Interaction

To incorporate the views of my peers and others, I have posted my blog URL on my Face book account, Included polls on this blog and created my own YouTube account so my work can reach a larger audience. I think this is the best way to interact with others so you can tailor your work to suit the demographic stereotype.

Lights, Camera, Action

We had a camera workshop to get aquainted with the equipment we may like to use. I tried with the big HD camera's to film some vox pops to send me down the right path for when it comes to planning the promotional package. I prefered using the hand held camera though due to the practicality of it.

Below are the edited Vox Pops I created and posted on YouTube for people to comment. Watching them back I realised I should have checked the white balance before filiming as everyone looks like a simpson character but I will learn from this when it comes to filming the trailer and to clear the background to help with the finished product to create a more proffessional scene. I changed from holding it myself to using a tripod which stops the consistency of the voxpops and a change of location. All of this has effected the end quality which is poor but considering it was my first camera time and first time editing, I can take all this on board and develop before filming for the trailer.

Idea's

Research; questionnaires

I stood outside my local cinema last week on half price night so I could get a range of people's opinion. The films that were on were 'Resident Evil' and 'The Other Guys'. The results were interesting to see a wide demographic turning out, not just the typical target audience which worked in my favour as I got varied results.
I asked around 30-40 people these questions;

Gender and age (help with demographic)
Favourite genre of film ( Ideas for me to chose from)
Favourite film of that genre
Favourite film in general
Why
Do you like fast paced trailers which build suspense
Favourite film magazine
What do you look for when buying a film magazine
What do you look for in a film poster

The results;

From these results, I can start planning the genre of my trailer and look at what is already on the market. This feedback has been incredibly helpful for the planning stages so now I can research into my target audience, look at specific conventions ect..

Research; existing products

This is the film trialer for Shutter Island, appealing to a similar demographic I have in mind. I love how the editing in this is short and snappy with fading transitions which make it very effective and builds up suspense which would work well for an apocolyptic/thriller/horror genre of film.
It begins with the distrubuters logo and then an establishing shot of a boat surrounded by mist which indicates the suspisuos nature of the film, foreshadowing the events. It uses faded transitions between every shot which disrupts the flow but is effective in showing some of the plot, if not the trailer would be difficult to dennotate. There isn't too much camera movement, but uses a range of camera shots (over the shoulder, 2 shot, establishing shots, wide shots) before the pace increases at around 1 minutes 50 seconds when the shots become a lot shorter before the title. There is then an additional shot where a man jumps on  DiCaprio's back before the credits which is jumpy. There is alot of Dim lighting surrounding the shots which are taken around the mental insistute which is an important factor of setting the scene, provoking the audience to be aligned with DiCaprio.




This trailer was the one used to promote the blair witch project, a film with in a film, all shot by a held hand camera. I really like the idea of using the a hand held camera to shoot a documentary or film trialer as it can see more than the average camera, moving with the person on their eye line and in the sight. The idea of interviewing the citizens at the beginning is a nice element to the film, giving the target audience a feel about the story line and characters. I think that the hand cam could only work for a horror/thriller/documentary film though becuase of the jumpy movement which gives away the type of camera used which wouldn't work for a romantic comedy for instance because they are all clean shots.

It begins with a black scene with background information on it before interviewing people, in both black and white and colour shots, giving the impression that the legend of the blair witch has been around for a while. Reviews then come on scene while there is a shot of woods and forestry. Black transitions are effective pauses in  this, connatating mystery and danger before tracking shots of the people at night in the woods. The close up of the girl is an interesting point of mood change, the close up of half her face demonstarates the hand held camera and amatuer handling while aslo showing the fear in her eye. The fact of their being no music, unlike most trailers, is very creepy but forces the audience to focus on what is said and the ambient/diegtic sounds.

Conventions

Above are the conventions which need to be included when designing and creating my magazine cover and film poster. There are also certain conventions which need to be included in the film trailer but can be in any order the producer wishes.

Studio/distributors logo
Images/clips from the film itself
Contain background information without giving the story away (voiceover/text/dialogue)
Music (suited to genre)
Directors name
Actresses and Actors in the film
(NB promote the name that people would recognise more such as James Cameron for Avatar, they played on the fact that he was director of Titanic)
Rythem change (suit the pace increase)
Title of the film
Release date (research when blockbusters and such are released)
Credits and Website

What I like the most about this film poster is the way the elements and positioning of the people already tell the story. We can clearly see how the woman in the red dress is alienated from the couple who seem protective of each other by their body language. It looks very plain with a white backgroud though which I am undecided about whether it is too light if I was to do a horror/thriller but Obsessed is also a thriller so I think it would come down to what is more powerful and how it would be deconstructed by the audience.

It is clear from just one glance at this poster that it is a thriller/horror. I love the way that it looks like a still shot from the film while still looking posed. Again, as I said on the magazine cover, I like the way which the writing is centralised as it will catch the audiences eye straight away as well as the expression on the face. The dim lighting works well here to create shadows which again connotates danger which would automatically entice the target audience.

Research; existing products

Before starting production, I decided to research some of the existing products out there which will incidently be the competion. What follows will be the products that have shaped and influcenced my decison making;

 This is the cover of Empire magazine, one of the biggest film reviewing magazines in the world. It is one of the more tamed covers as opposed to the dinamic covers they usually use. I love the medium close up they used here with the characters in costume, promoting the new Star Trek film. I think the simplistic look of the cover works in context with the genre of the sci-fi film which I think would work well with the idea of a medium close up of the star of my trailer.

On the other hand, the Total Film magazine cover is much more dynamic that Empire which I

like. The way they make Tom Cruise pop from the cover by busting and bleeding thje pictures and headers together is very effective. The layout is more centrulised which I like as well in a layout as the eye is automatically drawn to the centre. The thing which I would like to include when it comes to shooting the cover is props. I like the idea of including a prop from the film on the cover with the star.