I have watched the trailer for the upcoming film, 'War Horse', directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie is about a boy who joins the army during WW1 after his horse, Joey, is sold to the cavalry for the fighting in France. The movie looks very high budget, lot's of special effects are used the set looks very expensive to create. In the trailer, the first scene is the horse running through a live battlefield, dodging explosions and machine gun fire. This gives us a clear view of what the film is about.
The film poster is very simple but also very effective. The main image creates a sense of partnership and friendship.
There is a slogan on the top of the poster which says "Separated by war, Tested by Battle, Bound by friendship". This is a very powerful catchline which anchors the themes portrayed in the film. The colours in the images work very well to create a warm feel, as well as represent the horrific events of the war.


http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/war-horse/trailer

I think that there is a direct link between the film trailer and the Film poster. These are both above the line forms of advertising. The film producers pay a lot of money for these to be produced. Film posters can be displayed in a lot of places, which is why they are so effective. The magazines however, are a bit different. They are below the line advertising. The magazine company needs material to write about, and the Film producers want to advertise. So the two help each other out. The magazines usually write about a film review after the film has been realesed. But sometimes they talk about the film before it is realesed, mostly interviewing the stars in the films, or the directors, at the film premiere. The magazines aren't as effective as the poster and trailr when it comes to advertising, but they are free for the producers.

Magazine 4th Draft

This is the 4th draft of the magazine front cover. I have uploaded it to facebook, where my friends can leave me some feedback, which should help improve it and create a finalized piece. 



Martine Toften said: " I would maybe move the photo of the main actor down just a little bit, and also enlarge the date and issue number" 
This is true about the date and issue number, it does seem a bit too small too read, but the main photo is fine the way it is. I wanted it to overlap with the masthead.
Billie Stacy said: I really like the layout, especially how the bottom of the page shows snippets of the film trailer.. Also, I think that the trees in the background set a dark atmosphere, which can relate to many films of this genre"
This is true, the main goal i was trying to achieve with the trees in the background was to create a spooky atmosphere to support the genre of the movie.
Clive said : " You seem to have covered all of the magazine conventions."
Rhys Hall Said: " maybe bring the text above the title down a tad and make each subheading the same colour red/orange? it's really good though. "

Magazine Third Draft

This is my 3rd draft of the magazine front cover. As you can see, this one is much better the others. I used feedback from my teacher in order to improve the layout of the front cover. I used a photo of a film strip at the bottom of the page. Using photoshop i cut out the empty frames and put in screenshots from the film trailer I made with my group.
I used a gradient tool to fade the bottom part of the masthead with the background image. I also changed the colour of the images in the film strip at the bottom to make it look like an actual film strip

Magazine Second Draft

This is my second draft of the film magazine front cover.

First Draft Magazine Front Cover

This is my first draft for my magazine front cover, obviously this isn't yet finished, but this is what it will roughly look like. The front cover will consist of a big photo covering the whole of the page, like most of the film magazines do, and big titles put over the photo.

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.