Final Two Poster Drafts- Charlotte & Mae

Here is my final draft- Charlotte

• I decided that I needed a better image of Megan, as we decided it was best to not tell the audience that Megan has been murdered. We decided this so that there is an element of surprise and shock when they watch the film
• I moved my quote around as I think it looks better at the top of the poster rather at the bottom, as I wanted Megan's image to follow down to the bottom of the poster instead of it being cut short with writing underneath- visually i thought this layout looked better
• I've kept the writing of the title as i think it's effective and will look good in the film, i got this font from 'dafont' and it's called 'old press'
• I also thought the writing of the quote looked quite good in an old fashioned style hand writing- it looked more thriller like. The font is called 'Viner Hand'.
• I think over all its an effective poster as it creates mystery and confusion, i think it makes people become interested as it shows two females and 'False Witness' makes the audience question who will be the 'false witness'.

Here is my final draft - Mae

I have added a credit block and made the reviews complete by adding the stars in, I have also put an award in-between these reviews which I think works well.
I decided to align all of these up as I think it looks neat and allows the audience to read down the page. This also makes the 'REC' sign stand out more as it is away from the other text.

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I have cut the images better so they do not look as rough around the edges to make it look more professional. I did this using the 'magnetic lasso tool' on Photoshop and then zoomed in to make sure I had selected it all properly.












I also found a better image of a 'REC' symbol and used this instead as it was less fuzzy. I selected these again to make them straighter.
I think the recording symbol on the poster works well as it creates another dimension to the poster and creates enigma for the audience straight away as they're wondering what relevance this has to the film.

 We decided that the font that Charlotte used on her poster 'old press' was effective so I got this font from 'dafont' and put it on to the poster.

Because the font from 'dafont' is black writing on white writing, and my poster had a black background, I needed to change this so that the writing would be white. I did this on photoshop by inverting the colours.

Layout conventions of a Film Review- Imogen Salmon

Layout conventions of a Film Review- Candice Tyson

Layout conventions of a Film Review- Mae Webb

Here is an practise that we did of creating a template on In Design for a Little White Lies review. We used all of the technical details to create this and we can now use this as a template for our final review.

Layout conventions of a Film Review- Charlotte Hudson

 

• The review uses a variety of font types: 'Aparajita', 'Century Gothic' and 'Yahei'. The bulk of the text however is Aparajita.
• The use of bold capitals is also used a lot- to highlight important people and dates and also to highlight the categories of the review.
• Everything is center aligned, and the 3 columns of text are aligned with the image at the top of the review. The columns are justified to the left, however the very last column is justified to the right and so is the text in the review column.
• the column lengths are around 100mm and the width is 52.4mm
• The ratings are justified to the right and are in the font 'Century Gothic' and the different categories are all marked out of 5. 
• The first letter in the first column is 3 lines in depth and 5 letters wide and is also font 'Century Gothic'.
• The title is the boldest section of writing and you lower case letters, only capitalising the first letter of each word.
• Italics is used a lot throughout, when telling the reader who directed the film, started in the film and the release. Also used in the marked out of 5 columns (these are comments made by other reviews so are italicised for that reason.
• The image width never changes but the length varies depending on how much writing there is.

Technical details of Film Review for LWL- All Of Us

Overview of LWL- All Of Us

 

This information is taken from 250 UK readers of LWL

• The Target Audience for LWL seems to be the older audience (25-35) as 51% of people around this age read the magazine.
• 63% of readers are male, whereas only 37% are female
• Shockingly only 3% of under 18's read this magazine.
• This suggests that the older audiences enjoy learning more about films and are really interested in the film industry. It suggests that in their spare time they like to read and watch films, compared to an under 18 who would like to go out or play video games.

• This shows that 6% of males go to the cinema 11+ times per month, as 63% of males read LWL they could also be part of the 6% that visit the cinema the most.
• 22% of the LWL reader's survey go to the cinema 5-10 times per month, which suggests that a large bulk of the percentage of viewers go to the cinema often- from the information known about the main audience, majority of the 22% will be people aged between 25-35.
• The readers of the magazine, 93% of the readers keep the magazine and read it from front to back, this suggests that the audience of the magazine are real film fanatics
• 53% of the audience only read LWL and no other film magazine 

What is Little White Lies? 

• Little White Lies is a film magazine, that speaks about new films that are released. They hit a variety of film genres, Hollywood Block busters and Independent UK Films
• The magazine is aimed at film fanatics, that love knowing the ins and outs of actors etc within the films being released. 
• http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/ -- link to their website and the online version of the magazine

The Ancillary Task Two- Writing a Film review for LWL- All Of Us

Rationale for the Film Review

LWLs editorial staff are interested in independent, non-mainstream film makers, as well as the usual mainstream movies, reflected in the copy overall, but also in reviews

there is an interest in the magazine in experimental and alternative styles of film making, often found in short films

the magazine reports on the nominees and winners of international film festivals - often the first place a short film is showcased

the magazine targets a student audience (perhaps also specifically students in subjects such as Media, Film, Cultural Studies) , and this is useful for us as many of your films target an audience of your age (students) with film knowledge

the magazine has strong links with the Picturehouse chain of cinemas, which screens short films every day as part of the main film programme (virgin media shorts)

no other film magazine carries reviews of short films, instead, usually focussing on very mainstream films (you can provide evidence of this)

~Need to add evidence/change some words~

Poster Draft- Charlotte Hudson

• I thought it would be a good idea to show a main part of the film in the poster as it makes the film look more exciting, the audience know they are going to be seeing a gripping film
• The use of having phoebe in a close up shot shows the audience the main character and suggests that she is the false witness
• The black background, helps enhance the idea of a thriller/horror as it suggests a dark and mysterious film- there's no confusion if its a romance film etc as the black is used for more darker films
• This poster i think is a good way to make the reader think about who was killed and who by- as it's called 'false witness' the audience can question whether the close up female was in fact the killer or someone who was framed as the killer. It asks a lot of questions.
• I think the text works really well with the poster as it creates the idea of danger by having the writing faded and eroded, suggests fear etc.
• The poster was hard to create- trying to think of what images would work well together etc. There is more work that needs to be done, move the body further away from Phoebe perhaps and try and create more dead space around for writing. 
• We also need to pick a font that we will use on the film so that then the poster and film work well together and we aren't just using all different fonts.

Poster Draft- Imogen Salmon

Poster Draft

• The alignment of the poster is central, although it doesn't appear so at the moment, as I am currently trying to understand how to do this on photo-shop. I hope for the reviews to appear either side of the main image overlapping the 'dead space' and the darkened area of the woods in the image. This is for the white font to stand out, and for the image to remain significant. The credit block will be positioned at the bottom of the poster.

• My inspiration mainly came from my film poster research on 'The Imposter'.

• I like the eroded style font for my poster as I believe it signifies the genre well, I haven't yet been able to download my ideal font yet, this is accessible on dafont.com, I have made a link below:

 Plane Crash Font

• I chose this main image as it involved the main character from my short film, she also relates to the title as is the 'False Witness'.

• I purposefully edited the colour to be desaturated, against a black background and white font. This was to represent the dark narrative of the film, a girl bullying and killing her best friend.

 

Poster Draft- Candice Tyson

Difficulties I had with creating a poster:

• I found it really difficult and complicated to create a draft poster as I found Photoshop really hard to use. I tried a number of different ways to present images on my poster however without the Photoshop skills I needed I couldn't complete the task like I wanted to.
• Another challenge I found with making this poster was the quality of the images. In order to find images for my poster I had to print screen shots from our short film. However, when these were then put onto Photoshop they were extremely pixelated and I spent a long time trying to fix this. 
• When it came to putting in the production block I had a few attempts and got completely confused with what I was doing as the production block would fill the whole page and I wasn't able to reduce it in scale.

Things that went well when creating the poster:

• I felt the two photos I used together was quite effective as it creates enigma for the audience as they ask what the relation is between the girl at the grave and the girl walking out of the police station.
• I also thought presenting the title on the back of the gravestone like I did was also quite an effective idea. However, looking at it now I feel I should have made the title bigger and maybe in a white font rather than black so that its more attention grabbing.
• Lastly, I also quite liked the way I merged one photo into the next as it shows the audience the two people are probably connected in someway. I felt by blending the two was a lot more effective than having two images side by side as this would give them no relation and wouldn't look as effective.

How I need to improve:

• I need to spend longer gaining some skills for Photoshop so I can use the ideas that I've got in my head and put them down onto Photoshop which is the issue I am having at the moment.
• This week I'm going to plan another few idea's so I can find out how I can put these onto Photoshop and learn a few more skills in addition.
• I need to learn how to add in the production block and also download fonts that I want to use to make sure the title fits the genre of my film.

Poster Draft - Mae Webb

TITLE: I have made sure the title is placed in the 'dead space' of the poster design. I have also decided to have a white font so that it stands out against the black background. I feel the way that it is white on a black background rather than black on a white background shows how in this film things are not always black and white.
I have found some fonts that I think would be good to use for the title however I am unsure at this stage how to download these fonts onto photoshop. 

TITLE FONT IDEAS

• Bebas neue
• Headline

PRODUCTION BLOCK: I have placed the production block neatly at the bottom of the poster inline with the title. Obviously this is not how the production block will look but after some more research we will be able to create our own production block for our film. I have also kept the font white so it is visible against the dark background.

REVIEWS: I have placed the reviews across the top of the poster in the 'dead space' so they are not covering any of the characters faces. However, after looking at it again I think I would remove the review on the far left and just have the three above the title so it doesn't cover any of the character and looks more justified and centered. (The X's are to represent star ratings)

Changing our lighting - Mae, Charlotte, Candice and Imo

When we began editing we realised that a lot of or shots had very poor lighting and so instead of having to redo these shots we decided to edit the lighting on final cut pro using 'Colour Corrector 3-way' which enabled us to brighten our shots in order to see our characters faces better and give them a better overall effect.

Here is an example of what one of our shots looked like before we edited the lighting:

Here is how the shot looked after we edited the lighting, we feel this looks a lot better as we can see our characters face better. We were also then able to paste the attributes we applied to this shot to the other shots that had the same lighting so that they all looked the same to keep our continuity.

Film Title ideas- Charlotte & Mae

• As we are getting closer to making our film poster, and aiming to finish our editing soon, we decided it was a good time to think of a title!!!
• We took 3 main words surrounding our film idea: Lying, Liar and False
• We typed them into the thesaurus online and were given all different ideas.

Our favourite ideas are: 'Deceit', 'False Witness' & 'Resentment'.

But we will try all these names out on our ideas posters, and we are also going to get audience feed back like we did last year- as that was really helpful.


As a way to get audience feedback we have posted the ideas on twitter and are going to make a status and also send private messages on facebook to our target audience (of teenage girls).

'Kill List' Film Poster Research - Mae Webb

Conventions 
Title - The title, as on most posters, is the biggest font on the page. This title has been placed in the centre at the bottom of the poster. I feel that this is quite effective as your eyes read down the reviews at the top and are then brought to the title which you already have some idea about from the reviews. The white font is effective as it stands out on the dark background and the lack of colour creates a dark feel to the poster.

Production Block - the production block has been placed at the bottom of the poster which shows the names of the people who were involved in creating the film (a legal requirement).This has been placed in a border around the main image of the poster. I feel this works well as it does not get in the way of the image and is separate which looks visually neat and makes it easier to see on the white background.

• 
  
• Main Character -  The poster shows a large close up of a character taking up a third of the poster. This suggests that he is of importance in the film and is a main character. Most film posters will include an image of the main character so that the audience become familiar with them and can learn a little something about them before watching the film.

• Review/ratings - There are 6 ratings at the top of the poster all of which are either 4 or 5 stars giving the film a good first impression. There is also 3 review "One of the best British thrillers in years" this tells people straight away that it is a British film and of a thriller genre making people prepare for this genre.
• Website - There is also a website at the bottom of the screen which allows people to go and find out more about the film, the fact that they have their own website shows that the film has been quite successful. (www.kill-list.com). 

• Tagline - 'THEY ARE BAD PEOPLE. THEY SHOULD SUFFER.' This gives the audience an insight into the plot of the film and may intrigue them to find out more. 

Representation

• Although the poster doesn't give much away about the film and the representation of characters we can assume that the film has used the stereotype of male antagonists as the image on the poster shows a close up of a man's face showing his facial expression is stern and not fearful making him look in control. In addition the low key lighting on his face makes him look like a dark character and although he has something to hide as we can only see half of his face. These aspects make us feel like he is the antagonist in the film as he does not look heroic but rather quite dark and sinister.
• This is very common in thrillers as males are seen as more controlling and threatening than women and are therefore most likely to be antagonists because they are scarier. This film appears to be about hitmen, therefore it shows again a stereotypical representation that this is a male orientated business and men are more able to do this because of their strength etc.

for example here is the poster for the film hitman, which also follows the stereotype of having a male as the antagonist and in this case, also a hitman. This poster also shows a female character in the stereotypical role of his 'sexy sidekick' we can see this from her revealing costume and the composition of the image where she is a lot smaller in the frame showing she is of less importance.

However here is the poster of film 'wanted' where they go against this stereotypical representation and show a female character as the main 'hitman' and antagonist as her image is a lot bigger in the frame and she looks in control holding the gun. We also do not see any of her body showing that her job comes first.

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  Genre
• This film is clearly a thriller and we can tell this from the conventions of the poster and also the semantic codes that are laid out for us such as iconography, characters, props etc.
• The main image shows the setting of a forest, this is very common for a thriller genre as it is seen as a dark and scary place because it is easy to hide/get lost in them.  A lot of thrillers take place in forests where people are killed etc. This tells the audience instantly that this will be a thriller because of how iconic it is.
• In addition, the low key lighting on the poster tells the audience this will be a thriller as it gives a dark atmosphere as the sky has been edited to look dark with no light and the shadows of the trees make them look eerie.
• Finally the reviews tell the audience straight away that the film is a thriller 'best thriller in years'. The director has chosen to have these reviews so that the audience know before watching the film that it is a thriller.