Ancillary Research Task 2

Above is an analysis of a famous film poster done in order to understand the conventions of film posters and get inspiration.

Today a typical film poster includes a few key features; bold film title, famous person, famous persons name in large text, ratings and a scene from the film to give a hint. The colour scheme and mood also seems quite considered to match the tone/genre, like in this piece it is very dark with deep blues and a lot of black.

Ancillary Research Task 1

Our media teacher introduced us to the really interesting, independent film magazine, Little White Lies (designed and distributed by a London graphic designers 'human after all' who also release their own film magazine). Rather than using photos the magazine is mainly illustrated which we think is really effective and we would like to use this idea for the ancillary task. The style of the article is so clean yet heavily stylized in reference to its subject. Emma has looked into some articles to analyse for inspiration for the ancillary task. She also looked at an article from empire magazine in order to compare and contrast the different ways of showcasing films.

Click here to visit the website.

Article 1 - Little White Lies

What works well?

The use of the border and colour scheme bring the article together by being consistent and making it stand out. The use of illustration rather than an image makes it much more eye catching and intriguing. The language used in the article is exciting and engaging by relating personally to the audience; speaking about real life issues and looking at the bigger picture and concept around the film.

Do they help attract an audience?

Yes, the visually attractive elements work together to draw in the reader, followed by quality writing which continues to grab the attention of the reader.

Initial thoughts for my own ancillary task.

We would like to take a similar approach to how Little White Lies is presented, it seems it will be much more time consuming but overall will be worth it as it will make a much more effective and eye catching article.

How will this have a common theme/style along side your main and ancillary task?

The style, content and colour theme will all relate to that of the films and be consistent through out both ancillary tasks.

An example of a Little White Lies cover.

Article 2 - Empire Magazine

Emma then had a look at the magazine Empire, a much more main stream popular culture magazine. Emma analysed this article comparing and contrasting the difference between LWL and Empire. The key points are annotated and pointed out on the article. She concluded that a magazine style similar to Little White Lies is what would suit our film best as Little White Lies showcases independent, arty films, whereas a magazine like Empire is for the mass audience.

This is my mind map of the key features we intend to use in our own article that we feel are most important in a successful film review.

Rough Cut

Shot List

We tried to use a variety of shots during filming, but at the same time we did not want anything to look overly staged, as we were creating a documentary.

Some of the shots we used quite frequently were;

• tracking shots - where we followed behind our presenter or walked with our presenter and subject as they talked.
• pull focus - this is where we changed the focus from one thing to another in a single shot. We did this a few times and it helped to make our clips more dynamic, as well as added emphasis to different things.
• rule of 3 - this isn't a type of shot exactly, but we did think about the composition of our characters within the frame e.g. when they are sat on the bench talking and during the time lapse
• time-lapse - we did two of these and they worked well, this is where a long period of time is sped up into a few seconds.
• close-ups - this is where the camera zooms in close to a person, usually the face. We did this during the city location. This added more emotion to our film.

Filming Review

Strengths

Filming went well. It took us a few hours to do, due to the change of locations but I think we managed our time efficiently.

We had to do shots several times, either because of our actors laughing or we felt we could get a better shot if we did it again or did it differently. We had one day of filming and then 2 shorter clips were filmed on another day.

In terms of getting our actors comfortable while filming, the technique of letting them run with a general idea of what we wanted to be said worked really well. This meant there was no pressure on them to remember lines and it stopped them sounding wooden, this was important as documentaries are supposed to be real life.

Problems We Faced

 

We did not have too many problems. The main issue we had is that after we had finished all our filming, we realised we did not have a clip for our first voiceover. We managed to sort this out pretty quickly however and decided that a quick time lapse of a sun setting (to relate to night and dreams) would be a suitable filler clip for an introduction.

 

The only other problem we had was our actors settling into their character. Henry struggled at first to get to know his character and execute it, but he got into it pretty quickly.

Poster Designs

 Outcome 1

 Outcome 2

The top image is the photographic outcome, I then went on to edit it in adobe illustrator using the image trace setting to create this effortless illustrative poster outcome. I can't decide which outcome is more successful as the first you can see the people and the street with much more clarity but I prefer the over all aesthetic of the illustrated version. I think this outcome reflects the style of the documentary with the hazy colour scheme and the overlay reflects the jumble/confusion within his mind, showing him in deep thought and him sitting in his spot with many people passing him by. I have chosen to keep the text very simple and modest, I decided there was no need to put in ratings or advertisement as our film is more a piece of art than a film for the mass and will attract its own audience regardless. 

Outcome 3

Stills from Filming