Magazine Review page

For my page I choose to use just one of the characters so the photo isn't too busy. This should also invite the curiosity of the audience by only displaying a single character. Also, through research I have found that the majority of magazine film review pages only show one character from the film.
I experimented with long, medium and close up shots of the character, and also with portrait and landscape. This is the whole photoshoot:

I chose these images as my favourites because the actor is showing the right emotions best in these, also I like the lighting as it creates a mysterious atmosphere. A large amount of most of the photos is sky, and I think this connotes infinity, that there are endless possibilities for the character. It shows that there is something in the distance, something more for them that is much bigger. I also like the photo on the road as it shows that a journey is taking or has taken place. This could all interest a potential audience member.
These are my final choices for the magazine page:

I think this photo best portrays my film:

Edited:

I decreased the exposure and the saturation and increased the contrast slightly, this gives a more dystopian look to the photo.

This is my finished article:

Or you can view it here, in better quality:
http://pub.lucidpress.com/itendedfilmmagazinereviewpage/ 

Film Magazine Review Page - Real media research

Poster edit - Final draft of poster

Using the conventions I found in my research of romance drama genre posters I put together this first edit of a poster, also using short film conventions by including the film festival selection logo.

Focus group:

"I think it looks really cool. It's simplistic and eye catching and gives pretty much all the information one might need. The only thing I'd say is either move the small writing and release date to the other side of that leaf (bottom left hand corner) or get rid of the left section of leaf because it just looks a bit odd. Also I like the tagline but maybe it would look better centralised"

Taking on the feedback I received, I made my second edit:

I would also add the certification of the film to the bottom corner of the poster, PG. So that the audience  will know if the film is suitable or not and to give them a better idea of the context addressed in the film.
The comma should be a semi colon, people... or people - they change. This should also be in quotation marks.

Final Poster:

I changed the font of the title to Xlegcal SC because I think it looks more professional and mature, so its aimed at the right audience. I also changed the other text to Arial Narrow for the same reasons.
I used the feedback by centralising the tagline, making the date bigger, cropping the side so there is less empty space, and making all the information the red colour and overall I think it looks much more appealing.

I chose to use a very limited colour palette; red, off white, green, and black (shadows), because it givs the poster a simplicity and also conveys the important information of the film very clearly which is the foremost thing a good poster should do. I chose these colours because of the connotations they will propose to the audience:
Red - passion, desire and love
Green - growth, safety, stability (because its a dead leaf it juxtaposes these meanings), greed, jealousy
White - goodness, innocence, purity, perfection (similarly to the dead leaf, these meanings are dirtied because it is off-white)
Black - death, evil, mystery, grief, negativity, fear and the unknown (also it does give an elegance to the poster so its better to look at, but not as a connotation)


Evaluation of poster:

I have used two different fonts in my poster, Xlegcal SC and Ariel Narrow. I chose Xlegcal SC because I wanted to use a handwriting font, this is a convention within the romance genre, also love letters and 'Dear John' letters are usually represented in film as handwritten. This particular handwriting font looks much more mature and professional, and I think it attracts the audience I am aiming it at. I also used Arial Narrow as it is a better font to communicate information, because it is easier to read at a glance. Also people are more familiar with it and that familiarity allows me to make them feel more comfortable when viewing the poster so they should look at it for longer, rather than feeling challenged by it.
There are multiple ways to address your audience using your poster. The audience is addressed via the text and title but also by the image. I think my text and my image reflect each other by using similar colours. 

I followed some conventions of a poster in the romance genre, but I also adjusted and subverted certain conventions. Through my research I found that using the colour red and having a white background are conventions because of the connotations that the colours hold, so I used white background and a lot of red in my poster for the same reason. Another convention that I adhered to was having the tagline at the top and the release date at the bottom, I did however adjust these slightly by having the font the same colour as the title and not black. I also stuck to the convention of having the credits in black at the bottom, and also showing the two names of the main actors although I chose to put them below the title instead of above for aesthetic purposes. I convention I challenged was having up to two characters shown on the poster, I chose to not use any because I think the red rose better represents my film and it also stays within a strict colour scheme. Using the two characters would give the audience more idea of the concept of the film although I chose not to use this because I wanted not corner my piece by using two white teen characters and not showing any other representations of class, ethnicity and age. By not using a model for my poster I have tried to eliminate any representational issues and aspects.

I chose for the title and the release date to be the largest font size, as these are most paramount for the audience in finding my film and therefore for me to sell it.


This is the original image. To make the image look balanced and more aesthetically pleasing I thought it better to crop it because there was too much white space around the image which I couldn't fill with information otherwise it could become too crowded. I also manipulated the image by increasing brightness, the contrast and the saturation of the photo.




The words I used on my poster I think are appropriate to the genre and the age of the audience I am aiming it at, because they address something that can be empathized with, that might even be relatable with an audience member. My choice of words reflects common conventions within the romance genre and this similarity that the audience have with this will allow my film easily place itself in a member interest in watching it.

Inspiration for my poster came from the research I did of real media romance genre film posters. This payed off because it showed me that simplicity for a poster representing a relationship is key. I think this is due to the public wanting an ideal relationship/breakup to idolise, showing that there are no complications and messiness. This permitted me to think about how it addressed the audience and to ease across the important information about the film.

On reflection I think the weakest part of this piece of work is the release date and the credit block at the bottom of the poster. This is because it looks awkward and not properly laid out, and therefore not as professional as possible.

These images, I think, are original within the genre conventions. As although a red rose is a convention of the representation of romance, it is not so commonly used as the main feature on a poster for a film. Because I chose to use a red rose, it makes the topic of the film clearly the core area of the piece. Also, because I have kept it simple, I have avoided any visual or textual clutter on the poster.

Poster research

 My film fits into the romance-drama genre, so I looked at poster for films also within this genre:

• red writing for title
• white background 
• up to two characters shown
• two names of main actors just above title
• tagline at bottom or top, black writing 
• credits at bottom, black writing 
• release date at bottom centre, in bold

It Ended Poster Photo shoot

I decide to use a dried red rose for my poster as I think it represents the relationship and sums up my short film because a red rose is often given on valentines day to the person you love but a dried dead one is a metaphor for the relationship being dried up and dead.
In my photoshoot I experimented with lighting to change the atmosphere of the photos and to give different emotions to the viewer like sadness, sympathy and bitterness.
By trying different positioning of the rose within the frame I thought about the use of the rule of thirds and I looked forward to where I will place the title and any other information that would be needed on a poster.

Photoshoot:

These are my favourites because they have the best positioning within the frame to become a poster:

I chose this one:

Because the focus on the petals is good, there is a balanced amount of leaf stem and flower, and also there is a good amount of space around the rose for the information of the film.

First edit:

First of all I cropped it so that the rose is more on the righthand side of the frame so that there isn't empty space on the side of the poster. I then decreased the exposure and increased the contrast and the saturation of the photo, I did this to make the reds and greens much bolder to grab the viewers attention. Although I like the bold colours I think I will decrease the contrast as i have lost the depth in the photo and the velvetiness of the flower which could represent the different textures and layers to the relationship. I also tinted the photo bluey-purple to give it a colder feeling to reflect the melancholy emotions in my film.
For the title of my film I used the font 'Handwriting - Dakota', I think this is an appropriate font as it is a convention of the romance and relationship film genres because it looks like a love letter or a 'dear john' letter which are traditionally represented as handwritten.

Other edits:

I tried a combination of different things to give different effects to the viewer. To find out what people thought of my combinations I showed them to a focus group. Summed up, this is what they said:

1. Not to keen on the background in contrast to the flower, it isn't appealing to the eye and so you don't really want to keep looking at it to find out what the films about.
2. The sepia colours are good here as it gives it an aged, worn out, look which could reflect the relationship. But it doesn't really scream 'break up movie'.
3. The contrast between the background and the flower is nice.
4. The greyness of this one remind you of dead things and corpses, because of how dead things lose colour. It could be interpreted as the lack of colour represents the death of the relationship.
5. The contrast is a little too strong, the white is too clean. This doesn't represent the film well as because its about a break up and they tend to be messy, so the poster doesn't really seem to be about a break up.
6. Similarly to 1 the background and the overall photo just looks grey.
7. Although the orangey sepia is good, it looks too bright for a poster for a film about a break up.
8. Quite nice, the blueish white background is cool as it gives the image a cold look.
9. Just too grey like 1 and 6.
10. Too bright on the flower, not so appealing to the viewer.
11. The black and white is cool, this is interesting because black isn't always a nice colour so it could be uncomfortable like breaking up from a relationship. Also, because black is used for funerals and for death, it represents a death of a relationship.
12. (the original, although my focus group were not aware of this) Again, like 1, 6 and 9, its too grey and boring, there is nothing interesting to look at.

Further suggestions and improvements:

• You could try layering another image on top, but lowering the opacity like a ghost effect. 
• You could put one of the characters faces on the poster as well.
• Explore layering different colours of top for there colour connotations.

The two favourites voted by my focus group were 3 and 4. I am going to use 3 as it is much more attention grabbing than 4, and this is the most important thing a poster must do to promote the film.

Ancillary Tasks

Brief

A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options

• a poster for the film;
• a radio trailer for the film;
• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

I am going to do a poster and a film magazine review page for my short film.
I choose these two to do because these are the areas I think I can best portray my skills in.
I have had lots of practice in putting a poster together as I did one for my AS work and also one as a preliminary to this A2 coursework. As well as these two, for my drama group I made a poster for our performance of the Grimms Tales.
I also want to do a film magazine review page because in contrast to the poster I have only done this once before, a magazine article advertising a car company.