In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
A romantic comedy film trailer has the goal of attracting its target audience to come see the film which will generate as much money as possible and increase sales as much as they can, they try to market the well known actors and actresses used in the film or to advertise new unknown actors and actresses or the director, that has made the film possible. However media products that try to challenge these conventions will not do this and fight against it, they try to go in the opposite direction and are not too focused on what the audience thinks but mainly on their own individuality and ideas that set them apart from every other media product.
Developing forms and conventions is in the middle of using and challenging, it takes ideas and tries to make them better with a slight twist that the audience may not have seen before but will enjoy, I believe our media product uses the typical forms and conventions of a rom-com but also develops them and challenges them. The main aim of our own trailer is to introduce the new actors and actresses trying to break through onto the scene and establish a mysterious narrative that our target audience of young teens between the ages of 12-18 will want to come and see.
We used down to earth locations in our trailer and down to earth characters to appeal to our audience and make the trailer look modern to how typical teenagers live their lives these days. We used many different locations such as a house, a busy road, a park bench, areas which are bright, colourful and relative to our audience. Also using the characters as the key features which helps us advertise them and market them which is key in our main products and ancillary texts.
We feature our characters as your typical teenagers, they like going out, as shown by our protagonist character in a park environment when he is hit by a ball and also have interest in the opposite sex as most teenagers are at that stage in their life, example of this is our main character at the bus stop with flowers. This is to stick to classic forms and conventions of a rom-com and stereotypes and representations of young teenagers.
One feature we try to use to our advantage in our trailer is the lighting, throughout our trailer we use bright and colourful lighting to intice our audience, one example being on the park bench where we have our protagonist and deuteragonist characters, the bench is a bright blue, on a sunny day with our characters wearing vibrant colours. We tried to make each scene as bright as possible to highlight this was a feel good, generally happy movie and to represent what our characters were feeling on the inside, which is the majority of happiness and excitement of a relationship happening.
In our poster and magazine we used the actor as the main usp and in most rom-coms they have the actors on the posters and dominating the page, this is because they want the audience to immediatly be attracted to them and therefore perhaps be interested in seeing the film, we saw this as a key feature in selling our products sp we have done this on our poster and magazine, so therefore we use the forms and conventions of real media products in our production.
I believe also we have been able to use Ervin Goffmans character theory, although in the trailer we focus solely on the protagonist and deuteragnist characters, if the audience were able to see the full film then we would be able to in-cooperate the 'bit player' and the 'fool' because they are easily adapted into our genre that we have chosen.
I think we have also been able to develop Todarovs theory of a basic structure for all narratives, where as Todorovs theory had 5 stages starting with a 'Equilibrium' something happy/good, then a disruption leading to a 'Disequilibrium' and eventually a 'New Equilibrium'. We have skipped straight to a 'Disequlilbrium' which is a problem that needs to be solved, in our case this is our male character not being able to get the female character, finally this ends with him getting the female character the 'New Equilibrium'. So we miss out various stages and the music we chose is uplifting to fit in with this theory, to the idea that finally in the end the main character will achieve is goal and get his girl.
Our trailer is also able to challenge other forms and conventions of media products, often in teenage rom-coms sex plays a vital role, our trailer goes against that idea as it is clear to see it is more about our male character trying to win the girl, therefore appealing to more then just our target audience. Older audiences will be more likely to see this if they realise that it’s not about your typical sex drugs and rebellious lifestyle of a teenager which challenges the forms and conventions of teenage rom-coms today where sex often dominates the product.
Also compared to other film posters and magazines in rom-coms where they genrally have both the male and female charaters portrayed on the front covers, we have completly gone against this idea and we went in the direction of just having our male character on the cover, this is because we see him as the main selling point and he is the dominant character that will have the most impact in this trailer and film.
To challenge forms and conventions of a rom-com we have had to use and develop some ideas, taking away the obvious stereotypes and representations of teenagers and putting the focus mainly on how this teenager can overcome his obsticle, while doing this we have been able to develop narrative and character theories to help our trailer set itself apart from others.
How effective is the combination of your main products and Ancillary texts ?
We chose to produce a magazine cover and also a film poster to go with our film trailer, with each different piece of media we considered how it would tie in with our other products to gain the best possible marketing campaign.
In our trailer we used as many bright colours as possible to give the film a happy vibrant look about it, so therefore in our film poster and magazine cover we also have done this with the main character wearing a bright red jumper in the poster and colourful fonts in both texts. In both magazine and poster we used a white background as we see the usp's of the main character as the most important thing of the whole product, as we have tried to do in the trailer.
Another thing we tried to do is create clear synergy with a prop, this was the watch the main actor is wearing, this ties in with the narrative, the title of the film and also the font. The narrative in the film trailer is all about the watch and time, so in the magazine cover and poster it was unquestionable that the watch would have to play a key part, with the actor wearing it and making facial expressions towards it. This prop also ties in with the font of clocks' 'James Svensson' is used in white font in the shape of clocks to relate to the narrative in both magazine and poster. This watch is also a usp because it is what the audience are going to be attracted to, what is so special about this particular watch ?, so helps attract our audience.
Also we believed the font to play a huge part on how to promote our brand, on the magazine cover we have the actor and watch as the usp’s and then we use different coloured font for different sentences, this is because it is a youthful magazine so appealing to our target audience, and also with a white background it was useful to make this as colourful as possible. In our poster once again with a white background we used the red font to go with what the character is wearing, as to not overload the viewer with too much, we wanted the poster to be basic as to not give too much narrative away and I believe we have achieved that.
I think there is a clear link between all of the different texts, especially the font of the clock which would be recognised instantly and is therefore helping us establish our brand.
What have you learned from your audience feedback ?
To gain the feedback that we thought would be most useful to us; we thought any questions would have to be specifically directed towards our target audience of young teens between the ages of 12-18. The best possible way to put across our questions we thought would be in the form of a questionaire, we handed out this questionaire mainly around school as schools have our prime target range, and then also outside of school such as social metting places, like football or rugby teams, these would be the places that our questions could easily reach our target audience, audiences which would enjoy funny and idiotic rom-coms. After gathering our feedback we could then place our results into tables and charts as they would be easier to read and we would be able to come to definite conclusions
We found the audience really enjoyed having a character that they could find bits of themselves in that they could really relate to, this helped us form how we would film around our protagonist character. We also found that the majority of the audience liked a soundtrack that would be able to reflect certain emotions a character was feeling at the time, so we chose a fairly upbeat one with lyrics such as 'bouncing of the walls' so the character is not knowing what to do next or when he is going to have his luck, a emotion that many teenagers had gone through.
Another impact our audience had was that most of them liked the 'knocked up' film poster, as it was simplistic. They were able to focus on the character and already start to establish a relationship with what looks like a likeable figure with silly facial expressions, rather then being overloaded with information, too much narrative or other characters, so we used this feedback when developing our posters and magazines.
This feedback was vital in the way we would produce and market our brand. We chose to gain our audience feedback before we really got stuck into our filming so we would be able to create a trailer product which included ideas that they would be happy with and therefore not much editing would be needed. We really appreciated our audience’s feedback and tried to help make our product best to appeal to them because at the end of the day they are the people that are buying our brand and therefore giving us the success
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research and planning and evaluation stages ?
To do any research we would most likely have to use search engines on the internet to research products or trailers, the search engine we mainly used was Google, as this was a reliable one we have used a lot in the past. This helped us find many movie posters and trailers that we could then gain ideas and feedback from.
When searching most of our film trailers we used 'youtube; has this has a high variety of trailers and helped us look at what camera angles looked good, and how the editing worked well, as well as the mise en scene.
To show all of our research and planning along with this evaluation we decided to use a blog as the best way of showing our work, this would also show good time management as that was a certain aspect of the criteria we had to meet. We found this blog fairly easy to upload things such as videos, photos, and charts to which we could then discuss and analyse. Gaining feedback was also easy to receive on our blogs as we could send links to friends, or simply open up our blogs in class to fellow media students or teachers and gain their thoughts.
To film our trailer we then used a portable video camera and accessories like a tripod to make use for steady filming, and a microphone so we could hear the dialogue. Once we then finished filming we would upload it onto our macs, where we could edit them on there, with features such as slow motion, freeze frames, fade outs as just to name a few of the effects we could choose from. The editing programme also made it easy for us to cut clips and place them where we would want them and to how long we needed them for.
For our magazine and poster we used a digital camera to take photos of our main character then used formats such as 'gimp' and 'photoshop' to edit them, adding in colour and changing the contrast for example. We had used most of this technology in our previous As coursework so didn’t really have any problems when using this technology.
We also were able to create our own font of clocks to go with our narrative of time, we did this using Photoshop and images of the internet to do this, and we found this font gave our trailer and ancillary texts great individuality.
However to do all of these things it was the internet that gave us a basis for being able to look into and research similar products and with technology advancing and getting better all the time we were able to create these products.
Saturday 24 April 2010
'The thrill of 30 seconds' Film Trailer - Final edited product
Here is our final edited teaser trailer for 'The Thrill of 30 Seconds'
Monday 15 February 2010
Planning : Storyboard
Scenes 1-4
Scenes 5-8
Scenes 8-11
Scenes 12-15
Scenes 15-18
We chose this layout as our stroyboard because it includes everything from the shot type, up to special effects. It made it alot easier for us to plan each scene and shot, also helping us when we go to film and edit.
Scenes 5-8
Scenes 8-11
Scenes 12-15
Scenes 15-18
We chose this layout as our stroyboard because it includes everything from the shot type, up to special effects. It made it alot easier for us to plan each scene and shot, also helping us when we go to film and edit.
Thursday 11 February 2010
Planning : Calander for filming
Before we started filming we had to make a schedlue so we could keep to our deadlines and show good time management. We planned also to try gain feedback throughout our filming process so we could make any changes along the way to improve.
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Planning : Film Poster - Final Product
This is our final version of our poster, we have been able to use our own individual font and hopefully by keeping it simple we havnt given away too much narrative and can attract the audience by the mystery surround the watch and narrative.
Planning : Magazine Final Product
This is our final magazine draft and we belive we have been able to stick to our layout that we chose, by keeping the Character as our main USP to hook the audience in. With the character wearing the watch which is also a usp it shows the audience the synergy in our brand.
Planning : Magazine Layout and first draft
We chose this for our magazine cover because it is likely to hook our audience in with the USP, which we aimed to do from the start. But with the additions of other text from kickers and other additional secondary images it is likely to give more substance to the magazine for the targeted audience.
Here is a look at our first magazine draft, obviously we our missing our main usp but that is to be of our main character, but we belive we will be able to create a better, polished version for our final piece.
Planning : Poster Layout and first draft
Layout 1 :
We chose to use the masterhead at the top to capture the audiences attention straight away, then directly underneath that we have the 3 main characters in 3 seperate collums. Underneath that we have different images such as certificates and the production casting. We belive this is a good layout because it manages to explain the narritve clearly but still leave a hook and the USP which is the characters, should intice the viewers in.
Layout 2 :
This layout is more of your big blockbuster poster that you see in American films, with the main image blown up and taking up most of the frame as a USP. Below the dominant image is the tagline in the centre, with the movie title and then production casting underneath that. We eventually came to the agreement that this would be the layout we would want to try and recreate
Layout 3 :
This again is similar to layout 1 with have the 3 main characters as the USP's but they are slanted diagonally on this layout, while still giving insight into the narative. This conforms to the common comedy conventions we have researched of posters, showing us 3 characters that the audience are going to be hooked on.
Here is a look at our first draft, we like this draft as even though it is not finished we belive we have a good basis to progress on. We like how simplistic it is and how we can create enigma codes from this to keep the audience guessing by not giving too much away already in the poster. We still have to place our main character to dominate the page as our usp and also we will rethink the colours used and try to find better alternatives as they are a bit bland and dont really capture the audiences attention, however the font of clocks to go with our narrative we think has worked well but from our feeback we will have to work on its readability.
Monday 8 February 2010
Planning : Characters
We plan to limit the amount of characters we use in the opening scenes in our teaser trailer, this is because we want the audience to be focused on the narrative and our protaganist character, so they immediatly can be associtated with him and therefore could create a bond with him throughout the film if they wanted to.
Anders:
The first character we have is Anders, a lad who always seems to have bad luck and nothing ever seems to go right for him. When it comes to girls also Anders tends to have serious problems and just cant make it happen, untill he meets Alicia. Throughout his life Anders has never been very organised or punctual and being on time has never been his strong point. As the film develops Anders devlops a special gift for time.
Holly :
Our second character is Holly, a girl Anders always thought was out of his reach, she is someone who is always willing to give another person a second chance, complelty the opposite to Anders, two polar opposites. Pretty, very punctual, presentable and interlectual.
Anders:
The first character we have is Anders, a lad who always seems to have bad luck and nothing ever seems to go right for him. When it comes to girls also Anders tends to have serious problems and just cant make it happen, untill he meets Alicia. Throughout his life Anders has never been very organised or punctual and being on time has never been his strong point. As the film develops Anders devlops a special gift for time.
Holly :
Our second character is Holly, a girl Anders always thought was out of his reach, she is someone who is always willing to give another person a second chance, complelty the opposite to Anders, two polar opposites. Pretty, very punctual, presentable and interlectual.
Sunday 7 February 2010
Planning : Health and Safety
When filming it is still very important to be safe, so therefore on our scout location we also took note of any potenital health and safety hazzards.
* The obvious main one was car traffic, while one person was filimg we plan to have a looker out observing the car traffic to avoid any problems, to tell us when it is free to move or when it is potentially dangerous. Again while filming in a suburban area, there are cars that are going to be pulling in and out of driveways so a looker wil be needed for this also.
* Another potential problem which hopefully we were going to avoid however, was cables for the camera for outlet power. We planned to have our camera fully charged, but sometimes things dont always go to plan, so we had to look how safe it was when we had leads from the camera to power sockets, so no one was likely to trip and injure themselves.
* The obvious main one was car traffic, while one person was filimg we plan to have a looker out observing the car traffic to avoid any problems, to tell us when it is free to move or when it is potentially dangerous. Again while filming in a suburban area, there are cars that are going to be pulling in and out of driveways so a looker wil be needed for this also.
* Another potential problem which hopefully we were going to avoid however, was cables for the camera for outlet power. We planned to have our camera fully charged, but sometimes things dont always go to plan, so we had to look how safe it was when we had leads from the camera to power sockets, so no one was likely to trip and injure themselves.
Planning : Poster Fonts
After looking through numerous fonts and styles we both come to the agreement that we would want to use fonts that seemed fun and would go with our narrative. We chose these fonts because we thought they could directly relate to our target audience of young teens in the age group 12-18.
Here is the first font we have used on our poster, we chose this font because it directly links in with our narrative and it gives our trailer and ancilllery texts their own individuality, anyone who see's the trailer, poster and magazine will be able to see the synergy created with all three, and therefore ultimately buy into our brand which is a long term aim :
The second font we have used is mainly in our trailer and magazine, it is big bold and simple, how we wanted it to be but also it is a little bit slanted showing us it is fun and youthful but not sticking to the rules, it has a little bit of edge to it, which appealed to our audience when we asked them to pick their favourite out of a selection we showed them. It relates to our target audience because they tend do go against rules at this time in their life, in the so called 'rebellious teens'. It show us youthfullness beacuse it looks quite imagginative compared to the boring, everday font, that we often see. It fits in with the rom-com idea of having fun and appealing to our target audience of young teens that we want to read our magazine :
Our third font we have used was again mainly for our poster, we chose this because it had an italic style to it, so was instantly a little bit different and also this style looks like it fits into our genre of romance, so with our features on our poster appealing to perhaps the males, this type of font would appeal more to the female audience :
Here is the first font we have used on our poster, we chose this font because it directly links in with our narrative and it gives our trailer and ancilllery texts their own individuality, anyone who see's the trailer, poster and magazine will be able to see the synergy created with all three, and therefore ultimately buy into our brand which is a long term aim :
The second font we have used is mainly in our trailer and magazine, it is big bold and simple, how we wanted it to be but also it is a little bit slanted showing us it is fun and youthful but not sticking to the rules, it has a little bit of edge to it, which appealed to our audience when we asked them to pick their favourite out of a selection we showed them. It relates to our target audience because they tend do go against rules at this time in their life, in the so called 'rebellious teens'. It show us youthfullness beacuse it looks quite imagginative compared to the boring, everday font, that we often see. It fits in with the rom-com idea of having fun and appealing to our target audience of young teens that we want to read our magazine :
Our third font we have used was again mainly for our poster, we chose this because it had an italic style to it, so was instantly a little bit different and also this style looks like it fits into our genre of romance, so with our features on our poster appealing to perhaps the males, this type of font would appeal more to the female audience :
Planning : Scout Location
Before we set off to film we would have to do some research into our location where we aimed to shoot our teaser trailer. We did this so we could get an idea of how busy the streets would be, along with traffic, pedestrians etc, so we would know the best time to film, to avoid car noises or people walking past if we didnt want them to. We could get a reasonably accurate portrayal after a couple of visits at different times.
After gaining an accurate time frame to film we didnt really have many problems, we decided to film around lunchtime during a half term, we did this because we had the time to take each shot carefully and re-shoot if we needed to. Also most adults would be at their working environment so we didnt expect the roads to be too busy and with it getting to closer to summer the lighting was fine as it was genrally bright, which is what we wanted for our happy, vibrant, feel good rom-com.
After gaining an accurate time frame to film we didnt really have many problems, we decided to film around lunchtime during a half term, we did this because we had the time to take each shot carefully and re-shoot if we needed to. Also most adults would be at their working environment so we didnt expect the roads to be too busy and with it getting to closer to summer the lighting was fine as it was genrally bright, which is what we wanted for our happy, vibrant, feel good rom-com.
Friday 5 February 2010
Planning : Location
We chose a suburban location as our settting, we wanted to use normal everday roads, inside your average house and at a park on a bench. This is because these locations gave us good opportunites to use a wide variety of camera shots such as establishing shots and wide shots to set the scene and also a park bench would allow us to use a two shot of the male and female, vital in a rom-com. Another reason we chose these particular settings is because we wanted our target audience of teenagers to relate to them, the park bench scene for example is often seen as a hang out for teenagers so therefore this could put them at ease as they can now familiarise themseleves with the setting.
This first picture is where we are introduced to our protaganist character Anders where he gets hit by a ball, we chose this setting as it would show our character trying to look cool but with the comic affect of him being near a park and getting hit by a ball it would show the comedy side of our trailer :
Here is another picture of one of the opening settings where we our with our main character Anders, we chose the inside of a house of him getting ready just because its realistic and we know the amount of time teenagers put into their apperance :
This next picture is at a bus stop, we chose this location as it would show our main characters misfortune where he is spalshed by water, and we as teenagers know ourselves the hassle of having to get busses everywhere as we are not old enough to drive, so this is once again helping us create a connection with our target audience :
Here is a still from our trailer of the park bench scene, we chose a park bench because it is a classic setting for a rom-com where we can see both male and female and the audience can instantly recognise what type of genre this trailer is, I also decided to use a still of our trialer because it would show good use of technology :
This first picture is where we are introduced to our protaganist character Anders where he gets hit by a ball, we chose this setting as it would show our character trying to look cool but with the comic affect of him being near a park and getting hit by a ball it would show the comedy side of our trailer :
Here is another picture of one of the opening settings where we our with our main character Anders, we chose the inside of a house of him getting ready just because its realistic and we know the amount of time teenagers put into their apperance :
This next picture is at a bus stop, we chose this location as it would show our main characters misfortune where he is spalshed by water, and we as teenagers know ourselves the hassle of having to get busses everywhere as we are not old enough to drive, so this is once again helping us create a connection with our target audience :
Here is a still from our trailer of the park bench scene, we chose a park bench because it is a classic setting for a rom-com where we can see both male and female and the audience can instantly recognise what type of genre this trailer is, I also decided to use a still of our trialer because it would show good use of technology :
Planning : Music
We wanted to use a non-diagetic soundtrack that instantly our audience could relate to, so we decided to use the song 'Bouncing off the walls' by Sugarcult. We chose this soung because it is upeat and fast paced which should keep the audiences attention and keep them interested. With this song it helps our audience relate to it by the lyrics 'Bouncing of the wall' is a reference to a person bouncing off the walls not knowing in what direction they are going, having good and bad times, pretty much showing how a teenager will be feeling at this stage in their life, helping us relate to our target audience.
When using sound effects we plan to fade out the music showing good use of technology and editing, then bring it back up again to raise the tempo, this is so we can hear the effects while maintaining the audiences attention
Here is the song we are going to use 'Bouncing off the walls' by Sugarcult
When using sound effects we plan to fade out the music showing good use of technology and editing, then bring it back up again to raise the tempo, this is so we can hear the effects while maintaining the audiences attention
Here is the song we are going to use 'Bouncing off the walls' by Sugarcult
Planning : Sound Effects
We plan to have a few sound effects in our teaser trailer as they can often be used as a sign when things are going wrong and with our main Protaganist character often having bad luck and things going wrong for him, sound effects can help show this in the narrative. Also with the trailer being in the genre of rom-coms while relating to teenagers, we found from our research that often sound effects play a part because it is a sign of immaturity, teenagers messing around having fun are where silly noises come in and have a comic affect on the audience, which we want to happen. One sound effect we want to have is when our character will be hit by a ball or other object as we introduce him to give some comic affect. Also at the end of the trailer just before it finishes, we want to have the title of the film, then a sound effect of a dj set scratching and then it cuts back to our main character doing something silly, this sound effect will show our audience that just as they think our trailer is over, there is one last bit for them to see.
Planning : Editing
After we have filmed our product we plan to use the Apple imovie and Adobe AfterEffects to edit. Using these two pieces of software we will be able to successfully use transsion features like fading out, or a swipe cut, or dissolve. We plan to use the editing transition fading out to help create a little bit of suspense for the audience that will hopefully keep them hooked as they will want to find out what happens next, and also to help our trailer run smoothly from scene to scene. Along with the fade, a swipe out will also be useful to keep up the tempo/pace of the trailer, helping it stay upbeat and fun like a rom-com trailer.
Planning : Camera Angles
During our teaser trailer to make it as enjoyable for the audience as possible we our going to have to use a wide variety of camera angles to portray our main character's problems/obsticles.
At the start of the filming we will use wide shots and establishing shots, needed for setting the scene as this is importance to the audience especially for teenagers or any type of audience so they can relate to the setting, and maybe similarities that they have had while being in that same situation, the establishing shot puts the audience at ease and they can then become familiar with their surroundings.
For the main viewing we will be using close ups so we can see the emotion and facial expressions Anders has to go through on his journey, along with medium close ups and wide shots again. The wide angle will play a very vital role in showing the mise-en-scene, everything else that is going on in the scene around our characters.
With there being a potential reltionship on the brink which would have its ups and downs, we thought music would play a key role in our trailer, so we wanted to use camera angles relating to the lyrics in the song, when the tempo was fast and upbeat we wanted a happy facial expression, when it was slow and calm we wanted sad, depressing angles, as our audeince would be able to relate to all these emotions our character was going through.
At the start of the filming we will use wide shots and establishing shots, needed for setting the scene as this is importance to the audience especially for teenagers or any type of audience so they can relate to the setting, and maybe similarities that they have had while being in that same situation, the establishing shot puts the audience at ease and they can then become familiar with their surroundings.
For the main viewing we will be using close ups so we can see the emotion and facial expressions Anders has to go through on his journey, along with medium close ups and wide shots again. The wide angle will play a very vital role in showing the mise-en-scene, everything else that is going on in the scene around our characters.
With there being a potential reltionship on the brink which would have its ups and downs, we thought music would play a key role in our trailer, so we wanted to use camera angles relating to the lyrics in the song, when the tempo was fast and upbeat we wanted a happy facial expression, when it was slow and calm we wanted sad, depressing angles, as our audeince would be able to relate to all these emotions our character was going through.
Planning : Storyline / Ideas 'The Thrill Of 30 Seconds'
The plot to our film features around time, and how important time is in life. We will use the classic common conventions we have seen through our research of rom-coms but we also wanted to break the classic mould that this type of genre genrally seems to fall in, to put a bit of a tiwst in our product that would set it apart from others. We chose time as our main feature to focus around because it has a massive impact in our life and can be the difference from success and failure. Our main character will be Anders, and he will soon realise how important time is to him over the course of the film and a gift he will realise he has, which we will try to show in our teaser trailer.
Anders is our 'Protaganist' character and throughout his life he seems to have always had the bad luck, nothing ever seems to go to plan for Anders. 'The Thrill Of 30 Seconds' will be about Anders finally getting that bit of luck he deserves and getting a chance with a girl that would normally seem out of his league, unreachable, so here the characters involved Anders and the female are our polar opposites. The female character will be Holly, and with Anders not having a good past record with girls, Holly is a girl who is willing to give Anders a chance when others wouldnt, so when they plan to finally meet, Holly gives Anders one condition he has to be there within 30 seconds. Here the story unfolds as Anders is faced with a common convention of rom-coms, a problem, a situation where something has to be fixed or overcome, Anders has numerous obsticles to overcome on his way that is preventing him from meeting Holly, this is when he realises his gift for time, relating to his watch which we try to use as the main attraction to our brand, this 'special' watch should capture the audiences attention and interest.
Anders is our 'Protaganist' character and throughout his life he seems to have always had the bad luck, nothing ever seems to go to plan for Anders. 'The Thrill Of 30 Seconds' will be about Anders finally getting that bit of luck he deserves and getting a chance with a girl that would normally seem out of his league, unreachable, so here the characters involved Anders and the female are our polar opposites. The female character will be Holly, and with Anders not having a good past record with girls, Holly is a girl who is willing to give Anders a chance when others wouldnt, so when they plan to finally meet, Holly gives Anders one condition he has to be there within 30 seconds. Here the story unfolds as Anders is faced with a common convention of rom-coms, a problem, a situation where something has to be fixed or overcome, Anders has numerous obsticles to overcome on his way that is preventing him from meeting Holly, this is when he realises his gift for time, relating to his watch which we try to use as the main attraction to our brand, this 'special' watch should capture the audiences attention and interest.
Applying Theories : Roland Barthes
The theory of Rolan Barthers is that he belives there are 5 codes that help the audience make sense of narrative :
* Hermeneutic - (narrative turning point), this helps the audience know where the story will go next.
* Proairetic - (basic narrative actions), this helps create tension which does not directly raise particular questions.
* Cultural - (prior social knowledge), this is our attitude towards social awareness and different cultures. How we react to racial sterotypes, along with gender, age disabilities etc.
* Semic - (medium related codes), intertextuality is creating meaning of texts from other texts
* Symbolic - (themes), iconography or a theme such as image versus reality, where the audience can create a representation due to an image or theme
These 5 common rules make it easy for the audience to establish a narrative because although it seems easy to keep to the common conventions in rom-coms often the narrative can be lead astray and the audience left confused, so if we try to stick to these 5 rules we hope to keep the audiences attention and more importantly in a trailer their interest to come and watch the film.
* Hermeneutic - (narrative turning point), this helps the audience know where the story will go next.
* Proairetic - (basic narrative actions), this helps create tension which does not directly raise particular questions.
* Cultural - (prior social knowledge), this is our attitude towards social awareness and different cultures. How we react to racial sterotypes, along with gender, age disabilities etc.
* Semic - (medium related codes), intertextuality is creating meaning of texts from other texts
* Symbolic - (themes), iconography or a theme such as image versus reality, where the audience can create a representation due to an image or theme
These 5 common rules make it easy for the audience to establish a narrative because although it seems easy to keep to the common conventions in rom-coms often the narrative can be lead astray and the audience left confused, so if we try to stick to these 5 rules we hope to keep the audiences attention and more importantly in a trailer their interest to come and watch the film.
Applying Theories : Ervin Goffman
With outside research we have also done, as well as looking at information during our lessons, we were able to use narrative theories and apply them to our analysis.
One theory we could use was the Ervin Goffman's character theory, this theory suggests that there are 4 main types of characters in a production, using this theory I was able to relate it back to the film 'Knocked Up'
1. Protaganist = Seth Rogan in this film would be the 'Protaganist' character this is because the film centres around him and his situation of becoming an expectant father and how he is able to deal with the new responsabilities he is faced with.
2. Deuteragonist = This type of character would be Katherine Heigl who plays the second most important character, she plays the expectant mother who is portrayed as the calmer and more relxed partner compared to Seth Rogen. This could be seen as conforming to the common representations as the men being more dominant, therefore Seth Rogen playing the Protaganist, and Katherine Heigl more associated with the emotional side of the film.
3. The Bit Player = Jason Segel plays the bit player in this film, he acts as Seth Rogens best friend, who also trys to have a relationship with Katherine Heigl's married sister. He is part of Seth Rogens group of friends who dont play major parts in the film and are mainly there for humerous affect and to help support Seth Rogen's character.
4 The Fool = Paul Rudd plays the fool, he is technically unrelated to all the characters and is the husband of Katherin Heigl's sister. He gradually becomes more and more involved in the film throughout as he becomes friends with Seth Rogen and throughout the film serves as comic relif.
In my teaser trailer I will try to portray these types of characters as best as I can, although with our set breif being a teaser trailer that means we will not have much time, so we may well just have to establish both the protaganist and deuteragonist characters. We chose to use this theory because we think we could accuratly portray these characters as they relate to our selected genre.
One theory we could use was the Ervin Goffman's character theory, this theory suggests that there are 4 main types of characters in a production, using this theory I was able to relate it back to the film 'Knocked Up'
1. Protaganist = Seth Rogan in this film would be the 'Protaganist' character this is because the film centres around him and his situation of becoming an expectant father and how he is able to deal with the new responsabilities he is faced with.
2. Deuteragonist = This type of character would be Katherine Heigl who plays the second most important character, she plays the expectant mother who is portrayed as the calmer and more relxed partner compared to Seth Rogen. This could be seen as conforming to the common representations as the men being more dominant, therefore Seth Rogen playing the Protaganist, and Katherine Heigl more associated with the emotional side of the film.
3. The Bit Player = Jason Segel plays the bit player in this film, he acts as Seth Rogens best friend, who also trys to have a relationship with Katherine Heigl's married sister. He is part of Seth Rogens group of friends who dont play major parts in the film and are mainly there for humerous affect and to help support Seth Rogen's character.
4 The Fool = Paul Rudd plays the fool, he is technically unrelated to all the characters and is the husband of Katherin Heigl's sister. He gradually becomes more and more involved in the film throughout as he becomes friends with Seth Rogen and throughout the film serves as comic relif.
In my teaser trailer I will try to portray these types of characters as best as I can, although with our set breif being a teaser trailer that means we will not have much time, so we may well just have to establish both the protaganist and deuteragonist characters. We chose to use this theory because we think we could accuratly portray these characters as they relate to our selected genre.
Thursday 28 January 2010
Magazine cover analysis : Empire
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media, the first issue was published in July 1989 It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain, consistently outselling its nearest market rival Total Film and is also published in Australia, Turkey and Russia.
Empire magazine very much relies on its font to attract its audience with it being bold and it red in a stylish font to capture their attention, this is likely to capture the audiences attention because the red font is going to stand out from other magazines as the audience flick through other magazines and this one will grab their attention.
There are other features on this magazine as well, such as 'First Look' and then 'Heroes of 2010!' which is also in bold to stand out and intice the reader into buying this magazine, the feature acts as a hook for the reader. The main colours from the front cover of this magazine and most of the features on it are red and a greyish colour, this is a good mixture to pick because they compliment each other with the red standing out on the grey background, then the grey also standing out on the blacks.
There is a distinctive feature at the bottom left of this magazine and its a big red plus sign, i found this good because often front covers have a little bit too much information and the reader becomes overwhelmed with the amount of text that is on the cover. This big plus sign then tells us what else is featured in the magazine. The main USP is the picture of Johnny Depp in the centre middle of the page and bold font if the name of the film 'Public Enemies'. Johnny Depp is a famous actor and can be used as a hook to pull the audience in, which is why the picture is inflated and dominates the page, the audience are imedietly drawn to this image. The font is big and bold in the centre as this is the most importnat feature of the magazine, above it right to the picture is the tagline 'Johnny Depp steals summer!' the exclamation marks tells us the urgency of this feature.
To the top right of the magazine this is a small picture of Daniel Ratcliffe used as another selling point to the consumer, for those who are not big fans of Johnny Depp this shows that perhaps they might buy the magazine for the feature on Daniel Ratcliffe.
Overalll we found this a useful magazine to analyse because it was similar to the product we wanted to crate, with our main USP dominatiing the page and the costumer mainly focusing on the image, then the features that would surround it.
Empire magazine very much relies on its font to attract its audience with it being bold and it red in a stylish font to capture their attention, this is likely to capture the audiences attention because the red font is going to stand out from other magazines as the audience flick through other magazines and this one will grab their attention.
There are other features on this magazine as well, such as 'First Look' and then 'Heroes of 2010!' which is also in bold to stand out and intice the reader into buying this magazine, the feature acts as a hook for the reader. The main colours from the front cover of this magazine and most of the features on it are red and a greyish colour, this is a good mixture to pick because they compliment each other with the red standing out on the grey background, then the grey also standing out on the blacks.
There is a distinctive feature at the bottom left of this magazine and its a big red plus sign, i found this good because often front covers have a little bit too much information and the reader becomes overwhelmed with the amount of text that is on the cover. This big plus sign then tells us what else is featured in the magazine. The main USP is the picture of Johnny Depp in the centre middle of the page and bold font if the name of the film 'Public Enemies'. Johnny Depp is a famous actor and can be used as a hook to pull the audience in, which is why the picture is inflated and dominates the page, the audience are imedietly drawn to this image. The font is big and bold in the centre as this is the most importnat feature of the magazine, above it right to the picture is the tagline 'Johnny Depp steals summer!' the exclamation marks tells us the urgency of this feature.
To the top right of the magazine this is a small picture of Daniel Ratcliffe used as another selling point to the consumer, for those who are not big fans of Johnny Depp this shows that perhaps they might buy the magazine for the feature on Daniel Ratcliffe.
Overalll we found this a useful magazine to analyse because it was similar to the product we wanted to crate, with our main USP dominatiing the page and the costumer mainly focusing on the image, then the features that would surround it.
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Magazine cover analysise : Total Film
Total Film, is published by Future Publishing, is the UK's second best-selling film magazine. It offers film and DVD news, reviews, and features. The magazine was launched in 1997 and is published every four weeks.
Total film genrally is aimed at the younger audience who casually see films as just an interest. The first thing that stikes me from this magazine is the dominant image of the main character, in this case Johnny Depp in the film 'Willy Wonka'. The header at the top has the top 50 must-see films for the summer in a white bold font and is very simple, this is a contrast to the rest of the cover as it is very bright and colourful. The audience can assume that it is very bright because this issue is realeased in the summer. The rest of the font on this cover is white to stand out on the colourful background, apart from the main selling point of this cover which is in a grey colour 'the ultimate summer preview' this is the main selling point, because the audience are going to be interested as to what is hapening this summer. The magazine title 'Toal Film' is set to stand out from other magazines because 'Film' is at the top of the magazine very big and bold in white font, so the audeince can see it when being sold in shops on a rising stand. With 'total' inside the word film, it is obvious 'film' is what the publishers want the audience to see, this also sets it apart from other magazine covers.
Below the header is the main centre image of Johnny Depp which is also used to intice the customer into buying the product if they are a fan of the film of actor Johnny Depp, this is also one of USP's (unique selling points).
To the left and right of the dominant picture are other items in the magazine with grey sub-titles to distinquish the importance of them.
You could suggest that the audience this magazine is trying to attract is the younger teen audience by having the film 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Facotry' as their main film to advertise, this is because this film is often associated with young children who have that idea of the fantasy, magical world. But this might intice the older teen age group to go see the film because it is the new and updated version with some changes made, and using by using the bright colours to capture their attendence
Overall i think this is a good magazine cover because it immediatly grabbed my attention with its bright colours and unique selling points, also with the item shown at the top which is featured in the magazine 'the top 50 must-see films for summer' this alone has the influence on the audience to pick up and flick through the magazine.
Total film genrally is aimed at the younger audience who casually see films as just an interest. The first thing that stikes me from this magazine is the dominant image of the main character, in this case Johnny Depp in the film 'Willy Wonka'. The header at the top has the top 50 must-see films for the summer in a white bold font and is very simple, this is a contrast to the rest of the cover as it is very bright and colourful. The audience can assume that it is very bright because this issue is realeased in the summer. The rest of the font on this cover is white to stand out on the colourful background, apart from the main selling point of this cover which is in a grey colour 'the ultimate summer preview' this is the main selling point, because the audience are going to be interested as to what is hapening this summer. The magazine title 'Toal Film' is set to stand out from other magazines because 'Film' is at the top of the magazine very big and bold in white font, so the audeince can see it when being sold in shops on a rising stand. With 'total' inside the word film, it is obvious 'film' is what the publishers want the audience to see, this also sets it apart from other magazine covers.
Below the header is the main centre image of Johnny Depp which is also used to intice the customer into buying the product if they are a fan of the film of actor Johnny Depp, this is also one of USP's (unique selling points).
To the left and right of the dominant picture are other items in the magazine with grey sub-titles to distinquish the importance of them.
You could suggest that the audience this magazine is trying to attract is the younger teen audience by having the film 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Facotry' as their main film to advertise, this is because this film is often associated with young children who have that idea of the fantasy, magical world. But this might intice the older teen age group to go see the film because it is the new and updated version with some changes made, and using by using the bright colours to capture their attendence
Overall i think this is a good magazine cover because it immediatly grabbed my attention with its bright colours and unique selling points, also with the item shown at the top which is featured in the magazine 'the top 50 must-see films for summer' this alone has the influence on the audience to pick up and flick through the magazine.
Magazine covers
The second part of my coursework was to create a magazine cover, to do this i was going to have to analyse other film magazines to find similarities and things that attracted me and my collegue and other audiences to read the magazine. The two magazines we chose to look at were :
* Total film
* Empire
* Total film
* Empire
Tuesday 26 January 2010
The Proposal teaser trailer
Another trailer we decided to look at was 'The Proposal' this was because it has been a recent hit in box office and we it was another film we thought our teaser trailer could relate to.
This trailer lasts 2:32 and the sound we hear at the beggining of the trailers is diagetic mixed in with non-diagetic sounds such as traffic where we can see looks to be in New York presenting to us the hectic lifestyle as the traffic is edited to be fast forwarded. The diagetic soundtrack is fast and uplifting keeping the audiences attention.
Similar to the 'knocked Up' trialer this film also has tag lines, they are situated bottom left of the screen and in the form of typing on a computer, we can draw from this that some of this film is going to be set in an office location and later Alaska where we meet more of the families. Some of the tags read 'this is Andrew' So we have aready established a main character in the first 13 seconds and later on we see 'Magaret is Andrews boss'. The two main characters have already been established to the audience in the opening 25 seconds. Another tagline says 'Magaret has a problem' the dialog we hear in a office is that Magaret will get deported, so we have our common feature in rom coms, a problem. At that time coincedently Andrew walks in, here Magaret announces she is getting married, which will mean she can stay in America. The narrative is now clear to the audience and will want to find out how these opposite characters can handle being married in such a obvious problem as they do not really know each other and we see from Andrews reaction he does not want to be involved, how they overcome this is why the audience will want to watch the rest of the film.
Unlike to some previous rom-coms these characters do not seem to be polar opposites, they work in the same environment, dress similar and we can assume that they share similar life goals, this therefore is going against some of the common forms and conventions of rom-coms, however the personality of Magaret that comes across in this trailer is very powerfull and quite mean, making Andrew hate his job and his boss Magaret. This is why the situation they will be forced in to will have obsticles beacause they simply do not get on.
The setting at first in this trialer is an office environment where both of the characters are working, we then see later that with the characters getting married it gives the film a chance to go to many locations as they will each have to meet each others families. We found this a good way to introduce new characters to a film, creating a obsticle joing both main characters but affecting their immediate families.
Later on in the trailer we have a diagetic soundtrack of Katy Perrys 'hot and cold' this refers to the couples realtionship, sometimes it looks like everything is going well and they are happy and looks like there could be a futre for them, while othertimes they cant stand each other and are at each others throats looking like the agreement is about to come to a end, their relationship is 'hot and cold' this ties in perfecty with the song as that is exactly what the song is about
We later have more taglines but bigger and in the centre of the screen 'this summer' then the film title and also the release date.
The audeince can form the conclusion that this films ideologie is what real true love is, these two characters were not ment to be together but due to a certain situation and form of luck they came to be and somehow ended up falling in love but is this real love ? that is for the audeince to decide, if the male character had not walked through the door at that precise time there is a good chance they would not have ended up together, so by luck and coincedence they have come together, but in real life for people that is not as simple and they will then come to their own conclusion of how realistic this storyline is and what they percieve to be 'true love'
The Proposal film poster
Once again after having watched and enjoyed both the trailer and film we decided to analyse this poster and gather thoughts and ideas on how we would like to incoparate any features from this poster into our own.
This poster unlike 'Knocked up' has both the male and female character as the USP's to the left centre of the page, they both have completly opposite facial epressions on them, and the female is holding a engagement ring in a box, leading us into the narrative. The male character looks quite scared and nervous, while the female character looks quite cunning and like she has thought of a plan. This shows us the complete opposite thinking between these two that the audience are going to want to see develop during the course of the film.
The text is all in red and black this appeals to a wide variety of audiences as the red is hinting at romance which may appeal more to the female audience, while the black font is hinting at a strong buisness type narrative which may appeal more to the male audience as both characters are also dressed very smartly.
At the top of the poster we have the two names of the characters, appealing to their own fan base that will now want to come see the film purely because they are a fans of their films. We then have the title of the film, again establishing the narrative 'The Proposal' this has a double meaning as well, with both characters dressed smartly this could be a business proposal but also with the female holding a ring it could mean a wedding proposal.
We then have the tagline pun in black font 'Here comes the bribe' noramlly bribe would be replaced by bride, so this is again helping the audience come to a conclusion for the narrative but leaving a question mark over it, is this film about a business bribe ? or is it going to be about a marraige scenario.
With the pose of the female pushing the male up against the wall this is showing us it is the women who is being represented as the dominante character, not your stereotypical women seen as a house wife and mother, this character we can see has a goal and is very powerfull, going against your typical sterotypes of women.
We liked this poster as it look simple, again relating to our objective we wanted to achieve, but it also had a few hidden meanings and a question mark over the narrative while going against typical sterotypes and representations, we were intriqued to find out how the reltionship developed between the male and female over the course of the film, and we also found that the main reason our audience watched this film was because they were excited to know how the narrative would unfold after seeing the two stances by the characters in the poster, one looked cunning while one looked scared.
This trailer lasts 2:32 and the sound we hear at the beggining of the trailers is diagetic mixed in with non-diagetic sounds such as traffic where we can see looks to be in New York presenting to us the hectic lifestyle as the traffic is edited to be fast forwarded. The diagetic soundtrack is fast and uplifting keeping the audiences attention.
Similar to the 'knocked Up' trialer this film also has tag lines, they are situated bottom left of the screen and in the form of typing on a computer, we can draw from this that some of this film is going to be set in an office location and later Alaska where we meet more of the families. Some of the tags read 'this is Andrew' So we have aready established a main character in the first 13 seconds and later on we see 'Magaret is Andrews boss'. The two main characters have already been established to the audience in the opening 25 seconds. Another tagline says 'Magaret has a problem' the dialog we hear in a office is that Magaret will get deported, so we have our common feature in rom coms, a problem. At that time coincedently Andrew walks in, here Magaret announces she is getting married, which will mean she can stay in America. The narrative is now clear to the audience and will want to find out how these opposite characters can handle being married in such a obvious problem as they do not really know each other and we see from Andrews reaction he does not want to be involved, how they overcome this is why the audience will want to watch the rest of the film.
Unlike to some previous rom-coms these characters do not seem to be polar opposites, they work in the same environment, dress similar and we can assume that they share similar life goals, this therefore is going against some of the common forms and conventions of rom-coms, however the personality of Magaret that comes across in this trailer is very powerfull and quite mean, making Andrew hate his job and his boss Magaret. This is why the situation they will be forced in to will have obsticles beacause they simply do not get on.
The setting at first in this trialer is an office environment where both of the characters are working, we then see later that with the characters getting married it gives the film a chance to go to many locations as they will each have to meet each others families. We found this a good way to introduce new characters to a film, creating a obsticle joing both main characters but affecting their immediate families.
Later on in the trailer we have a diagetic soundtrack of Katy Perrys 'hot and cold' this refers to the couples realtionship, sometimes it looks like everything is going well and they are happy and looks like there could be a futre for them, while othertimes they cant stand each other and are at each others throats looking like the agreement is about to come to a end, their relationship is 'hot and cold' this ties in perfecty with the song as that is exactly what the song is about
We later have more taglines but bigger and in the centre of the screen 'this summer' then the film title and also the release date.
The audeince can form the conclusion that this films ideologie is what real true love is, these two characters were not ment to be together but due to a certain situation and form of luck they came to be and somehow ended up falling in love but is this real love ? that is for the audeince to decide, if the male character had not walked through the door at that precise time there is a good chance they would not have ended up together, so by luck and coincedence they have come together, but in real life for people that is not as simple and they will then come to their own conclusion of how realistic this storyline is and what they percieve to be 'true love'
The Proposal film poster
Once again after having watched and enjoyed both the trailer and film we decided to analyse this poster and gather thoughts and ideas on how we would like to incoparate any features from this poster into our own.
This poster unlike 'Knocked up' has both the male and female character as the USP's to the left centre of the page, they both have completly opposite facial epressions on them, and the female is holding a engagement ring in a box, leading us into the narrative. The male character looks quite scared and nervous, while the female character looks quite cunning and like she has thought of a plan. This shows us the complete opposite thinking between these two that the audience are going to want to see develop during the course of the film.
The text is all in red and black this appeals to a wide variety of audiences as the red is hinting at romance which may appeal more to the female audience, while the black font is hinting at a strong buisness type narrative which may appeal more to the male audience as both characters are also dressed very smartly.
At the top of the poster we have the two names of the characters, appealing to their own fan base that will now want to come see the film purely because they are a fans of their films. We then have the title of the film, again establishing the narrative 'The Proposal' this has a double meaning as well, with both characters dressed smartly this could be a business proposal but also with the female holding a ring it could mean a wedding proposal.
We then have the tagline pun in black font 'Here comes the bribe' noramlly bribe would be replaced by bride, so this is again helping the audience come to a conclusion for the narrative but leaving a question mark over it, is this film about a business bribe ? or is it going to be about a marraige scenario.
With the pose of the female pushing the male up against the wall this is showing us it is the women who is being represented as the dominante character, not your stereotypical women seen as a house wife and mother, this character we can see has a goal and is very powerfull, going against your typical sterotypes of women.
We liked this poster as it look simple, again relating to our objective we wanted to achieve, but it also had a few hidden meanings and a question mark over the narrative while going against typical sterotypes and representations, we were intriqued to find out how the reltionship developed between the male and female over the course of the film, and we also found that the main reason our audience watched this film was because they were excited to know how the narrative would unfold after seeing the two stances by the characters in the poster, one looked cunning while one looked scared.
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Knocked up teaser trailer and film poster
When looking at recent films that have had huge success in our chosen genre we chose to look at 'Knocked up' as me and my partner throughly enjoyed this film and found some similarities between this film and what our first brainstorm of ideas.
This trailer lasts 1 minute 15 seconds and starts of with a non diagetic soundtrack which is about 'the birds and the bee's' a refernce to sexual intercourse, this reference is a indication of a sterotypical conversation when a father is seen to talk to his son about the birds and the bee's (sexual intercourse), so straight away from this trailer we know its going to have some sort of sexual content in it, the music is soft and flowing creating a relxing atmosphere.
There are tag lines throughout this trailer with large white font on a black background such as 'what would you talk about' 'on the sencond date' and then it cuts to the main female cahracter telling the male she is pregnant. So the narrative has alreayd been established.
The setting for the trailer is in a restaurant where these two characters have come to meet, the fact that it is in a restaurant suggests that it could be an important occasion that we are about to see, with the colours in the restaurant being darkish and hints of red this sets the mood of romance, however once we hear the first part of dialog we soon realise the scene is not very romantic.
We can conclude from the apperance of the two characters we see, that they look complete opposites. The women is very attractive and presentable, while the male has big bushy hair, loose shirt and unshaven and looks like he has not made much of an effort, here we can see one of the main common features of a romantic comedy which we are trying to simulate after hering the female say she is prenant, its a situation where two polar opposite characters are brought together through unusual or comic circumstances, thus being the pregnancy.
Then we have another tagline which reads 'from the makers of the 40yr old virgin' a previous production from the directors, attracting to that section of the public audience that will have seen the '40yr old virgin' and now will perhaps be inticed to go see this new film, a sign of good marketing.
The final picture we see is the film title 'knocked up' with the 'O' in 'knocked' symbolising a female uterus egg which is being fertiliesed by sperm, once again enforcing the narrative on the audeince and showing us exactly what this film is going to be about.
From this trailer the audience are going to be interested into seeing how this couple deal with their situation, and hear lies the hidden ideologie of whether they keep the baby or whether they choose aboortion and if abortion is right, we can see that the film is going to be a comedy from the trailer but the pro-life ideologie is hidden by humerous characters and sexual jokes.
Knocked Up Film Poster
When looking at the film poster for 'Knocked up' we liked it very much, this was because it was how we would like to base our film poster around. Here we have a medium close up of the protaganist character dominating the page as the Unique Selling Point, this is to maybe intice the viewers into seeing this film as the character is played by a famous actor Seth Rogen, targeting this particular actors audience.
The colours used in this poster are a green background with the text in red and black, we have a mixture of colours used and none of them really go together but this works well as they are then able to stand out on the green background attracting the audiences eye.
The character is wearing just a striped polo shirt and looks like your down to earth everyday guy pulling a funny idoitic facial expression, again appealing to their target audience of the comic fans, the auidence will want to see this film by the expression this character is making it looks like he is going to do some silly, stupid things that will make the audience laugh.
The text at the top reads in black 'What if this guy got you pregnant ?' this here helps the audience establish a narrative, obviously the film now is going to have some sexual content in it and relating to a female being pregnant by this man, with the text being a question and the characters facial expression following it, it is clear to see some more into the narrative, the question followed by the expression is trying to say that perhaps this man is not going to be the best father and it is as if to say would women really want to be involved with this man ?, before the audience have even found out anything about him.
The title of the film is then in big bold red lettering at the bottom centre of the poster, again establishing the narrative and gaining the audeinces attention. The font then switches back to black reading 'The next comedy from the director of the 40yr old virgin' the colour of the font switches back to black to show this is not now the title of the film but new information, and appealing to the audience that will have previously seen the directors first film and if they will have enjoyed it they are now more likely to want to see this film.
At the bottom of the poster there is also the release date for the film and perhaps the cleveriest feature on this poster, the text reads '06/01/07 save the due date' this has the double meaning of perhaps the date the baby is born in the narrative and also saying it says actual date this film is being realeased.
Overall we agreed this was a good film poster as it was simplistic but still manages to grip the audience with the focus mainly on the protaganist character and the font around the character helping with narrative towards the film, we decided we would like to create a simiar type of poster to this one.
This trailer lasts 1 minute 15 seconds and starts of with a non diagetic soundtrack which is about 'the birds and the bee's' a refernce to sexual intercourse, this reference is a indication of a sterotypical conversation when a father is seen to talk to his son about the birds and the bee's (sexual intercourse), so straight away from this trailer we know its going to have some sort of sexual content in it, the music is soft and flowing creating a relxing atmosphere.
There are tag lines throughout this trailer with large white font on a black background such as 'what would you talk about' 'on the sencond date' and then it cuts to the main female cahracter telling the male she is pregnant. So the narrative has alreayd been established.
The setting for the trailer is in a restaurant where these two characters have come to meet, the fact that it is in a restaurant suggests that it could be an important occasion that we are about to see, with the colours in the restaurant being darkish and hints of red this sets the mood of romance, however once we hear the first part of dialog we soon realise the scene is not very romantic.
We can conclude from the apperance of the two characters we see, that they look complete opposites. The women is very attractive and presentable, while the male has big bushy hair, loose shirt and unshaven and looks like he has not made much of an effort, here we can see one of the main common features of a romantic comedy which we are trying to simulate after hering the female say she is prenant, its a situation where two polar opposite characters are brought together through unusual or comic circumstances, thus being the pregnancy.
Then we have another tagline which reads 'from the makers of the 40yr old virgin' a previous production from the directors, attracting to that section of the public audience that will have seen the '40yr old virgin' and now will perhaps be inticed to go see this new film, a sign of good marketing.
The final picture we see is the film title 'knocked up' with the 'O' in 'knocked' symbolising a female uterus egg which is being fertiliesed by sperm, once again enforcing the narrative on the audeince and showing us exactly what this film is going to be about.
From this trailer the audience are going to be interested into seeing how this couple deal with their situation, and hear lies the hidden ideologie of whether they keep the baby or whether they choose aboortion and if abortion is right, we can see that the film is going to be a comedy from the trailer but the pro-life ideologie is hidden by humerous characters and sexual jokes.
Knocked Up Film Poster
When looking at the film poster for 'Knocked up' we liked it very much, this was because it was how we would like to base our film poster around. Here we have a medium close up of the protaganist character dominating the page as the Unique Selling Point, this is to maybe intice the viewers into seeing this film as the character is played by a famous actor Seth Rogen, targeting this particular actors audience.
The colours used in this poster are a green background with the text in red and black, we have a mixture of colours used and none of them really go together but this works well as they are then able to stand out on the green background attracting the audiences eye.
The character is wearing just a striped polo shirt and looks like your down to earth everyday guy pulling a funny idoitic facial expression, again appealing to their target audience of the comic fans, the auidence will want to see this film by the expression this character is making it looks like he is going to do some silly, stupid things that will make the audience laugh.
The text at the top reads in black 'What if this guy got you pregnant ?' this here helps the audience establish a narrative, obviously the film now is going to have some sexual content in it and relating to a female being pregnant by this man, with the text being a question and the characters facial expression following it, it is clear to see some more into the narrative, the question followed by the expression is trying to say that perhaps this man is not going to be the best father and it is as if to say would women really want to be involved with this man ?, before the audience have even found out anything about him.
The title of the film is then in big bold red lettering at the bottom centre of the poster, again establishing the narrative and gaining the audeinces attention. The font then switches back to black reading 'The next comedy from the director of the 40yr old virgin' the colour of the font switches back to black to show this is not now the title of the film but new information, and appealing to the audience that will have previously seen the directors first film and if they will have enjoyed it they are now more likely to want to see this film.
At the bottom of the poster there is also the release date for the film and perhaps the cleveriest feature on this poster, the text reads '06/01/07 save the due date' this has the double meaning of perhaps the date the baby is born in the narrative and also saying it says actual date this film is being realeased.
Overall we agreed this was a good film poster as it was simplistic but still manages to grip the audience with the focus mainly on the protaganist character and the font around the character helping with narrative towards the film, we decided we would like to create a simiar type of poster to this one.
Common conventions of a romantic comedy film :
Here are a few things that we found were common in our selected genre :
The two main things we found in our research was.....
* The encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances, the potential couple could comprises polar opposites, two people of different temperaments, situations, social statuses or in some cases all three.
* Often the two characters would encounter a obsticle that prevent them from being together, and they would have to overcome that obsticle with one character normally making 'the grand gesture' and proclaiming their love for the other one and ending happily ever after.
other things include :
* light humour
* lots of showing of dramatic emotions eg: sadness of a breakup, then joy being reunited.
* A different range of characters from the dumb ditzy friend in favour for the realtionship, to the smart snobbish friend against the relatioship
In recent years these romantic comedies have been the top grossing films :
What Women Want (2000)
American Pie 2 (2001)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Meet the Fockers (2004)
Hitch (2005)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Knocked Up (2007)
Sex and the City (film) (2008)
The Proposal (2009)
In most rom-coms the way males and females are represented are vital, the male often is seen as the immature one and he is the protaganist character that has the main obsticle to overcome. The female is represented as the more wiser, more mature character who has to try and develop the male into what he needs to be. Sometimes it is the male who is seen to have to 'grow-up' and start taking responsablities, the female helps him on the way. This can be seen as the male sometimes being the main role as the attention will focus around him, being the dominant sex.
The language used in these rom-coms is pretty down to earth, the character are shown to be your everyday people, most films in this genre are not very interlectual and are based around problems that the audience will have to go through, to help them relate.
The audience in these films are majority of the teen ages but also appeal more to the female sex because of the romance and emotions that will appeal to them. With it being a rom-com it is likely there is going to be sexual jokes, revolving around how at this time in their lives teenagers are going through these experiances.
The narrative in these films as we have breifly touched on earlier is often a problem that will bring two characters of opposite to attract and come together. The institution will use everyday obstilces to get across their point, such as pregnancy and drugs as examples.
* Mood Board
When looking at romantic comedies we decided to make a mood board so we could look at similarities and features to use in our poster that we would have to create.
The two main things we found in our research was.....
* The encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances, the potential couple could comprises polar opposites, two people of different temperaments, situations, social statuses or in some cases all three.
* Often the two characters would encounter a obsticle that prevent them from being together, and they would have to overcome that obsticle with one character normally making 'the grand gesture' and proclaiming their love for the other one and ending happily ever after.
other things include :
* light humour
* lots of showing of dramatic emotions eg: sadness of a breakup, then joy being reunited.
* A different range of characters from the dumb ditzy friend in favour for the realtionship, to the smart snobbish friend against the relatioship
In recent years these romantic comedies have been the top grossing films :
What Women Want (2000)
American Pie 2 (2001)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Meet the Fockers (2004)
Hitch (2005)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Knocked Up (2007)
Sex and the City (film) (2008)
The Proposal (2009)
In most rom-coms the way males and females are represented are vital, the male often is seen as the immature one and he is the protaganist character that has the main obsticle to overcome. The female is represented as the more wiser, more mature character who has to try and develop the male into what he needs to be. Sometimes it is the male who is seen to have to 'grow-up' and start taking responsablities, the female helps him on the way. This can be seen as the male sometimes being the main role as the attention will focus around him, being the dominant sex.
The language used in these rom-coms is pretty down to earth, the character are shown to be your everyday people, most films in this genre are not very interlectual and are based around problems that the audience will have to go through, to help them relate.
The audience in these films are majority of the teen ages but also appeal more to the female sex because of the romance and emotions that will appeal to them. With it being a rom-com it is likely there is going to be sexual jokes, revolving around how at this time in their lives teenagers are going through these experiances.
The narrative in these films as we have breifly touched on earlier is often a problem that will bring two characters of opposite to attract and come together. The institution will use everyday obstilces to get across their point, such as pregnancy and drugs as examples.
* Mood Board
When looking at romantic comedies we decided to make a mood board so we could look at similarities and features to use in our poster that we would have to create.
Generation of ideas
When disucussing what type of teaser trailer we were going to make we came up with numerous ideas, however the genre that appealed to us most was that of a comedy genre.
We chose the comedy genre because we belived that the common conventions that we would have to display through watching other similar comdey trailers, were easier to represent to the audience, and they would be able to assiociate more with those connotations, compared to a horror or action film where the resources for those genres were not avalible to us.
One of the first things we wanted to establish through our teaser trailer was a friendship or a bond between two characters as we believed that it was vital to the storyline and also these relationships between two characters are very common in a comdey film. So we decided to go for a romantic comedy, because not only would it appeal to one type of audince being a comedy but also hopefully it would attract the female audience perhaps with it being a rom-com.
So with the idea of a relationship playing a key part in our production we thought about how we could turn that into something that would bring comical value, so we thought about how a character (male) could be on his way to meet the female character but along the way a number of things happen to him to show just how bad his luck is, from showing a few obsticles that he faces in a teaser trailer we hope that this would intise the viewer to go watch the film.
* Audience research / Survey
Before we could start making any deatiled planning we had to find out what our target audience would be ? and what they would be looking for in romantic comedy teaser trailers. To do this we divised a questionaire to find out what would make them want to go watch the film. We decided we would be targeting young teenagers from the ages of 13-19 and more females then males as they often tend to be bigger fans of the romantic comedy genre.
1) In relation to romantic comedy films, what have you previously watched and why ?
2) What do you expect from comedy films apart from the obvious laughter ?
3) How did the film posters influence you to go watch the film ?
4) Was there any internet advertisement ? and if so did it influence you in any way ?
5) Did any actors from previous films play a major part in making you go to watch the film ?
6) Did any directors from previous films play a major part in making you go to watch the film ?
7) What would be your favorite romantic comedy film and why ?
8) How do the first few minutes draw you in ? and help you realise its a romantic comedy ?
9) How did the teaser trailer make you to go watch the film ?
10) Is there any rom-coms you have been to see and not gone away happy with and why ?
When we gained feedback from our questionaire we found that the two most favorite romantic comedy films that the public chose were 'Knocked Up' and 'The Proposal' so we decided to look further into these films to find common conventions that would lead the audience into being attracted to these films and what exact feautres they liked.
We chose the comedy genre because we belived that the common conventions that we would have to display through watching other similar comdey trailers, were easier to represent to the audience, and they would be able to assiociate more with those connotations, compared to a horror or action film where the resources for those genres were not avalible to us.
One of the first things we wanted to establish through our teaser trailer was a friendship or a bond between two characters as we believed that it was vital to the storyline and also these relationships between two characters are very common in a comdey film. So we decided to go for a romantic comedy, because not only would it appeal to one type of audince being a comedy but also hopefully it would attract the female audience perhaps with it being a rom-com.
So with the idea of a relationship playing a key part in our production we thought about how we could turn that into something that would bring comical value, so we thought about how a character (male) could be on his way to meet the female character but along the way a number of things happen to him to show just how bad his luck is, from showing a few obsticles that he faces in a teaser trailer we hope that this would intise the viewer to go watch the film.
* Audience research / Survey
Before we could start making any deatiled planning we had to find out what our target audience would be ? and what they would be looking for in romantic comedy teaser trailers. To do this we divised a questionaire to find out what would make them want to go watch the film. We decided we would be targeting young teenagers from the ages of 13-19 and more females then males as they often tend to be bigger fans of the romantic comedy genre.
1) In relation to romantic comedy films, what have you previously watched and why ?
2) What do you expect from comedy films apart from the obvious laughter ?
3) How did the film posters influence you to go watch the film ?
4) Was there any internet advertisement ? and if so did it influence you in any way ?
5) Did any actors from previous films play a major part in making you go to watch the film ?
6) Did any directors from previous films play a major part in making you go to watch the film ?
7) What would be your favorite romantic comedy film and why ?
8) How do the first few minutes draw you in ? and help you realise its a romantic comedy ?
9) How did the teaser trailer make you to go watch the film ?
10) Is there any rom-coms you have been to see and not gone away happy with and why ?
When we gained feedback from our questionaire we found that the two most favorite romantic comedy films that the public chose were 'Knocked Up' and 'The Proposal' so we decided to look further into these films to find common conventions that would lead the audience into being attracted to these films and what exact feautres they liked.
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Introduction :
For our A2 media course work we were given a set menu of briefs
here is the one that we chose
2) A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options :
* a website homepage for the film
* a film magazine front cover, featuring the film
* a poster for the film
Out of those three options we chose to do a film poster, becasue we have been able to do alot of research into posters in previous assingments, so we have a good base of knowledge. The other option we chose was the magazine cover for the film, as both me and my partner have previous history in the subject IT so we belive we would be able to use the skills we have bulit up over the years to produce a suitable cover and also it was an option we felt that we could impart our own creativity to it more then the other options, so that was a good option for us.
These two options were to go with the teaser trailer, or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series.
Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length (between 30–60 seconds) and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film. Sometimes, it is merely a truncated version of a theatrical trailer. They are usually released long in advance of the film they advertise. One of the reasons for the name "teaser" is because they are shown usually a long time before the movie comes out, so as to "tease" the audience.
All three, magazine, poster and trailer are used to market the brand the producers have created, all of them are trying to intice the audeince into buying into the brand therefor making the producers as successfull as possible.
here is the one that we chose
2) A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options :
* a website homepage for the film
* a film magazine front cover, featuring the film
* a poster for the film
Out of those three options we chose to do a film poster, becasue we have been able to do alot of research into posters in previous assingments, so we have a good base of knowledge. The other option we chose was the magazine cover for the film, as both me and my partner have previous history in the subject IT so we belive we would be able to use the skills we have bulit up over the years to produce a suitable cover and also it was an option we felt that we could impart our own creativity to it more then the other options, so that was a good option for us.
These two options were to go with the teaser trailer, or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series.
Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length (between 30–60 seconds) and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film. Sometimes, it is merely a truncated version of a theatrical trailer. They are usually released long in advance of the film they advertise. One of the reasons for the name "teaser" is because they are shown usually a long time before the movie comes out, so as to "tease" the audience.
All three, magazine, poster and trailer are used to market the brand the producers have created, all of them are trying to intice the audeince into buying into the brand therefor making the producers as successfull as possible.
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