Greg's Evaluation Q3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 



Early on in the pre production stage, we created a short list of questions we wanted to ask our audience which concerned some of our early ideas for the short film. Sofia then went around the college and recorded a few friends answering these questions. She then compiled the footage into this video:

From this feedback, we learned that:

• The title (we had at the time) was effective because it is short, easy to remember and it tells people what the film is about clearly.
• If people were to watch our film, they would expect lots of intense scenes, and a creepy, unsettling tone to the short film, with lots of blood. They also expect lots of mystery in close ups, extreme long shots and low-key lighting.
• Our antagonist should wear dark clothing of the era we set our film in (modern) that will conceal his identity and make him more intimidating.
• People seem keen to watch our short film from what we had told them. This tone and genre we are trying to replicate is something they already enjoy and they seem intrigued by our story and how it's based of Jack the Ripper

 

We felt that we had to change our title because it lacked originality, it gave away too much and there is already a film that exists called 'The Ripper'. We decided to change the title to Exhibit J, which resembles how evidence is labelled at a crime scene (Exhibit A, Exhibit B etc).

 

We also had to change the name of the murderer from Jack the Ripper as that was also unoriginal. We changed the name to J, as it's short, enigmatic and links to the title.

 

We had to get more audience feedback on the title and name, and from this new feedback, we found that.

• The name J is short but effective and mysterious, as it gives away nothing of the murderer's identity
• The title is also quite effective and clever in the way it links to the villain's name.



A month or two later, we completed the short film and Sofia and I posted our short film onto Facebook and encouraged our friends to give us some feedback from the film. Everyone that viewed our short film seemed to really like the film, my post got  6 likes and Sofia's got 7 likes, there was also some very positive comments on Sofia's post.

However, that's as far as we got for feedback from our short film. None of the comments that we received were very constructive, so we couldn't learn anything from it. If I was to do this another time, I would make sure I receive some constructive comments I can use for referral.

After the short film, we made our posters. Sofia posted the posters to Facebook as we knew we could get lots of good feedback from her posts compared to mine. This is the feedback we got from Sofia's post (I've hidden comments that didn't give us anything useful):

From this feedback, we learned that:

• Our posters do convey a creepy kind of tone with the images we used and the lighting on those pictures
• Most people are saying that Sofia's poster is better for setting a creepy tone and creating the atmosphere we want to create, but Callum's poster is better for giving the viewer information about the film.
• One person recommended that we should use Sofia's poster design with the tagline from Callum's poster if we wanted perfect Exhibit J poster.

Greg's Evaluation Q2

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

During our Foundation Portfolio, we created a short film, a poster and a review for Little White Lies magazine. In this post I will look at how these products work together to create a successful marketing campaign.

We decided in research and planning that our short film will be targeted at young adult males aged 15 and over. We had to reflect this not only with our main product but our ancillary tasks as well

 

 

Our short film can be marketed in a few different ways:

 

• Social media - This marketing method works with our product well because our target audience, young adult  males aged 15 and over, use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter more than most other demographics. 
• Word of mouth - The most basic way of spreading word, approaching persuading people to watch your short film isn't the quickest way to get your film out there. But people you tell enjoy the film, they could tell other people, which can slowly gain local recognition.
• Free insert in newspaper or magazine - a more expensive (but effective) way to market the film, we could give out free copies of the film in newspapers, which could give the film national recognition. Our target audience doesn't read newspapers as much as other demographics, so our short film might not appeal to those who do read newspapers, which is the issue with this method.
• Film festivals - entering the film into a film festival can get the film even wider recognition as we are putting the short film up for lots of people to see

 

The Poster:

The poster is very important because it is what can attract or repel potential viewers to your short film. Our poster needed to be both informative for anyone looking at the poster and visually attractive for those viewers, especially to young adult males aged 15 and over.

We wanted our poster to convey to audiences what genre the film is and hint at what the plot could be.

Our short film is a thriller. This is clearer on the poster Sofia and I made, which has a masked face in low key lighting. This creates enigma (a main thriller convention), as the audience will question who the masked man is.

The other poster Callum made is better at giving the audience hints at what the plot could be. The poster shows our protagonist and antagonist in the middle of the poster (Neeson on the left, J on the right), looking away from each other. There is also a tagline that says 'the finest detective, against the finest killer'. This tells the audience that this film is about a detective on the hunt for a serial killer.

Both posters use a lack of colours, the only colours used are black, white, some red and a

Linked with film:

We link the poster to our short film mainly by showing the main character(s) of the short film on our poster. In Callum's poster, we have an image of Neeson taken straight from our short film.

What we didn't do, though looking back I think we should've done, was make the title font of our short film the same as the title font for our posters. It would've made the link between the short film and the poster clearer to the audience.
 

The Review:

Reviews are hard to market your product with because in real life, you have no control over what the review will say; what we said in the review we made was our own opinions. Our target audience of young adult males aged 15 and over are unlikely to read magazines like Little White Lies, but this can appeal to other demographics.

If the review is overall positive about Exhibit J, we can use it as a marketing tool. Our short film could also appeal to those who read LWLs. LWLs readers are mainly aged between 25 and 35, and they work in media or graphic design, or they are general film fanatics. It will also create a lot of hype around the film if the review is good, as people will think 'If the critics like the film, then we might like it too'.

However, if the review is negative about the film, we can't use it as a marketing tool. If we were to use it, it will put most of our potential viewers off our film, and the hype around our film will vanish. Those film fanatics and media or graphic design workers aged between 25 and 35 will not watch our film. We would have to resort to other marketing strategies that would appeal to other demographics (students or working class adults etc).

How the review WE did links to the film/poster:

As all Little White Lies reviews do, we have used a screenshot from the film to put at the top of the review. The picture of Neeson we used was also used in one of the posters, which created synergy between the poster and the review. We also used a quote from the review in our posters, or we tried to. I believe we changed our review a lot, the quotes on the posters are inaccurate now.

Greg's Evaluation Q4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

Here is the Prezi I made for this question:

Greg's Evaluation Q1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Short films have to have a clear equilibrium, disruption and resolution in a space of time shorter than that of a full length film. To get around this, they have to change how genre conventions are used. This is what we tried to do with our short film. We wanted to take the conventions of a thriller genre and change the way they are used to make an exciting and thrilling film that only lasts 5 minutes. We looked at a few other short films to see what they did to make these short films interesting.

THE MAIN PRODUCT

Narrative

In researched short films

Narratives in short films are not at all complex; they don't have time to be complex. All the short films we saw had a very clear beginning, middle and end. They also lacked sub-plots, there is only one story going on in the film.

Todorov's 5 narrative stage are easily applied to the short films I saw. For example, the short film Silent Things had a clear:

• Equilibrium: The start of the film when the world the characters live in is 'normal'. The two friends in Silent Things are flying a kite on the beach in the equilibrium
• Disruption: An event that takes place that causes the world to lose equilibrium, and the characters, or protagonist, have to resolve the problem. The little girl that the man meets on the beach causes the disruption in Silent Things, as she gets in the way of the man and woman's friendship.
• Confrontation: How the protagonist attempts to make things right. This takes up the majority of a feature film, but it's harder to see a confrontation in some short films. In Silent Things, I believe it's when the woman goes to the dock and tries to get to her friend who is having a panic attack.
• Resolution: When the disruption is dealt with, like when an antagonist is defeated. We don't see the resolution in Silent Things, but I believe it would've been when the girl leaves without the man, and when the friends patch things up between them.
• New Equilibrium: The very end of the film, when the world the characters live in returns to a normal (or slightly different) equilibrium. The scene at the end of Silent Things is very similar to the scene in the opening; the two friends are flying a kite on the beach

I also noticed that the short films I saw had little or no dialogue, allowing for the visuals to tell the story. Black Hole is an example of a short film that used no dialogue, but the camerawork and mise en scene made it clear that the story was about a man in a boring office that finds a mysterious piece of paper.

A few short films used restricted narration. Lovefield used restricted narration; throughout the story we believe we are following a murderer trying to dispose of a body. However, at the resolution, we find out that the man was helping a woman give birth.

In our short film

Our short film, Exhibit J, is about Detective Neeson trying to find the serial killer J. The way we told our story meant that Todorov's theory can't be applied to it. With Todorov's Theory, the story looks like this:

• Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have an equilibrium. We felt that putting the viewer straight into the disruption would ensure the viewer is interested from the start, and we didn't have time to build up to the serial killer's first murder.
• Disruption: The start of our short film, we see flashes of J near different locations (where the murders happened), in front of an evidence board, which shows the victims.
• Confrontation: The confrontation is our whole short film; the detective visits two locations trying to find and capture J. In the first location, J escapes, but kills the detectives sidekick in the process. In the second location, Neeson finds J and a chase ensues. 
• Resolution: The resolution doesn't resolve anything, because J isn't brought down. Instead, the detective is stabbed and killed by J.
• New Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have a new equilibrium either. Instead the world of Exhibit J is even worse than before, now the detective responsible for finding the serial killer has been killed.

There is a lot of restricted narration, as you would expect with a thriller piece. We don't find out about the serial killer's identity, nor do we find out what happens after Neeson is killed; the story ends when he dies.

One issue we did have with the narrative was the amount of dialogue used. Looking back, it might have been possible to use less dialogue than what we actually used. The opening minute of the short film has too much dialogue for my liking. Fortunately the rest of the short film has very little dialogue, as we let the visuals explain themselves.

Genre

In researched short films

Short films can sometimes be difficult to pin a regular genre on (comedy, romance etc). They don't tend to use conventions of a genre normally.

The Last 3 Minutes is an example of a short film that doesn't conform to a single genre. It's not a thriller, because it lacks suspense and mystery, nor is it a comedy as a story about a man dying isn't very funny. However it does have some romance in it (his love life), but also some action (his time in the war), but not enough to pin the film to either genre.

The genre theory of repetition and variation comes to mind. Short films include different conventions from different genres, and these conventions combine together to make new conventions, like chemistry.

One convention to come out of this for short films was the use of little  or no dialogue. Lovefield, The Fly, The Last 3 Minutes and Black Hole are some of many short films to use less than 10 words in the whole short film.

In our short film

Unlike most short films, our short film genre is quite clearly a thriller. We use lots of thriller conventions, like suspense and mystery. Mystery is used in our piece through J, who we never know the identity of in the film, nor do we know why he murders.

We build suspense in the final scene with the foley we hear of a woman screaming, Neeson finds the warehouse and the body inside it. This builds tension as the body indicates that J is close and that they may be about to meet and fight.

Characters

In researched short films

The characters in short films are mostly very simple characters. There isn't any time for character development or backstory in a short film, so they save time by making most of the characters in short films quite relatable.

For example, the lead from Black Hole starts the film off as a man working in an office. We can see from his facial expression and body language that he is tired of his job, which is something lots of people can relate to.

Also, the main character in the short film iThoughts is a young, shy boy who is struggling to find the courage to talk to a girl, and the thoughts in his head show self-deprecating comments. This is relatable to some youngsters who have a crush on someone, and hate themselves for not being able to talk to him/her.

In our short film

We tried to make our main character Detective Neeson relatable to people who are dedicated to their work. All we see Neeson do in this film is work, we don't know about his family or any of his past times. Like the short films we saw, we don't give him backstory as we didn't have time for it.

J, the antagonist, is not relatable at all. But we tried to make him more interesting by adding enigma to his character. He wears all black and a mask, which hides his identity and adds a sense of mystery to him.

 

Mise en Scene

In researched short films

Because short films tend to use less dialogue than normal films, they rely more on the mise en scene to tell the story. Some pieces of mise en scene have lots of meaning, and in some short films, a single prop can be a very vital part of the story.

In The Last 3 Minutes, the old man's life flashes before his eyes as he looks through a crystal. You can tell the crystal means a lot to the man because he grasps it when he starts having a heart attack, and we see that he's had it since birth, when he was given the crystal as a baby.

The kite in Silent Things is a symbol or peace or normality, because the man flies the kite before meeting the girl (the disruption) and after she leaves, but not while they're 'friends'. Also, there's the hole in Black Hole, which I believe symbolized responsibility, because the man used the hole irresponsibly, and he paid the price.

In our short film

There is one piece of mise en scene we used with importance was J's murder weapons. We use a murder weapon twice, both where the murders took place. We did this to show the audience how brutal the murders were (hammers and screwdrivers aren't exactly sharp), and how elusive J is, because a good murderer would hide the weapon, but J leaves his weapon at the scene with no evidence of his identity (like he's vanished)

We also put meaning into the clothes the main characters wear. Neeson is wearing a suit, which shows us how committed he is to his work compared to his colleagues, who are all (except Jess) wearing casual or scruffy outfits, which shows us how little they care for their work.

J wears all black and a mask, which creates enigma for the character. The mask we use is also used in V for Vendetta and originally represented Guy Fawkes. This makes the character more intimidating, as Guy Fawkes was evil and the V for Vendetta guy was very brutal and extreme.
 

Sound

In researched short films

Short films I have seen don't use a lot of important sound techniques to help tell the story. Most short films I have seen use only diegetic ambient sound and a non-diegetic soundtrack, with a little bit of dialogue.

For example, The Fly only has some dialogue at the start, and the rest of the film is a man in a car trying to kill a fly. There is no non-diegetic soundtrack, there is only ambient sound and some foleys of a fly buzzing around, which is the disruption.

Black hole is a short film that's sound is only taken up by ambient office sounds and the vibration foleys from the hole when the worker uses it. Post It Love's sound editing also only consists of only ambient sound, a non-diegetic soundtrack and some foleys that fill in gaps

In our short film

Throughout Exhbit J, there is always a non-diegetic soundtrack to cover the silence. We don't have a lot of ambient sound, although there is some in places in between bits of dialogue.

One of the most important foleys we used are the scream foleys we used. They indicate that something bad has happened (J strikes again). We also used foleys for some of J's footsteps, like when he murders Officer Jess and also the message alert when J messages a clue to Neeson.

Editing

In researched short films

Some short films use more interesting editing techniques. Some short films, like Lovefield and Post It Love, only use titles and cuts between shots, which is the basic way of threading the plot together.

Black Hole uses some high-level editing when the worker uses the hole. His hand seems to vanish when he puts it inside the hole. They use some very refined split-screening technique to do this.

iThoughts used an interesting editing technique in the short film. There were lots of titles, but the titles move around and distort a lot, which shows us the main character is trying to compose thoughts, but struggles because of the girl. 
In our short film

We don't use many interesting editing techniques in Exhibit J, we main use cuts and titles to tell the story. The most interesting editing technique we use is the flashing of the murderer used at the beginning and end of the piece, which involved quick cuts between J and the evidence board.

THE POSTER

Posters I have researched

For our poster we had to research 2 types of poster: Thriller posters and short film posters.

Most thriller posters I saw followed the same kind of formula. They each had a black background and two pictures that hint at what the plot could be, the title in between those images, in white or red and in a no-nonsense font or a font that looks like it's been written in blood. Also in between the pictures, but just above the title, was the name of the actor that played the lead

At the bottom of the of poster is where you'd find the credit block and any other information (in white). The release date is included in the information in a different colour (normally red), so it stands out and makes the date seem dangerous. Above the information is a tagline that also gives the audience an idea of the plot and also hooks the viewer. Shutter Island is an example of a film poster that follows this formula.

Short film posters are more simple than thriller posters, as there is less budget and less to attract the audience to. Short film posters use one image that takes up the whole poster instead of two, and the title is usually in the middle, but can be placed at the top as well. They also don't give us the name of the actor who played the lead.

The credit block is still at the bottom, except there is usually less information. There is no release date as most of these short films are released online, and there is rarely a tagline used.

Our poster

We decided to try and merge these two genres of poster into one. With have two short film posters, and they both follow similar conventions.

They both have a single image, one of the posters has an image of J taking up the middle of the poster in front of a black background, and the other image takes up the whole poster. Both posters have the title near the lower middle of the poster, and both have the credit block at the bottom of the poster.

I feel this combination of poster genres worked out well, as the end result seemed to create a poster that both informs and attracts potential viewers to the short film, and we ended up with a final result which created the tone we wanted to create for our poster.

Final Review Layout

My Review Layout

This is my Little White Lies review layout. I think it is pretty good, I got the fonts about right, the sizes seem about right, and everything seems to be positioned correctly. Two things I have forgotten are the name of the journalist at the end of the review and the page number.

Final Poster Choices

We have decided on which two posters we are going to use for our poster. We will use:

Callum's Poster

We have chosen to use this poster for many reasons. Firstly, Callum has used photoshop for many years and was very comfortable and confident with creating this poster. On the other hand, Greg and I have never used photoshop before and knew little about the software. We both practiced in order to create an effective poster. There are many great aspects of this poster that really appeal to the target demographic (young adults.) The main image used in Callum's poster includes the two main characters which inform the audience and already give them clues which will make them want to watch the short film. The two images are close but not looking directly at each other which shows a sense of competition and rivalry which is displayed in our film. Also, I really like the colour scheme Callum used as the colours are very mysterious and enigmatic. The use of smoke is synonymous of the thriller and crime genre. Callum has included all the aspects of a film poster such as the title, reviews, actors and the credit block. We chose this poster because it looks very realistic and I could see it in magazines (Little White Lies) as well as online. It really captures the mood of the poster and I believe that he has really made the villain look frightening and quite creepy by the light behind him. He has used a different costume to the short film such as the hat and the tie but it works because it makes the villain look like a typical character from a thriller film who inflicts fear and danger on others. Lastly, I believe that the font for the title "Exhibit J" and other texts is bold and stands out as it has a shadow behind it and catches peoples eyes. The white colour stands out from the black background and the main image.

I can really see this poster online as it is an intriguing and artistic poster, the demographic will want to watch our short film because the enigmatic atmosphere creates an interest from the audience on social networking.

Sofia's Poster (with parts of Greg's poster)
We decided as a group to chose my poster (Sofia) but to also incorporate aspects of Greg's poster as he had some really good ideas. This poster is very different compared to Callum's, we wanted to show a variety of designs to display our short film. The darkness and mystery of this poster is very effective as it looks like a typical thriller film poster. Its quite simple as it only uses one main image but is eye catching. I chose to use a black background because it makes the text and image stand out but it also looks gloomy and threatening which is also portrayed in the image. I chose this image because it is quite disorientated and it fades into the background to show that the villain "J" has a hidden identity in our film. The mask is very synonymous and well known as it is used in many thrillers and horrors because it is very creepy and spine chilling. I chose white text for the reviews, actors and credit block so that they fit with the image and can be clearly seen in front of the dark background. Greg's poster included the main actors which I was missing so he came up with idea of including them in my poster. As you can see, I played the actors names around the mask so that they surrounded the bottom of the masks point.  The title "Exhibit J" is in a red colour to connote blood and danger. The font also looks slightly aged to add enigma to the poster. I decided to include our group logo for "NewbieHills" which is green hills in the bottom left of the poster to show who produced the film. In addition, social networking sites are linked to the poster to show where we are advertising our film and where it is available. Short films rely on advertising online as they do not have the budget to be shown in cinemas or on big billboard like feature films. The main sites Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are shown because they are the most popular with the target audience (young adults) and are now easily accessible as everyone owns some sort of smart device. In conclusion, I believe that by using Gregs ideas and my ideas we have created a great poster which really captures the themes in our short film. We have worked really well as a group during the poster stage and have produced 2 powerful film posters!

Greg's Finished Poster (with adjustments)

I received some feedback on my previous poster, and I made a few minor changes to the poster.

The main one is the title. I changed the font so it matches the title font in the film. I also changed the font size slightly on the credit block so the 'Bicknell' wasn't on a line on it's own. The review on the right doesn't go so far into the centre, as I moved the review onto two lines, and the names of the magazine and newspaper are equally distant from the edge of the poster.

Greg's Finished Poster (draft)

This is it: My final draft for the poster. I used the posters that I had researched previously to put this together. The use of low-key lighting on Neeson's face adds a sense of enigma to the piece, and having half of J's mask does the same thing.

The red title with the bloody font tells the audience what kind of film this is, and the white text tells us that this is a very serious film.  The tag-line 'Where is he now?' creates tension ads it implies 'he' is hiding and 'he' is possibly dangerous.

I also added some reviews at the top, by The Guardian and Timeout, to appeal to our target audience. At the bottom there is our production company logo (the hills) and also logos of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, which tells the viewer where to go if they want to see it.

Little White Lies Magazine: The Language

WHAT ARE THE LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS AND PARAGRAPH CONTENT OF LITTLE WHITE LIES? 

Reviews from Little White Lies talk about a small range of subjects about the film and it's background. After reading a couple of reviews from LWLs, They discuss:

• Social and/or historical context - if it's a film based on true events, like Zero Dark Thirty, the writer could give background information about what the event is and why the writer made it.
• The main character - LWLs reviews always talk about the main character. It might be about who they chose to play the main character, a little  bit about the character and his/her motives, or if it's an adaptation of a story, like Jack Reacher, they may comment on the character from the original story compared to the character in the film.
• Part of the plot - They could discuss a little part of the plot, from the opening to maybe a little bit more development. Because Zero Dark Thirty is based on true events (so eveyone knows how it'll end), they discussed the ending a little in the review.
• Genre and Style - The writers of Little White Lies know that a good chunk of readers work in creative media, so talking about genre, the director's inspiration and the style and themes of the film are what would interest those readers. 

The writers of LWLs expects the level of film knowledge from it's readers, and they use language like 'Werner frickin' Herzog'. This language tells us that we should know who Werner Herzog is, and if we don't it encourages us to find out, as it seems to imply he is a big name in film. It also makes verbs out of nouns, like 'Point Blank-ed' and 'Chuck Norris-ed', which makes the reviews more contemporary and less old-fashioned, while also expecting readers to know about Chuck Norris and Point Blank.

Little White Lies Magazine: The Layout

WHAT IS THE LAYOUT OF THE LITTLE WHITE LIES' REVIEWS?

The reviews section of Little White Lies magazine is a part of the magazine that doesn't change depending on the cover and it's style. All the reviews follow the exact same layout, until they change up their look, which happens every couple of years. The version of the LWLs reviews I am trying to replicate are from 2013/14.

With this version, there is always a screenshot from the film taking up the whole top of the page. It's horizontal length never changes, but the depth can change depending on how much is written in the review.

Underneath the picture there is the name of the film. The film title is the biggest piece of text on the page and it's always in a font called century gothic. Underneath the title are a few sub-titles that tell us who directed the film, a few of the actors and it's release date. The 'Directed by', 'Starring' and 'Released' title are all in lower case and in italics. The names and the release date are not in italics, but they are in italics in upper case. On the left of the page there is a piece of verticle text that says 'reviews'. It is in century gothic font and the R seems to be level with the 'Released' title.

After the sub-titles is the review itself, which goes from under the sub-titles to very near the bottom of the page. The first letter of the review is bigger than the rest of the text, at about 3 line big. There is always 3 column of text, and about 5-7 paragraphs, adding up to about 500 words. The review text is the smallest on the page, its in lower case and in the____ font. The name of the writer is at the end of the review, in bold and ,upper case and in a different font.

In the bottom right corner of the page is the rating system, which consists of 3 rankings: Anticipation, Enjoyment, and In Retrospect. These titles are in a font very similar to the font the writer's name is in (upper cases and bold), except more spaced out. Next to each of the titles there is a very short opinion on the film's anticipation etc. This is in italics and in lower case. The rating, which is between 1 and 5, is to the right of the title and opinion. This is also in century gothic. The opinion is far away enough too make the rating stand out. there are horizontal lines separating the ratings.

Little White Lies Magazine: The Research

WHAT IS LITTLE WHITE LIES?

Little White Lies is a film magazine that is released once every two months. It is published by The Church of London, who are a small publisher that only publish a couple of other magazines. The magazine mainly focuses of films and reviewing new films in cinemas. What makes LWLs unique is the graphic design. The magazine will always have a feature film, which is the film they choose to put on the front cover and have more information and reviews about. The front cover is always very eyecatching and the rest of the magazine will follow the style and the colour sceme of the cover. The style of most of the magazine will change to match the front cover.


WHO READS LITTLE WHITE LIES?

Little White Lies is read mainly by males aged beween 25 and 35 that work in design or media. A survey of 250 readers done in 2008 by The Church of London shows us that 63% (nearly 2 in 3 people) that read LWLs is male, more than half (51%) of readers are aged between 25 and 35 years, and 22% work in media and 20% work in creative design. The survey also suggests that of the 250 people in the survey, 35% but more than 4 DVDs a month and 28% visit the cinema more than 4 times a month. Half of the readers earn £20k or less per year. LWLs is also a very collectable magazine, and 93% of readers don't throw away their copies.

Poster Progress

This is my poster so far. Not quite finished, but all I have to do now is insert some logo(s) at the bottom and add an image of Neeson at the top. Perhaps also refine some text.

Improvements for Exhibit J!

GREG

Overall I think that our short film has lots of very good parts to it. I will not be talking about those in this post. I will be talking about what could've been improved for our sequence.

The first and main issue I have with our sequence is some of the audio. In the Reigate scene, there are two relatively big issues I feel need addressing. One is the ambient sound in the stabbing scene. You can hear the sound of a generator in this final scene. This annoys me because it cuts out too suddenly when J runs away after stabbing Neeson, and cuts back in on the sound of Neeson choking on blood. I don't like it because it makes this sequence seem quite cheap. The other issue comes right at the start of the Reigate scene, when Neeson enters the scene and walks into The Yard. Deadline limitations stopped me from being able to add footstep foleys in this scene, which makes the scene seem quite empty.

SOFIA

Although we have had some issues with the cast and the microphones, we carried on and worked effectively and professionally. Firstly, like Greg said, some of the Reigate scenes had some issues with the sound. As we were in a yard where work was taking place and there was a kitchen next to one of our scenes. We had a lack of control over the ambient sound so we had to record it anyway. A generator sound can be heard during the final scene as there is no dialogue as the Inspector is dead. However, we overcame this by improving our camera techniques and making sure we used different techniques in this scene to over power the sound issue.
In addition, we had a set time for filming our short film but many of the actors said they could not make it at the last minute which did frustrate me. I organised a different day that everyone could do on Facebook and explained that this is a very important project. Finally,  everyone turned up and we could film within two days at Reigate and Burgess Hill. On the last day, Kyle (the villain) and I went to Brighton to film some extra scenes. But, Callum or Greg did not attend as they had to leave so it was a challenge for only one person to film and hold the lights. I was happy with the scenes I filmed because they looked very effective and create a thrilling atmosphere. Here are some examples below.

Exhibit J: The Final Product

This is it! The final product of Exhibit J. We have worked really hard in putting this together and believe it has turned out well. Although we have come across some problems during filming and editing we acted in a professional manner and completed the editing to the deadline. Our target audience have seemed to enjoy it as Greg and I shared it on Facebook and I showed some family members, we received some positive feedback which I will be displaying in another post. We have tried to include numerous camera techniques as well as lighting techniques which have created the enigma for our short film. In addition, the foley's we used coincide with the moving image and the music builds suspense and tension very well.

Poster Research

Shutter Island
 

This poster clearly tells us this is a thriller through its use of thriller conventions to give the poster dark themes. It uses low key lighting on Leo's face, with a match being the source of light. This gives the character enigma. The character also wears a serious facial expression, which tells the audience that this film could get dark. The island shrouded in darkness also creates enigma; it makes the audience wonder what the island has to do with Leo's character. The lighting on the island also tells us nothing about what happens on the island.

The tag-line 'some places never let you go' might be a clue to what the film's narrative is about. It makes me think that the narrative is about what happens to Leo's character when he arrives at the island. The tag-line and the release date have both been put in a red font. Red is a colour that is linked with danger, blood and love. The red being used on this poster could be linked with either blood or danger, adding to the dark feel of this poster. The title of the film itself and Leonardo's name are both in white on this poster, and in a font that implies dark themes and a chilling narrative.

The poster layout puts most of the information and attention to the centre of the poster. The layout also splits the poster into to two sections: the top half attracts possible viewers with the images, the name of a big celebrity and the title. The bottom half contains more information about the film (release date, credit block and producers) if the viewer was hooked by the top half. There are no reviews on this poster, so I can't really talk about target audience. But I can say it's probably not for younger viewers.

Happy Hour

Happy Hour is a short film poster. This film is hard pin a genre on, though the red text and font that looks like handwriting may tell us that this film is a thriller. It's not a horror because there isn't any indication that the film has anything supernatural. The poster is very simple but quite effective. It consists of just one image that takes up the whole poster. The image shows us a girl with a scared facial expression looking at someone coming up the stairs. We don't know who it is that's coming up the stairs, but we can see there is an out-of-focus glass in the unknown person's hand. This could imply that alcoholism is a main theme of the film. The girl's costume and hair tell us that the girl represents the theme of innocence. From this poster, I think the narrative involves an alcoholic (father perhaps) getting drunk and abusing the little girl (who may be his daughter). The poster follows some of the conventions of a thriller, mainly the fact that we can't see the face of the man who is holding the glass. He is also wearing black, and he is out of focus in the frame. These add enigma to this character, as we have no idea who he is ad we can only guess his relationship to the girl.

The title of the film has been put in a red, and put into a font that looks like handwriting. Red is a colour associated with blood and danger, which is why it adds a darker tone to the short film.

The film layout puts most of the attention to the centre of the poster. The space between 'Happy' and 'Hour' is wide enough to fit in the bottom of the glass, which they did so it is clearer to see what's in the person's hand. The title and credit block are put really close to the bottom of the poster, so we can see the whole of the image above. The image attracts the potential viewers to look at the rest of the poster.


I Saw The Devil

I Saw The Devil has a different layout to the other posters. The tag line of the film ('Abandon all Compassion') is right at the top of the poster. The film title is the main attraction of the poster, and it's what will catch the eye of someone looking at the poster first. It takes up most of the poster and it's colour and font set the tone for the rest of the poster. The title has been put in red, which could symbolize blood and danger. The font of the title looks like handwriting, which tells us this film could be scary. The tag-line and all the other titles in in white and a more serious font, which is more conventional for a thriller or horror film. The The title is also covering some of the faces in the background. This gives us the idea that the title was drawn on top the poster, like a scary message written in blood. The only other piece of red text is below the credit block, which says 'coming soon'. This adds emphasis to the point and draws the audience's attention from the white text.

The faces in the background are tinted with red, which also adds to the scariness this poster is trying to show us. Liam Neeson's face on the right has low key lighting on his right side, which adds a sense of enigma to his character. Both characters are wearing serious facial expressions, and we see these faces at a medium close-up or close-up distance. This brings us close to these characters and we can see that these characters have seen a lot of evil.

I think this film is more a horror than a thriller, because the title refers to the devil, who many believe is a fictional monster. Whether or not it is a metaphor or they actually come across Satan we cannot figure out from this poster. I think the narrative of this poster is about one or both of these characters confrontation with a demon, either in a physical form or a personal demon, and we see how it torments them. This film poster is aimed at a more mature audience because of it's dark themes and the way it is presented.