Film Poster Research

Movie posters are a visual form of advertising films. They come in all sizes and advertise every genre of film. Up to the 1990's, Film Posters were illustrated, but now however, they have digitally created using high quality photographs of the main actors. Film Posters usualy have the same layout, they include a large piece of text, which is the title. This is usually large and bold. Posters also contain taglines, which state a short line either from the film, or about the film. the same images used in posters are also displayed on the DVD covers and other merchandise. This is usually the iconic photo of the film.

I will be looking at horror film poster, because that is the genre of my trailer. the first poster I will be looking at is Scream 4. It is a simple poster, with big bold letters and colours. The mask in the middle of the photo transforms into a sharp knife, which works well in the sense that the person wearing this mask is the one who murders the chaacters in the original film. The text at the top is the tag line, which reads 'New Decade, New Rules'. I think that this film poster works very well but for anyone who has not seen the trilogy before it will be dificult for them to understand the poster, especially the knife part of the photo.

Finished Film Trailer

After weeks of filming, editing, mishaps and planning.. here is the finished trailer. Get the popcorn ready!

(Please watch the Trailer in 720P High Definition for better quality)

Most of the filming done.

Most of our filming is now done. We all met up on Friday 21st October and got the bus to Pembury where our filming location is. We were at the abandoned house 2 hours filming and we have over 6-7 minutes of footage, which we can cut the best bits from to put in our trailer. We yet still have to do one more scene of the remaining character running through the woods, so that will be filmed shortly. I have already began to edit the footage we filmed on Friday. At the moment I am only cutting the clips and putting them on the timeline. When we have filmed the last part, I will then, (with the help from my group) edit the trailer. Once I have put the clips together and in an order which makes the trailer gripping and interesting to the viewer, I will begin post-editing. This means I will add effects to the trailer, such as colour grading. I will edit the contrast and saturation of the footage, as well as add music and sound to the clips. For sound, I will to record some of the characters voices, because my camera does not pick up soound very well.

2nd Screening

We did our second screening of the trailer to the class. Class enjoyed the trailer and helped me to pick out certain parts which needed improving. Such as the voice recordings, which is really bad quality. There are also some spelling mistakes which were pointed out to me. I have the Adobe Premier File saved so I can easily edit the titles and correct the spelling.

Magazine Photoshoot + Some photo edits!

Whilst filming the last shot for the trailer, we were already in a nice setting for a photo shoot. The woodland provided some nice backgrounds and scenes which, when edited, can look quite spooky! I photographed the girls in my group posing in serious expressions. Here are a few of the photos.

I like this photo as it shows a 'dirty' effect in the girl's faces and clothes. I achieved this by increasing the contrast and de-saturating the colours using Adobe Photoshop CS5. It gives the photo a gritty look.

 I like the blurred effect in this photo, its gives the impression that the character is pumped with adrenaline and fear. I did this effect simply by tilting the camera to a different angle while the photo was being taken.

This is by far the best edit I have done. It is in fact a composite of 3 photos blended into one. The trees in the background where of the trees in the woodland where I did my photo shoot, the house is where most of the filming took place, and the girls were photographed in the wood land. I also edited the saturation in this as well as the contrast to create the gritty effect.

I am also planning on doing a better photo shoot. For example, by using black backgrounds and low key lighting to create dark, frightening shots of faces. I would like to achieve a show similar to that of the film poster for 'The Grudge', A horror film by Sarah Geller. Here is the photo from the film poster.

I want to get a shot like this where the background is completely black and all you can see is the hair and the eyes.

Film Magazine Mock Up Front Cover

Magazine Front Cover - Research.

As well as producing a Film Trailer, part of the coursework involves also creating a Film magazine front cover. Firstly, I will do some research on film magazines such as Empire, which is very popular worldwide. I will look at the codes and conventions used in order to create a good front cover which is both eye-catching and looks proffesional.

Empire Magazine

Empire is a monthly film magazine published by Bauer Media. It's circulation was around 194,000 in 2009, and just like all magazines, it makes money mostly by advertising. As it's a film magazine, it advertises films, so it makes a lot of money that way. The magaine contains films reviews, interviews with the directors and stars and behind the scenes stories.

I will be making only a front cover of a film magazine, unlike my previous works where I created a double page spread and contents page as well as a front cover. Empire magazine's front covers are always unique in every issue, depending on the main feature film they are writing about. This front covr of Empire is about the hit film "Avatar". The main feature title in the magazine shows the name of the film, with the director's name above it.This catches the readers attention and makes them want to read more.

Total Film is a British Film magazine produced every month. It was established in 1997 and informs readers about upcoming films, reviews, interviews and much more. The magazine is published by Future Publishing (PLC). I like the front cover in this magazine as it shows a big photo of the two main characters in an upcoming film. This really attracts the readers eye. The colour scheme of the front cover works very well with the what the girl behind Daniel Craig. From this we can tell that this film has a gothic taste to it. In every front cover I see, there is always words like 'Amazing' or 'the best..'. These sort of words can always convince the reader that they are reading the bet magazine of it's kind. 

All magazines have forms and conventions. These are techniques used to attract the audience and make the magazine interesting to read. The most obvious form and convention is the Masthead. This is the main title of the magazine, obviously this is important so that the reader knows what the magazine is. 

Then the other forms and conventions come as follows;
The Main cover Line is the headline of the magazine, this is similar to a newspaper, the most important story or article is displayed partially on the front page to attract the audience's attention. 
The Main cover lines is backed up by a photo of the main article. This photo could be of a band or particular artist, or any other thing depending on the genre of the magazine. 
Puffs are used to boost the magazine's status, things like "the greatest magazine ever" are often said to make the reader want to buy the magazine. 
Plugs are used to hook the audience and catch their attention. This could be a Competition Notice on the front cover or a Special Offer. "FREE Music CD Inside!". This makes the reader or audience want to read on to find out what it is. 
Strapline is a secondary headline, usually under the main headline, to further explain what the main article or story is about. This Anchors the meaning of the headline.

Cover Price- This isn't really something that is used to catch the audiences attention, but to show the price of the magazine. However, it does have to be clear otherwise the audience may not see it and buy the magazine for a diffrent price. 

Bar Code- the bar code is also next to the Cover Price, which is also accompanied by theissue number. The issue number tells the audience what the magazines number it is. For example, monthly magazine running for 24 months would be Issue 24.

Filming a closing scene

I want to film a short, fast paced scene, lasting around 5 seconds, to put at the end of our trailer. The scene shows Jess, played by Kate Burden, as the last remaining survivor of the horror, running throughthe woods. She falls on the ground in front of the camera. We then see a close up shot of her arms, dirty and covered in blood. something drags her away fast and we hear a scream.
We will film this scene on Tuesday 6th December and hopefully finish the montage part of the trailer by the 10th of December.

The Trailer... So far.

We did our second screening of the trailer to the class. Class enjoyed the trailer and helped me to pick out certain parts which needed improving. Such as the voice recordings, which is really bad quality. There are also some spelling mistakes which were pointed out to me. I have the Adobe Premier File saved so I can easily edit the titles and correct the spelling.