Squid Media Ireland

OK, so I said I would update weekly – then we had another bout of technical issues¹, and I figured you were all getting sick of my contast updates of “It’s almost ready”, so decided to hold off until I had something worthwhile to share, add or whatnot.

And here we are – with the posters for the Hollow Girl underway I thought I would post them here for some feedback. Click on the image for a better look:

These went through a few designs, with images of the tree and the charm on them, but after Ambrose and I looked at other horror movie posters we found that they are better if have some image of the creeper² on them.
Steve³ and I are looking into some tag lines⁴ and if we create one we like I’ll insert it somewhere on these posters.

So any thoughts? Would you go see this film based on these posters? Fancy throwing you own ideas for a tag line into the melting pot?
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¹ Not to worry – it all seems to be back on track!
² I’ve decided randomly to use this as a generic term for the villain of horror movies
³ Writer/Producer Steve
⁴ That one liner thing you see on posters

I want to share with you some of the things that are happening in post production with HG. I have included four different scenes from the film in their various stages.
The images are compressed for the web and are incomplete, so please excuse the quality.

figure 1a – clean plate of a shot from the opening atmosphere montage

figure 1b – Vfx – colours have been changed to make it more gloomy & early morning

figure 1c – grade – the whites and blacks have been crushed to give better contrast. The colours have been pushed into a murky blue green to add an eerie atmosphere

figure 2a – another clean plate of a shot from the opening atmosphere montage

figure 2b – grade – Again, the whites and blacks have been crushed to give better contrast and the colours have been pushed into a murky blue green to add an eerie atmosphere

figure 3a – clean plate of the kids coming out to play in the field. Our focus shoul dbe Kate (the girl at the back in green), but the pink top at the front draws the eye to it

figure 3b – Vfx – we have pulled out the colours of the girl’s top, muting it. Now she fits the colour palette of the other extras and hopefully the eye will be drawn back to Kate

figure 3c – grade – a less extreme version of the earlier green grades – still holds a somewhat gloomy atmosphere but also, when combined with how the camera moves, emphasises Kate as her green natural colour palette is made that little bit more vivid (hard to see in a still image, you’re gonna have to trust me on this )

figure 4a – clean plate of the green screen sequence when the camera moves into the car while they are driving

figure 4b – background plate shot from a moving car

figure 4c – Vfx – basic compositing of the background plate behind the main image. Not the most convincing of fx, but it would probably go unnoticed as is

figure 4d – Vfx – selling the shot. We have added more blur to the background to fit the depth of field used in the rest of the film. Also some ligft wrap has been added around the window frame. Then the colours of the main plate have been shifted to match the background plate – afterall light reflects off it’s environment. Finally a series of moving images, such as branches have been added over the main image to simulate light blockages as in a real car. You can just about make one out above – a nice technique for selling the shot as long as it isn’t overused

figure 4e – grade – finally the foreground and background plates have been graded to make it late evening, which it is in the script

Anyways, once the full film is graded, grain and a slight vignette will be added to complete that ‘film’ look.

So, what do you think?