My expectations for the design of the film poster

My First expectation of the poster is to have the main character looking dominant in the center of the poster, and then having some other characters off the each side such as the antagonist and other villains or protagonists from the film. I then planned to have a city skyline as the background with the tile of the film and its credits below them. I drew up a draft of what this might look like;

However after researching more into the different styles and techniques photographers use when thinking about the positioning of their focus I came across the thirds rule, which is a relatively basic principle for those studying photography, and decided to apply it to my poster. The rule of thirds states that when framing a picture to have the most important item in one of the 3 thirds, this then lays more of the focus upon the main characters. So by applying this rule I moved the protagonist to the left of the page and had the extra characters off to the right of him. Then I had the title in the right third along with the credits.

After showing an audience my draft film the feel and style of the film seemed to collide with the content of the poster, I found myself wanting to have a more timeless feel to it. So the city skyline would put to must of a time stamp on the film. So the background needs a new image, I thought about having a treeline because you can’t put a time on a forest, since they have always been around.

disaster movie analysis

A descussion about the choise in music

Music discussion:

I wanted the film to have an epic kind of feel to it, so the music I decided to think about choosing is orchestra music which I feel will give the film an epic and serious tone. My choice of orchestra is two steps from hell; they have lots of different styles of music for example they have fast passed dynamic music or soft calm music. I want to have a track that has a slow start for the intro and then picks up in the middle to show how the film evolves. I started my search by looking at their most successful tracks, ones that have been used in other trailers, and I came across ‘heart of courage’ which has been used quite extensively in other trailers or films. However after talking about how much it has been used I thought about being more original. So I looked at more of their tracks but none of the ones I listened to came close to fitting in as heart of courage did. So in the end I decided to use it anyway. However I am still keeping in mind that a newer original track would be more preferable.

Audience feedback to our film and new shots that are going ot be added

The shots I filmed for the finishing of the draft ended up to be not what I wanted. Responses from the audience revealed that the shots we added in were not in the same style as the rest of the film. The start of the film resonated a timeless and mysterious feel, “the setting used doesn’t give me any time zone to judge the film by, which makes me want to find out more” this quote from one of our audience shows that we had the right idea for the start of the film but it fell down after that. So new shots are needed to fill in the rest of the trailer, at the moment we still only have about 30 seconds of film we are using. Some of the new shots I am adding to the list are;

·          Character waking up
·          Hints of the past
·          Use of mirrors
·          Defending him self
·          Packing a bag
·          Jumping
·          Voiceovers – investigating, he’s gone, let’s go, I gave them everything/they took everything
·          Axe hitting a tree
·          Gun
·          Running through a River

I want to keep the mysterious style of the film so by looking at similar styled films, like the Bourne film, I came up with a list of different shots to use by looking at the actions that go on throughout the trailers.

In addition the audience said they felt alienated from the film because we weren’t going to show the protagonist’s face in the trailer we did this to give him more of a mysterious presence in the film; however after looking into our feedback we decided that it would not give him much of an impact in the film, thus not making him much of a main character. So to change this we are showing his face but keeping the mystery around him with other methods, such as speech like “how is he” or “we need to find him”.

magazine font discussion

This is a discussion about the different fonts used by movie magazines and the ways they effect the style of the magazine.

Empire magazine has a similar font to EF Kaffeesatz Schwarz and Bernhard Gothic Heavy SG, it is bold and the bottom half of the letters have been shortened. To me the M in empire resembles the huge flood lights used outside movie premieres, this links the magazine to how it reviews movies. in addition the colour is nearly always red, exceptions for when it is necessary to user a different colour, like for when the background and red dose not match up.

Premier magazine on the other hand uses a verity of different colour instead of sticking to a usual one. A common trend is for their background to be white, i suggest this is to have more focus on the main image than the title. The font of their title is thin and tall, opposite of what empire magazine has. I think that this is for the same reason that the background is always white, to get more focus on the main image. the font they use is called ELDORADO.

Total film is allot like empire, its M has the same meaning and representation and the font overall is very similar as well. they too seem to try to stick to one colour, white, for their title colour. the purpose of this would seem to be to build familiarity for its reader. making it easier to see off a shelf so that you think to buy it and just like empire they make exceptions to this, for example a special review.

Unlike the more well known magazines i looked at before, box office magazine does not have a general font that it uses, it changes to be appropriate for the front cover article. i think this is because it does not have the renown that empire and total film has it has to make itself more unique to grab attention away from the more popular brands.

The amazing spider man analysis

 The first shot shows the production company of the film 

The next shot shows the main character in among a crowd of people with his back against the audience. This could represent him trying to blend into normal people.

These next shots have quick editing which represents the action genre of the film, it also shows the main character in first a close up to show tension and deep thoughts, then in 3 fast shots which shows Spiderman in low lighting, suggesting his identity is clouded.

This next shot is joined by speech talking about how there are secrets we keep and there are secrets that are kept from us. This suggests that one of the main plots in the film is about a secret kept from the main character. In addition the shot shows a clear picture of Spider man so this suggest the secret has something to do with Spider man.

This shot shows the film distributor.  

 This establishing shot shows the city in which most of the movie will take place. It is shown in low lighting to represent the crime and the darkness in the city.

 

The next shot shows the main character in a normal family setting; there is speech that says ‘tell me about yourself Parker’, this is then followed up by a shot of Spider man. This suggest to the audience that he is Spider man. This reinforced the thought of secrecy as he does not tell him about himself.

The next shot shows Spider man with someone saying who the hell are you. This also links back to the father asking about him, suggesting that there is a lot of mystery around his character. The lighting of the shot sets the tone of the film this lighting is far darker than previous Spider man films. Suggesting that it’s characters are portrayed in their darker side.

This poster shows the main character from waist upwards, this portrays him as  very dominant in the film. There are scratches across his chest which could represent the violence in the film. The poster shows the release date and the title of the film. the character is looking down at his chest, there is a cut across it, this suggest that to me that in the film that cut involves him feeling responsible and disheartened. the lighting for the poster also adds to this theory  In addition the city is behind him which suggests that the whole city is riding on his shoulders.

Prop descusion

in this section of the blog i will be disusing the implications and the reasoning behind the choices of the props,costumes and general mise-en-scene elements  that i have decided to use in the film trailer. 

Firstly i will talk about the props going to be used; the first category of the props is ones that suggests the topic of military actions and the use of violence in the film. this includes the use of fake gins, flack jackets and radios. the use of guns in our trailer shows the audience the film contains scenes  of violence. In addition to this it helps to portray the action film genre. I took this idea by looking at the 'Jansen bourn' films these films are directly an action film with a huge aspect of mystery about them, this is also the feeling i want to give from our trailer. these are pictures of the guns we are going to use. i chose ones that are easy identifiable by regular action movie audiences so that it gives a sense of fimilaraty for the viewer to the film.

I am using the flack jackets and radios as a link to military actions of the film, as the plot states that the government betrayed someone and experimented on him, the military appearance in the film suggests this to the viewers. this is to propose a question to the audience; who is he, why is this happening to him and why is the government betraying him. i feel that this will give the film a large sense of mystery and entice people to watch the film.

  

The next element i am going to discus is the appearance of a campfire in the trailer. i wanted to use this at the start of the trailer to give the main character a sense of hope around him, this is found from connotations of the fire, in addition to a large feeling of loneliness to focus the audience on the main character at the start of the trailer.

The first shot is a high angle which adds to the sense of loneliness by showing the character surrounded by darkness with only one spot of light given by the campfire. However i wanted to give the campfire more meaning and mystery, so just as the viewer feels he knows the meaning of it i want to change its meaning to make the audience wanting to find out more of what it could mean. to represent this for the last shot of the campfire it will go out into just embers, this will symbol's the development in the film's the main character loses hope and fall into darkness.

in addition to the constant focus of mystery i want from the trailer i also want the film to have connotations of a  representation of family unity. this is show by images of the main character's family pictures in a flash backs at the start of the trailer. in these flash backs these picture will be broken representing a breaking of family unity.

Shot list

Production Company

Universal thing

Establishing shot of some woods

ELS, HA - Slow pan from left to right across a campfire– this is to be used at the start of the trailer the create tension before anything happens in the trailer.

Fade into close up of a man grouching near the fire - the shot puts more focus on the character in the shot, start to create questions for the audience about who he is…

Voice over – “you have no name”  – adds more mystery to the trailer, “who is talking?”

Flashing images of family pictures  : to add some identity to the main character - 4 shot montage

·         Close up of woman

·         Woman on the beach

·         Picture being knocked off window sill

·         Frame smashing

Cut back to CU of the man near the fire in a closer zoom

Voice over – “you have but one purpose”

More flashing pictures of a lab or something – 4 shot montage:

·         Extreme high angle of the ceiling

·         Pan of tray of tools

·         Bottles of chemicals

·         High angle of antagonist

Cut back to CU of man behind the fire

Fade to cu of the fire as it starts to go out then fire in the shot relights into a small flame

Voice over – “To fight”

Cut to black  – open new part of the film in the trailer, turning point

Close up of antagonist turning round saying “you let him escape!"

Long shot of the antagonist running away in the woods, “he’s vital part of our experiments”

Action match into an OTSS of the character still running, fade to white

OTSS HA – over a city – this will show the audience the different location in the film.

Shot of character in darkness, slowly turning his head

Fade into - Fighting montage –

·         Main character punching someone in the head

·         The someone hit him with a gun but

·         Slaps the gun out of the hand

·         Trips the guy up

Slams him on the ground

ELA of main character – shows his dominance and the change in power late in the film

Long shot of the character running away on a train platform

CU of Antagonist in a car driving past

Questionnaire response analysis (need charts to be added)

We have had 27 responses to our questionnaire 14 of them were female responses and 13 were male responses. This gives me an even representation from bother genders and their views on parody and comedy films.

I will start by analyzing the female and male responses for question 2 through 4. 50% of the responses were an age of 15 years old, the other half of the results are the ages 14 17 and 18; 5 results were 14 and both the 17 and 18 categories have 1 response. From the responses of question 3 in the questionnaire there is a common trend shown. This is shown by 95%of the responses say that they have seen more trailers compared to the amount of movies they have seen.

The next question asked is focusing on what aspects make an ideal comedy and parody films. I had 11 people state that they think the most important thing for a comedy and parody film is to be funny. I would agree with those responses because comedy is the main foundation of this genre of movies. In addition three people said of them to be unexpected, this has its advantages it leaves the viewer expecting the unexpected.

The number of male responses is 13, one of them was over 20 years old but the rest were under that. 4 out of 13 people that responded were 14 and the other 8 were 15 years old. From the responses of question 3 and unlike the female responses there seems to be a 50/50 ratio between people who have seen more movies that trailers and the opposite. This could be because males are stereo typically seen playing more games or watching more TV or internet videos.

One of the final questions is reflecting on what aspects encourage you to watch a film. The options were: story line  character and actors, music, the tile or voice overs  People answering the question can tick multiple options.  8 out of 14 female responses said that the story line is what attracts them to a film. 10 put of 13 male responses said that the story line is what attracts them to watch a film. 100% of female responses said that it is the characters and actors that attract them to a film. In opposition to this the male response was significantly less only 7 out of the 13 responses replied with this answer.  I feel that this was a predictable from the female responses as the stereotypical teenage girl is more susceptible to the idea of Hollywood fandom. However in addition, avoiding stereotypes, most big actors are renowned for their good acting and so when they are in a film it is expected it will be good or bad based on the actor. This fact shows that films are very reliant upon who is cast in the film; I have taken this into consideration for our film. There is no way we are going to be able to get a professional actor in our trailer, so I feel it is more important to focus on factors that we can influence and pay less attention to ones we cannot. 5 out of the 14 female responses said that music is an important factor and only 2 out of 13 male responses said that same, the low number of people who agreed with this suggests to me that the music on trailers are less noticeable by people than the picture content of the trailer. This could be because quick editing and flashing images distract the viewer form the sound. In addition I think that the first time someone watches a trailer they do not listen to the music altogether, except if they are purposely listening for it. 

Movie and trailer questionnaire

Age:

Gender:                   [M]                      [F]

Write the number of trailers you have seen in the last month, and then write down the number of films you have watched.

Trailers seen	Movies seen

What makes a good comedy/parody film?

[Funny]                                [Unexpected]                   [Rude]                  [Similar story line to original film]

Other, please state:

 

What is you favorite parody film if you have one?  Give a reason for your answer

In what places do you expect a film to be advertised?  E.g. websites, billboards excreta….

In comedy and parody films how do you expect the representation of bad guys to be throughout the film?

What factors encourage you to watch a film?

        Story line / narrative

        Characters/ actors

        Music

        The title

        Voice overs

In comedy films, what do you think makes them funny?

Audience research

Our audience research is firstly aiming to find noticeable points in our stimulus films, films we are going to include in our parody, to make a joke out of, so that the audience will subtly notice the link to the other films. This is the foundation of which parody films are based upon. Secondly we want to find out the factors of films in general that make people want to go and watch them. Gaining this knowledge will help me and the group decide on things to include and focus on in the film.

18 September 2012

Parody movie analysis

Parody movie posters seem to keep the trend of mocking other films, or mocking real life situations to make people feel better about them. For example disaster movie is about the world coming to an end, at the time there was big talk about global warming and the threat of the world becoming hotter and flooded. The movie took the seemingly bad situation and made it funny to take our minds off it. Parody movies also make a mockery of themselves, “not another shallow Hollywood movie” this text jokes about it being a lower budget film and also the “shallow” part makes fun of the rising water levels in both real life and in the film, making it a not so terrifying subject. It looks to me that the main purpose of parody films is to remove the audience form the troubles of the real world so that when they go back they have a brighter look on the bad things happening in the world.

14. September 2012

Initial expectation

My expectation for the start of the project is to film a parody film set for an audience of 12+.

However, I am aware that this could be challenging to create given our facilities in school. I feel that the work load would be heavier than a usual film, for example an action or a thriller. in this genre you have to be cleverer about how you use your shots than in an action or thriller. For this genre or film, you have to make clever observations about the film to make it funny. However, if the work is done, I think it would be a good risk to take with the end product being a film showing complex media theories and editing techniques.

On the thought of posters and magazine covers I feel by following the general style of parody film advertisement I could create a professional looking promotional package. The risks I feel implicate our project are that we will not get it finished because of the large work load and that our research behind the film is not going to be enough to gain viable marks.

14. September. 2012