This is a screenshot of my final movie edited on Final Cut Pro. Here you can see how useful it was in the production of my short film as it allowed me to edit sound by overlaying, editing to create effects such as echoing and car radio sounds as well as sound effects which helped create a more conventional and professional short film. I also used it to add text such as the title screen, implement transitions and effects over segments of clip such as 'heat' to accurately convey the emotion in the narrative as well as export my file to YouTube. Without this software, I would not have completed my short film to the same degree of professionality and as simply as this intuative software allowed me too.
To gain feedback to analyse how succesful my short film and ancillary texts were with my target audience, I asked 6 questions to some people in my media group as they are able to understand media terminology and have a good grasp of the process of production and post-production as well as being in my target audience. This questionnaire was based on the final version of my short film but was before it'd had been published and ancillary texts, shown below (in their final versions).
Question 1:
What is you age and demographic group?
Question 2:
How effective are my three products are working together?
Question 3:
How suspensful and dramatic did you find my short film?
Question 4:
What could I do to improve my short film?
Question 5:
Would you watch it again?
Question 6:
How effective do you think the sound, editing, mise-en-scene and cinematography is?
Here are the responses:
I was able to ask these detailed questions because people in my media group would understand terms such as 'mise-en-scene' more than outside responders who would probably not understand the question causing the results of my survey to be inaccurate. From the results of this survey, I am happy that they work together and the choices I made in directing the short film add to the drama I tried to convey, although I did make some minor changes to my ancillary texts after their feedback which has helped my create a better final product to gain wider audience feedback on.
The next step of gaining feedback on my product was to gain feedback from a wider variety of people including those at college who don't study media as well as the wider public via social media. The easiest and most effective way to do this is via Surveymonkey as it would be hard to create a paper questionnaire like I had done in media for the wider public as it was a much more open questionnaire. Surveymonkey is a website that allows you to create surveys which you can embedd on social media and blogs to widen your audience response net.
These responses are mostly positive reviews, showing the effectiveness of my products in combination. People especially praised the correlation between the my short film and poster, one reviewer saying that they are effective at leaving the audience wanting more which shows that they are effective at working together to draw an audience for this product. They also said they liked the images from the film being used on the magazine article which shows positive opinion about mu ancillary text, in addition one person also said the review was respected showing the professionalism I tried to create across my products.
The majority of responses I recieved were from people 16-18, over 83% of respondents. The rest of the respondents were 19-24 which is in my target audience age range and demographic group 'E' meaning the answers in this survey are from people who I want to target my product at so I should listen to their feedback.
This question is a trademark of Surveymonkey and allows you to find out the likelihood of people promoting your film to their friends and family. I scored 17/100 which isn't too bad as the starting point was -100 not 0. However, despite the score 83% of my audience still have the film a recommendation rating of 7 or above showing it's popularity. Perhaps if more people would have answered I would have had a fairer result as 1 person voting between 0-6 accounted for 17% of the vote. However, I am still pleased with this score as a large majority of respondents voted positively, however I may need to look over element of my video and ancillary again to see
if there is anything I could improve to bolster this score.
A vast majority of respondents said they would watch the short film again, with no responders saying they wouldn't which shows people have enjoyed the piece I created. This is extremely positive, showing that the target audience have enjoyed this film meaning it should be succesful which will draw greater amounts of revenue ect, I am also happy with my final product after this feedback and have resisted the urge to tweak elements of my short film as people think it is good.
This feedback is mixed but tells me that there is an oppurtunity for cross-media-convergence with companies to produce merchandise for my product, but only on a relativley small scale for example a DVD, mug or t-shirt. Some one also said if the film was longer they would be more interested in merchandise however I cannot change this as my brief was to produce a short film no longer than 5 mins, however if this was a real media text to be released I would have probably made it longer.
The comments were mainly positive, showing that people enjoyed the story as well as commenting on the effectiveness of the cinematography, sound and script however people found issue with the ending however I researched that a convention of crime-thriller short films is a twist at the end and this could be explained through a sequel if this was a real media text so removing this section would be unconventional however the majority enjoyed the rest of the narrative which is pleasing to see. One respondent also commented on hiring more professional actors, whilst still praising the actors involved. As this was an amateur production with almost no budget it would be hard to hire professional actors, even though it may improve the film. Despite that, the actors still recieved some form of praise which is extremely pleasing considering they've had no acting experience. One person also said the shots could have been better but as this was a survey on my final product it was too late to change this which was unfortunate, regardless of this the rest of the repsondents enjoyed the film and praised its professionality. If I had more time, I would have re-filmed sections but the majority works well, in my opinion.
I also did a further survey to find out the age, demographics and interests ect of my respondents so I could target my short film appropriately, this can be found at the bottom of the page underneath the responses I received
Question 1- As explained above, my age group and social demographic were the same- all of my respondents landed in my target audience of demographic group E, which shows that this product has been marketed accurately and is succesful at appealing to an audience that is notoriously hard to capture in the digital age.
Question 2- This was an 60/40 split between male and female genders, with more of my respondents classifying their gender as male which relates to the stereotypical view, as explained by Tessa Perkins, that men are more interested in crime and thriller films than women however these results could be ambigious as only 6 people answered, if I had more time I would have made sure this survey would have reached more people to ensure even more accurate results which would only help shape more accurate and worthwhile feedback to my three media texts.
Question 3- I asked this question to try and determine whether or not my audience had a specific interest in my product- this would help me to see if it was a good genre to produce the film of as well as validtating their feedback from my previous questionnaire: if they liked this genre, they would understand the conventions behind it. 5 of my 6 respondents said they liked this genre which is extremely positive, and one said that they 'Maybe' like the genre showing no negative responses across my panel. This could show that this is a popular genre amongst the target audience I have curated and therefore shows that this product is expected to be relatively succesful, backed up with the positive comments from the previous survey.
Question 4- The majority of people I asked said that they found the ancillary texts informative, complete and 'good at fitting in with the theme'- 5/6 said that the texts appealed to them directly. This, backed up with answers from my previous survey, shows me that the ancillary texts are extremely effective. Despite this, they did pick up on some minor issues such as placement of elements on my DPS and image quality of the picture of Carl on my poster, this was hard to fix as it would possibly be pointless as I would still add the 'noise' effect to the image and B, I did not have the time to retake photos of the cast and I wanted to show cross-media-convergence by using images direct from the film.
Question 5- There was some ambiguity regarding the responses of this question, which I asked to find out whether people thought that I had created accurate and realistic representations of certain age groups ect. Some people felt the characters were exaggerated but still realistic to portrayal of the age groups, relating to Tessa Perkins stereotype theory which suggests that stereotypes are sometimes true but can be challenged- not many people would expect a 15 year old to be involved with a drug lord which is either ridiculous or adds to the supsense of tension of the piece- it depends on personal opinion.
Question 6- I asked this question to find out whether or not people enjoyed short films, and to see what other forms of media they enjoy consuming. As Marshall McLuhan says, 'the medium is the message' and this means that I would be able to tell whether or not they felt my medium was effective. All of the respondents cited film or TV which is promising, as short film could be considered a hybrid of the two. (Taking the shorter length and budget of a TV show whilst also following many of the conventions prevelent in feature film) This could show that many people may be introduced to short film through liking film and TV showing that my audience feedback might be more reliable
In conclusion, the feedback I have recieved from both my peers and the wider target audience through the Surveymonkey survey has allowed me to evaluate, tweak and improve my final work to match my original brief as well as provide an entertaining and conventional short film which my target audience of 16-24, mostly male, would enjoy and want to watch again. I am confident that I have planned and produced an effective piece of work that I could sell to the public effectively.
Features across all 3 products that show elements of combination
I made sure to use the same font for the titles of my product across my short film and poster to create a house style that the audience would recognise. To do this I screenshoted the title from the film, removed the background in Photoshop then pasted the clear text onto a black background to make my poster conventional with other crime-thriller short films which often use contrast of dark and light colours. I chose this font because it is bold, gritty and holds connotations of the crime-thriller genre. This means that both texts are recognisable and share the same font style, showing an effective cross over between the texts.
Furthermore, I used the images of the actors that feature in my short film on the front of my poster which is conventional and shows effective combination between my texts. Two of the images were taken from the film, however the image of Lauren was taken in a photoshoot as using an image from the film of her would not work as there were few clear images that I could impement to this poster.
I also used images from the film in my second ancillary text, the film magazine review article, this means the combination is effective as viewers of one text would easily recognise the other two from the images. I also used a very similar colour scheme in all 3 texts of Red, Black and White, these 3 colours have conntations relating to the genre of my piece: Red has many connotations and could show the dangerous element of my short film, Carl and Lauren being killed, relating to the blood on the knife at the end. (Some connotations of the colour Red)
(This scene could relate to the Red in the colour scheme as there is danger and injury involved for all 3 characters)
The connotations of black, as shown from my research, are shown above. They could relate to the power Carl holds over both Lauren and Harry, the mysteriousness of the secretive location as well as the mournfulness of the death of 2 characters.
The connotations of white relate to innocence, in the case of my 3 texts this could relate to the innocence of Harry and Lauren who are dragged into this situation by Carl, the effective and thoughtful use of my colour scheme means that this shows a good combination between the texts as they are conventional so the audience will undestand the genre of the short film.
Combination as also shown between my ancillary texts as I have used the same title of magazine and rating given across them both. Although this is only a small element of combination, it shows attention to detail as well as making sure that both my ancillary texts are consistent and accurate.
Combination is also shown between where my short film would be hosted on, YouTube and my poster.
The logo of YouTube is featured as this shows where my short film would be posted, this is an effective crossover as this means people will know where to go and watch the short film. This is also conventional, as many short films are hosted and feature on YouTube which is the cheapest and best way to showcase your independent work.
These are just some short films which feature on YouTube, as you can see many I have watched many of these during my research and planning. There are 14m results showing the popularity of this format, meaning it is a good place to show my work.
The location and mise-en-scene of my short film fits in well with the genre and ideology my 3 texts are trying to convey, of a crime-thriller. Through the dark coloured costumes to connote the danger the people in this film face as well as being conventional, the industrial estate area was disused and abandoned and as discussed previously on my blog fits in with the tone of my short film. The location also fits in with my colour scheme loosely, with dark and light colours representing danger and innocence of those characters who were dragged into this situation.
The combination of my main product, ancillary text digipak and promotional poster, if it were a real media product, could lead to cross form synergy or cross media convergence, This means different types of media coming together to create related merchandise,for example T-Shirts, posters and other related merchandise, relating to the colour sceme, (in my case black and white), as seen with many famous films.
This is an example of what the T-Shirts could look like.
This house style then becomes a recognisable product and fans of the short film collect items related to the product, meaning more money made from one product. I feel that all three of my products would work in synergy, with the short film perhaps being available on YouTube as well as DVD and other film sites like Netflix, merchandise being available for purchase as well as licensing to retail outlets like Topman and Primark as seen for popular TV shows, films and musical artists depending on success.
My target audience are in social group E so I would make my short film available for free on YouTube supported by advertising as well as on DVD for around £5 due to its length which is an affordable price for teens aged 16-24. As a 17 year old, I would probably prefer to watch the film on YouTube however the DVD could have special features such as deleted scenes and commentaries which would make it more appealing to customers. Students have little money to live on after paying fees therefore I feel this price would be appropriate enough for this selected demographic. In addition, the short film could be available for download on iTunes and Google Play for around £2.99 which is affordable for people in that demographic and means that it would be succesful as it is not to expensive.
I chose to produce a short film and promo package based on an original idea I had for a crime-thriller. I wrote an original script, which was altered during production in consultation with my cast members as well as choosing locations, costume and a soundtrack made up of songs and background music as is often conventional. I undertook planning and research stages to create my production and once I finished the final version of my video I uploaded it to YouTube. I then chose to create a magazine review article and a poster for my short film to help promote it. Below I will evaluate my media texts on the effectiveness of use of conventions, how the products work together in cohesion and comment on the effective use of digital media during all stages of production, which will be contrasted with feedback I have gathered from the audience.
As I was not creating a music video I could not rely on creating a pastiche based on the music video of a song. I was required to create a treatment as well as 3 original ideas, after which I chose a crime story about a boy who was forced to sell drugs by a evil drug lord to his peers. His sister finds the drugs and destroys them, causing him to meet the druglord with no profits which ends with the boy being violently attacked and abducted. At the secret location the unconscious boy is taken too, he gets into a scuffle with the man ending up dead. Unbeknownst to the boy, the drug kingpin has sent a assailant to kill his sister which is revealed to the audience at the end in a twist. After I had the story, I set about assembling a soundtrack using popular music and background music. To do this, I looked into what music is conventional to use with crime short films.
Soundtrack: From my research I had discovered that: Short films have soundtracks that match the narrative on the screen They use a variety of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds to create an atmosphere and mood This ranges from recorded music to background music I felt it was important to uphold and include these conventions in my short film as I wanted to create a piece which was full of suspense and plot twists and music would accompany this to create a much more powerful and prominent effect on the audience. To create this powerful effect, I needed to research songs and background music related to my narrative. I broke my narrative down into these sections:
Once I had my four areas of soundtrack (Neutral, Suspense, Violence and Melancholy), this allowed me to select songs that match the narrative of my storyline, thus upholding the conventions that I discovered whilst doing my research.
Neutral:
Neutral areas were areas in my film where there was no significant action, such as Harry waiting for Carl's car to arrive, Lauren standing around the kitchen and Carl driving the car. These sections used no background non-diagetic music as there was no significant developments in the narrative to match music too. Despite this, I still used diagetic music in some of these scenes.
The title scene has no soundtrack and contains a 'whoosh' noise when the titles pop up. This sound effect was found on Final Cut Pro and was useful as it matches the animation of the titles, which flip around inverting in size and positioning. This is also an eerie sound effect, perhaps foreshadowing to the events laying ahead.
Throughout, I often digitally enhance sound effects such as the door opening here to be louder and punchier. This creates an effect that almost startles the audience, whilst the loudness here indicates the significance of his arrival in terms of the narrative that lies ahead.
Although the tail-end of a suspense track is still playing here, I used the Michael Jackson song 'Smooth Criminal' as a diagetic sound, playing on the radio. As the shots were edited quick to create a suspenseful and impacting scene, I used two lyrics on a Car Radio effect that were: 'Bloodstains' and 'She was struck down' Although the audience doesn't know it yet, this is an intentional foreshadowing towards both Carl and Lauren's death. 'Bloodstains' relates to knife stabbing Carl, and 'She was struck down' relates to the last scene where Lauren is shown dead on the floor. In addition, I use this song as non-diagetic music later too which shows continuity throughout my piece and the following of conventions.
When the boy is revealed the only noise being made is diagetic- his pleas to be let go and his confusion as to where he is, expressed via dialogue and his struggling to get out of the chair he is tied to. As is convention, when the door peaks open, that's when the dramatic music begins. I feel these effect use above were useful to break up the action, as well as hint to the viewer the action coming ahead, linking in with the 'plot twists' and 'lulls and peaks in plot' that I discovered were conventions of crime-thrillers when I researched, showing in this regard I followed conventions of real media products. Suspense: Suspense scenes were those when the viewer is unsure as to what will happen next as the characters are either locked in dramatic dialogue, in danger or the viewer is aware something is about to happen. Although not a short film, one of the greatest suspense scenes of all time is from 'The Shining' and I aimed to follow the soundtrack conventions which are a suspenseful, dramatic piece of music accompanied by relevant diagetic sounds, in this case screams from the woman behind the door and the axe smashing into the door.
During this scene, after Lauren has revealed she knows about the drugs a suspenseful background tune plays that I researched on YouTube. I chose one that was royalty free and one that the author has given college and university students permission to use in short films before as demonstrated here. This was to make sure that there was no issue with copyright infringement, especially as it was made by an independent producer and not a huge corporation such as Sony with recorded tracks which I own as I have bought them.
In fact,I used two other instrumental pieces by this producer too because their work was brilliant and matched my piece well, complimenting the narrative which is a convention of short films.
This music below plays when Carl grabs Harry.
Later on, when Carl goes up to get the rod to hit Harry without him knowing the music becomes louder, more dramatic and this hints to the audience that something dramatic is about to happen. This is a real life conventional device that is used in real media products, for example the short film 'Contracts' uses a dramatic soundtrack which is heard after a gun shot is fired and continues while they walk through the house. This shows that in this regard I have followed media conventions to show verisimilitude in my product.
This background track starts playing when the door starts to creep open in the garage, following real life media conventions pointed out in 'The Shining' and 'Contracts'.
Often suspenseful and violent scenes in my short film share both non-diagetic and diagetic music, inspired by other short films and media products. As discussed earlier, the Michael Jackson song 'Smooth Criminal' is used twice, the second time is when the man is driving off with the boy in the boot after hitting him. Once again the lyrics of:
'You've been hit by a smooth criminal'
relate in almost perfect fashion to the narrative, as the boy has literally been hit by a criminal, showing the following of real media conventions as discussed above.
This song is used during the scene above. Throughout my short film, I often try to, using manipulation of sound in editing and music choices, create loud and convincing sound effects and for this I was inspired by several media works. The main example of this is the lightbulb smashing and exploding and plunging the room into darkness, a device so the stabbing can take place in secret for both dramatic and practical reasons- it adds suspense and filming a stabbing is incredibly risky and something that after analysing the health and safety of my production was not possible to do. The lightbulb effect was based on the 'Hollyoaks blast'- although it was from a TV drama and not a short film it was still something I could try to replicate because the mediums share conventions such as shot reverse shot cinematography features, use of sound ect.
Although this section of my evaluation is about sound, I will still describe how I created the effect towards the end of my video. I took an image of the lightbulb on, carefully removed the lightbulb then filmed the lightbulb socket with nothing in it. I then used a dramatic sound effect I found on Final Cut Pro and a flash and fade-to-black transition effect on the software to make it look like an explosion without actually damaging the lightbulb or electrocuting myself! This is the similar effect in Hollyoaks, showing how I used cross-medium conventions to create a similar yet different product.
In addition, I was heavily influenced by Michael Jackson's short film 'You Rock My World' (although many would regard it a music video, Michael Jackson called his longer videos 'short films' as they featured storylines, narratives and dialogues, not just choreography and music and were significantly longer than the song they were promoting) in regard to the diagetic noises and effects I included to add to the suspense and violent scenes as well as adding and reacting to the narrative.
The scenes in You Rock My World where Michael throws the money on the poker table and where he throws the glass at the wall created exaggerated sound effects that inspired the loud sound effects when the drugs were washed down the drain, creating suspense and startling the audience.
In relation to violence, the scene where Michael punches the man in the club and throws the table inspired the sounds of the rod hitting Harry and the hammer hitting Carl, as well as the table being thrown in the dark scene in the garage.
Melancholy Towards the end of my short film, I chose to use a very melancholic and reflective piece of music to dramatically alter the tone of my short film after all the action for two reasons: To give the audience a break from the action To lull the audience into a false sense of security before a final twist The song I chose was a huge hit last year, Alt J's Hunger of the Pine which was used on many TV shows due to it's very unusual, sad, reflective sound.
This scene follows conventions used in other short films after major events in the plot such as the short film Bubble, in which the music becomes more melancholic and less dramatic before the end after a big climax in its plot. The credits of my film feature the song 'This Time Around' as the lyrics once again relate to the narrative of the plot, bringing closure to the storyline. This time around I'll never get bit Though you really wanna fix me This time around you're making me sick Though you really wanna get me Somebody's out Somebody's out to get me They really wanna fix me, hit me But this time around I'm taking no s... Though you really wanna get me You really wanna get me
He really thought he really had Had a hold on me He really thought he really had They thought they really had control of me He really thought he really had Control of me He really thought he really had They thought they really could control me
These lyrics relate to Harry's struggle against Carl and how he got the last laugh- however he is unaware his sister is dead, leaving the audience on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved but with enough closure to satisfy them, a convention of Thriller short films as I researched earlier.
Would I have done anything differently in regards to sound?
On the whole, I was really pleased with how the score and sound effects turned out in my film. I think they worked really well in conjunction with the narrative and conveyed the emotions that I intended too, as well as being influenced by and following real life conventions as analysed above. I think I could have perhaps made use of more sound effects to create a real running theme throughout such as boots walking on the ground and more effects like doors slamming but I am happy with the effects I did include, especially the lightbulb and the hammer throw. I'm also glad with how well the lyrics linked in with elements of the storyline, it gave it a really professional finish in this regard.
Cinematography
I chose to create a short film because I felt it allowed me to dabble with the 'best of both worlds'- I didn't feel restricted by following line by line lyrics to create my story but still could use music to add to the mood, I could also use more dialogue than I would be able to in a music video as well as being able to incorporate elements of conventions from many different types of media- TV, Film, Short Film and Music Video- you can't really do that with a music video. It allowed me to be more creative and I enjoyed creating the film, and drew upon several products I was aware of.
One of these was Carl and Phil's fight in EastEnders, I always loved how 'gangster' this storyline was and I borrowed elements from it in my film, including mise-en-scene and cinematography. I was originally going to film in a similar location to this but this was not possible for several reasons such as health and safety and actually finding a similar location, so I decided to transfer it to an industrial estate which was a similar enough setting and actually was better because it gave my media product a more gritty mood which I liked.
Although my film was edited with a faster pace to convey the frenzied and dangerous setting the action is taking place in, there is still similar camera work evident here that is a convention among all dialogue based medium, including short film.
This shot from EastEnders is similar to my short film as it is a sort of establishing long shot, showing the characters and the vehicle so that the audience can see what is happening in the film. These shots are conventional of all media forms, especially at the start or end of scenes.
Both texts also make use of shot reverse shot techniques to show dialogue here. The shots are even similarly placed, with a close up of both Phil and Harry's arm over the both Carl's (that was a coincidental name but it works!) as well as a longer shot revealing how one is under the power of the either, from higher angles to show dominance and lower to connote the opposite.
Furthermore, close ups are used of the dominant person in the conversation to of them looking down, often with an eyeline match to show that they are in control of the conversation. t also shows the emotions of the characters which relates to the narrative on screen. This is an example of me using media conventions in my product, as it makes the product look more professional and familiar to the audience.
Another short film I took inspiration from was the graphic match in Plastic, I thought worked well at showing a different angle of an action and allowed me to pace my edit quickly, which is a convention of crime-thriller short films.
The graphic match in Plastic showing her clutching the beads and them breaking contrasted with the
graphic match I put in my film of Carl raising his hand to follow conventions. I developed the convention however, because I used it in a much more quick way, incorporating it into my fast paced editing style that was crucial to the movement of the storyline.
I used a variety of effects throughout which conveyed emotions and as sign to the audience that the narrative was about to develop. This is actually a move away from the conventions of crime-thriller short films, which are known for being shot fairly roughly and grittily, and although I did this via the use of mise-en-scene, I felt it would be better to portay events such as Harry being hit with the rod in a dramatic, fade-in-fade-out way to perhaps show his unconscious state as well as move away from unnecessarily rowdy and brash shots of people running around with weapons screaming and shouting, which doesn't fit the tone of the video in my opinion, despite being a convention. The black and white effect also is a complete contrast from the heat effect I had being using during the 'build up'- telling the audience that this event is over, leading them to the next in the story.
Assorted screencaps showing the effects used.
Editing
The most common way to edit in a short film is simply by changing the shot with a graphic match or a jump cut to change angle and continue with the narrative. An example of this is seen with the short film 'Plastic':
I followed this convention throughout however I did decide to include cross-dissolves and a special television screen fuzz effect throughout, which is also used on my ancillary texts to create continuity.
In addition, I did not have the software to digitally create bruising or injuries after the attack but to create verisimilitude and to follow the conventions of crime thrillers I used make up on Harry to create bruising and although this wasn't perfect because I am certainly no make up artist I think providing my lack of experience it sufficed. If I could do it again, I may have recruited a friend to make it look more professional but in the scheme of things I think it was a fairly permissible error of judgement and actually still looked rather okay.
In addition, if I could do this project again I would pay even more attention to the shots I took and during the editing process. It was stressful to film in the short space of time, especially with the short days of early spring and the pressure of completing work for other subjects too and balancing time too, so I had to take less time than I would have liked too so two mistakes slipped into the editing and cinematography process.
This shot should have been framed more to the left as you can see Carl in the house even though by this point he is very much dead... this shot is only short and the viewers attention should be on Harry cleaning the knife but it is still a considerable error.
This error took me a very long time to spot due to the fast nature of the editing, the tripod can be seen, hopefully most people won't be able to spot it and it could be disguised as something else in the industrial estate. If I had a bigger budget or more time I could have re-done these shots or edited the blunders out. On the whole however, I was fairly pleased with the editing and shots I took.
...Ancillary texts...
I researched a variety of film posters to find out more about their conventions and how I could apply those to make my own work look more professional. I googled some images of film posters and decided to make a list of elements which I felt were similar among them.
As is evident from these examples, conventions include:
Images of the main actors
Their names
Tag line
Name of film
Credit info at the bottom (Billing Card)
Release date or coming soon
Director names
Website and social media links of film
Rating and reviews
One of the main conventions of film/short film posters is the cast and crew credits at the bottom as shown in these real life examples below
They conventionally show logos of the institution, release date, cast and crew, website and other similar information. I found out this was called a 'Billing Card' from my research, which also uses a particular typeset. As you can see below, I incorporated these elements into my own work to create a realistic and conventional piece. I also challenged conventions and showed how my form of medium was different to feature film by including the YouTube logo, showing the use of web 2.0 in my work and how media has progressed over time whilst also reflecting the lower budget of my work as unlike a film it will not get a feature release. I also created a logo for my own institution as well as incorporating Dolby Digital, PAL and other logos to further reflect conventions.
As you can see this poster features many of the conventions that I have detailed above. It contains a house style scheme that is taken from the short film including the same typeset as the movie, recreating the TV fuzz transition in the background and having the characters in the image.
I wanted to see what my poster would look like on a bus stop billboard, which I know would be a conventional place for this poster to be featured as from my own experience I have often seen movie posters at bus stops around cities and towns. I used the website 'MakeSweet' to superimpose the image on.
I feel that the posters look eye catching and interesting and would draw attention from the audience due to the industrial and crime stereotypical colour scheme and this would reach my target audience of teenagers and younger adults who will use buses often. I am especially proud of how my this ancillary text turned out, although the image of Carl looks slightly lower quality due to the effect it is still stylish and shows a marked improvement from my AS coursework.
In terms of my magazine poster I looked at the names of other magazines such as 'Empire' and created my own title 'FilmToday' and this is the name that features on my poster, showing the following of conventions as well as intertextuality. Before I started, I wrote my article out in Microsoft Word following a template of another film review article from Empire to make sure I was following the codes and conventions of film article writing, which includes not giving away too much info about the plot and referencing the names of actors ect. In this regard I had to follow conventions as if I had not I may have spoiled the film for people and people may not bother watching it if they already know what has happened.
I attempted to follow conventions by adding a rating at the end of the review article, including some form of informative graph at the top which was my own 'thrill-o-meter' relating to the action on screen, including a small box of 'extra' quick info about the film as well as a main image and being influenced by the stylistic features of other magazines as well as following general DPS conventions like keeping a consistent house style and font ect. I created most of my DPS in Publisher as it allowed me to format my magazine to conventional size which is important so the reader can read the magazine properly.
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