Evaluation Question 2

My evaluation answer via powerpoint to the question
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 2

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Evaluation Question 4

My evaluation answer via PowerPoint to the question


How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 4

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Magazine Deconstruction - Breaking it down just after building it

Image
The main image that is the centerpiece for the magazine is of Ben looking directly towards the viewer as if to make eye contact. This is a convention in the fact that all magazines have the same setup, so I wanted to continue the theme to keep the magazines professionalism. This image is directly inspired by the Star Trek cover of Total Film shown in a previous blog post but with my own take. Ive kept the colours neutral with the magazines image but it also helps enhance the masthead and the reds from the cover lines which help further enhance the fact that its a horror special. The main image also follows traits of a professional magazine in the fact that Ben is in costume for the film but it is a separate posed photo, it is not apart of any film scene, Which is the same for every other film magazine out there.

Masthead
As I was creating my own individual magazine I wanted to create my own unique masthead. Big bold letters with a large portion of the top of the page taken by the cover is a convention of Film magazines, as it is there to grab your attention and becomes a recognised figure for people too see. Ive used the name 35MM as it is a standard film size when filming movies and I wanted to use something that was recognisable of the industry. Its also very short and too the point and also easy to say which was another factor of choosing it because you could ask someone "have you got the latest copy of 35mill?" it slips off the tongue nicely. The very bold abstract positioning of the masthead I believe is something its target audience like the look of as its very effective for Total Film when emphasises the Film but cleverly positions Total. Ive added a quick and punchy selling line just above the masthead which says "the UK's most exciting film mag!" I've used this as it helps engage with its young target audience, the word exciting helps present an idea that this magazine is cool or has some kind of radical inside.

Coverlines
Ive included horror themed coverlines to help emphasis the fact that the magazine is a horror special, this is because horror magazines arent that readily availible due to the low demand, so I wanted to create a general film magazine but have a Horror special to link it in with our horror trailer. I've used a question as my main coverline for the Deadline, this is because I feel that it helps engage the audience more as it makes them think about what would actually happen if their home was really invaded.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you leaned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback is essential if you wish to connect with your audience and create a media product that people other then yourself will enjoy. We initially started collecting our audience feedback after our first release of our trailer, while it was in early stages of production. We should of perhaps gotten peoples opinions on our initial ideas, but we felt as our group of 4 are all in the films target audience, and we all have such differences in what we enjoy in a film, we thought we should have it covered.

Unfortunately we only received 2 comments on YouTube, and they weren't particularly helpful in giving us something we could work with. The first one said,

"Great trailer, full of suspense! maybe you could make the villain clearer by showing them more then just the knife. Id love to see it with some music. I think it would definitely add to the atmosphere and tension of the trailer great work"
This didn't offer much help because at the time we didn't have music for it, as we couldn't find anything suitable. We all conflicted on the comment "maybe you could make the villain clearer by showing them more then just a knife" this is because it was our full intention not to show the villain to create the aura of mystery around him.
The second comment "I like it! I like the use of make up, its really effective and the whole thing flows really nicely. Maybe you could put voice over and music over the top, just to help build the tension?"
similar to the first comment it mention music which was absent, however it was constructive for us. This is because we were all nervous on the use of our bloody makeup as getting this aspect wrong could have made the film look cheap, and completely throw the viewer off anything that has been built up until that point.

After the unsuccessful round of feedback from YouTube, we had to reconsider our strategy. We all decided to take some questionnaires to friends and family and get them to watch the trailer and fill in the feedback. We receive a lot of feedback, some useful and some similar to the YouTube comments. One of the comments made in the question "How would you improve it" we received, "the middle doesn't flow completely" This we all agreed on. It was also a comment that was said to me by a friend that studies film directing at Bournemouth university. Due these comments we took out the scenes where the knife rubs against the outside wall and Alex runs up the stairs. This actually didn't cause too much disruption to the trailer and actually improved it greatly, although we required fast pace editing to help with the effects, removing this scene improved the "flow" of the trailer. Examples of some of this feedback can be seen here http://soullessproductions.blogspot.com/p/feedback.html

The feedback we gained from the questionnaires helped reiterate that we were on the right tracks for our trailer. The positive comments meant that we must have achieved what we set out for, and our target audience were happy with how it was coming along. The main negative views from our feedback was again about the lack of music but it was still an early draft of the trailer which has now been address and the trailer has received a lot of positive comments.

Evaluation Question 1 Podcast style

Here is the answer to the first question of my evaluation. In this we worked as a group to answer it in a podcast style theme. We all agreed that we wouldn't read off a script as this would make the audio sound fake, so we decided to have a sort of conversation about our trailer to give a raw, natural answer to the question;

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?




Or it can be viewed here

http://soullessproductionsdean.blogspot.com/p/evaluation-question-1.html

Final Release of the Magazine!

After adding a couple more changes I have finished the magazine.

The high quality image can be found here
http://soullessproductionsdean.blogspot.com/p/high-quality-film-magazine.html

Magazine Stage 2 actual magazine!

I already knew what I was out to acheive when coming into this magazine creation, but it took a while just to find the right tools for the process.

This is the start of my magazine cover, I have added the image of Ben and enlarged it so it gives me the desired closeup. I managed to find a font called "Aldo the Apache" which gives me the big bold defined title that most film magazines have present which perfectly presents my short "35MM". I have also just found a great font for my covertitle called "Lycanthrope" it gives me the creepy font that goes with the horror theme. This took a while to find as any promising fonts i did find, didnt quite give the correct image.

I then started to add another coverline, to help make the magazine look more authentic and also to give the viewer more reason to look inside. I am also really pleased with how I structured the title, I believe it looks very stylish and more importantly very unique which is difficult with such a short title. Also on asking peoples opinions they agree that the title is a very good feature.

I then started experimenting with different ways to break up the image, I come across this combination which not only breaks up the image, eventhough its only slight, gives me a perfect platform to add some more text about the magazine.

I used the font from the cover lines to add the "Horror Special" this keeps consistancy in my magazine but also make the viewer aware that this is a special edition of a alround film magazine, because as I have mentioned from the start, my intentions have always been to create a general film magazine.

In this edition im nearly complete, I have added text about whats included in the magazine along the banner at the bottom, but also created what looks like a newsletter to fill the circle in the bottom left. This includes details about news, competitions and such online, giving an insight into the magazines other medias like the website and such, which is present in alot of other magazines.

Magazine stage 1 - photo manipulation

I have a pretty good idea on how I want my magazine to look, luckily a bit more decisive then my poster! so I'm going to start on the picture first.

Ive selected a photo of Ben that was taken by the group that I was debating about using for my poster at one point.

I choose this image because its nice and clean and Ben is looking directly to the camera which is perfect for what I need.

I then cut most of him out from his surroundings, I didn't do the whole image as I was after a closeup of his face.

I then played around with the black and white filter until i felt that I got the right balance, I am really happy on how this turned out.

I then created a background using the gradient tool, again because I was focusing on this head I only sorted out the top half of the page, so I was trying to come up with the correct balance just to give some texture to the surround area of his hood.

Photoshop was great during this procedure as I was able to create and change the different layers which was crucial to the success of my photo.

Ill now start putting together my magazine and transport the photo over.

Magazine Research

I have already decided that for my magazine I wish to pursue the route of creating a standard film magazine and having a special horror theme. This is because upon looking around there is not a large selection of specific horror magazines, although this could potentially be a gap in the market, I actually believe its because there is not enough demand for a specific genre magazine. Any that I have found have been low budget and not the highest of standard so did not want to use them in helping me create my own.

Here is a few example on what I have been looking at.

Whats similar between all 3 examples here is that the title is in large bold font, this is too make the magazine recognisable to its audience. In the Max Payne example the image itself covers some of the title, this is present in a lot of well established magazines as although some of its covered you are still aware that it is a total film mag. This I will have to consider when creating my magazine cover as although I plan to make it several issues in, because its a "Horror Special" I will make sure I keep my title well in view and not covered.

2 of these magazines are close ups on the face of the stars, this design I am actually really fond of and I may consider doing something similar to this with my magazine, Especially the black and white Star Trek version of Total Film. Another thing I have noticed with all magazines I have looked at is the constant eye contact the stars make to you the reader. This means I will have to choose an image in which the eyes are looking directly too the camera, this helps engage the audience and is a subtle feature that makes a large difference.

In all the magazines they make sure they have a large or very clear cover line about the cover picture, and a quick punchy subtext below that draws you in. the Star Trek Total Film uses "the boldest and coolest film of 2009" this are very bold claims by the mag but you cant help wonder what the magazine is going to say, so it entices you to read inside.

Poster Deconstruction - Everything happens for a reason

Image

The main image of the poster is a bloody knife, I wanted to an object because the Horror genre is easily recognisable from certain objects, like for example a knife, a mask etc. It was also important to have such an obvious genre specific figure like the knife in making the white background work and since the weapon used in our trailer is a knife it seemed the obvious choice. While white normally symbolises purity and innocence and the normal colours to use for a horror poster would be black and red , I believe the white background actually helps amplify the effect of the knife as it helps make it stand out more. It also increases the effect of the blood, which is perfect for bringing fear into viewers and grabbing their attention, and the site of blood always symbolises that death or serious injury.

Title Fonts and credits

When deciding on what font I was going to use, I wanted a font that synergised with the trailer. The trailer is about bad things happening after threats over email, and so I wanted to use a font that looked like it was type on the computer. I still wanted to have something different though, so I kept away from the standard "Times New Roman" or "Arial" and went for "Plantagenet Cherokee" as it keeps the type like effect but I feel looks unique and works exactly how I wanted. I used the same font for the date to help make the title and date stand out. The date set is 13th may 2011 which is a Friday, we choose this date for our "film release" as Friday the 13th is something that is associated with bad things and the horror genre. I put credits in my poster to help bring a more professional look, and I feel that this has been achieved. I shrank the position texts and made all the People involved in the trailer larger and in capitals. This is an industry standard when it comes to credits on a poster so to achieve the professional look I had to make sure I included it.

Tagline
"Their time has just run out" I created to help emphasise the meaning behind Deadline. This is because you associate the word Deadline with some kind of time based target, and "Their time has just run out" makes the viewer assume that whoever is in the movie is about to face death. I was originally going to use "time has just run out" but just by adding "their" it makes the whole tagline a lot more dark and personal.

Reviews

I wanted to include reviews even though you only see them on some posters, its not industry standard I felt that it would help bring a bit more professionalism into my poster. I have also used a review from a well respected newspaper "The Guardian" and included one from my own magazine 35mm to help bring in my other ancillary text. I used the line "Totally unanticipated fear. Leaves you locking the door when you get home" I've used this because it helps to grow the main fear from the trailer, that your home is meant to be a safe place from the dangerous world, but even that can be compromised.

Live Final Version of Poster

After tweaking around with a few different fonts, sizes and positions I have finally finished my trailer poster. This is the result.

I will deconstruct this in my next post and say why I have done what I have done. too see the image in high quality check the link below.

HIGH QUALITY POSTER

http://soullessproductionsdean.blogspot.com/p/full-size-high-quality-trailer-poster.html

Poster Final Drafts - Just before the finishing touches

Since deciding to choose white as the background colour, I've added a drop shadow onto just the knife using Photoshop manipulating different layers. This gives the effect that the knife has been placed onto the poster while keeping the blood fresh looking as you wouldn't see a shadow on the blood. I'm just now deciding between text layouts, I'm really happy on how the poster has turned out.

This gives a very clean image, very too the point.

In this image I have tried to incorporate the tag line as if it was handwritten, although I like how its turned out, upon asking people for their opinion 8 people have preferred the top image and 2 people have preferred the bottom. The main point that people have mentioned is they fact that the tag line takes the attention away from the film title in the second image, as opposed to the title being very dominant in the first image after the clear view of the picture.

For these reasons I'm going to pursue finishing the top image, by finishing off the reviews and all the credits at the bottom.

Poster Beta phase!

Ive added my knife and blood image to my basic poster design and I'm really pleased with the results, I'm now deciding whether to have a black background or convert everything and have a white background.

This is the image on my original poster design, I really like how there is a large blob of blood that I've used to cover the D in "Deadline" but your still able to understand what is being said. however their is slight particles of white from when I was removing the picture from its original image, this has slightly put me off this design.

I'm actually really impressed with how this looks, I've changed all the texts from white to black and converted the black background to white. This hides the white pixels from around the blood but also helps amplify the blood a lot more then I would have imagined. I have asked a few people on what they think of the 2, and this is the most popular. I'm going to see if I can extend the blood trail to the end of the poster and maybe insert the tag line as if it had been written in pen behind the blood. This would simulate a scene from our trailer and I like this idea I'll just have to see if it looks effective in practice.

Poster photo idea change!

Upon working on my original poster idea, I felt that it wasn't really working as well as I had hoped. I went back to the posters that I originally looked at felt that the best approach for me would be to take the simplistic look of "The Eye" and "Saw"



I went and took some more photos, this time they were of a knife that i had placed on some white paper, I covered the knife with some blood I created with icing sugar and red food colour then sprinkled some on the paper. This gave a really nice effect as if it was a knife from a horror scene, and the main weapon used in our trailer "Deadline" is a knife.

Here are a couple of the better photos

 
I placed the bloody knife on white paper as I thought it would make it easier to extract the image in Photoshop.

I used the photo to the right as it gave me the best image of the knife and the blood.











I then opened the file in Photoshop and erased all of the background. This gave me my perfect image that I could transfer over into Indesign and I could then start playing around with different versions of my Poster.

Laptop photo edits for poster

Ive taken a few photos of an alarm clock and a laptop on a wooden table and found one image that i think i can get to work. As i said earlier I wanted to perhaps go for something from the film and try to use it similarly to what the posters for "The Eye" and "Saw" have done. Here is what I have acheived so far.

These are all in a lower quality to help with the upload, since they are not finished products.

This is the original image, i like it because its nice and clear and I can remove the background if i wish to at a later time, I am comfortable using photoshop to get my desired results so this is a nice starting point.

The next part was to remove the foreground, I did this then reduced the brightness to help emphasis the laptop in the forground, once I put this layer back ontop of my original image.





Once I place the previous layer back ontop of the original image, i added 2 effects, the first was i added noise to help bring a slight fuzz to the image, but it didnt acheive what i wanted, so i added a film grain and played around with the parameters untill I acheived this image. I did this because alot of horror images have this slightly grainy look, which helps with the slight eerieeness of the image.

Creating the poster - without the picture!

Ive started to create my poster, I'm still undecided about what its going to include. This is a major issue but I just want it too be right! I am thinking of having Ben with his hoody hiding his face but I'm concerned how this will look against a black background.

My other idea is too take some photos of a laptop or a alarm clock so it fits in with the whole story around an Email/time but I need to get some real good images to pull this off.

Here is my work so far its an early rendition, ill tidy it up and add so more to it once I know for definite what I want to do with it.

For the moment I have just added some reviews at the top, Firstly because a lot of poster include some kind of reviews, even though the examples I've shown earlier don't include them. Secondly I really like the look as it breaks up the baron space, even though there is no photo yet. Ive also used the bottom to include some of the "stars" although it is just the Soulless Productions team and Alex our female star. This is always present in movie posters as its usually used to help advertise the film, many star driven films like "Buried" emphasise the actor, in that case Ryan Reynolds as he is a huge film star so his status can help bring more people to watch the movie.

The Title I have kept with a basic text because the film revolves around threat over an email, I wanted to keep the text looking like it was from a computer, not something fancy, which looked as if "Deadline" was written in blood or another strange font type. I added the phrase "their time has just run out" I thought of it as I was putting the start of this poster together and I really like it as it plays off the fact that "Deadline" is a time based target.

Poster Work! let the research begin!

Ive been looking around for inspiration when it comes to my poster, my original plan is to have a black poster with someone or something that represents the film deadline being the main attention grabber with some kind of shaded effect.

Here are some of the posters I've been looking at.

 

As you can see they are all pretty simple, they mainly focus on one aspect and use it to draw you in. The poster for El Orfanato is kind of the style that I'm thinking for my poster, very dark, blackened edges but a very clear title and sinical image.

The "Saw" and "The Eye" posters have really grabbed my attention though, I love the simplicity that they possess, yet are still very effective at getting the viewers attention. Its like the simplicity against a white background, even though white normally portraits innocence and purity, portraits the evil that the images show.