Poster Research

One of the main sections of our coursework project along with the 5 minute film is to create a poster for the film. Knowing this I felt it would be good to look at some posters from similar films in order to find out some common features and hopefully get some ideas.

Posters are a great way to advertise films, a good poster should be able to show the genre of the film, what the subject of the film may be about and introduce you to the main characters. As well as these posters can be used to attract an audience by promoting the actors in it (particulary big films with popular actors), it can also give information such as the director, or the age rating as well as displaying information about the rest of the team that developed it and often give good quotes from the reviews for the film. Below are a selection of the posters I found:

I then looked at the posters for the film that is most similar to ours, 'Into the Wild'. This film has 2 posters that I really liked, the first one is shown below:
































However the poster I have chosen to analyse is shown below, also from 'Into the Wild':
































The first thing that stands out with this poster, is the young man sat on top of what looks like an old tram. This being the only person on the poster straight away tells the person looking at it that this is the main character of the film. He has bags behind him and a rolled up mat of some kind, this shows that he is obviously travelling and being sat on the old tram with a tin in his hands could show that he is sleeping rough. So straight away you can tell that the film focuses on this man and how he travels around.

The backgorund of the poster is simply the sky, however it is very nice and bright, the bright blue and white clouds make the poster stand out. The use of bright colours are there to grab the attention of the audience as they see the poster.

The next thing that stands out is the title of the movie, 'Into the wild' is shown in a large, bold font in a dark blue contrasting against the bright background again making it stand out. The title is in a simple font which makes it very easy to read and is considerably bigger than any other text on the poster which means there is no confusion and the audience knows straight away that this is the title of the film.

A common thing with movie posters is to list the names of the main stars in it, especially if they are famous. With this poster they are in a clear list above the title and one thing that is very noticeable it how many actors and actresses they have listed. There are ten stars names, this shows the audience that there are a number of people in the film that the audience may know.

Underneath the title it reads 'Screenplay and directed by Sean Penn', this is again another common feature in movie posters when the film is directed or written by someone the audience may be familiar with. This along with the names of the people in the film are used to try and persuade the audience that the film must be good because it features all these big names in it and it is written and directed by an established person.

The only other thing on the poster is the text at the bottom which is used on all film posters, this contains all the information about the films production, it contains things such as the director, the writer, the producers and the sound editors. This may be information that most people do not stand and read but it is there so that people can look and see who has had a hand in making this film. Along with this are the logos of the companies who are distributing the film and also the age certificate for the film, this certificate must be put on a film poster so that the audience are clear who the film is suitable for.

Overall the film poster is very simple in that it contains one main image, however from it you learn that the main character is male and you assume that he is travelling. You also get key information about the film such as who wrote and directed it and also the list of people who star in the film which shows the audience it has big names in it and that it must be worth watching. The poster itself is very bright making it eye catching so it stands out and grabs peoples attention.

Large Resolution Logo

As we are finishing our film, we are starting to put final touches on it.

One of the finishing touches, was our production logo. It was apparent that the logo in our website header was too small to look 'crisp' on a larger screen. Therefore, a larger resolution copy had to be made :D

Quick explanation of the final scene

The final scene of the film, as we have found out, is a favourite amongst people who have watched it. The concept was created when initial ideas about our film were being drafted - and once we understood the creativeness that it would show that we had, we tried to incorporate it into our short-film from there on after.

The idea was simple. We wanted to have something that was unique and original, and that may have took a little bit of planning (much like the initial under-water shot). Once we had mapped out what needed to be recorded, and what possibilities we may encounter - we were ready.

We planned the script correctly. We would encounter problems whether it was too short or too long, so we have to get it just right. Also, this had to match with the initial bathroom scene also. A couple of seconds either way could be disastrous.

The plan was to get a Zoom recorder (sound) recording first. Once this was rolling, we got Daniel to film himself on the hand-held camera. Here, we would be recording the film+sound from the hand-held camera, and the sound from the sound recorder.

Inside, we got Amiee (playing Nicole), to sit down at the table where she was unpacking the travel bag. We re-wound the tape on the handheld camera to where Daniel (Luke) begins to record himself. Amiee was then asked to position her right hand, to the left of her body in a comfortable position - which she could keep steady.

The large camera was carefully positioned behind Amiee on a tripod. We zoomed in closely to the screen on the hand-held camera, so the corners fitted correctly, and the perspective was as close as possible.

Once everything was set, the hand-held camera was played - and after around 5 seconds, the large camera began to slowly zoom out. Once the footage had finished on the hand-held camera, the screen was closed.

We knew that we had to have some form of shot-reverse shot in our film, which allowed to show that we could synchronise sound with video. Although we did this, we thought we'd have a go of synchronising three recordings together (which, we didn't find too difficult..)

It took a while tweaking the timings between when the audio should begin, and when the footage should fade in.. but once we figured that out - we just had to find the music to fit :)

First Draft Of Our 5 Minute Film

This is our first draft of the 5 minute film we are producing, we have made this so we can do some audience testing (post to follow soon) and find out the audiences thoughts and opinions at this stage. This is only a rough edit at this time and some changes will be made for our final cut. This is the result of many months of hard work, dedication and a lot of our own free time. We are very pleased how this is progressing, and look forward to recieving feedback on it - as it will be the first time that anyone apart from ourselves has seen it. This is exciting! Many of the other groups in our media studies class are also close to providing a first draft of their film, and we are looking forward to seeing what they have learnt, and improved. Each person in our group has also taken a copy of the film to show to family and friends in higher-quality.

Radio Trailer Analysis

This is the radio trailer I will be analysing: Doctor Who - Tha Pandorica Opens



I will be analysing this trailer in the terms of Voice-Over, The use of sound bites from the programme, Music and Sound FX.

There is limited voice-over in this trailer as it is only at the start and at the end of the trailer but saying that the voice is a deep male voice which fits in with the feel of the trailer of something dark is going to happen within the show that the trailer is advertising. The voice-over gives information about what channel and what time the show will be aired, therefore lets the listeners decide if they can watch it or not.

The use of sound bites from the programme are all mainly dialogue from the show which gives an insight into whats going to happen in the programme but they care careful not to give away too much so it keeps a mysterious feel to the trailer and will leaver the viewer wanting more and keeps the listener interested.

The music keeps the feel of the trailer which is a dark with a feel of pace and panic. The music is also taken from the actual assortment of music that is used within the programme. The music stops you from getting bored of the trailer and keeps you interested and wanting to keep listening.

The sound FX are mainly taken from inside the programme, it adds to the overall dark feeling of the trailer like the dark sound at the start of the trailer while the woman is talking and helps carry over the feeling of mystery and panic.

Music

Music has been a hard thing to find for the project this year, the rules are that we are only allowed to use copyright free music. After emailing OCR to find out if we could use a cover of a song from Youtube, as long as we had the permission of the artist, we sent emails to a number of artists asking if we could use their songs. Sadly after much trying we gave up as they did not respond to any contact we made to them.
This meant we then had to search for original, copyright free music. We decided that we would need a few tracks throughout the film, as music fades in and out and different points. Our teacher did provide us with a collection of CD's to look through which had music for all kinds of genres. From this we managed to find a few acoustic instrumental pieces that we liked. We have used these throughout the film, as it fits well with the travelling shots that are used to show the distance the character is going.
However we felt that we still needed another track to go over the final scene, as Luke is killed and then as it cuts back to Nicole back at home finding out the news. As this is the main part of the film we wanted music that fitted well with what was going on. The piece had to be quite emotional and we were wanting a song rather than instrumental because this can be less repetitive or boring.

As we searched for music, Andrew found a site called Jamendo, this site contains collections of songs and artists all offering their music for free, and it is all royalty free.
After searching the site, we found an artist that sounded a lot more professional than the others. Josh Woodward is a very popular artist on the website and he has a collection of albums offering over 100 songs. He is an American acoustic rock musician from Ohio, and after listening to a couple of his songs it was clear that we wanted to use his music as he is better than a lot of the professional musicians who we pay to listen to.
We listened to all his albums and made a short list of tracks we wanted to use, in the end we narrowed it down to two. One that we really liked but didn't use in the end is called 'Border Blaster', this is a slow and sad song that fit well with the scene, however we didn't use it as it didn't match the cuts of the film as well as the other song did. The link to the song is below:

Border Blaster.

The song we did use is called 'Private Hurricane', the song starts slowly and gradually comes in, this was good to fade in the background as the scene goes on and Luke goes to help the man with the broken down car only to find out he has been set up. We faded the start of the song together with the ending, as the end of the song the music gets much louder as an electric guitar solo comes in. We matched this up with the film as it cuts back to Nicole, the song lyrics are quite sad as well for example the line, 'Did you believe what I said, that I'm never going to see you again.' The song matches the film great, Josh Woodward has a good emotional voice, and the power of the guitar solo kicking in is very powerful and we are hoping that this will impact on the audience. When we get feedback from the audience we will be able to find out if the scene has turned out as emotional as we have always wanted it to be.
The link for the song is below:

Private Hurricane

Prison Break Ending, Similarities

As we were putting together the final scene of the film, the moment where Nicole finds out that her boyfriend has been killed, we were wanting to make this emotional and aim to make the audience cry. One of the main things we were trying to get was some music that suited what was happening in the film.
We did eventually find some music that we were all happy with, and it is clear that music plays a big part in setting the mood of an emotional scene. While we were doing it I also kept thinking of one of the final scenes of the American TV series 'Prison Break'. In this the main character Michael Schofield has died and the scene is set four years later, with all the other main characters meeting up and visiting the grave of Michael. Below is the video of this scene:



In this scene two things stand out to me that make it rather emotional and brings a tear to the audiences eye, first of all music is the key element. There is no other sound, therefore the music stands out and it is a very slow, sad song which perfectly fits what is happening in the scene.
The other thing I noticed, which is a thing that we have used too, is the use of slow motion. Most of the scene is in slow motion. When thinking of sadness and upset, you do think of slow speed, slow motion shows well how the character could be feeling like their lives have slowed down, and it is a great effect for catching the emotion of their faces. The scene is simple in that it has few shots, however it is very effective and causes a big impact on the audience.

While I am on the subject of 'Prison Break', one of the other final scenes is two of the main characters, 'Sarah' and 'Lincoln' watching back a video tape recorded by 'Michael' just before he died. This is again similar to ours as we have Nicole watching back the video that Luke has been filming throughout. I can't find a good quality video of this so I can't analyse it in much detail. Although Michael knew he was going to die, so he recorded the video. The similarity is still there as you have the emotions of the characters playing back the video footage.