Film

TRACE

How did you use media technologies in the from Caulf1995

How effective is the combination of your main from Caulf1995

In what ways does your media product use from Caulf1995

What have you learned from your audience feedback 2 from Caulf1995

Evaluation Questions

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODCUT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

Film Poster Final

When looking at my film poster, I realised that I hadn't included a tagline to the film. So, in order to folow the conventions used in film posters, I've added the tagline "Beginning of the end".

Film night organisation

The best way to gain feedback is to get others to watch your work so, as a class, we held a film night to show our films and trailers to both the year below and our friends.  This helped us to collect information regarding peoples views on our trailer as well as showing us ways we could have improved it. This was the perfect opportunity to ask our target audience what they thought of the film and whether there was any improvements we could make.

In class, we decided on a night that would suit all groups so that they were able to attend the film night and introduce their own films to the audience. After introducing their film, each group comprised a questionnaire which would be completed by those who had just watched it. The film night was extremely beneficial as not only did it allow all groups to see each others work, it allowed us to look at our own trailers in a real life scenario as if we were watching them in a cinema.

Script and Sound

Throughout the trailer, we've used a soundtrack to create a chilling atmosphere to accompany the film. Personally, I feel that this is more effective than using lots of speech as music has the power to create tension and suspense whereas speech may not always do this. At the start of the trailer, we've used a narration to introduce the audience to the plot. The narration is as follows;

"At 8:17 i sit there waiting

On the bench for Belle to leave

Different scenarios I'll be creating

For your identity that I'll retrieve. "

We felt that instead of having a trailer heavily dependant on speech between the two characters, we wanted to create something different and felt a narration would be the best way to do this.

As myself and Rosie both felt as if we wouldn't have the skills to make an effective soundtrack, we asked a mutual friend to help us with this task. As it was difficult for us all to meet together, Rosie and I exchanged emails with Ryan where we told him a brief outline of the plot and sent him a copy of our trailer. We knew we wanted the music to include various different elemtents to we informed Ryan of these and he was able to create a brilliant piece of music for our trailer that really reflected the eeriness and tension we were hoping to have.

Film Certificate

For our trailer, we needed to make a rating card to show the audience who was believed to be acceptable to watch the trailer. Our film is set for the age group of 12 and over as "Moderate physical and psychological threat is permitted", moderate violence and mature themes although they are not too "frequent or sustained.". The green rating screen clearly indicates the appropriate age group for the film and the reasons for the age rating it has been given.  We used a sample piece, as shown above, and decided to develop it into our own authentic rating screen.

Trace Rating Screen

Target Audience

Rosie and I decided that due to the themes shown, we would rate our trailer/ film as a 12. This is reflected by the main characters used- we are both school girls wearing our school uniforms. By doing this, we are creating a niche, younger audience which is not often associated with thriller films

A typical member of my target audience would be someone:

• interested in intrigue and mystery with a slight twist
• who enjoys trying to figure things out for themselves- is not passive.
• a person who doesn't give up easily and will always find a way of working out what will happen
• enjoys elements of surprise 

Film Poster Development

The picture above shows the final design for my individual film poster. In order to do this, I edited the original image of a Polaroid camera in order to create a more eerie effect which would reflect the genre of the film.

Original photo of camera

From the start, I knew I wanted to merge a photo of Cindy stalking Belle into the image of the camera. To do this effectively, I felt that the best way to do this was to add the photo of Belle in place of the camera lense. Firstly, I had to cover the centre of the camera lense to prevent any other images from being seen in it.

I wanted to replace the camera lense with a photo of Belle walking from Cindy's perspective. The photo below presented this idea well as it shows the stalker elements to the film.

Using the contrasting tools on Microsoft Publisher, I edited the contrast of photo and changed the shape to fit the centre of the camera lense. In the original photo, the colours used were quite dull, so, in order to make them stand out further, I changed the colouring to black & white and experimented with the contrasting levels to create an 'autumnal' colouring.

I felt that changing the image to black and white, created more of a dark, thriller feel to the picture adding to the feel of the eerie atomosphere the film tries to reflect.

I put the edited photo into the centre of the camera and covered the extra parts of the original image which were not needed such as the digits along the bottom of the image.

Below is the final photo I'm using for the films poster

Film Magazine Front Cover

Change of Ideas- New Storyboard

Change of Storyboard Ideas

During the process of filming for our trailer, i found that our ideas and final outcomes had slightly changed from the original storyboard we completed before we started filming- as shown above. As a result, i felt that it would be beneficial to produce a new storyboard for the trailer that would be a more accurate and realistic portrayal of the structure of the trailer.

Below is the new storyboard for "TRACE"

Trailer Credits

Magazine Film Poster Fonts

Possible Fonts

Arc Fonts

Film Magazine Front Cover Research

EMPIRE FILM MAGAZINE

In order to research film magazine front covers, the obvious place to start was researching into probably the most well known film magazine, Empire. The magazine was first published by Bauer Consumer Media in 1989 and since then, it has continued to outsell its rival magazine Total Film. On the Empire film website, users have been voting for their top 20 covers since the magazine was first published allowing me to get a range of different covers and designs the magazine has used over the years.The covers show a range of styles and approaches into creating a successful film magazine such as Empire.

Empires regular features include; a classic scene- a section of the script from a well recognises film scene, the At Home section offers DVD news and releases- Empire's editors consider this section to be of huge importance as they believe this is a main contributor to the growth in the magazines popularity, Pint of Milk questions celebrities contact with reality by asking questions such as "How much is a pint of milk?" Each magazine includes a "Spine Quote", where a challenging quote is printed on the spine on the magazine. They usually include a mix of both obvious and obscure links to the main features of the edition. Readers are asked to identify the source of the quote for a chance to win a prize. A regular feature of the At Home section is Kim Newman's DVD Dungeon where film critic, Kim Newman, reviews the months strangest releases, usually low budget horror films. Another common feature is Celebrity Mastermind where a celebrity is given questions about the films they were in or directed. Celebrities range from actors and directors including Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Lee- at the top of the leader board and  John Carpenter and Michael Keaton at the bottom of the leader board.

                       

                        

TOTAL FILM MAGAZINE

Total film is the second biggest selling magazine in Britain after Empire and was launched in 1997. The magazine offers a range of features including film, DVD and Blu-ray news and reviews. Each monthly issue consists of a variety of full-length interviews and photo shoots with established and up and coming actors and directors, to major film previews and retrospective articles. All issues contain the Total Film Interview -an in depth interview with a well recognised actor or director, along with an analysis of their work; the Abridged Script- a parody page of a recent release and Total Film loves...

                                  

                        

Film Poster Research

Whilst researching into the genre of psychological thrillers, several people recommended for us to watch the film One Hour Photo where "An employee of a one-hour photo lab becomes obsessed with a young suburban family." This is similar to our initial plot where Belle gets followed by an obsessive Cindy. This is one of my favourite film poster due to the fact it really emphasises the films narrative. The poster shows how obsessive the main character has become over the family through the use of the many photos covering the protagonists face to show the camera covering his eye.

The Unborn follows the story of "a young woman fighting the spirits that is slowly possessing her." A key feature of horror and thriller films is the use of mirrors to create a sense of a paranormal being as well as being used to create shock moments to intrigue the audience. The paranormal image in the reflection will intrigue the audience particularly as it is slightly blurred compared to the main image of the girl looking into the mirror. This adds a sense of mystery. Similarly, the colour scheme of the poster uses very dark colours such as dull greys, blues and off white making the image very simplistic and not giving much away adding to the mysterious element of the film. Also, the black colouring along the bottom of the poster creates a dark atmosphere. 

 The Next Three Days is a crime/ drama film based on "A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of a murder." Although this is not part of the same genre as our trailer, I really liked the design of the poster and felt it would be a good way of showing the stalker aspect of Cindy following Belle in mine and Rosie's own trailer. I thought the way in which different photos of , what i'm guessing to be key locations in the murder plot, created the face of one of the main characters within the plot.

The poster for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is defiantly my favorite. The plot for the spy/ mystery film has the plot: "In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6" I love the way that the various codes used in the film make out one of the characters faces on the films poster. Throughout the series of codes, two key  phrases of "The enemy is within" and "winter" are spelt out using the codes to show significance to the plot.