03/02/2012 - Film Poster Research

The second part of our ancillary task is to produce a poster for our film 'Seized'. The poster for a film is an important aspect in promoting it to a wide audience and selling the film as a 'must see'. Below is three different posters which were produced for the action-thriller film 'Taken'. Throughout the production of making our film trailer we have focused upon the creation of the film 'Taken' and have therefore decided to look at the posters for the film. One of the posters is a French poster which has the words 'Il a 4 jours pour retrouver sa fille...' which translated into english means 'He has four days to find his daughter' giving the observer of this poster a clue as to the storyline in the film. Although the film is in English, it is set in France so therefore the producers of this film have chosen to make a poster which will appeal to a french audience. This poster shows the main male character running through the streets of Paris where his daughter has been abducted. He is shown to be running and to the left of this image is a faded image of his daughter to remind us what the film centers around. In bold, red text, the title of the film 'Taken' is written vertically to the left of the poster which immediately grabs the attention of the person reading it. I like this poster but I feel that it would be difficult to produce a poster similar to it as ours is less action packed, however I do like the use of another faded image layered on top of the existing image.

Another poster which was made for the film 'Taken' shows the protagonist male character as the focal point and image of the poster. He is seen holding a gun and dressed smartly in a suit with a look of determination to find his daughter. I am not fond of this poster as it looks rather dull and the colour scheme is mainly greyish washed out colours. I feel that it does not attract my attention and if anything it perhaps puts me off wanted to watch the film because I would suspect that it is a film which requires a lot of my attention and thought or could be a male type film purely about action and not a lot about a story line. I do like the similar use of placing the title of the film vertically to the left of the poster and the title written in bold letters.

The last poster included in the gif is significantly different in design to the other two. Although it is darkly coloured; the background is black, the text is grey and the image of the main character used is also darkly lit. This poster is my favourite of the three because the image of a familar character in the film is used and a phrase from the film is layered over this picture to tell the reader about something that happens in the film and to make them stop for a second and read "I don't know who you are but if you don't let my daughter go I will find you and I will kill you". Not only do I like the use of speech from the film, I also like the positioning and design of the title of the film which is located at the bottom of thesised in orange/red text in stark contrast to the dark colour scheme of the entire poste

The posters for the film 'The Shining' differentiate in style and the aspect of the film that they focus on and illustrate. I have made a gif demonstrating three of the most famous posters for the film. Each poster is quite different; one shows the face of the main character with a menacing and frightening pose. The other includes an image of the lifts being flooded which is a key event in the film and the final poster shows the iconic image of the 'Here's Johnny!' moment where he appears through a hole in the wall to his wife.

After looking at the text used in each poster it is clear that the same font and colour is used for the words 'The Shining'. By using the same text and making the font red, is makes the name of the film more memorable for the audience when they see it advertised in other places and the red connotates the danger in the film. My favourite poster of the three would be the one which is simple and focuses on just an image of the main character's face. I like it because it isn't a complicated poster and allows the audience to focus on the title of the film and the face that is see almost growling at them! The colours are dark and allow for the text which is in red and white to stand out. The director of the film is mentioned above the title and the names of the two main actors in the film are shown below the image.

15/11/2012 - Conventions of a Film Magazine Front Cover

I am going to focus on this magazine front cover as I feel that it will be relevant to the process in making our very own cover. I think that this is an appropriate front cover as the person on the magazine is Johnny Depp but in the character of Sweeney Todd from the film. The magazine is evidently about his character hence why he is in costume for the image. For our magazine front cover we have decided that we will dress our model in the same clothes that she wears when playing Lily in the our film trailer. This is because, it will continue to target our audience and they will be able to easily recognise and want to read this magazine.

The title of the magazine and a phrase underneath is located at the top of the magazine so that it is noticeable but does not take up too much room on the cover. The text is big and the white and blue colours are bold on a dark background.

The magazine cover also uses few words but ensures that they are significant and grab the readers attention!

I have also noticed that there is no bar code or pricing on this magazine so perhaps in our own magazine we won't include these two conventions as the design if simple and effective without them.

In contrast, this magazine cover has much more writing which I personally do not like as I think it detracts the reader away from the main figure in the centre of the cover. I have noticed that there is a barcode located in the bottom right hand corner and perhaps this suggests after further research that we should also include a bar code to make the magazine appear more legitimate and realistic.

14/11/2011 - Ancillary Tasks - Film magazine cover - Research

During the process of filming, we have reached certain points where we cannot film, for example, not having the appropriate equipment available to use. In the mean time, we have decided to begin our ancilliary tasks and I have independently chosen to research the film magazine covers which we will be making as well as a film poster. 

I like this magazine cover as it shows Johnny Depp in character as Sweeny Todd from the film so that it is recognizable to the reader. However, the cover demonstrates that the feature will be an interview with Johnny Depp, most likely about the film. The colour scheme is mainly pale colours like white and blue. They are cold and help reinforce the angry look on the actor's face. The title of the magazine is bold and other titles are also in a huge size font to draw attention to them. The layout of the text surrounds his face as it is the main feature of the cover. It is composed to have the image central and the main focus of attention and then text at the top and bottom about the contents of the magazine. It is simple and effective as it is not too much for the reader to observe and clearly illustrates what the main topic of the magazine will be.

The concept of this magazine cover is quite impressive and full of fantasy. The colour scheme is not too complicated or distracting and the red titles are bold and compel the reader immediately. The image used looks like one from the film so we instantly recognise that the main feature will be about the film Inception rather than just the actor himself. Empire is a renound film magazine so readers will most likely be inclined to read it anyway but the layout is tightly structured around the image.

I really like the title for 'Empire' magazine as I think it is memorable and clearly enables the reader to know that they are a big film company and the red immediately attracts attention.

Out of the three examples of film magazine covers, this is my least favourite. I think that the colours used do not compliment each other very well and and the bight yellow boxes are a distraction from the central image. The background is plain and has a picture of a skull which i'm not quite sure how it is relelvant. However, I do like the picture of film director, Quentin Tarantino used. I like the use of light on his face and the pose. I think that the rest of the cover is untidy and shows no clear layout.                                                                              

08/11/2011 - Editing the second set of clips

 For the second set of shots that we took we mainly focused on filming all of Lily's parts in the film trailer and then worked a small amount on shooting the other characters, Chelsea and Shannon, in the trailer. We filmed during daylight hours to allow us to just practise shooting these shots and to get a feel for the location. However, filming in daylight created shadows which we were unable to edit out and although we tried to use dark settings it is unrealistic and does not appear like a night time scene. Despite this, it has shown us that filming in daylight is not of use to us and we can improve our techniques by filming when it is darker and using other sources of light to create the right look.                                                                                                                                                                    

04/11/2011 - Trial Clips from 2nd Shooting

Here are just a few short clips from the second trial shooting that we filmed for our trailer. The issues that we had during the filming of these shots were that it was too light and there were unnecessary shadows that we could not hide when we edited the clips to create a night time effect.