How We are Going to Improve our Work Over the Next Three Weeks

Yesterdays lesson allowed us to put things into perspective, in terms of where we are at at this time and what we need to do in order to achieve a higher level by the end of this half term. We reviewed our work and estimated the level that our work is currently at. At this stage Manny and me have realised that some of the components of our work are bringing us down at this point in time and that we need to put more time in in order to achieve higher and be closer to both of our target grades for the piece of work.

At the moment we have our trailer, things that need to be done to make the trailer better are, to shoot more footage in order to improve the narrative of it as at the moment some of it is unclear, i think we should include some dialog as this may enhance the audiences perception of the plot of the film. Also we need to get the voice over added in so that the audience can tell its a flashback into the characters past because at the moment there is just the video that is in black and white, but this will be on the trailer shortly as Manny has it recorded and is going to bring the camera in soon so that it can be placed into the trailer. Also on the part where the boy is running through the woods the camera jumps and the positioning isnt right, Manny suggested shooting this part again, which is a way of improving this part of the piece.

The print products are currently incomplete as the magazine cover hasnt been started yet, last night i drafted some covers so that i can make a start today, as i don't have photoshop at home.  I have found some fonts to use for the title of the magazine and have come up with the name of the magazine which will be "Film Today" and am now going to edit it on photoshop. The poster still needs a bit of work. Manny is going to take the photos of the boy for the print products at the weekend which will ensure there is more of a professional look the print products.

I now realise there is a lot to do and will try to put in the time to the print products as i am aware there isnt much time left. Because of this i have decided that i will stay back after school some days next week or work over lunchtime so that i can be closer to completion of the work.

Poster Research

This is similar to the other poster that i analysed "The Wolfman" as the main character is placed in the centre of the page surrounded buy trees which appear to be towering over the character giving the domineering effect as it did for the other poster. This is obviously quite a popualar effect as both posters a similar. Aswell as this the colours are similar instead of having white text its red but they have still included white as the colour of the moon, as in the other poster it connoted inncence, i dont think the white is connoting innocence in this one as its just creating an eerie effect and emphazizing the darkness around it. The red text might be symbolising that there is more blood in this film and this is the primary theme.

I might try to make the background of the poster darker to see how this looks as in the trailer most of it is filmed in the dark and that would create links between the trailer and the poster. But the genre that our film fits into is slightly different as it  invloves children so there should be lighter tone as it may offend and cause complaints as people are sensitive when it comes to children rather than adults being in horror films, so this might be a reason to keep the background of our poster lighter rather than darker as in the insidious poster the background is not completely dark like other posters.

Progress

Before The Christmas holidays Me and Manny were trying to complete the Trailer, but realised that we needed more time as a few problems occurred when editing such as the program used to edit kept crashing as the files weren't in the right format and it took time to convert these. So We decided this term Manny would concentrate on completing the trailer and i would concentrate on the print products as by the end of this term they all have to be done. I have set out an action plan which will help to organise what I'm going to get done each week, We did not have this last year, and i think this will help a lot this term as there is quite a lot to do still. We are going to render the trailer and post it on our blogs so that we can get feedback on it. We are aiming for it to be completed or close to completed by tomorrow. I have just watched it and i am happy with it so far, i think we just need to add in some of the titles that I made last term and also add in the voice over which Manny said she could do either today or tomorrow.

I have been continuing with the print product research this week, i have done a few for posters and now o am going to research the magazine covers, so hopefully by next week i can start to put drafts together. I may have to get more photos of the main characters for the print products as i think these will be better quality than the shots i have taken from the trailer, so this might take extra time.  At the moment i think it is possible to get everything done this term and that we will be able to move onto the evaluation part at the right time.

Print Product Research:

This is the poster used for "The Wolf man" this film has a classification of 15 which is the same age we are going to aim ours at . This film poster is easy to interpret as the film is obviously about some sort of werewolf, i think the theme is more easy to interpret than the other film poster i have analysed "the messenger's" as the costume of the centre character gives it away more than the centre characters of the messengers as it was hard to tell what significance they had in the film without knowing the storyline. In this way i think this poster is more effective. This poster has a specific audience as well because there is always going to be those people are interested in this kind of theme as it is a character you commonly associated with evil whereas the messengers characters on the poster it was hard to see the type of characters they were.

I think the way the camera is showing a low angle shot of the character is effective as the trees are all pointing towards the centre, where the character is focusing the audiences attention on the character, highlighting his predominance and making him look very domineering. this positioning is emphasising this is a  film that is supposed to have a scary effect. Also the choice of colours backs this up, as in a lot of poster the main colours used are black, dark colours contrasted with the white of the text, also the characters shirt is white which has connotation of the character once being innocent but as the shirt is stained red obviously this has connoations of evil and that inncocence has been tainted. which is one of the themes that we are trying to put across in our poster as this is one of the themes of our film. In the poster we have created the title is red which connotes evil but there is nothing that makes it obvious that the child character is making a transition between being innocent to being the evil charcter.So i will have to try to edit it to look this way, a low angle shot might be the way to do this.

Print Product Research

The messengers is a film that was released in 2007, which has a 15 classification and which is the same age that we were going to aim our film at. Also it is about a family that has moved to the farm and how the son experiences paranormal activity which i thought linked a bit to our storyline for this reason i thought it would be a good idea to see how this poster is effective and how it is set out.

Like other posters the title is placed below the image of presumably the main characters of the film. It is in quite a large font but not so much so that the audiences attention is not taken away from the main image. The colour of the title relates to the plot as the family has moved to a sunflower  farm but is quite ironic as the film is supposed to have a dark atmosphere so this creates a contrast. In our poster draft we have decided on the colour red as it is a colour that stands out from the background image, at first we had quite a pale red but this didn't show on the background so we changed to a darker red, this colour fits in and relates to the text in the trailer as it is more of a similar colour, i think it is important to create links between the trailer so that there is a consistency and so the audience becomes familiarised with the theme of the film. As in this poster the yellow colour is quite distinctive making it stand out from other horror films in a way. We need to create this with our poster, something needs to be different in order to make it obviously different from other similar themed films.
The haunted house in the background of this poster is a symbol for horror, and has been used in other posters i have seen, identifying that this is a horror. The characters are stood in the middle, like in our draft poster we have placed the main character in the centre as it emphasises their importance in the film.
The tagline is in the middle of the page as well which gives away the plot a bit more to interest the audience more if the image doesn't give enough away. I think we should have our tagline on the poster as it is a convention i have seen on others.

Film Trailer: Plan For this Term

Action Plan:
This Week(6th- 13th) : The aim is to finish the video by this time next week, so that we can both concentrate on the print products

Also aiming to complete my research for the print products and have it posted on my blog , the poster and the magazine cover by early next week so i can then start to plan what the magazine cover is going to look like.

(16th-20th) -

Produce a draft of magazine cover

(22nd - 27th) -

continue to edit magazine cover


The week after:
Continue to edit poster
Produce more drafts of posters
Ask audience feedback


Continue to edit posters
 produce final draft


Last week of term:
Post drafts and final products on blog and justify why they are effective and why they were made that way.