our own little white lies front cover - Ben Brown

I made this outline of what our little white lies front cover would look like.

As I wrote earlier in my 'little white lies research' post the magazine little white lies follows the colour scheme and style of the front page and the film on the front page throughout the magazine.

We are planning to make the colour of the 3 box's in the review which hold the information of the title, release date and directors in with a blue background with white writing and the colour of the main background as white. This will follow the colour scheme of the cover as Alice in wonderlands dress is blue and white'.

Feedback comments. Nicole.

Here I’ve written about the overall feedback comments and evaluative explanations for some of our criticisms, along with some screen grabs of our film to show the highlighted parts of our film.

Positive:

+Great original storyline
+Great soundtrack behind first half
+Good match on action
+Fade between kids from younger to older – very good (furthermore – mise en scene is really good here)
+Shots when Ben’s getting changed in front of mirror very good and looks very professional
+Good use of non digetic sound in the background and the editing
+Transitions are really well done
+First scene works really well where it switches between the two where they are sorting out the sound for the computer
+Clever how you brought back the same soundtrack from the beginning to the ending
+Good idea of having no dialogue in it
+The radio broadcast – unique and funny

Negative
-Letter shot – too quick so not enough time to read it
-Some of the scenes were too dark
-Could have muted some ambient sound when it switched to and from both of them (just after she walks away from the door)
-Could have varied few more shots
-When Sophie is texting its clear it was done at night and the boy receives the text in broad daylight!

Evidently there is more positive feedback than negative. But from what has been said, I think our strongest points and elements of our film were the sound choices, original storyline and ideas for shots. From the audience feedback, our best shots seem to of been:

The fade between the two characters



Shots of Ben getting changed:



The first few shots of Sophie/Daniel speaking online:



Looking at the negative feedback, there are clearly a couple of things we should have taken into account and if we had the time, would have definitely improved.
Many people have highlighted how they didn’t feel they had enough time to read the letter and some of the msn convosations. Although my group have tested it ourselves, this has been seen as a problem so if we had the chance we would have definitely made that shot longer.



A big problem we seemed to have was the lighting of some of the shots, as many turned out to be too dark. For example, the scene when Sophie comes home and texts Ben and the scene when Ben is writing the letter;



This was partly due to the fact we had limited time to do some scenes, as most of the filming days were done after college late in the evening, and the times varied therefore the lighting and naturalistic light varied.

The comment that was made about how we could have varied the shots more didn’t go down well with our group, as we felt we had used a variety of shots and ideas! We didn’t want it too varied as we felt that wouldn’t fit the social realism conventions.

Overall, our group is very happy with the feedback we got and found it useful and enlightening on our strengths and weaknesses. Also we are very proud having reached over 200 views of our film on YouTube!

Further poster ideas - Ben Brown

We received some audience feedback on our original film poster which was poster below. The main criticism seemed to be the fact that it looked for too much like a movie magazine front cover rather than a poster. So I did some research into some layouts of movie posters and their functions.

Before you start any designing of a poster you need to ask yourself, who am I aiming it at?, is it educating them in the film?, am I promoting the film? And what do I want my target audience to get out of this.

We are aiming it at our target audience of females the ages of 16-30, it is showing them the characters on the poster so they know that they will involved in the film in some sort of romantic story because they are holding hands, it is promoting the film because of the reviews from newspapers (still need to put it) and the BBC FILMS which shows its high standard film, also it looks interesting to the target audience and tells some of the story so they will want to go and see the rest. I want the audience to be able to relate to what they can see on the poster and because it’s really pain we want the audience to keep asking questions and create a ‘want to see hype’.

We have tried to reduce the clutter and the amount of words we use on the poster to make it look less like a magazine front cover and more like a poster (by taking away some of the comments from newspapers), and to put all attention onto the main focus which is the picture. The picture is the main focus of all film posters because you can learn a lot about the genre of the film and the representation of the characters. In our film poster we have emphasised the picture by having quite a plain back ground which does not take the focus off the characters.

Also we have included a big colourful title which along with the picture will be what the audience see first. The colour red shows that there the film will involve the boy and the girl involved in love in some way (you red titles in a lot of love films).

We have tried to rely on the graphics of our poster to tell the storyline rather than words. You can tell a lot more from the poster with a large picture and a bold title and get a better image of what it is about than you can with explaining it with lots of text. The other problem with lots of text is people will not stop to read the text and text is not eye catching like a large photos and titles are.

We are also thinking about rotating the poster to make it horizontal rather than vertical and putting a slight frame around it to further the poster representation and to get rid of the magazine front cover image it currently has.

Film Feedback- Dani

On creating the facebook page, over 70 people have joined the group and most have commented on the film, leaving positive and negative feedback. Most of the feedback was highly positive and seemed to like the story and the way in which it was created. However there was a couple of things that a few people had picked up on that we could have improved, these were

1. They needed longer to read the letter and msn conversations (so we should have left the camera running for a couple more seconds)
2. They thought that a few shots were a bit dark in comparision to the rest (this couldn't be changed, but we should have considered filming in a lighter area)
3. Someone recognised that when the letter was posted it was folded and when she picked it up, it wasn't. (here we should have recognised this and kept the letter folded)

This was my favourite quote so far as this was what we aimed to achieve, so were therefore successful.

'I felt it conveyed a real conflict of emotion taking viewpoints from both genders and all available viewpoint not leaving the viewer in any sort of suggestive or assuming mood. The film exceed...s expectation vastly on media work and this illustrates great quality in the ability you guys have'

We have put the film on Youtube and recieved over 200 views, which will hopefully inspire other film makers or simply create entertainment!

Here is a link to our facebook page..


http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=109122429106169&ref=ts

Film feedback - Ben Brown

This some extra feed back we got in the film which will hopefully help us in our evaluation


Susie Graham-Hyde Veryy good! the storyline is very easy to understand :)


Karl 'Raptor' Jenner heeey
this is a good piece of work =] good camera angles used, good transitions when the kids grow up.....pretty much all of it was quality =]


Arran Smith aww quite sad in the end :( but i really liked it :P
i liked the idea of msn convo :D:D


ahh thats well good.. i like the changing clothes bit. the only thing i would say was when nicole read that letter out if wasn't folded or anything. so how would that have fitted through the letter box? haha. wooo well done :) x
It was really good! love the story line very original, the change from young to old was done very smoothly, and the match on action was great. Only a slight problem with sound and could of slowed down the letter part. But apart from that was really well done and loved the geting ready part, good job guys!

Little White Lies - Ben Brown

'Little white Lies' is a film review magaizne published by the church of london which reviews all films including short films. This is why we have chosen this magazine to put our film review in becuase other review magazines do not look at short films. It comes out once every 2 months and tries to sell itself as being a unique, innovative, friendly, trendy and informative to the public magazine.

Through out the magazine it follows the same colour scheme and style of the front page film (which is normally a big hollywood film not a short film) we have chosen to base little white lies edition of the magazine around alice in wonderland which i am currently making a front page cover for. so we are going to make the title boxes etc blue and white which is the origional colour alice in wonderlands dress.

I Have been looking at the recent adverts in the magazine 'Little White Lies' and have found adverts such as O'neil, Playstaion and Rockstar Games. this tells me that this magazine is mainly aimed at the males audience. But there are also refrences to women traits in making it hard to tell weither this magaizne is aimed at males and females of any age.

Functions if a film review - Ben Brown

Film reviews are found everywhere. For examples Magazines, radio, TV and newspapers.

Reviews have an impact on how well the film does. Magazines will be invited for a special advanced review. Which the distributor sends them and it gives all the information on the film etc, so the magazine can write about it with the aim to hopefully to increase hype for the film

The plot summary and description of a film is what makes up the majority of the film review and this will have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film.

For prestige dramas with a limited release, such as independent dramas, reviews can make a huge impact on sales etc.

There have been several films with little confidence from the studios, they don’t ask for an advanced review, reviewers will take up on this and warn the public of their actions, films such as 'The Avengers' who have done this have not done well at all.

Look at the films that have been slated by reviews like 'Alexander' this film did not do well at all and it could be due to the fact it was given a bad review. Compared to pulp fiction a lower budget film which was given a good review became a massive film and this also could have been partly to do with the good review. This shows how important film reviews can be to how successful or not the film is going to be.

Film Poster- Dani

Here i have experimented with our film poster by changing the background to a pale colour. Although we may not use this colour, it gives us an idea of what it will look like without being plain.

I will test a few colours and see what looks best.

Little White Lies Research- Dani

'Little White Lies' is an independent film magazine produced by The Church of London. Issue zero was created as the final degree project of co-founder Danny Miller in 2001.The first issue was released in February 2005, printed in edition of 2500, and distributed only in UK Borders stores.

In 2008, Little White Lies won its first major award: Best Designed Consumer Magazine of the Year at the Magazine Design & Journalism Awards.[2]

A website, littlewhitelies.co.uk, was launched in 2006. A major redesign took place in 2008, followed by the addition of a digital back-issue archive in 2009, and an online forum in 2010.

I found this information on the internet which gave me an idea of the background into 'Little White Lies'

Review Copy Draft -Nicole

By the cover, it could be just another romantic comedy, but in reality this social realism film portrays less laughter and more emotion than any predecessor has ever tried, meaning Hugh Grant and Colin Firth would look slightly out of place had director Ben Brown opted for the big names.
Instead, the use of lesser known actors allows the audience to relate to the characters and the gentle lap of drama that can be felt throughout.
This highly anticipated tear-jerker is set to hit the cinemas in the next few weeks, meaning more couples than ever will be loading up with popcorn and fizzy drinks to sink into each others arms, which is exactly what this film is all about.
Sophie Laurie stars as a nervous young girl, who despite the obvious affections she has for her teenage romance, played by Daniel Brown, cannot bring herself or her heart to give itself away at the door of the unfortunate young man.
Brown’s character is the subject of much sympathy throughout, his heart broken by Laurie’s inconceivably innocent yet pitiless character, whose actions cause consequences she does not contemplate. Despite her conscience clearly playing its part when discussing her secret crush with her much-older looking friend (Ruse), this is not reflected in her actions as Brown is consigned to mere memory for the first half of the film.
The clever way in which time elapses introduces the two older characters, played by Nicole Laurie and Ben Brown, with the latter trying to re-instigate a romantic rendezvous with his childhood sweetheart. Unknown to her lover however, Laurie senior is a taken woman, whose unsuitable and bumbling other half (English) plays a minor but crucial role as this tale unfolds.
The story perfectly depicts what thousands of teenagers will feel they have been through; Brown’s character is the embodiment of hope and desire yet the feeling of sadness and loneliness, whilst Laurie’s elder teenager is torn between what she has to do and what she wants to do, a dilemma for many of her age group. There is more to this film than just teenage tears though, as the casting of the characters is spot on and the simple storyline promises not to lose even the most absent minded of viewers.
Nearly Reunited does exactly what it says on the social realism tin, by using some very believable settings and accurately illustrates crossroads faced by many young people today. The irony and slightly comical aspects still bring a smile to your face rather than keep you intertwined with the sadness that keeps pouring out, meaning as well as probably reflecting on your own first love, you will also thoroughly enjoy this production. Comparable to an updated Jane Austin storyline, the lack of dialogue is noticeable at points but the well-selected sound features make this as pleasing on the ear as it is on the eye.
　Shrooms Productions thoughtful and touching debut is more than a foray into the film market, but the first rung of a ladder filled with powerful and entertaining pieces, and promises greater things to come. Sophie Laurie produces a classy performance for someone of her tender age, flowing seamlessly from love-struck to love-sick, as she challenges the saying that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’.

Wordcount: 560.

Little White Lies research- Kris English

The magazine that we are styling our review on is 'Little White Lies'. Upon looking at an issue of the magazine there are many features of there reviews that stand out. The most notable of these is the theme that runs throughout the whole magazine. For example, in one issue of 'Little White Lies' they had a theme of an apocalypse running and on a few of the reviews they would have scorch marks on the pages. This is unique to the magazine and is more to do with the layout than the actual review its self. We are going to take this idea and incorporate into our review. We are going to use a theme of Alice in Wonderland in our layout. This means we are going to use alot of light colours like blues and greens for the layout of our review.





The language used in these reviews is not something you would expect to find in a film magazine. Although film reviewers tend to have a vast vocabulary, the language that is used in these reviews stands out. The words that they use to describe the film they are reviewing have a sense of upper class about them. Words such as trepidation and thought provoking radicalism tend to be found in more upper class conversations. We have spent a lot of time looking at the standard of language used in these reviews and have made our review as close as we could possibly make it in terms of the text.

Feedback - Nicole.

I thought we definitely needed some more feedback so we had plenty to talk about in our evaluations and discussions so I decided to create a group on the social network "Facebook", with a link to our short film and asked as many people as possible to please write their opinions and feedback on the wall.

Luckily, already alot of people have got back to it and have commented useful and both positive and negative comments which we be helpful to us! Furthermore, a majority of the people to write their comments were from our target audience - young females.
Here are some examples:

Becky Roberts, student, 17
"hey it was good but the bit with the letter didnt get to read it all showed it too quick and some of the scenes were quite dark but cool idea and i enjoyed watching it!"

Ami Hewitt, student, media student, 18
Heya..
I love the film, I think its such a great original story line, love the soundtrack behind the first half, I think the fades from when the kids are younger to older works really well, and your match on action if fab!

I also really like the shots where he is getting changed in front of the mirror, really clever and ...looks really pro!!

One criticism, could have muted some ambient sound when it switched to and from both of them (just after she walks away from the door)
LOVE IT

Kathryn Tuck, student/media student, 18
Was a really great project :) Good use of non diegetic sound in the background and the editing, with the fading transitions between the shots of Sophie and Nicole etc. Would have been good to use a few more varied camera shots, you used close ups on Nicole's reactions at the door but maybe could have used a few to high...light the guy's reactions?
Overall REALLY good :)

Ellie Potts media student, 17
Thats such a good movie (: The transitions are done really well, I like the fade you use between the younger children to older.
You have used a good use of camera angles especially reaction shots and i liked the mirror one (:
Only negative is when sophie is texting its clear it was done at night and the boy recieves the ...text in broad daylight!
Other than that really good and you can tell you've put a lot of time and effort into it :D

Abi Black, student/media student, 18
Your film is literally the sweetest thing!
Ok evaluative comments, well I loved it :)
The first scene works really well where it switches between the two where they are sorting out the sound for the computer, and the morphing from them being younger to them being older, as you changed the mise en scene to suit it.The bi...t with the letter although you didn't get a chance to read it all you got the jist of it. Clever how you brought back the same soundtrack from the beginning to the ending, works really well. Was really good to watch :) x

Becky Bates, student, 18
hey.. this is so good! good plot and the transition as they grow up is a really good idea as well as the different clothes in the mirror and i like how there's no actual speech in it
some of it was a little bit dark and had to pause it to read the letter and msn conversations but overall really good well done :) x

Ben Alfrey, student, 17
Me not being an expect in the field of media and film in particular leaves me wondering at what I could criticise at such work. I felt it conveyed a real conflict of emotion taking viewpoints from both genders and all available viewpoint not leaving the viewer in any sort of suggestive or assuming mood. The film exceed...s expectation vastly on media work and this illustrates great quality in the ability you guys have.

James Greeley, student, 17
was pretty good lads well done!!
ben in the mirror was quality!! and nicoles acting left much to be desired!!
joking it was good :)
oh and give more time to read the ltter/ msn convo at the start

Aimee Stroud, student, 17
That was very good :D good work haha umm like the profile group pic ;) anyways i like how 'sophie' grows up think thats a cool idea.. and it was very easy going to watch understood the narrative well. I also liked the way you used msn and phone messaging and the fact i got to see what they were saying to eachother etc..... umm thought the soundtrack was good, you do that yourselves? And the umm gay voice radio thing? haha that was quite comical.. umm what else can I sayy.. it was sad to see him look through the window at the end and loved the way nicole wasnt eating with her noodles just playing with them haha!!

Karl Jenner, Uni Student, 18
heeey
this is a good piece of work =] good camera angles used, good transitions when the kids grow up.....pretty much all of it was quality =]

Arron Smith, 18, media student
aww quite sad in the end :( but i really liked it :P
i liked the idea of msn convo :D:D

Alex Maskell, 18, student
very good!! understood the narrative and liked the use of siblings!! x

Kaz Robertson, 18, media student
I like it, sweet story line, nice point of view mirror shots of Brownie, nice track before he sits on the bench, music fits the mood, I liked the soundbridge radio, your continuity was a bit dodgy when ben folded the letter and posted it throught the door then it landed open and she found it open on the floor.

Little White Lies Research - Nicole Laurie.

As our film review has to be in the style and format of the film magazine "Little White Lies", I thought I'd do some research into the background and features of this magazine.

- Little White Lies is a British Independent Film magazine released monthly, which includes writing, reviews, illustrations and photography on films featured at the cinema. It is produced by the Church of London.

- Each individual issue is based around a single film, which then the whole magazine is inspired and has related features throughout (e.g. interior design, editorial icons, chapter headings and custom typefaces). But the overall template of the magazine stays exactly the same.

Examples:

Star Trek Issue.


The Man On Wire Issue.


The Where The Wild Things Are issue.



- The magazine covers films from independent films to blockbuster releases.


- There is also a online edition of Little White Lies, which includes all of the reviews, in a slightly shorter word count but in the same style and simular layout.

Online version:


As I'm taking part in writing the copy of the review, through looking at some reviews online, I've developed a good idea and an insight into the language/setup of the copy and what the review consists of.

* Alot of advanced adjectives to describe characterisation

examples: 'a crusading journalist' (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)
'loveable batty Mrs Docherty' (Nanny McPhee)

Also in class we have gone through a few examples online, such as the films '44 inch chest' and 'The girl with the dragon tattoo" so I thought I'd analysis a example myself. I chose to analysis a social realism film as this relates to our film the most.

Brief Overview- Kris English

Now that we have finished our film, i have taken the time to watch it closely and also thought about how the process of making it went overall. Personally i feel that the way we approached this film was good, we had a fair few ideas from the outset and combined them to create our final piece. The planning for our film was well thought out and was contributed to by everyone. When we reached the stage of actually filming our piece, we didnt tend to take that long in filming. We only needed a few days of filming as we got alot done in one day. The commitment from the group was very good and when people couldnt make it the others where more than prepared to step in and continue with the shots that we needed.

From watching the final finished version of our film it is clear to me that some shots that we thought would be amazing in our heads didnt actually turn out the way we had hoped. For example, the split screen of the two younger characters was not up to the standard that we had set for ourselves and although it still works in the sense that it shows the two characters thinking of each other, i think the shots that we used should have been better. Apart from that i feel the film was exactly how we planned it to be and from the feedback we have had it seems to be very clear to the audience what is actually happening in the film.

Overall i think the process of researching, making and producing our film went very well. The part i think we relished in the most was perhaps the filming stage. Everyone had a chance to shine and show how creative we could be and we all grabbed the oppotunity with both hands, i think this is evident the the variation of shots that we have. However, i still feel that the other parts of the process went very well.

Taking into account comments on our poster, i made some alterations and improved the style. I added in a film award logo in order to make it more realistic which i found on the college K drive. I then used a 'BBC Films' logo as i thought this would be suitable as social realism films are often made by the BBC.

Another thing i did was changed the font of the film reviews to make it look more professional and made it slightly smaller as it was taking up too much room.

Although there is a blank space, i don't think that this is negative and works well as a poster as it draws attention to the main features. By keeping the background white, it also maintains the simplicity and realism.

Final Film- Kris English

This is the final finished version of our film.

Poster Idea - Nicole

This is my adaptation of my idea of the poster, done through the programme indesign. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to put this together, especially as I had quite a few 'thought to be' complex parts (e.g. the diagonal keyboard at the top left and the film grabs of the younger two). I changed a couple of things to it as I found a few things I liked on Indesign which I could use and inspired me to put onto my poster. For example, I did the titling differently and made the "R" of both words connect, and backwards to show a subtle hint thats theres a complication in the thought of a reunion. I also put the ratings and review comments down the side of the image of me and Ben instead of the bottom, as firstly I forgot I needed to put a date of release which seemed best at the bottom, and secondly because I didn't anticipate how much space there would be either side of the characters image and how much it would affect the layout of it, so changed it to fill some space. I like the screengrabs I managed to get from our film as it shows them facing eachother, showing a connection. And then I think the image of me and Ben turned out well, as we are against eachother and facing opposite directions, perhaps suggesting something about what happens?

Film Poster- Dani

This is our final copy of our film poster. Nicole and I had both produced versions in which we thought were successful and we decided to use mine.

On studying similair film posters that are within the same genre, we discovered that the most effective way would be to use a fairly simplistic design using a white background. I stuck to two main colours which were black and red as i thought these were appropriate to the film.

The image used was chosen out of several because i felt that it represented a link between the characters, yet shows an element of distance, therefore does not reveal too much about them.

I used the same style as many film posters do by putting the actors names at the top and the film production team at the bottom, using a similar font that a lot of posters/film covers use.

For the title, i felt that by using the letter 'R' in 'Nearly' for the word 'Reunited' then this would represent the idea of being reunited in itself, therefore would fit the theme well. I used a different colour for the letter so that it would stand out as being used for both words.

I decided to put the tagline next to the image as we had a blank space which needed to be filled. It also fits well next to the characters as it is about them.

As a lot of film posters have reviews, i decided to use this approach and added three quotes that fitted the description of our film, with a five star image underneath, a technique used to encourage people too see the film.

Following conventions of other film posters, I included a '12' rating at the bottom and 'APRIL 2010' which stands out in big font, so it would seem more realistic.

Overall i found it enjoyable creating the poster and found Indesign simple to use once i got the hang of it. I would feel confident in using the programme again.

Film review draft - Ben Brown

This is the first draft for our film review.

we looked at the lay out of the reviews in 'little white lies' and through out the magazine it copies the colour scheme and style from the main film on the front page. We have chosen the film Alice in Wonderland and to show this on the review I placed some bunny ears in the bottom right hand corner to follow the style of Alice in Wonderland theme.

we included 4 separate columns in the layout of the review in the same style as the layout of little white lies, which also includes a rating system at the end out of 5. For anticipation for the film, Enjoyment of the film and what people thought with retrospect of the film.

The title, directors, actors and the date released information was all placed in the 3 separate boxes with with in the next draft will have rounded edges.

Finally I found a photo which can slightly portray what the film is about without giving too much away.

Film Comparision- Dani

In completing our film, i found a trailor of a film in which was our inspiration and has a similar plot. It uses a dissolve shot to show a change in time which was our main source of showing the transition.

Film Review Research- Dani

In order to get an idea of what sort of style to write a film review in, i did some research and looked at a few romantic comedy reviews that relate to our film.

The Gaurdian-
'My Last Five Girlfriends'

Based on Alain de Botton's novel Essays in Love, this self-consciously smart romantic comedy begins with Duncan, a London architect, writing a farewell note, then recalling the assorted girls who drove him to suicide. Woody Allen is clearly Kemp's model, and the self-pitying protagonist sees his life as a theme park, recording his disastrous life as sideshows. The girls are attractive enough, though only Naomie Harris has much life, and the film's chief appeal is likely to reside in its numerous fashionable locations.

Here i found a short review which is almost like a synopsis and for readers who may be looking at number of reviews, rather than focusing on this one in particular due to the length of it.


'Little White Lies' uses a similar technique in reviewing films, with a film magazine as well as their own website, they review all types of different genres. They rate films our of 5 and on the website, some contain clips or trailors.

'Just as movies are about more than the two hours you spend sitting in the cinema, our reviews are a chance to talk about much more than the immediate experience of the film in question. There are many different aspects of the movie-going experience and we will embrace them all'

Update- Dani

At this stage, we have completley finished the film (including sound) and are going to upload it onto youtube. Nicole and I have also produced two possible film posters that we will use as our final one and will decide which one looks more effective by asking our group members and other students. I found the poster quite difficult to produce as getting used to the programme Indesign was tricky, however i managed to grasp the concept and felt that my poster was successful. In order to get an idea of what sort of poster to create, i looked at several film posters which had a similar theme which, giving me inspiration. We took several pictures of Ben and Nicole and chose one to put on the front of the poster, we then had to cut out the background so it was just them in the picture, which i did on photoshop.

We are now focusing on writng a film review which will be designed in the style of 'Little White Lies' which focus's on film reviews. Within our review, we will be commenting on the effectiveness of the plot, editing, sound and shots. Ben and Kris will be designing the review page whilst Nicole and I will be producing the writing for it so that we all have an input into it.

Extra research into film posters - Ben Brown

I found 'love happens' and it gave me a good idea to what kind of style our poster should be in.

It is a romantic social realist film similar to our short film and i thought it would be a good idea to look at how the bigger higher budget films portrayed their film through their film posters.

The posters clearly shows the two main characters of the film on the poster in a medium shot side on, so you can see the actors expressions and emotions which will tell you quite a bit about the content of the film. It clearly shows that the two actors are happy and are glad to be with each other. I also like the way in which the character are in focus more than the background therefore guiding your attention all to the actors alone and not the setting which they are in which tells me that you could learn more about the film by the actors alone than by the setting. This doesn't really apply to our film because we have tried to vary the setting between the two main characters to show the boy as middle class and the girl as working class via setting and props not just the characters.

The audience for this film would be mainly for females from the age of 15 to 30 which is the same section of the market that we would be aiming our short film at. So it would be good to know what kind of style for the poster to be to attract that audience range.

The tagline is very simple and it works well with the title 'sometimes when you least expect it ... love happens' this tag line gives the audience extra insight into what the film is going to consist of and they are going to be able to make further decisions on if they are going to want to see it after that.

For the majority of the poster they have used a white background to keep it simple and still keep the focus on the two actors in the centre. Also the white background shows more clearly the names of the two main actors which are Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhark who are 2 well known actors and they have thought about the positioning of the titles carefully to the make the names noticeable to the viewers of this poster. This i think would be a good idea to use in our film poster, to have the actors name and the title clear with a white background because like in most film posters they try to make the title as noticeable as possible so people will remember the name of their film.

Poster Research - Nicole.

I found more research into examples of film posters, and have directly linked them to develop and justify ideas I have had for our own.

* Two Weeks Notice is a social realism based film in a classic rom-com context
* The tagline - “A story about the man who had the girl of his dreams, but never even noticed” –suggests to the audience some clues into what the film entails and perhaps signifies that the story is mainly dominated and about the male character. The word ‘notice’ tactfully links to the title.
*The two main characters in the film are the central and main theme in this poster, with a long shot showing three quarters of their bodies and both of them staring into the camera at eye level. Their body posture is quite loose and almost relaxed against each other. Their body language and position portray the female character to have quite a closed and maybe overbearing personality due to the crossed arms and solid facial expression. Whereas the male character is portrayed as being quite relaxed and confident, with his hands in his pockets and open body position. The fact they are almost leaning on each other to stay balanced suggests they are linked and obviously the two main characters. The fact that the male character is in a suit, in contrast to the female wearing a smart-casual long skirt and purple top, may suggest their differences, perhaps in position in their employment, status and wealth?
*The title isn’t too brash as I think that would take the main focus away from the character, it is in a subtle font and the colours blend in well with the background scenery. The way it is clear enough to stand out is through the fact it is placed between the characters body shapes.
*The background scenery is of a city, which establishes the film is set in a urban environment, which with the male characters suits, indicates a office and work setting? The fact the sea is still and the weather is calm indicates no sort of idea into whether there is a positive or negative connection between the two characters; as for example if the sea was aggressive and the weather was stormy it could represent a negative connotation of the relationship between them two.
*The characters actors names are made clear at the top but are blended into the blue sky, which I feel for a social realism poster adds effect and may be a suitable style for our poster. The other reason I chose to analysis this poster is because links to one of many of the ideas I had for our poster, which is for the two main characters to be standing next to each other but facing opposite directions.
*This poster from what I can see doesn’t give too much away about the film and doesn’t give a great lot of indication into it’s target audience. But if I were to guess, from the title ‘Two Weeks Notice’ - linking to jobs - and the characters age and the actors normal genre/narrative of films they appear in - I would guess it was for a mid aged and both genders audience.

I also searched and discovered there are more than one versions of the ‘Two Weeks Notice’ film poster.


*This poster above consists of a medium close up of the two main characters instead. In this poster the female character is slightly in front of the male character. This poster doesn’t have the full length image of their body, so we can’t discover anything through their body language, position or gestures. But she does have a very anxious and concerned expression which gives the audience a sense of confusion within the character. Whereas the male character has a very wide grinned expression on his face, perhaps showing he believes he is all innocent to whatever is troubling the female. The white background puts the main focus on the image of the characters. And although the female is in the front of the poster, which would indicate she is the main character, there are other signals suggesting otherwise. Because the male’s blue tie matches to a lot of the main titles and comments. Furthermore, the colour blue is often associated with male, emphasising the possibility of the main character being the man.
*The tagline “Over. Done. Finish” is a very assertive and sharp tagline, suggesting the end of this relationship between them, but then the second tagline ‘a comedy about love at last glance’ proposes a last chance.

Finally I found one more poster which again suggests another story:


*I thought this one was interesting, as even though it has a combination of many of the features in the two other posters (e.g. the taglines, both characters in image), it gives out a whole new interpretation of their relationship. The female looks very dominant and assertive as she seems to be playfully tugging at his tie perhaps suggesting a more intimate relationship between them both.

So the first poster doesn’t suggest much about their relationship through the image, the second one shows the male to be the most dominant and the third shows it as the female leading. But my favourite is the first one as it has more too it and leaves the audience guessing and intrigued into what the story unfolds about their relationship.

Update Again, Nicole.

We finally came to a decision on our title - "Nearly Reunited" as we thought it captured the main theme of our film without giving too much away to the audience. We also all agreed on our tagline “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder…” through a majority vote from us asking a range of people in our target audience. This tagline suggests the film is based around love and a relationship/friendship, and furthermore indicates a time change within the film, as it refers to ‘absence’.
We’ve now completed our whole film, with sound and titles. We are now focusing on completing our poster, we have all contributed a draft of our individual ideas in pencil, and are all going to complete our versions as a draft through the programme InDesign, then together decide the one that is most appropriate and unique for our film, then develop it all together until we are happy with it. We haven’t had any still shots of the main characters for our poster which we like or can use yet, so tomorrow we are going to have a mini photo shoot to get a range of images we can use, with different angles, levels and body compositions.

Editing- Ben Brown

As of Friday we managed to finish all the editing of our short film there were some aspecs that we struggled with especially some of the continuity editing, for example in the scene with the two girls at the bench the footage we had would have not of flown together so we added a still shot/point of view shot in between the two clips to make the editing continuous. There were also other parts that i found really hard to edit like when the letter was poster through the letter box it was hard to get the close up to the long shot of the letter falling continuous so that the audience could not be distracted by it. Including the credits which we found particularly hard to place within the film we decided it was better to have the credits alternating between the last few clips of the film so it could build up suspence and keep the audience wondering what was going to happen and as soon as the boy slams the computer the cast credits comes up and the music fades out. In the end we decided for the credits to have a black background with white writing in a font called didot.

We managed to finish off all our transitions today as well from when five years passes from the younger to the older characters we used a dissolve and made it as long as possible to show and make it clear that it was the characters growing older. Also we put in a wipe from the mirror scene to the next scene to show the slight passing of time and explains how he got from one place to the next

we also added in the music sound tracks and the radio station recording that we did. The sound tracks we added in are used as both diegetic and non diegetic sound, like the song playing on the radio is used as diegetic sound and the song playing where Daniel is getting changed in front of the mirror is used at non diegetic sound.

we have just transferred all the footage over into garage band to add in the rest of the sound effects and Foleys that we need which include sounds like typing and background sounds of a TV playing. I find garage band a lot more complicated to use than the editing software like final cut pro and i movie and it takes time to find the sounds that you are looking for.

By the end of Mondays lesson we should have completed our film and we are currently producing our first draft of the film poster than we wish to use and looking for layouts for the film review.

Editing Update- Dani

-We spent much of our lesson time as well as our free periods to complete the editing of our film and are nearly finished. We moved our clips onto the programme final cut because we were told that it would provide us with more material to work with, ie. brightening up shots that came out slightly dark. Although we found it harder to use than imovie, we got used to it and found that it was beneficial for our film.

-Once all the shots were put together and cut, we decided what sounds needed to be added in order to make it more clear to the audience. We have used two different songs in the film to be played where relevant, however inbetween these we have just used normal sound affects. The two songs 'Wherever you will go' and 'Five years time' were both selected because they fit in with the theme, 'Wherever you will go' a more romantic style and 'Five years time' more upbeat.

-As a group we have all found our strengths and worked on things individually which worked well and we are pleased with the end result of the film.

- Using the editing software, we managed to create different transitions, styles and lengths for certain shots which worked out well.

-Although we have nearly finished the film, we found it difficult to meet the deadline on time as we had to spend several days filming/re-filming. It was also hard to get the computer to do the editing as other groups were also using it to make their film.

Poster Research 2- Kris English

Although the genre of romance is huge, there are many many sub genres within this. The three posters that are above are all from three different types of the same genre. Firstly, 'Leap Year' is a Rom-Com (romantic comedy) and this is shown through the poster. The main thing that we notice is that it is alot different in terms of colour than the others. Green is seen as more of an on edge colour. You either love it or hate it. This shows that this is not a normal romance film as they usually have soft gentle colours like whites, reds and blues to emphasise the innocent values that are upheld in there films. The green shows that this film will have more of a tongue in cheek view on romance. Secondly, the tag line says 'Anna planned to propose to her boyfriend on Febuary 29th' this is a very standard tag line which reveals alot about the stroy. However, the image and the tag line go hand in hand because standing next to Anna is another man who you would expect at first glance to be her boyfriend but by his head is another tag line which says 'This is not her boyfriend'. This second tag line shows that there will be a major twist in the plot and that twist will perhaps deliver the tongue in cheek moment that is expected.

'Love Happens' is a very much traditonal romance film. The poster has all the classic signs that it will be a very lovey dovey type of film. The colours are all very much classic colours in terms of the colour palate used on these types of films. The white that is used says nothing more than this film will be as clean as a disney movie. The main image is of the two main characters, and the stance and body language that they have adopted is once again another clear indication that this film will be another romance film to through in the DVD rack. This film gives a massive clue as to the stroy line and the events that will happen through the tag line 'Sometimes when you least expect it' which gives off a feeling of classic romantic twisted relationships.

The final poster is for the film 'Two Lovers'. This film deals with the subject that is probably least associated when you think of a romantic film, adultrey. The poster uses mainly dark colours like black as if to say a dark cloud has fallen over this mans relationships with two different women. Black automatically gives off feelings of horror and darkness, not love and affection. There are two main images on the cover. One is of the main male character with one of his girlfriends and the other is him with his other girlfriend. This is the biggest clue, along with the name, about the events that will take place within the film. Due to the abscence of a tag line, the person viewing the poster has little information given to them and must work it out for themselves. This indicates that it will be a more dark and seeded type of film as opposed to a traditonal romance or a rom-com.

These three films all belong to different sub genres but there messages tend to stay the same. From this reasearch into the subgenres of romance films i have found out that the film poster can give away a bit of information regarding your story depending on the type of film you create. As i create different drafts for my film poster i will try following guidelines from different sub genres to experiment with my ideas and see what works the best for me.

Poster Research- Kris English

I have been looking at different film poster that belong to the same genre as our film. I have discoverd that most all offer the same information on the page as each other. As you can see these three film posters look very similar. Firstly, all three have the two main characters placed on the front in plain view. Secondly, there is very little information on the covers. All we see is a title, the names of the actors and a tag line. None of this gives away any information regarding the storyline or the events that will happen. These types of films tend to try and keep a very closed narrative and this idea is helped through the use of these posters revealing very little. The colour scheme used on these types of films can vary. For example, if you look at 'P.S I Love You' and 'Titanic' you can see that they have gone for mainly white with very little other colours, this shows that these films promote values like innocence and romance. Whereas 'The Time Travellers Wife' has a lot of bright vibrant colours like purple and gold which suggest it will be more of a film which gives off feelings of passion and excitment.

All of these posters are more or less the same, this is why i will carry these ideas through with me when i come to make my poster. I will keep the design simple and have a very basic colour scheme like white and red. Not only will this help deliver the genre of our film, it will also not bombard the person looking at it with tonnes of information and over vibrant colours.

Poster Draft- Kris English

Here is my draft idea for our film poster. I chose to place Nicoles character in the foreground looking away from Ben's character to emphasise the idea that she loves him but cant be with him.

Props - Nicole

This is the letter we are going to use which Daniel sends to Sophie as the older version to see if her feelings are still there and if they could rekindle their past connection with each other.




This is the news letter I devised to use in the park scene when Sophie is with a friend. We needed to think of a reason why Sophie suddenly decides to text Daniel to meet up, so we decided on choosing something very realistic to fit into social realism. She will get this school news letter out to show her friend her article on her Spanish trip, and as her friend knows about her crush on Daniel, she points out the article written by him and the photo of him on his school trip to Germany, which makes Sophie think about him.

Film Poster Draft - Nicole

This is my personal idea for our group poster. It includes all four characters (as the two main characters young and old) to give a the viewers an insight into the characters age and familiarise themselves to them.

The poster will be split in half by a line, which will emphasise the main theme of the story of the divide and barriers between them. Furthermore, it links to the split screen we have in our film. On the bottom half of the split poster will be the two characters as the younger age, they will be facing each other but in different locations and both each other whilst smiling, which should be obvious that they are texting each other. This will demonstrate that they are connected in someway in the film. These photos can be taken from screen grabs or a still shot from our film, as we have done many shots showing their relationship but in contrasting settings. The top part of the split poster will be of Sophie and Daniel as their older characters, but this time they will face the opposite way from each other, but back to back. With the bottom half it shows how they are close and the top half show how they don’t quite reach each other. But with the top photo showing them touching hands, it could suggest hope. The background for the top photo will be either white or faint, to emphasise their expressions and body language. I was thinking of putting Sophie as the older character in a black outfit (top) and Ben in white (shirt), this gives away subtle clues that Sophie is the character to ruin the chances of them being together. Their expressions will be quite faint, so it doesn’t give too much away.

In the top right hand corner, there will be a keyboard, as this is a symbolic and important part of the beginning and end of not only the film, but their relationship. Just beneath this, running along beneath the keyboard will be our tagline, which is linked to the popular aphorism; “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder…” which not only suggests there is a clear link between the young and old characters, it also gives us the impression that this film is based on love over time.

The title, which has not yet been clarified, will be either in a plain but bold font, or I was thinking maybe the stereotypical child msn fonts, either Comic Sans or Curlz MT, to link to the msn convosations.

Underneath the title will be the actors/actresses names. And down both of the blank spaces to the sides of the older characters will be positive reviews and ratings, perhaps from teenaged magazines like Cosmo or Glamour, to link to the target audience.

Film poster draft- Dani

Here is a draft that i sketched as an idea for our film poster. It contains the two main characters which will have either a plain or faint background.

In the poster, i thought of having just the two older characters, as i thought that it would be to crowded having all four main characters on the same page.

The characters in the poster will be back to back which represents that they are not actually together. It is a fairly simple layout which will draw attention to the image.

In this poster i have not included the name of the title as at the time we were unsure what to name the film, however we have now decided to call the film 'Nearly Reunited' so that title will be put on the final copy of the film poster.

The tag line will be put underneath the title which should gain attention and be seen easily. I also put the names of tha actors along the bottom, underneath the image so that it is clear that the actors are recognised.

Taglines - Nicole.

We've been beginning to think more into the detail on our film poster, and we think it would be a good idea to have a good tagline, like for example the tagline "Live, love and give as good as you get" in Fish Tank. From just typing in 'quotes' into google, we have found a few which could match with our storyline.

- You get what you settle for
- What goes around comes around
- If you don't risk anything, you risk even more
- Assumptions are the termites in relationships
- Love fails, only when we fail to love
- They say absence makes the heart grow fonder
- It's their second chance, but is it their last?

We've narrowed it down to "love fails, only when we fail to love" and "they say absence makes the heart grow fonder..." But we're going to get some audience feedback and decide through what they prefer and ask for any further ideas.

Nicole.

Film Poster Research

-In order to help us with our film poster i researched some similair films which have a similar theme and found the poster that they used for advertising.

-This film 'My Best Friends Girl' was interesting because it has 3 characters on the front, two being male which suggests a conflict between them. It is similiar to our film as there is competition between two male characters who are in love with the same girl.

-The images in this poster suggest the status of each character, the character on the right is clearly one who is trying the hardest to impress the girl, due to the flowers in his hand. Whereas the other male seems to look more laid back and natural, so it gives the audience an indication and raises questions as to who the girl will end up with.

-I think that for our film poster we should use a similiar approach to this, in placing all three main characters on the front using photoshop from different images.

film poster ideas - Ben Brown

This is my first draft film poster idea.

It shows a divide between the two characters which can symbolise the different lives they lead and the fact that they come from two different classes which is hinted at throughout the film with the use of props. For example the different phones and computers they use whilst they are communicating with each other where one is top of the range and the other is old and common.

It also brings to the audience’s attention that there is a third character in the film that could bring a twist into the story line.

Sound- Ben Brown

This weekend I took a recorder home to produce some of the diegetic and non diegetic sound for our short film. We decided on using an instrumental cover version of a song called 'where ever you will go' by the calling on the guitar. It took me a while to get used to the recorder and figuring out how it worked but by the end it became simple. It also proved difficult trying to play the guitar whilst having headphone wires in the way and balancing the recorder so the guitar could be heard. Overall I think it turned out well with a clear high quality sound and i enjoyed doing it. Over the course of next week we will be using garage band to create the rest of the sound effects we need in our production.

Textual Analysis of Film Poster - Fisk Tank.

FISHTANK
Director – Andrea Arnold
Distributed by – IFC films
Synopsis: Everything changes for 15yr old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.

Starring - Michael Fassbender, Harry Treadaway, Kierston Wareing, Jason Maza, Katie Jarvis, Jack Gordon, Charlotte Collins, Brooke Hobby, Chelsea Chase



The poster for the film Fish Tank is very unique and skilfully adapts a range of hidden techniques to expose to the audience the films qualities and features such as the genre, characters and narrative.
The title ‘Fish Tank’ is a clever metaphor, playing on the contemplation of looking out to the other side but cannot get there or escape, which links into the film and the girl’s circumstances. Furthermore which relates to the image of her looking out of a window, as if she cannot reach it. The simple eyelevel shot from the camera work of the girl connects to the realistic theme and highlights her expression more. Her positioning to me gives out the emotion of loneliness. Her expression is serious and she seems to be preoccupied and isolated. Her character is shown to be a very stereotypical working class girl who from just her appearance you can estimate her background and characteristics. For example, the gold hoop earrings and the slight greasy hair. I think her wearing black clothing is a symbol of her unhappiness, and as the shot doesn’t show her full body and the clothing isn’t in any way revealing, there are no sexual connotations to it which reveals more about her character.
The location which the poster shows isn’t exposed clearly, but I would guess it is a council block of flats, due to the graffiti and grimy settings. The wall is ripped, there’s food smeared across it and the graffiti of the pink heart uncovers a few details. For example it may inform the audience more of her age and be evidential that there’s a good chance she’s rebellious.
The tagline ‘Live, love and give as good as you get’ is a very strong willed and powerful sentence, giving the audience an insight to the nature of the film. All the writing within the poster is made up of pink and blue text, this could indicate the film is aimed at both genders. There is a few alliterations used in the poster, for example “powerful and poignant” and “live and love”, which makes the poster even more vivid.
There are references of feedback from Total Film, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and more. There are no tabloid newspapers, only broadsheets. This indicates a specific audience - well educated middle class - and although a small readership it shows us the film’s target audience. It also specifies the awards the film has won, both British and European awards, which to film literate people, will be very impressive.




Fish Tank also has another poster used to advertise their film. This poster is different to an extent to the first one. The image of the same girl is very contrasting, as it reveals more of her body (with some of her stomach exposed) as a medium shot, which is obviously airbrushed, which doesn‘t seem to match with the social realism theme. She has more makeup on and is wearing a hoody, which emphasises the stereotypical character she is labelled as and seems to gives her more attitude and status. But as it is a low angled shot, I would say she looks a lot more vulnerable here. The location is a lot more obvious here, as you can see the urban city landscape in the background. The posters image is set up in complete contrast to the first poster. In this one it seems as if she has left her past behind and has escaped from it into the big wide world - as if she has escaped the fish tank.