Ancillary Short Film

Film Poster:  1





Starting of with this poster we can see that the Title is a Serif font which is following conventions of typical horror films. This, although subtle, is a key element to think about when creating our film poster as it will add a professional element to our film.

Colour Palette:

As for the colour, it seem to be very monochrome with the addition of a bright red website that contrasts the rest of the poster. Due to this film being a Horror genre the colour palette matches this and gives of a negative stereotype.

Protagonist:

Due to the Person being centre image and singled out, I believe he is the protagonist. From this I can tell that he is being held hostage. In addition the use of a shadow showing he is escaping from the chair shows their is others that he is being held captive by. This shows also that he may be getting revenge and therefore hints to part of the story within an image which is a good thing to replicate within our poster.

Camera Shots:

Following from other film posters, their is a straight on picture normally of a mid shot or close up. This follows this but is of a mid-long shot as it shows he is singled out and on his own in a big room. This therefore connotes a lack of power, in addition the use of a birds eye shot shows that the room is a lot bigger than him.

Semiotics:

As the poster has blood and a torture chair as the main part we can see that the film will be a sort of crime or horror genre to the film. This would be a key aspect to add in our film as our actor is known enough to be recognised.


A key part to this film that relates to us in then fact it is a Crime/ Thriller genre. This is because of the hostage scenario that the script is based upon.

Representation:





Colour Palette:

The colour within this poster is fairly simple and quite bland, however this intern matches the genre of the film. The Main colour seen within this poster is red, this connotes blood, death and anger. Therefore linking to the genre.

Protagonist:

The poster does not contain a protagonist as it is instead of a hand/ arm with a knife. Although fairly unusual within a poster, I believe the reason behind this is because the film could be about a murderer who is unknown. So with the lack of a protagonist it can show the audience the genre of the film which includes Murder and Mystery. This is a key part of posters that we could look at, whether that be to subvert conventions or relate to the genre is a clever way.

Camera Shots:

For this one, we can see a mid shot of an arm in centre frame.This

Semiotics: Within this, we can see a knife in the centre frame that connotes violence and crime which could be a reference to what is in the film.





Colour Palette:

For this poster I can see that it has almost been cut in half. With the top part being Monochrome and the bottom half being a 3 colour palette with Red, Blue and white as the main colours. This is a cool technique as it shows the dark connotations with the film whilst allowing the poster to be visible and bright enough for people to see it well.

Protagonist:

Again as this Is a recognisable actor we have a close up of DiCaprio illuminated by the Match flame. This shows the audience the main actor and then pulls them in as he is very famous. Unfortunately the use of a close up of our protagonist won't most likely bring in audience due to his fame as he is only locally known.

Semiotics:

The use of a match lighting the protagonist up with the incorporation of the island show that he is going to be lost or alone on this island.


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Genre and Institution Research 2

Layout:

As for layout the majority of short films are based upon design and not the protagonist. So a lot of them have a selection of awards at the top of the page or reviews that they have had from the piers. In addition to this their is the cast of the film or the majority of actors that are key to the film.

Following this their is a design and masthead within the centre majority of the poster. This shows us some sort of aspect in the film that would pull us in to watch it. This would not happen if they used an actor that was only locally known. Finishing of the bottom of the poster has the poster notes and the links to any social media or small print. This follows on from feature films and keeps to the conventions.

Colour:

A lot of short films including this one have a minimal colour palette or a key colour palette that works well. This is mainly due to the fact that most short films go on good design rather that famous actors in the poster. For this one we can see the majority of the poster in a pale yellow and a dark teal blue for the font and text. The main illustration for this poster is in a blood red and stands out from the background. This therefore gives the audience a sense of what the film might be about (Space) without them having to read any thing.

Text Use:

To make most short film posters look professionally they usually use a sans- serif font that is seen on the majority of feature films today. Some short films have been seen with uncommon fonts that might appeal to the creator, however the majority of the time they don't look as good nor professional.To keep my poster good I will try to find commonly used fonts and stay with the conventions.

Content:

Most poster have a simple background photo that has been take and not edited. However in this one we can see that the creator has taken a photo of an astronaut and then has been Illustrated to keep the photo original and not copyrighted. This is most likely because they couldn't find a astronaut to take a picture of. The illustration is fairly simple as they have taken the white out of the suit and then turned the black into red. This is a simple technique that adds style to the piece and to me appears like it would be on a book rather than a poster. However it still works well and helps them if they couldn't take a very good quality photo.

Image Features:

Although I have spoken about this in content, I can see that they have used some good techniques to allow the image to flow well with the rest of the background. For example the use of the deleted colour in the suit and incorporating the yellow background allows for the poster to flow and makes the main image look like it hasn't been stuck on the centre of the page.


Institution:

The Cost of Creation:

For this short film is was budgeted as €140,000 which is equal to about £119,602. For a short film this is quite high but would be needed if they wanted to give a high standard.

How are they create:

For this the Full crew is used in each department. For example in sound, editing and visual effects they have about 5-10 people on that specific part. By this I can see that the poster would most likely of had a few people to create it to carry to style and professionalism from the film into the poster.

How much does it cost to have a poster displayed:

In America a Billboard advertisement can range anywhere from $8000 to $25000 for 4 weeks. This is a rough estimate as I can't find the exact cost they paid. This would mean that in the UK it would cost around £5000 to £15000 in a month. I have used dollars to follow the idea that their film was not produced in the UK.




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What the Target audience want ? 3

As you can see from these bar charts from our survey monkey we have had 74 people out of our target audience answer 4 key questions to help in the development of our ancillary products. To gain these results we distributed the link to our survey to multiple social media platforms from each person in our crew. In addition we put a 1 time filter to stop people spamming their answers multiple times and it allowed one survey per user. This allowed us to collect the key information to inform our ideas.

Starting of I can see that we have a fairly even gender split but with a male lead. This could connote that a majority of our target audience is males and maybe prefer film as we stated what the survey was when posting it upon social media.

Next we looked at colour palette, although this one would be very rough as each person in the group had to generate a idea which is not similar to each others. However we new it would be a good starting point when designing our products. The results of this question came to the conclusion that Black, Red and White were the leading colour. In second place was just Red and white, this result has allowed us to see that the audience are interested in the darker colour palette whilst having some bolder colour such as red and white. This means that when creating our products we definitely know not to use purple for example.

Next we have the subject and content of the poster which as you can see was vastly leading towards the props and key plot instead of say the Director or Main actor. This has shown me to use something from the film in my poster as the leading part. Therefore I could use the knife, cocaine or whiskey etc in my poster.

Finally you can see that the age group is what we expected with age 15 to 25 being the range of the top two results.

After this survey I can now see what my target audience want and also how to market my work towards them and not someone who is not interested in our thriller short.

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Flat Plans 4

Here

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Cast List 5

These are the three main characters/cast that I hope to use within my film poster(s). In addition to theses I might be able to gain some further photos of extras that were in our Short Film.

Ben Hicks:

As the drug dealer in our short, I believe that Ben has a key role to show the audience the plot to the film. In addition it shows that the current generation of teenagers are seen to be with the drugs and alcohol. Therefore I believe an image of Ben in the Drug Alleyway scene would suit a poster and our film very well. For the Photo, Ben will be wearing the same outfit that was seen in the film. This attire connotes his youth and the cap shows how he wants to be disguised.



Rory Wilton:

As the main protagonist of our short, I believe Rory has to be in one of our posters or part of his role. By this I mean that their could be a scene with him taking the drugs and the table could be in the majority of the poster. Although Rory subverts stereotypes of drug addicts, we based our film around this fact with a therapy session etc. I believe he will suit the audience appeal as it shows sub versions from the media stereotype.

Emma Hussey:

As the (ex) wife of Rory in the film, I believe that Emma would be a good addition to the poster if I were to have a shot of them both in scene. However as I would want to give much away about the plot of the film, I would try to make her involvement in the poster subtle so it would just give a hint to the storyline.

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Equipment List 6

This is a quick list of what I believe we will need to get our photos that we need for the posters. I have chosen the 5d instead of the 6d due to the fact it comes out with a better quality image. This is key to my posters as later when I need to manipulate them within a editing software like Photoshop, I will need a high quality image to zoom in and edit specific parts.

As for the light, I have chosen a dimmable light to enable the change of light on set to correct any shadows or highlights on the subject. In addition I will need as much light as I can get to enable me to lower my ISO and reduce the noise in the image, which will higher the image quality. Another feature of this light is the addition of a yellow filter, this will change the temperature of the light and will enable a moodier atmosphere to the photo to show the time of day it is within our short. However I have to be careful with the colour of the light as I will need a colder image, due to the fact our film is shot around a negative subject. (Drugs/Alcohol) To produce this I will need a flatter image to allow me to colour grade it to how I would like it. If the image was to warm for example I would need to take out the yellow before adding more blue, this will result in a lower quality edit.


I will plan to get Jasmine Fassenfelt our makeup artist to produce the same effect on the casts face that was seen in the film. This will help show the drug related addiction, tiredness and illness and will make the characters look like the role that was intended for them. Another Idea will be to use Fake Blood to be on the knife. This will allow me to capture a picture or the blood dripping and therefore I could make a poster out of that. The use of makeup will also allow for the subjects highlights and reflection to be dulled down a lot, which is a technique used in todays industry for better film and photo quality.


Finally, I will gather the items that were on the table within the drug scene in our short. From here I can take a set of photos of each item and as a whole for me to later edit into my poster(s)


Canon 5d MKIII
Portable Led Dimmable Panel light
San Disk 64GB Sd Cards
Fake Blood
Assorted Makeup
Cocaine
£5 note
Table
Knife
Alcohol

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Original Images 7












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Journal of critical Reflection 8

As for my current set of photos, I have a set of photos that are a mixture of screen shots from our cuts and photos that we have taken during the shot.

To fill out our shots and allow us some movement when editing and needing image I have taken screen shots from our film that I would have taken if I had the time with the actor. Unfortunately, our actor was called out for a last minute appointment in London which cut our shoot 1 day short. In this day we could have got a photo shoot done.

Overall I believe this refined set of shots will allow me to design a few posters etc will are up to the quality of other film posters. In addition to this as the shots were taken on the day of the shoot the continuity of the photos works well with the film. I believe that if we could get our actors back for a shoot ( Not possible due to their schedule) it could look out of place as everything from the lighting, clothing and even the camera settings would change which could make for a less professional outcome.

For my poster and other forms of photos I will go with a graphical illustration style, this I believe will allow me to edit the photos how I want them instead of having to work with the image in its current angle. For example If I wanted to Illustrate the knife and cigarette into a single poster I could as they would be of a vector format, Allowing for the images to be manipulated without a loss of quality.

My two favourite images from this shoot are the Cigarette and the cutting of the cocaine. This is due to the fact they connote what the film is about. In comparison from this, the images alone of the actors would not necessarily suggest anything about the film to our audience.

However I believe that I could easily edit the images with surrounding imagery that supports the plot of the film. For example, with the film Shutter Island DiCaprio is seen to be alone on the Island that is underneath him in the poster. This connotes something to do with being on a island maybe alone and lost. With a technique like this I could connect Rory ( Protagonist ) with the drugs and alcohol in the film.

As for ideas, I have had a few in the illustration route in comparison to the photo style. However I will consider this when designing my poster flat plans.

My first Idea is to create a illustrated glass table from a birds eye view. On the table you will see the Drugs, alcohol and Knife, in addition to this you will see out name/masthead cut out of the Cocaine.

Another Idea is to create a illustration like Psycho with the knife and drugs being in a graphical format with a smaller name in a normal font somewhere on the poster.

I will follow up with these design and develop them later in the process.

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Screen Grabs of editing process 9

Here is my first fairly simple poster draft that is an illustration of the Knife from the drug scene in our Short. I have gathered a screen shot from the film to take reference from to further illustrate. Once I had this knife, my idea was to design the poster from a Birds eye view, this almost shows the view from the Protagonists Point of view when cutting and taking the drugs.



In this screen shot (although faint) I am getting a powder style brush that I have downloaded from brusheezy. This powder style was to replicate the Cocaine as best as possible. I have used a brush for this due to the fact that when I took a photo of the Cocaine it resulted in a jagged cut when trying to remove the background in Photo shop.

This was the same thing with the table, however I found that trying to take a picture of the glass table was very difficult due to the reflections.



To improve this I will attempt to create a reflection in photo shop after looking at some tutorials online.

For the font in this I have used both Futura and Lithos pro. I have not researched these fonts yet to go with the genre of film, however these were just taking from memory of the fonts I liked. In the end I believe that these fonts work well as they have a sharp edge that appears to be cut like the drugs would be.



Finally I outlined the screen shot of the knife in our film and filled it with red. In addition to the knife I used a short stubby brush that I found and manipulated it to appear like it is the Cocaine and has just been cut by the knife.

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Poster Draft 1 10

In conclusion I am very happy with the outcome for a draft and it follows the styles that I was aiming for at the start of my development. By this I mean that I have taken the Illustration format and the birds eye view that I was looking for.

However I do believe that I could vastly improve the poster by refining parts such as the background and developing parts to match the genre of the film. This could include changing the font, colour palette and designs.

My main problem with this poster is the fact that it doesn't have a reflection to show the glass table, this therefore only shows the knife and cocaine and doesn't keep with continuity. To improve this I will look at ways to develop reflections on Photoshop. Therefore It will appear like the table in the film.

The other problem with the poster is the fact that the surrounding areas have no text or credits etc and doesn't appear finished. However this is my first draft so I am extremely happy with the end result and for a first draft I believe I have developed my flat plan into digital poster well.

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Poster Draft 2

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Final Poster 11

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Analyse three review pages from a film magazine(s) 12 (IN PROGRESS


Empire:
Empire is a well known film magazine that is published by Bauer Media Group who reach an audience of 22 million adults. Empire is now one of the biggest selling film magazines in the UK, as well as being published in the United Stats, Australia, Turkey, Russia, Italy and Portugal.  Empire are now a very big and  are a renowned mainstream magazine company that publish reviews on the most popular mainstream films.
       

Sight And Sound:
This Independent magazine is again a monthly film magazine which is published by the British Film Institute also known as the BFI.
As this magazine is a lot smaller than Empire they tend to focus their attention on a wider genre and type of film compared to Empire who seem to focus on the bigger more popular films. This means that Sight and Sound are ideal for us as they review short films too.


Little White Lies:
Again another Independent magazine who publish Bi-Monthly by the TCO company in London. Similar to Sight and Sound their focus is broader and therefor links to us with our short film. A feature that stands out with this Magazine is the design orientated layout that they follow with the way the design is inspired by each film that they review.

Layout:

Text Use:

Fonts:

Lexis:

Colour Palette:

Photography:

Intertextuality:

Semiotics:

Genre:

Representation:

Audience:

Narrative:

Connotation:

Article:

Theory:

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List of common conventions for a magazine review 13

Typically these Magazine reviews are found in Film magazines such as Sight and sound, however a majority of newspapers such as The Guardian have review of films that have done well. These reviews in the newspapers are typically taken from another magazine or from the critic themselves.
Another key place to find reviews are online, such website like Rotten Tomatoes have a huge audience with thousands of views a day. This is due to the vast array of reviews that are compiled over the Internet, therefor their is no need to buy a magazine for each film you want to see the review of.

List of features on a review page :

• Tag line to sum up important details about the film.
• Summary/rating. Either in a word summary saying if to watch or not or a star rating.
• Synopsis of the film
• Key/Important/Dramatic photo to pull the audience in to watching the film.
• Details; Director,DOP,Sound, Writer etc
• Name / Year of the film
• Characters / Cast
• Name of Critic

Layout:

Colour:

Text Use:

Positioning:

Camera Shot Type:

Mise En Scene:

Representation:

After looking at these conventions I can now start to develop these into my own design and therefore match them for a successful product. This means that the audience will be able to see clearly the genre conventions and how I have matched them. 

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Survey Monkey on what the TA want 14

SURVEY MONKEY

How old are you ?

Under 10
10-15
16-20
21-30
31 +

Gender ?

Male

Female
Prefer not to say

What hobbies do you like?

Biking
Running
Swimming
Hockey
Rowing
Other …

What would you expect from a review?

Photos
Ratings
Film Details ( Length etc)
Other ….

What colours schemes do you find appealing?

Monochromatic
Dull
Bright
Complementary
Other

Which font do you prefer?

Arial
Helvetica
Ailerons
Times New Roman
Other

What ratio would you prefer for image to text?

Image only - 100%
Half - 50%
Majority Text - 25%
Text Only - 0%

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Film Review Notes

Film Review

Features:
Rory Wilton - Protagonist - Anthony

Emma Spurgin Hussey - Wife - Lucy

Ben Hicks - Drug Dealer 

Rebecca Meads Stutchbery - Daughter - Jess

Alison Dures - Therapist - TBC


Crew:

Fin Davis - Writer 

Ben Hicks - Writer - Actor

Zack Vincent - DOP - Editor - Colour Grade

Jake Clutsom - Producer - Sound

Main Theme:

Thriller
Crime
Drug deal
Murder
Double Homicide
Disjointed chronology
Addict

Filming Quality:

Handheld shows uneasy air
Flash back

Notes:

Location
Arranged location
Correct mise en scene
Right attire
Dim Alleyway
Messy living room, boarded for privacy
Alcohol
Drugs
Knife
Gather Quotes from people who have viewed the film
Release date
Rating
Recommendations
Reviews
Pros
Cons
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Article Draft 15

(IN PROGRESS)

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Title Ideas 16

Focus Pull 

Entire Film
Comprehensive Movie
Short Cinema
Directors Cut
Reel View
Reel Talk
A-list Mag
Cinematic
Motion

Quirky name
Short
For a short film mag ?
Film related
Fit genre
Target Audience Approved
Appropriate style for product

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Flat Plans 17



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Photography and Lighting Research 18




By looking at tutorials like these it will allow me to expand on my photographic techniques predominantly focusing on lighting techniques how to compose the shot.

From this tutorial I have learnt techniques that I had not previously used. As well as lighting in general and what lights to use, I have actually learnt about the placement of lights to create/ remove shadows . Also, it is explained in the tutorials that maybe natural lighting may be beneficial and would suit the shoot better to create a more realistic mood.

In other tutorials it explains the camera settings regarding ISO, shutter speed and noise reduction, this is another key part to go in connection with lighting to get a better overall result. I however have learnt this previously so I will be focusing on the lighting.

Outcome:
When working on the shoot I found out that the use of artificial light made the shoot seem to unrealistic and therefore didn't match the genre and style we wanted. So after this research I have learnt what makes a professional product but instead used natural lighting which was also spoke about in the tutorials.

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Equipment List 19


Canon 6D DSLR
Canon 5d DSLR
Tripod x1
Softbox Photography Lights x2
Apple iMac Computer
Apple MacBook Pro Laptop
SANDISK SDHC 64 GB memory card

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Original Images 20

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Journal Critical reflection on shoot 21

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Screen grabs of editing progress 22

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Review page draft 1 23

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Final review page 24

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