The finished film Trailer

Here is a youtube link to our finished film trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsB0LbdL0DU

...Here is our storyboard...

Magazine ideas and the final product

On the left is a draft copy of our poster in progress. The photograph is of "the baddy" in the trailer. We chose to use him for the photograph because on other magazines we analysed, the majority use the criminal as a main character to interview.

The title of the magazine is written in bold so that the audience can quickly see what they are reading. Layering was used to overlap the photograph with the title so that it didn't look so rigid and like everything was just placed without thought.

Where it says "Top films of '10" there will be a list below. This will act as a preview of what to expect in the magazine. This is the same for the wrtiting at the bottom about Hugh Grant and Brad Pitt.

After looking at this, we decided that the colour needs to be changed to red in order to tie in with the rest of the products we have made.

On the right hand side is a copy of the final poster. As you can see we have changed the background theme to red. The blue circle at the top is the main part which says about the our film. It tells you what it is called and also who actor in the film/front cover is.

Underneath this, there is a list of articles you will see in the magazine. This has been added in so that it looks like a magazine and not just another poster.

As well as this, we have stuck with the typical conventions by writing the date at the top, a barcode and a price.

This has been made using Adobe photoshop. Techniques used, include layering of the photo and words written within the title. The actual photograph itself was part of a bigger picture, so alot of time had to be spent using the 'lasoo' tool to cut him out. After this, he had to be reshaped using the 'rubber' tool, otherwise the edges wouldn't have been smooth.

On most of the magazines we analysed, there was a background image linking in the character and the film, instead of just a colour block. We chose to challenge this convention. After experimenting with photos behind, we decided that they made the page looked too busy, so we settled for a plain background. As a whole this looks more effective.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Here are all three of the products we have produced. We have linked all of them together by using a red theme throughout. The actor in the magazine, is featured in the film and also is written on the poster so you know who he is.

As a group we chose the colour red as it gives connotations of evil. The way that the colour runs throughout is very effective to us and to the viewre becasue it is consistent and gives the product as a whole a theme.

Initial poster ideas

Above are a selection of our initial posters. They were designed for our first trailer which we had called "manor house", but due to difficulties with our filming locations, we had to change the name of the movie. therefore the poster had to be changed as well.

1) Poster number one would have been the final piece if we had kept our "Manor house" idea. The peachy/dirty looking background was the best colour we found as it didn't draw the eye away from the main images. It also looked the best behind the red lettering.

2) This poster is the same as poster 1, but it has a green background and a hazy middle picture to add effect. We felt that the green just didn't match any of the rest of the poster and looked a bit odd. This didn't matter too much as it was only experimental and we went on to change the background colours and overall effect.

3) Again, this is the same poster just witha red background. we liked this version as all the features seemed to work together, however it still looked a bit bland. I think that where there isn't and sort of fading or effects added to it, it may look slightly unproffessional.

4) Here is the first draft of our final poster. We all liked the idea of an eye, with a photo of a person crouching down photoshopped into the pupil. The only thing wrong with this, is the colour, which i have talked about in "The final poster" part of the blog.

Probleams incurred...

• The photo of the man was part of a larger photograph. Therefore he had to be cut out and placed on a seperate layer.
• So it looks like he is looking into a mirror, there needed to be a line around the circle. There was problems with this because we couldn't get the line to run in a circle without looking fake, or clashing with the other photo. In the end a new poster had to be made with various different layers to be able to make it work.
• Finidng the right colour combinations was a problem because they either didnt work or looked unprofessional.

The Final Poster

Final idea...

On the left is a preview of our finished poster. After creating a few draft posters, we finally decided on the idea of having an eye as the main image. As a group we thought that an eye was appropriate as the film is called "watching".

• From doing research into colour connotations, the colour red represented blood, aggression and danger. Seeing as the genre of our film is horror, the colour red seemed to be a good choice so that the audience can automatically get a feel for what the film may include.
• The font that has been used is called "Times and times again". We experimented with a few other font types, including "Black Chancery" and "Baskerville" , but neither of these seemed to be right. The font we have used for the final poster gives and edgy feel and is typical to that on other movie posters we looked at.
• A typical movie poster has the titles at the bottom, so to give extra effect to our poster, we have included the names of our production company (KLM Productions) , our names, editors and photography directors. Again we used the same font as above, just much smaller so the attention is still drawn to the title.
• Finally, the cinema release date was added and also we put the South Downs college logo at the bottom. This logo acts as a symbol for "the studio" of where the film was edited and as a group we thought this gave a nice touch to the finished poster.

• This is a screenshot of our first draft. It still includes the same eye image and the photo of the person crouching down in the pupil, however the colour is an icy blue.
• We liked the idea of the eye, but decided that the blue colour gave of the wrong connotations. Instead of being seen as a horror film, the blue gave of too much of a subtle feeling to it. After playing around with a few different colours, we chose to stick to the red, as seen above.

On the right is the photograph used to create the poster. Photoshop was used to create the final poster.

"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

Trailer

In order to start planning our film trailer, we needed to look at exsisting trailers in the horror/ scary movie genre. Above are some screenshots of the way text is used. This will be useful, because we will need to have text in our trailer.

1. The first screenshot shows text being used to tell the audience when the film will be showing, the web address so they can look it up and also at the bottom, it says the production company. There is not much text on the page, but it has all the key points needed. They have kept to the SAW theme by having a red, misty background and the letters VI behind the main text in order to show that this film will be like the other sequels.


2. Another title sequence that featured at the start of most trailers, was the green page with the text: "The following preview has been approved for appropriate audiences by the motion picture association of America, INC." This is a type of disclaimer used, so that the audience and company know that the film has been approved and is appropriate for viewing. We wouldn't need to have this at the start of ours, but to add effect we may choose to create our own.


3. Screenshot three came from the Sorority Row trailer and is an example of text being used to narrate what is happening. This can be used very effectivley in some cases as it adds tension, but is also used to tell the audience what may happen in the film without giving too much away.


4. Screenshot four is of the Title to Final Destination. We thought this one was a good example as it is very simple, yet tells the audience exactly what film it is. You can tell by the dark and smokey background that it will be of the horror genre. We will be using something like this in our trailer when we get to the title part
   

So that our trailer conformed to the conventions shown above, we used photoshop to design the title sequence. Instead of using "imovie", which had limited fonts, backgrounds and editing tools, photoshop enabled us to create a title as follows:



After creating this title sequence, we found out that it couldn't be imported into imovie. Therefore we had to make a title in imovie itself. Although it doesn't fit in as well as the photoshopped one would, we still used a similar font and went with the colour white.

Poster

On the left is a poster from the film "The Eye". A sepia tone has been used to give an effect of dullness and mystery. The film itself is about a person who gets an eye transplant, then after this then start seeing paranormal things. The effect of having the fingers coming out of the eye is clever as it gives the idea of another person behind the eye, trying to escape. The dull sepia colour also plays a huge part in the overall feel of the poster. The browns and blacks make the poster eery and creepy, rather than having bright colours with make up on the eye which would give the opposite effect of a happy person with nothing to fear.

The writing at the bottom predominantly shows the title and main star of the film. Underneath this is a list of things including producers, directors, production companies and filming locations etc.

To give our poster the appropriate conventions, we decided to use the eye theme (seeing as our film is called "Watching") and we also put in the list of people involved and out production company at the bottom. We needed to keep these in, otherwise it would of just looked like a picture, and not a poster to advertise something:

Magazine

Here we have a poster for the film "Terminator". The film title and caption are relatively small in comparison with the images that surround it, but is still big enough to stand out, particularly as it is white as opposed to the dark, sinister background. The main character is placed at the front, facing the camera. Half of his face has been cut off, perhaps implying that he is half man, half machine.

In order for our magazine to look like a professional one, we have kept the photograph at the front and the title of the film small but still big enough to be the main subject. The main purpose of a magazine is to cover the whole mainstream and sometimes art house films of the time. Therefore unlike the poster, we had to add in other media products and previews of what is included in the magazine: