The front cover in the making, part 2...

Below is my second development draft of my magazine front cover. I have changed the background colour and some other elements of which I have picked up on with the feedback I recieved. These elements help change the front cover and help match the conventions of exsisting products. Here is the second draft followed by some feedback for the target audience:

Feedback:

• "The background colour is much more efficient and fits the conventions of exsisting magazines"
• "Its not that bad, but the colour blue doesn't really represent the genre of the film"
• "The complete Hitchcock S1" still dosent really stand out"
• "How much is it?"

These are just some of the many comments of which I recieved. I have now made it my task to correct all the mistakes I have made and make the front cover more effective to fit the purpose of our product, meet the conventions of exsisting magazine front covers and to show the genre of the film through use of image, copy and graphics.

I have started to develop adjustments to the front cover by changing cetain aspects, such as colour and copy. These developments have then become my final product of which will be avaible at a later date.

The movie poster in the making, part 2...

Below is my second development draft of my movie poster. I have now swapped the layout around and have put the names of the actors at the top of the character shots as this was a convention of all of our anchillary tasks, I have added face shots and collected some more feedback to see how this has been improved.

Feedback:

• "The editing around the images is very poor as you can still see some green"
• "The effects look different?"
• "The image of 'Henry Lee' is far to large to the other characters"

I then improved on the poster as the feedback was quite critical and made adjustments to suit the feedback of the audience. This was the outcome and the feedback I recieved:

Feedback:

• "The editing around the images still looks green"
• "The effect on 'Henry Lee' looks different to the other two"
• "The release date looks much clearer as do the names of actors"

The movie poster is still getting some critical feedback, so I have made a decision to go ahead with my last design, with just the main character. I have used adapted this idea from one of the posters I researched in depth of which was from 'The Crazies' movie poster. This will add a sense of mystery to who is in the film as the top half of his face has been cut off. Also this matches the conventions of exsisting movie posters of which I have gathered for my research. This version ended up being my final version which I feel was very effective. This will be avaible at a later date.

Can we have your permission please?

As we would like to use the sound 'Action District' as our soundtrack I have emailed the creator of this soundtrack as it has been copy righted. Below shows the following email of which I sent to him asking him for his permission if we were allowed to use the sound track or not.

This is the email of which I sent to him:

Another meeting?

Within this meeting we have decided to discuss the music/soundtrack that would go on top of the action shots within the trailer. The soundtrack is a vital part of the trailer as this most defiantly makes it more effective. We wanted to pick a track that would emotionally grab the attention of the audience and relate to the story of the three young survivors. We sat down in front of a computer and searched the web for songs that would appeal to us and fit in with the shots of the trailer. We have decided that we would have more than one soundtrack as this would help intertwine different levels of the trailer.

The first soundtrack that we thought would fit in with our trailer was ‘Aint no grave’ by Johnny Cash.  This song appealed to us as it was slow and began to increase in tempo very slowly. We thought that this would fit in well with the slower parts of the trailer. We also liked it as there is some very distinctive drum sounds that we feel could help build tension for the audience. Also the context of which is involved within the soundtrack couldn’t be more appropriate and fit in with the genre of the trailer. The lyrics of the song talk about Death, preparing for death and life after death. This fits perfectly with the theme and the fact that the three survivors are doing everything to ensure that they don’t die. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7TMP1FTuH0&safe=active

Another soundtrack that we thought was very distinctive and mysterious was ‘Action District’ that we were able to find on ‘Audio Network’. This soundtrack has a very distinctive dubstep beat to it that starts of at a very slow pace and then builds up to become very fast. This would be perfect as the trailer starts of slow and then builds up with the montage of action shots. The soundtrack also has that tense sound to it that I feel the audience can become emotionally grabbed by the soundtrack. It is a non-digetic sound which helps add the element of mystery and will help the digetic sound stand out. We feel almost confident that we will be using this for the first half of the trailer.

The last sound that we have documented it as a heart beat sound, of which we have also found off the ‘Audio Network’ website. This we feel would be good to include at the later stages of the trailer as it helps build up the tension to the angle reverse angle of which we are thinking of including. This would also help keep the second section of the slow pace after the fast pace action montage, and help build it up to the zombie scare, of which was my idea, at the end to generate a huge fright. 

The front cover in the making...

Below is my first development draft of my front cover of a movie magazine. I have called the magazine 'The Film Magazine' as this gives the audience a clear understanding that its a film magazine and is about film. I have used the codes and conventions from exsisting movie magazine front covers and have incorporated this into my front cover. This is my first draft followed by some feedback of which I have gathered off my target audience:

Feedback:

• "The background colour if horrific and dosen't fit this genre, however the text does stand out on this background"
• "The main heading is a different colour to the other blues"
• "The complete Hitchcock doesn't really stand out, needs some sort of border or colour behind it"
• "The circle is the same colour as the background doesn't really stand out"
• "How much is it?"

I have now decided to change the background colour to try and match the conventions of other background colours.

The movie poster in the making...

Below is my first development draft of my movie poster. Certain aspects became hard to do as the quality and lighting of the images were hard to edit and put the right effects on the characters to make the poster dark and daunting. In order to improve my work I have asked my peers to evaluate my work.

Feedback:

• "I like the fact you are using the characters names in the film on the poster and on top of the weapons"
• "The face on the girl is very dark and therefore cannot see her"
• "The text on the poster is very effective and fits in well with the genre"
• "Theres no third character"
• "The effects are good and show that it is quite bloody?"

This is some good feedback but as the effects are hard to do for a full body shot of the characters, I will now start the process again but follow the second design as these are more face shots. I will do this because when I researched other movie posters and I thought this looked very effective for the target audience and will appeal more to them.

We must go on...

We have decided to have an emergency meeting to discuss the progression of the film trailer. The main issue that we had was the fact we haven’t got many shots of the characters in action. This has resulted in our action shots being limited and the ability to pick up the speed and the transitions have been made minimal. This will then result in a lack of the Mise-en-scene applied by the genre we are trying to conform to. We have now planned to film a multiple of different types of action shots which involve jumping off of roofs, a collection of chase scenes and fighting scenes. This will help reinforce our hybrid genre of a zombie action horror and put together a clear narrative of which the audience will understand.   

The Disease?

Below are some documents we have made that supports and tells the characters within the trailer more about the disease. These are the following documents:

Genre Theory

The theories related to gender are particularly important in relation to films. Feminist theory and queer theory provide different ways of receiving and reading a range of media texts.

Feminist Theory

This is the response to society’s assumption that women should subservient to men. In relation to media, feminists consider the way women are represented in media texts. Laura Mulvey argues that an audience watches a film in two ways:

·         Voyeuristically the audience watches unobserved by the characters but also by their fellow audience members. This leads to objectification and narcissist identification.

·         Fetishistically the vougerism leads to the figure becoming a fetish so that she becomes even more beautiful and she argues that this leads to the culture of the female movie star who is celebrated for her looks but considered as an object and often treated as such.

We are going to contrast against this theory and the conventions of the genre of which we are creating. We are establishing the character, Anna, to fight for herself and not be helped by the hero. This goes against the codes and conventions and this theory as this suggests that this the woman character cannot look after herself and is used as an object which isn’t the case with our trailer.