In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product challenges the conventional Post-Apocalyptic Thriller by building a positive atmosphere. Unlike other films of the same genre, like The Road, we purposely decided to not remove the colour. We felt it was more effective to keep the colours vibrant, and use sunlight, to give the viewer a sense of hope; this is not often seen in other films that are based around the end of the world.
However, we have used the conventions that we researched to fulfil the genres expectations for example; the sense of loss and dystopia throughout the film. The main protagonist is separated from his companions and has to endeavour to survive on his own. This is a popular convention found in films such as I Am Legend and Doomsday. We have also ideological conventions of a post-apocalyptic thriller such as using a male protagonist, rather than a female. Having a male in the lead role allows the audience to feel much more confident that he is going to be alright and have much more faith in the decisions made.
We also chose a slogan for our film “When you’re all alone, how far would you go to survive?” so that we could incorporate a powerful message into our posters, allowing the viewer to feel involved in the film and to understand the emotions that the main protagonist is feeling. All good film posters incorporate a slogan at some level and it makes the expectation of the film a lot greater, for example I Am Legend’s “The last man on Earth is not alone”.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main aim of the ancillary texts is to create awareness of the short film. I have made sure that the two ancillary texts link well with the short film itself so that all will be very recognisable. It is important to create a link between the film, the poster and the magazine review so that people can get a basic feel of what the short film is like before they actually watch it, it allows them to make a pre-judgement of the film and decide whether or not it is something that they might be interested in.
The ancillary tasks create a very vivid sense of loss through the use of darker colours and the lone figure standing in the foreground. I have however challenged this typical convention of a post-apocalyptic thriller by having the sun shining over his shoulder; it shows that there is hope ahead for him and that not all is lost, something that is not always used in post-apocalyptic film posters.
I looked at a variety of different, existing film posters while designing my own poster. Out of all the posters that I looked at, I chose to concentrate on the posters from films I Am Legend and The Road in particular as they are the films that we chose to take most inspiration from during our planning and research phase. They have used very powerful images and presented all main characters in such a way that makes them look alone and captures the genres of the film. This was the main idea that I tried to convey to my audience, so it was important that I incorporated a truly powerful image that for audience was truly thought provoking and informed them what genre the film is likely to be.
For the construction of my magazine article I looked at other magazines like Empire and Total Film in order to understand the way in which to present my review. The most effective articles used a three column layout; they do not look cluttered and too overwhelming to the reader and will be easy for them to read. I also made sure to check that my review made sense in its entirety throughout the process of writing it. It is important that it makes sense to the reader so that they do not get confused or misinformed.
I feel that my print products and short film work well together. The print products are clearly based around the film, and I showed this by using a photograph we took when shooting in Spires Bank. My poster is heavily influenced by the different I Am Legend posters, because it is a very successful Post-Apocalyptic thriller.
The design of the poster itself is based around a shot from the film where the protagonist is stood looking at the abandoned building. Knowing we wanted to use this shot for our print work, we took two photographs of it, one portrait and one landscape, so that we could use it for our print work. I edited the photograph on Photoshop to have a vintage blue lomography filter and a slight Sepia filter. This darkened the image, and made it look like a shot from our film. I intentionally avoided extracting the colour, like the posters for the film The Road, as I felt our film has a more positive atmosphere and I wanted to capture that in the poster. I positioned myself to have the sun shining right over my shoulder so that it gave positive connotations, as if he is the hero and everything is going to be alright in the end. This is not something usually seen on a Post-Apocalyptic film poster.
The text on the poster is centred, much like on the I Am Legend posters; I have used the font Gil Sans Light and Regular to give my poster a sophisticated feel. I added lines to either side of the film logo to give the logo more elegance and class, but also to balance it out with the rest of the text. I chose to add a “Riff Awards 2012 Official Selection” badge to my poster, as it confirms to the audience that this is a low budget Indie film. In the bottom left corner I have added the Film Institutions logos in the bottom left corner for Film 4 and Paramount as well as our own Film Institution, Escapade Productions logo. In the opposite corner, I have added social networking icons as well as a Hashtag to encourage the audience to follow and like our pages. I have intentionally not used a QR code on my poster, simply because I did not feel it fit. I have designed my poster in the style of a classy, low budget independent movie, using small spaced out text and different subtleties and I feel a QR code would take that away from this poster, and give it connotations of a big Blockbuster movie.
Before designing my magazine I took some time to read through different film magazines, to ensure mine looked professional. My first instinct was to make a magazine that looked like this. However after researching film reviews properly I decided to make it look as if it was featured in a generic film magazine such as Total Film or Empire Magazine. Despite that, I decided to feature it in Escapade Magazine, the magazine for our fictional Film Institution, and I added the logo for the company and magazine at the top left.
For the magazine I edited the photograph differently. Rather than using a strong lomograohy filter, I more of a dark Sepia filter and less of a blue lomography filter. I felt it would be a nice touch to claim the release date to be 21st December 2012, the day the Mayans claim to be the end of the world.
I feel my review was completely fair. I stated both the pros and cons of the film, and what my honest opinion of it was, in the style of an impartial film reviewer. I feel it is important to give my own opinion, especially when it is my own work, as it makes the reader feel that they can trust what you are saying, and therefore believe you if you are to say whether the film is good or bad.
The most successful magazine reviews, I noticed, used three coulombs of text. I felt that three columns fit my page nicely. I also added an image from the film in the final coulomb. In my opinion, I feel it is important to show more than one image of the film to give the audience an insight of what it will be like, and to encourage people to watch it.
I have made sure to keep the film logo, in the extended white rectangle going over the photograph. I have done this to familiarize people with the logo of the film, and raise awareness to the film.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Throughout our project we would persistently ask other members of our class to watch our video and to give an opinion on what they thought of the video so far. There was a particular favourite part of our short film that they all liked the most, the scene where the protagonist is sat by the tree after having woken up and he puts his glasses on. They all felt that the transition between his blurry vision and his normal sight was smooth and effective.
We also received excellent feedback from our subject tutors during our first draft evaluation. We learned that in order to make our short more successful we must drastically cut down the runtime. The brief was to make an approximately 5 minute short film; our first draft was nearly double that time. We learned that we should consider removing the opening of our film and instead incorporate it into flash backs as the main protagonist is sleeping. Another very important thing that we were told is that the storyline was very hard to understand, and that we should try and make it more understandable to the audience.
We not only received feedback on our short film however, we also received feedback on the first draft of our ancillary tasks. We were told that we should consider incorporating more information onto our film posters which included a release date, social networking icons (such as Twitter, Facebook and Blogger), a website for the film, the logo of our production company and a larger, bolder title. We incorporated all of these things into our final posters and both turned out to be very successful.
During our first draft evaluation we also received feedback on our magazine article for our ancillary tasks. We were told that the design side of our magazine was very nice and that they liked the consistency between of the design between the poster and the magazine. We had however, not written our reviews yet and chose to use dummy text to get the basic feel of what the text will look like once incorporated. This was the one thing that we changed the most for our final magazine; we made sure that the review was of a high standard and that it all made sense. We made sure that the magazine was both critical and supportive of our film and we achieved such views by using the feedback we took from our fellow class mates.
When we finally finished our film we got a group of students from our class to watch our film and give us feedback on what they thought. All feedback received told us that what we have produced was to a very high standard and that it was enjoyable to watch. They particularly enjoyed the scene where Tom puts his glasses on where the camera goes from blurry to in focus as well as the voice overs as they felt it draws the viewer in and strengthens the story line. They did however comment on the audio and said that it was something that we needed to make smoother and flow better, which is something that we have now fixed for our final draft. They also said that we should add a shot at the end so that the main protagonist goes from a run to a walk slowly rather than it jumping in each shot, which is something we have now fixed.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluative stages?
Throughout the processes of creating our short film we used many different media technologies. Some of these technologies were simpler than others, for example the use of a tripod when using the camera or using a piece of carpet to block out the sun.
We also, however, used some more advanced media technologies like the use of green screen for our news report, key framing for the title sequence and a dolly tripod in order to nice, smooth moving shots.
During the production of our short film we used two cameras in order to cover as many angles at one time as we could; this allowed us to cut down the filming time when we didn’t have much time available and gave us access to a much wider range of shots. The second cameras main purpose was to film ‘behind the scenes’ but we found during the editing process that some of the clips from the second camera could be used as part of the short film itself.
For our research and planning, the main media technology that we used and found to be most beneficial to us was the use of Blogger. Using Blogger allowed us to keep track of what stage we were at in the development of our short film and allowed us to keep on top on the whole production process.
Visual and sound effects also played a key part during the construction of our film, without them the feel of our film would not be the same. Using visual effects adds depth to the film and projects emotions on the viewer that otherwise not be felt, these visual effects included the use of RGB Curves, 4-Color Gradient and a vignette. The RGB Curves and 4-Color Gradient effects allowed us to make the scene darker and to create a much stronger atmosphere, the combination of this and the use of a vignette which we create in Photoshop allowed us to darken the edges of the film really drawing the viewer in. Sound effects also create suspense and draw the viewer into the action being displayed. Some examples of sound effects that we used include the ‘rewind’ sound effect when the main protagonist is sleeping, it conveys to the viewer that the main character, Tom, is sleeping and that what he is experiencing is flashbacks. We also added a voice over during the period shortly after Tom has awoken; we used this opportunity to explain to the viewer what is going in the story line and to explain the virus to them. To do the voice overs we used a piece of software called Audacity. Audacity was, we felt, the most suitable program for the job as it allows full control over the audio you are trying to manipulate.
We have also considered how we would use media technologies during post-production of our film. We have considered how we would use things like Web 2.0 to promote our film. Web 2.0 has been a very useful tool for many films in recent years, such as Paranormal Activity. We would use websites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to create a fan base around Dystopia and to promote new materials like trailers, posters and photos. We have incorporated a hash tag onto our film posters showing the viewer that if they wish to start a discussion based around Dystopia then they can do so by using that hash tag in their tweet on Twitter.
On one of the posters, a QR Code was incorporated that links to the films Youtube page. QR Codes are becoming increasingly popular with the development of smart phones so having a QR Code incorporated onto the poster allows people with that technology available to load up the film trailer or other promotional material being simply scanning the code.
If we were to go on and promote our film, we decided that we would try and get the likes of Film 4 and Paramount on board to assist with promotion and distribution. Film 4 would be able to offer promotion and distribution across the UK and Europe through themselves and partner company like Pathé, whereas Paramount would be able to assist with promotion and distribution across in the USA.
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