Language conventions of Little White Lies: Nigel

Each of these reviews that feature in Little White Lies use advanced language which suggests the reader has prior knowledge of the film industry or just general knowledge around this subject.This isn't just a opinionated piece but a creative one, there are English techniques which build character and make it more enjoyable for the audience to read. The content of each paragraph is unique but usually talks about either director or actor, the narrative themes and their opinions after watching it, there usually are 5-6 of these paragraphs. The example below isn't correct as it is from the website, usually they are done in 3 columns and are roughly 550 words each.  

Language conventions of Little White Lies: Stephen

The typical convention that reviews follow are:

• Context of the film
• Infomation about the protagonist
• key themes/issue and plot
• narrative devices and an evaulation over the use
• use and adaption of genre conventions
• authors experience of the film
• summary sentence

Each review also uses complex language to fully grab the reader and emphasise the points that the author is making. Nouns are often used in all works of literacy, so it's expected to see them in a review. Metaphors are used often to show the authors response to the film, either positive or negative. Complex sentences are used throughout to compress the review into a much smaller size, allowing for more content and less repetition. 

 This is a review that follows Little White Lies' conventions of what a review should look like.
(Ignore formatting as this is taken from the website version. Typical reviews from Little White Lies come in 3 columns.) 

Paragraph 1: An introduction to the film-maker and context to the film.

Paragraph 2: More on the film-maker and also on the themes of the film.

Paragraph 3: More on the film-maker, a bit on the themes of the film and their desired demographic (dad film) and a bit of plot.

Paragraph 4: Introduces main characters of the plot, and their roles.

Paragraph 5: Themes and Genre of the film.

Paragraph 6: About how it conveys its themes and the job the writers played.

Paragraph 7: Steve Neal's repetition and VARIATION mentioned; "see through all that cloak and dagger bullshit", shows a change in the genre of spy films. 

Paragraph 8: Conclusion; "Call it the banality of goodness"- the author (Mentioned at the top instead of at the end, a divert from the written copy of LWL)- it shows that the goodness in the film is overused to a certain extent, however it's a good thing in this case- enforced by the ratings that back it up. 

Rough cut

Before the final film can be perfected, a rough cut was made. This has nearly all the video files in the right order with many of the special effects applied but none of which are refined. A large amount of the audio is still from the camera microphone and text is placed throughout the video as a note of what to do in future e.g. reshooting.

Clone shots:

The appropriately dubbed Clone shots are the shots in which our actress, Katy, is shown as both Eve and Lucy in the same frame. We have two full shots of this, and a third to introduce the concept of the two characters. The first clone shot is in Scene 3, right after the 'dance and run' shots. Eve slides down the brick wall and from the right, Eve comes in. This doesn't show both characters in the same shot but acts as a break in continuity. The audience registers this disruption and would come to the intended conclusion that they are two different people. If not, the fact they have Diegetic dialogue between them with eyeline match shows they are separate, at least in some ways. The way to refine these shots for the final edit is to add a feather to the edge of the overlaid video, masking the edge. Because there was a considerable amount of time between the two shots, the lighting had changed drastically. We attempted to make this as similar as possible, but fighting the sun is a lost battle. Lucy's footage can be colour corrected with a few Final Cut filters, then to have the video fade in. This way the footage won't be a jarring cut on half the frame. Editing the clone shots so that they are as clean as possible is a priority. If something is wrong about them, it'll be obvious and likely distract the audience.

Eve slides down the wall

Lucy moves in from the right. Visible edge of the overlay.

Reshooting:

During the original shooting days we were pressed for time, often trying to get several takes but on some occasions forgetting to do so, leading to bad, unusable takes. Other times, skimming over the script and storyboard and missing key shots.

First in need of reshooting was the car stall scene, or scene 1. The original take was too dark to make out anything, with the only light coming from the lamppost (which still work in apocalypse of course). This also has no synchronous sound recorded externally, which is the reason for the shoddy silent gaps.

The rest of the mistakes made are only single shots; for example, the tilt up at 5:26, which is need of redoing with a tripod. While the missing shots, like the wide crying shot at 5:11 weren't filmed in our original three days. While these shots are far and few between they bring everything else down, standing out considerably to any observant eye.

General Editing:

Because this is a rough cut, many of the cuts are not timed perfectly. Each shots are in the right order, but they need adjust either a second or two before or after it's current place. This is to adjust the timing and flow of each scene and make sure each transition is as seamless as possible.

Just about all the sound for the film is in need of editing. The first priority is making sure the synchronous sound is in the timeline and synced with each appropriate shot. After this it's foley then finally

Nigel's Poster Draft Design

I chose the image to be the center of attention because I think it has a perfect facial expression and allowed me to create the background that I wanted. I feel like this dark background seeming to surround Eve's Hallucination shows that she has a dark side to her. The text is white to stand out although I could include the logo and awards like a conventional film poster will usually have.

Final Poster(s)

For the Poster we unanimously decided to create our own drafts, and after some discussion on what worked, what didn't and what we still wanted to see in the poster, I (Ben) would create the poster. This was decided because while Stephen and Nigel have recently been introduced to photoshop, I began learning 5 years ago in Secondary School. I have uploaded each poster to my personal Flickr account and will provide a link to download if desired. I have chosen to submit both because I am unsure which adheres to mark scheme more.

The First poster follows my third draft with the Eve/Lucy reflection. The title has been moved across the entire length of the poster, so as not to obstruct the subject of the poster, Katy. The cracks in the title were kept to signify the broken state of Eve and how Lucy is a splinter or chip from Eve. Bar two exceptions, everything is justified with a 0.5cm border around the edge. While this was my personal idea and I like the results, it is not my favourite as it is somewhat sparse. The different facial expression in the reflection is also not as clear as I'd like, making it seem odd when viewed for the first time instead of clear. This can be used as an advantage, reflecting the odd themes of our film, but that may need a professional graphic designer to pull it off.

Poster 1 Download

The second poster follows my second draft and is my favourite of the two, having been made after I saw the problems with the first poster. This portrait design is, as I found, able to hold what we wanted in the poster much better than the landscape. Having taken two different images I was also not restricted in what to do with them, having resized both to be averagely the same size on the face. Despite not being photographed with a mirror, this still reflects the split personality of Eve and Lucy by splitting Katy's face in half. Moving the half faces to the edges of the poster provides a nice channel down the centre of the poster which I used to justify a lot of the text in the poster. Lucy's picture on the left was chosen out of the photoshoot because of the smirk and the hair partially covering the eye, reflecting the hidden and wicked nature of the character. The title is the exact same used in the previous poster, only adjusted to fit the poster at its largest size. The actor's names, justified in the centre, are more detailed than the first poster. Where many of the texts were simply copied over for speed, this poster presented more opportunities. Katy's name is the largest as she is the main actress, while Stephen's and Nigel's names are smaller for their smaller roles in the film. This highlights Katy's name but also showcases Nigel and Stephen as actors in the film.

Poster 2 Download

Poster Drafts - Ben

For all our poster drafts we decided on shooting specific still images so that we could achieve the specific poster we desired with the right themes and ideas to reflect our film.

This first poster is my original idea. It shows both Lucy and Eve on an actual setting in the film. While this idea was good in concept, here both Lucy and Eve do not leave enough space for much else (i.e. cast and reviews). I like blocky title font and especially how the "Self" is dropped slightly above Lucy. this reflects how Lucy is splintered anger and instability of Eve. I do not believe this poster works as it does leave enough space for text, the background is too cluttered and Lucy and Eve are not big enough to make a difference.

This poster has what I would like to see in the poster. The cracked title reflects the split personality of Eve and how Lucy is a splintered or broken off version of Eve. I very much like this but it needs some slight changing.

This poster is two images overlaid on top of each other. I asked Katy to stay perfectly still as she lay on top of a mirror. I took one photo and asked her to change only her facial expression and took another photo. I then overlaid these images and put the divide line on the mirror. This gives a different face in the reflection, giving a visual representation of Lucy and Eve's relationship. The title again needs to be changed again, more so it goes along the top of the poster.

A draft poster design: Stephen

This is the draft design I have made for the poster idea, there are a few optional add-ons that could make it better (A translucent face of the hallucination in the background) but it shows the layout of the poster that I'd like to see. The lighting is definitely that which I'd like to take forward to our final idea. The credit block is to the lower right; a place in the poster that would have been left empty and our star name is large to the lower left.I like the idea of our protagonist in centre composition which shows the focus of the short film; whilst the houses in the background detial us where she is going.  The lighting is symbolic to her mood; dark.