Poster Ideas

This is my first poster idea. I feel that for a film of this type the most fitting poster should include only the most important details and even those should be included sparingly. As a result this example has only the title, release date and a quote from the dialogue serving as a tag line. The latter being at the very top with the first to being at the very bottom resulting in an space void of text in the middle which will attract the eye of of the potential audience to the images much more. The images are of various screen shots of different scenes from within the film with each shot of the same scene put into a vertical line so as to somewhat resemble actual film from a video camera.

This is the simplest yet quite effective in terms of its effect upon the audience. Again, it contains a still of a scene within the film and the title and release date but apart from that offers no real indication as to what the narrative is about. This will intrigue the viewer as they will want to find out more.

My final idea takes the form of a missing persons poster. Unlike the others it does not feature stills from the film or the films title, however it does feature information that taints the potential audience member as to the nature and content of the narrative unlike the others. Although this is much unlike the conventional film poster I feel that it will have just as much, if not more, of an impact and influence upon potential audiences members and the style is especially fitting to this type of film and its genre.

Film Poster Analysis

Film posters are an integral and intricate aspect of a films marketing strategy and even so are still almost discarded by a potential viewers conciousness, for this reason posters have to appeal to their subconscious whilst displaying enough information for them to deduct to an extent what the films narrative is about but also at the same time keeping some semblance of mystery so that they will want to see it. Here, I have analysed how three film posters from different genres do just this.

*Due to their size the images need to be clicked in able to view them as a whole and at a more readable size.

[REC]

Found footage / Horror

 

(500) Days of Summer

Rom-Com

 

The Rules of Attraction

Drama

 

Evaluation

Like all good texts I feel that my completed media product both follows and challenges the conventions of real media products within this genre. As is commonplace in film making in this time, the majority of successful films follow all of the right conventions, so as to please and stimulate the audience's imagination to what they associate expect of that specific genre, but also challenges them so to slightly reinvent and surpass expectations of the audience each time and to prevent the genre falling into too much of a platitudinous pattern.

With regards to my text it principally follows the 'bigger' conventions not only within its primary genre of found footage but also within those of its secondary genres of thriller, horror, and short film. Some of these include: The inclusion of a 'token' female who is portrayed as weak and defenceless which is more commonly linked to thrillers / horrors. Perhaps the two biggest conventions followed were pushing the boundaries of 'suspension of disbelief' and the fact that there is no definitive dénouement, the two of which are strongly linked to the found footage genre and without them the genre would not be the same.

Of course, some of the lesser conventions were also challenged, which was to be expected even before the narrative had been thought of as the found footage genre and short films happen to be two of the most 'stubborn' areas of film as their conventions so often contradict each other. Possibly the biggest convention of the short film that was challenged was the area of  sound. Sound is generally used much more copiously as there is only a fraction of the time available compared to that in feature films and sound, especially non-diagetic, can goad an audience into thinking / feeling a certain way towards a character / event much  quicker and smoother format than lines of dialogue can. Challenging this, my text contained an absence of non-diagetic sound as, following the conventions of the found footage genre, everything within the narrative is presented as real and outside of the film world, the addition of non-diagetic sound shatter the intended realism of the film and the suspension of disbelief becomes no longer intact.

After I had completed the editing of my text to the required five minutes in length I showed it to various friends and acquaintances in the hope of merely gaining an unbiased opinion of the overall product and narrative rather than anything else. However, the feedback from the majority of the people seemed to continuously point to the same small areas that they considered could be changed for the better. I took note of this and re-watched my text and discovered that their suggestions may actually change my film in a positive manner, I therefore made edits to my text for the final time. One of the two things changed was the small matter of changing a few words upon the opening title card as it was originally deemed to be rather ambiguous in meaning. The second being the bigger matter of shortening the ''electrical interference'' effect in the penultimate scene as it originally occurred continuously throughout the scene which made it difficult to see what was happening. Below are some screen shots of before and after the edit of this scene, in the after shot you can see how much clearer the scene becomes with the decrease in the effect.

The audience feedback enabled me to see slight errors and amend certain aspects that would have undoubtedly gone unnoticed without a third party involvement. I feel that this shows the importance of audience feedback as even if I hadn't have been able to go back and revise my text I would receive invaluable information to assist me in the making of my next production.

It is more than fair to suggest that without media technologies the execution and completion of this project would not have been at all possible. Below are examples of the most prominent of the technologies I happened to use.

Adobe Premier Elements & Video Camera
This is the editing software that enabled me to gather together all of my raw footage, which I first collected with the video camera, and construct it into a fully functional linear and comprehensible text during post-production.

Youtube
This website proved to be an invaluable tool that accompanied me throughout the research process. Here, I was able to gain access to various short films of all genres and analyse them which provided a great insight and knowledge into the conventions of these films and their genres as well as the pattern of audience feedback associated with each, both of which proved to be of extensive help as I embarked upon the making of my own text.

My Blog
Throughout the planning and evaluation stages my blog, and of course the internet, has shown to be one of the most useful outlets in terms of digital technologies. Through this I was able to accumulate  all of my work for my short film into one place which added simplicity and organisation to each of these stages as all information was made quickly and easily accessible. I feel that this had a positive effect upon all of my written work surrounding this project overall as previous works were easily referable which meant that all successive works were more coherent and detailed.

Mood Board

This is a collection of images that reflect the mood that I intend my production to have and reflect upon its audience. The moods being - Fear and darkness.

Filming Completed

Yesterday, keeping to the revised schedule, we completed filming for all scenes in both locations. Overall the filming went well and only took a few hours, however some problems did arise.

Problems
The main problem we faced was linked to the shooting of the exterior scenes in Bursted Woods. We had originally planned to arrive there in the early evening so it would be dark enough to create the right atmosphere but light enough to film deep in the woods, however the interior scenes had taken longer than expected so by the time we arrived it was approaching 9pm and, even with night vision turned on, too dark to see anything captured on camera apart from close ups. This happened with my AS project and the resolution we found was to film of the edge of the woods close to the road and shops which then gave a small amount of light and just enough to film the scenes. Unfortunately though, we could not do the same with this project as the camera needed to be quite the distance away from the characters to achieve a long shot. After some time of thinking and walking around the area we found the ideal solution - We used the road leading to the hospital. The road had street lamps spaciously place so this gave us just the right amount of light and, especially at this time of night, the road was hardly used by vehicles so this would give us enough time to film, privacy and lack of interruptions - or so we thought.

To film the scene I and another cast member hid by the side of the rode and slightly in the woods so we would be out of shot, the camera was placed in the road whilst the two characters involved in the scene were on the opposite side of the road. It seemed that every time we were almost finished with the scene a car came from the hospital so the actors had to quickly move from the road and the camera had to be retrieved so it was not damaged.

After this happened quite a few times it became frustrating so I told the actors to keep going with the scene for as long as they could until it was absolutely necessary that they had to move from the path of the car - this is when the biggest, but in the end the most helpful, problem arose. The scene was almost finished, the female character, Jennifer, is laying lifeless on the floor with the male character, Pelé,  in a white mask kneeling over her with his hands around her neck, at this moment a car came from the hospital but, as told, the actors remained in character until necessary. As the car came closer and slowed down Pelé ran out of its path into the wood but Jennifer had not yet noticed so was still in character lying lifeless on the floor as the car manoeuvred past her. After the car had gone we laughed about it and looked at the footage we had got to see if we could use any of it, everyone was with the camera on one side of the road except for Pelé who was on the other trying to fix his mask as it had snapped when he ran. At this moment another car drove up the road - a Police car. They stopped beside Pelé and immediately started asking him questions, another Police car also drove up, we all went over to see what was happening and when they saw the rest of us they looked surprised and said they had received a call about "A man in a mask attacking a girl", we came to the conclusion that the previous car must have celled them, after we had told them that we were actually filming a scene for my Media project they found it quite humorous and said the acting must have been convincing. After that, one of the Police cars stayed just long enough for us to finish filming the scene without any interruptions.

Filming

Filming could not be done at all today as all cast members had to stay behind in school to complete drama coursework and planning for their show. This was unforeseen and also due to other commitments filming can no longer take place on Friday 15th January either. We have all talked about this and have set a definite date to film all scenes on Tuesday 19th January.

Location List

Residential House
For all interior scenes we will use the same residential house. This is not for convenience purposes but due to the fact that the décor throughout has an extremely traditional and almost 'old' feel to it. This is thoroughly important to the mise-en-scene as I feel that we would not be able to create the same intensity of fear and suspense within the viewer if we had used a more 'modernly' decorated house. Also, the house belongs to one of the cast members, Jennifer, so we can use her actual bedroom as the location for her character's as in the script all interior scenes take place in her house.


Bursted Woods
All exterior scenes shall be shot in Bursted woods, the same location used for the woods in my AS level Media project. It is an expansive wooded area surrounding a hospital. I chose this location as I and the cast members know it well and the location is perfect for achieving the eerie feel we want to match the action in these scenes.


Railway Bridge
For the final scene with the masked character I have chosen a small footbridge above the railway near Bursted Woods. I also used this location for a scene in my AS Media project as the natural lighting in the area transfers as a great effect on camera.