hobby Craft:Black Leaves and Twigs, floral sequins, rose corsage: £9.14

Music and Film Review

Looking at our film footage in its almost complete state we started to try and put music to it from our long ever growing list previously posted. Whilst ploughing through the music i had the sense that Sigur Ros would work better than any of the others, however when playing the film and the music together their music sounded a little to optimistic for the melancholy feel we are looking for. There are 6 possible Sigur Ros ones we thought were appropriate and may come back to based on final out come.

Heidi and i felt Muse 'Exogenesis Symphony Part 3 Redemption' worked the best for a melancholic feel however i thought Linkin Park 'Session' was amazing as with the current timing it emphasises the dramatic build up.  Due to its guitar and rock/grunge vibe im not sure if it takes away the melancholic feel we are aiming for. It may just be that it is one of my personal favourite songs from the bunch we are looking through we will have to finalise through further experiments!

Muse- Exogenesis Symphony Part 3 Redemption



Linkin Park- Session

Sourcing The Marko Mitanovski Look

Borrowed

Large black net train

Short black tutu used for volume


Our Own Resources

Black nail varnish (Mine)

Long black lace dress (Heidi)

Small black corset (Heidi)

Black cut out lace up gloves (Heidi)

Black beaded choker (Heidi)

Black drop earrings (Mine)

Short lace black dress (Heidi)

Black lace vest (Mine)

Black leggings (Mine)

Large black tutu (Mine)

White tailored jacket (Heidi)

White corset (Heidi)

Total Costings

Making the Outfits and Filming MINUS food, drinks and car repairs!! 


Over the past couple of months we bought bits and bobs for this project, my bank statement came in and i got a shock at the grand total. All i can say is thank god we both work and that it has definitely taught us how much these things cost. I often wonder if it is a bad thing juggling a job and being a student but I think there are times where they can work out for the better and this project would not have been possible without extra income. It also made us think about other possible sources we could have gone to to create these looks, bearing in mind we owned the majority of sources already, it was a suprise. We understood that in the industry there would be tight budgets especially in the current economic climate for industries like fashion, its all about who you know and networking and we learnt this even more so through our experience.

Rocket Rochester: Embroidered tights(unused) ruffled black scarf, corset = £57.97

Anne Summers: Lace up PVC Stockings = £20

Hobby Craft: Black twigs and leaves, floristry wire, white stuffing, black fabric, white fabric: £24.15

Newlook: black see through dress = £10

H&M: x2 hair bands, black flower corrsage = £12

Rainham Sewing Centre: black net, black voile, safety pins, sewing pins = £12.97

Just Fabrics Chatham: White and Black net, White cotton and White polyester = £17.98

Boots:  false eyelashes, baby wipes, eyeliner, foundation = £13.43

Chockers: Platform Heels  = £25

Sainsburys: Plain White long sleeved top, x3 tights = £9

Boots: x2 False eyelashes, lipstick = £15

Marks & Spencer: Tulips = £2.99

Marks & Spencer: Rose boquet = £10

Petrol: £100

Parking: £20


TOTAL = £350.49

Creating the Press Pack

Press Pack

Over lunch we decided that it would be good experience to also produce a press pack, something that will need to be done for the overall Cut 2010 event, but also in the real world would happen for the viewing of a film. The purpose of our press pack would be to inform and give the viewer something to remember the designer by but also the film and its visuals. The presspack would also be able to be passed on and have neccessary contact details for new people to find out about our details and also Marko's collection. We coincidently both put our names down for PR in the event so this will be good experience to promote our film, something i will enjoy doing to finish off all our hard work :D

Things we would include in the Press Pack

• Press Release
• A DVD of the final film, pluss the sound track of our chosen piece of music. (This could be a sponsor and further promotion for the artist/s)
• DVD cover- we talked over the concept of an original design relating to Marko's clothes and particularly the styled head piece we made. This cover would be eye catching and link to the fashion promoters and film producers. A lot of effort and time was took to create the out fits (something that would be given to promote in industry) a running through theme will make sure everything is tight and professional. The case would have wire and leaf designs of the same materials used for the head piece. (experimenting with different designs will be something to document.)
• A draw string black bag (purchased or made) with a gift for our guest: A Hand made versatile creation of black wire, used as a hair pin, clip or broach. Possibly a rose or leaf construction linking the film again.  
• Along with the gift we will put Marko Mitanovski's business card as well as our own business card. 
• Another gift idea is to make a ruffle bracelet to mimic the style of the elizabethan collar constructions that influenced some of Marko's work. On small scale this could appeal to viewers and once again be a small motif/reminder of the experience we are creating. Due to the fact it will be once again handmade and exclusive to our guest viewers they should feel special and glad they had attended. We don't want the clothing to be to unaccessible and doing this can almost create a mini trend for styling ideas.
•  We want to create a look book complete with stills from the film and close up shots of the clothing. This can show the guest Markos clothes a little more clearly and they can re visit them as a two minute film can be punchy but only two minutes worth of footage, something to remember from the top of their heads. Do we implement prices for the garments or would Marko give a price on request is something to consider. The Look Book will be created using photoshop and Indesign in a minimal way so the press pack is clean and striking.
• A 'with thanks' card that will include all credits and contacts that helped to produce the film, ultimately gaining them publicity and showing our network.
• A mini bottle of champagne is the final gift, something that is unisex and although our film is clothing for women and promoting Marko as the designer we won't invite women only. We want male viewers to feel equally appreciated
• The press pack bag will be plain black, possibly with eyelits and decorations that link to everything else. (experiments will be documented of this to)

Hopefully our press pack would be successful, in the real world budget would be something to consider and is with our case also as students! We will make one press pack for the project however many would be made for the guest of our event, we will find out if it is a realistic concept as we move on. 

Press Release

Following our lecture by Dennis on writing a press release we felt confident we know what we are doing. Today over lunch we started our press release.
Below shows the first draft of the Press release:

PRESS RELEASE

(FILM TITLE) invites you on the 22^nd April 2010 at 5.30pm , University for the Creative Arts, Rochester, in Lecture Theatre 2,  to escape into a world that contrasts restriction and power with freedom and movement. Our Melodrama portrays a character locked in an unrequited love for Marko and his creations. Visuals of private words, illustrations and symbolic motifs flow through the fashion story. In this sequence of events colour plays with the metaphoric meaning, making the clothes part of the narrative from black gothic grandeur, morphing into a white sophisticated silhouette. 

We are students making a film collaborating with up and coming fashion designer Marko Mitanovski. His creations have been featured in the following magazines Page Magazine, SQM Magazine, Vision Magazine, Dazed Digital, Elle Magazine, Grazia, Noise Magazine, Glass Sublime, Qliz Magazine, l’Officiel Magazine, Drama Magazine, Pony Tail etc. His work is being flaunted by Lady Gaga in the recent issue of Q magazine, and also show cased in her current ‘The Fame Monster 2010 tour’.

In the designers own words his high contrast clothing is ‘looking back to the historical and infusing the fierce dominatrix character with elegant S&M’ (interview with Marko for SQM magazine)

Having broken into the Polish Fashion industry since 1998, Markos next target is London. Our film shows Marko’s fierce creations in a dreamy poetic light, with undertones of Melancholy. The vision arose from vast supernatural landscapes combined with a love loss narrative the clothing is given a life force of its own.

Described as the next Alexander McQueen, Marko’s Autumn Winter 2010 collection featured in our film is not to be missed.

Contacts 

Heidi Wood

Mobile: 07963506657

Email: hlwood_1989@hotmail.co.uk

Production of(TITLE): Heidilouisewood.blogspot.com

Gemma Seager

Mobile:07935199308

Email:GemmaSeager01@hotmail.co.uk

Production of (Title): gemmaseager.blogspot.com

When writing our press release we kept in mind it had to fit to the market we are aiming for (the avant guard, creative, young and inspirational). We also had to introduce and sell our selves, something i find quite tricky as i am not one to show off. This is something i will have to strengthen to get somewhere in this industry. I have written a press release before but not for my own work, i have written one for a new  singers fashion collection (MIA). It was easy to write in a way aimed at her fans with her language. We have to find our own voice here. From the lecture we learnt we had to explain why our film was original, quirky, different, essential and why it stands out from other films. We intend to layer the text over an image from our film so the reader will get a strong impact and initial view of our film. We have to make sure the writing is legible to. Something else we need to think about is a punchy name for our film and catchy sub heading. 

TITLES BRAINSTORM

 Our press release must, inform, be accessible, be universal for several markets as well as our target one so we can ultimately get noticed and get people to the event. At the moment i think we have achieved this however it is a bit long and wordy, i think we need to find a way of simplifying with out loosing information. I think showing Dennis or Peirs will help this. 


Through explaining our designers back ground and name dropping key people he has worked with this promotes the clothing (the reason why this film would be made in the real world) We have used a lot of descriptive language to explain our film, its concept and the designers creations. We found a quote from an interview with Marko as its good to have facts to back up what you are saying and give the reader another angle. We have to be careful not to over promote our designer as we are suppose to shine here. 


Contact details are important for new leads. Our press release is not vague it just needs editing down as a press release is not an editorial. I hope the image lets the viewer feel intrigued by the styling as the styling pulls from many influences yet is trying to be new. I would like the image to be another element that pulls viewers in to see the film. 

Joelle Vosper Film Review

During the time Heidi and i were filming we missed a showing of films tutor James thought valuable to us.
Luckily we have been given the films on disc to view as important reference material. Even though we are well on our way to editing the film, something could deeply inspire us and change our view of our own film. Joelle C Vosper's work is a collection of student films which is wonderful to see other students than classic well known references. These would have been created by students going through a learning process the same way we are.


Joelle Vosper is a BA Hons Fashion Promotion graduate, she started in 2006 at the Univesity for Creative Arts Rochester. The DVD James has leant us is a collection of lots of her work with different influences films photographs and moving stills.


When watching the films we chose to look at the lighting and composition throughout, just for impact in the way the film has been pieced together and put in an order. We also took note of transitions from story section to section and also clothing changes. This is because this is what we were working on for our film.


(Video 0014)
Rochester House Shoot-MIchelle Vaughan, Amarilli Wiseman, Kalea Mbayi, Sofia Vourdanou, Eurydice Butoyi, Hannah Jarvis, Nadia Butt, Stying by Janice Furneaux, assistant stylists Gemma Falcone and Simona Mohan, photography by Rikard Osterlund, filmed and produced by Joelle Vosper.

This short film is very atmospheric and moody one especially with the backing track, its a shame they did not put the music in the credits as this is something i wish to know and will include in our own film. The film uses spinning and rotating around the room fast to set the scene. It then uses layering and fading with a hand held camera to introduce the model character and continues to do so in a documentary jumpy way, but with a fading quality that keeps the film smooth. The are areas where shots of movement jumping from one position to another are used to expresses a sequence from one place to another but in breaking it up and jumping it is a shorter clip. The film is shot like a documentary of a shoot, it uses dark lighting in the room, natural day light from outside, flashing studio lights and diffuser boxes. We like the way the fading has been used and the way calculated moments of jumpy footage explain a narrative but in a short amount of time (good for our short film) This is noticeable in a close up of the photographer shooting the model near the fireplace, he jumps from kneeling to standing in less than a second, it also worked with the music.


(Video 0015)
Alisha- styling by Laura Power, model Alisha Petty, filmed by Joelle Vosper


This film straight away we could see was influenced by David Linch Particularly 'Lost Highway'
from the way it was shot on a hand held camera, to the eery music quite in areas louder in other, unclear soft blurry lighting from street lights, a creepy mask and even a car with its full beams on. This film has used repeat sections of the same imagery emphasising particular movements and good at leting the viewer see the clothing the model is wearing. The full beam car lights look to be lighting the model however studio lighting could have been used. We like the way the shots range from close ups of the legs moving up to the midriff focusing on sections of the clothing (which appears to be night dresses and sheer lingerie). Out of focus shots and compositions of the model centre frame and far left or right add clips to the film. We have tried to build our film up in this way with shots from different angles and the character positioned at specific areas of the frame. We also have lots of close up shots of our clothing so the overall film should be very dynamic.


(Video 0017)
The Missing- Nicole, Bonnie, filmed and produced by Joelle Vosper

This fim is set on a sandy beach just like our concept however the film uses different techniques of extreme whitening and fading, combined with white clothing the effect is very bleached out with dreamy music serene. The film uses jump cut throughout a sequence to speed up events but in a faded smooth way to speed up time in a calm way. This is another film that uses hand held shaky camera movements as a medium. The music behind this film is very angelic church choir music suiting the visuals and giving a holy atmosphere. The mood changes however with a few unsettling guitar stings and the characters feet dragging in the sand away from the sea, the viewer is not sure what has just happened whether she has just drowned her self in the water or if another character has murdered her :S We liked the way the camera was held as still as possible for this scene with a little swaying and movement as line is drawn in the sand half way down and all the way across the screen. The scenes are collaged with fading bright white movements of sand sea and sky until you are not sure what is what. It gives the feeling that time is passing.


(Video 0018)
Run Away Girl- model Harriet LaMont, filmed by Joelle Vosper

This film is beautifully shot in black and white, the styling and clothing contrasting beautifully with the woodland background, leafless trees pale sky and floor. The character has dark hair and eyes with dark clothing so it is all well considered for composition. The film uses eery music but in a different way to Lynch the music has a slow tempo with the occasional shrill notes creating tension and slight horror from string instruments and tin harpsichord- (an instrument from the baroque period like a piano but with strings. The keys on a traditional piano are black and white the harpsichord are inverted white and black keys) Shot on a hand held camera the film uses close ups of the female character of her face and clothes. The 'runaway girl' is shot looking around in a mysterious way layering repeat clips, and fading from scenes to scenes.

We have noticed signature traits that Joelle Vosper uses like the layering, fading, hand held quality, speeding up time and slowing down sections in a colaged sequence to describe a rough narrative. Some of the films are also left in a way that lets the viewer think about what is happening in the plot.