Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Evaluation Question 3
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
How did we respond to the brief?
The brief was to create a short 5 minute film of any genre. Firstly, we as a group we decided that we were going to make a psychological thriller. We put together a short story idea and a synopsis of the story and put it to a range of possible target audiences. This is the synopsis they were given and what the participants said.
Our synopsis
Damian and Lily are in a relationship.
Damian wakes up in a strange place (psychological hospital) and sees a picture of himself and lily. Clip then goes into the memory of being happy in a park. Then the memory fades out and returns to the hospital room. Damian then goes in search of his love Lily and walks around the hospital. When Damian cant find Lily he starts to panic and in doing so remembers the time they were in a restaurant, this sends Damian into a quick edited in more depth search for Lily. In some of the clips lily appears faded and distant. Then it fades into another memory yet this one shows the floors in their relationship as they are fighting. This memory shows the start of the progressive violence between the couple. Then it goes back to the present time when Damian catches up with Lily. She tells him that he killed her but he doesn't believe it. Lily shows him a file (a patient record) that belongs to the hospital that explains everything that happened. He breaks down and in comes Dr Luna who works at the hospital she sends Damian back to his room. during the time it takes him to get back to his room the flashback that shows the audience exactly what happened to Lily appears. This scene is going to be quite violent as Damian beats Lily to death. The guilt then ways upon Damian and when he gets back to his room he hangs himself. The end shot will be of either his still body or of the photograph from when Damian and Lily were happy.
As you can see there was a large age range between some of the people who read our synopsis. This was so that we were able to see who our story might appeal more to and if there was anything else we could do to make our film appeal to those who were not so interested in the story.
Rough Cut
From the results of our questionnaire we found out that many people who saw our film didn't understand why some of the scene were in pink. We choose to have this one scene in pink as we thought it would represent Damian's and Lily`s love for each other more but, the audience didn't think this. They said in our questionnaire results take it would make more sense if all the memory scenes were in the same effect and of the same contrast. Here are the results from the questionnaire, as you can see most of the people we asked thought that this rough cut should be a 12/12A and many believed that they would find it on Netflix. As most of the people we asked were students and were between the age of 17-20 we decided that our target audience would be for over 15`s as, we believed it would appeal to this audience.
When we sent out our questionnaire to find out what our target audience thought about our rough cut we were hoping for more responses. Unfortunately we only got 5 responses but, even though there is only a few we were still able to see trends forming of how many of the audience like the storyline idea but, when we were talking to them they didn't really understand the reason for the pink scene.
Finished Film
This is the questionnaire that we put to the audience and there responses. We decided not to ask too many questions as we know that people do not filling in questionnaires. The questions we asked the audience were to see if our film appealed to our target audience and to see if they actually liked The Forgotten Truth and if not what we could improve on.
Questionnaire for the film poster and radio trailer.
Here is the questionnaire that we sent out on Facebook so that we were able to see what the audience thought of our film poster and radio trailer and how they came together. We wanted to know if there was anything that we could change to make these texts appeal more to our target audience. We received 10 responses to the questionnaire and all though this is many it is enough to be able to make a judgment on whether the audience like the texts our not. We did have some problems though with the questionnaire as some of the results didn't show up. For example look at Liam Fox`s results, only his name and occupation showed up and we do not know why this is.
We received a range of ages which is good as this allowed us to see if the poster and trailer appealed not only to our target audience of 15 + but to older generations for example people between the ages of 21 and 31+.
Only on person said that the poster didn't appeal to them but, that was because they prefer other types of film genres. Most of our potential audience thought that they both worked very well together and liked how the poster was on the radio trailer and for those that had seen the film they liked how the image is actually taken from a scene in the film. They also liked how the poster was very informative as it had all the necessary classification ratings on it and also who produced it and who distrusted the film.
Many people who answered our finished film questionnaire rated it either 4/5 (23%) or 5/5(69%) and said that there wasn't anything they would change however, there was some suggestions to have more dialogue on the film itself so that there would be more interaction between the characters and others thought, that there could have been a larger range of music to set the mood in the film.
As you can see from this pie chart 100% of our audience in our audience feedback said that they liked our film and also 100% of our audience said that they understood the storyline which is a large achievement as, when we let our audience watch our rough cut many of them were confused by the story.
Most of our audience after viewing the rough cut of The Forgotten Truth 60% of the audience thought that our film would only have an age rating of 12. This is why to start with we decided that our film would be a 12A. However, after the audience had viewed the finished version of The Forgotten Truth 73% of the audience thought that our film was appropriate for 15+. This is why we changed our age rating to suit the audience.
Audience Research
During the pre-production stages of the making of The Forgotten Truth we changed our film certificate age from a 12A to a 15 As we believed that it had too much violent context in it for 12 year olds even if accompanied by an adult. I believe that our film could be interpreted in many different ways, from the love that turns to rage to, a man who has a weakness.
The younger people who have watched our film understand the meaning behind it. We wanted to get across to the audience that not all relationships are easy as there will always be ups and downs but, also to let people know that they can walk away before something bad happens. For example, in our film Damian and Lily are happy together at the beginning but, as the film progresses he turns violent towards her and if someone is in that situation (even if the roles are reversed) they have the opportunity to leave before its too late. Also, we wanted to show that when you have done something you truly regret (like Damian did when he killed Lily) then that will way on the other person and eventually can cause them to take there own life to satisfy themselves that they have paid the ultimate price for what they have done.
We were influence by situations like this as on the news recently there has been more and more people committing suicide or have been found to be abused or beaten. The Forgotten Truth was created in a way to help raise awareness of this problem.
Music on The Forgotten Truth
The music on our film was very important to get right as, it would help to enforce the mood/ emotion that the characters are feeling onto the audience. During the making of The Forgotten Truth we did some trial and error when it came to the music as at the time we did not know what our voice over was going to include. On the rough cut of The Forgotten Truth there is a variety of different songs as at the time we could not find one that fitted well as background music throughout the film. The way that we edited our film to fit the music also helps to show the passages in time. Conclusion
Overall I would say that as a group we responded well to the brief and create a piece of media text that our target audience enjoyed. Even though we had to change a lot of our film to make our audience be able to understand it, it was worth it to develop an end product that successfully appeals to our target audience.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Friday, 10 April 2015
Evaluation Part 1
In what
ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
For our film, The Forgotten Truth, we chose the genre of psychological thriller which takes elements from Thriller films and adds Psychological elements to them, in our films case it touches on mental illness. A common convention of this genre which is reflected in our film is non-linear plots, an example of this would be The Sixth Sense, with the audience finding out at the end of the film that Dr. Crowe has been dead all along. We implemented this narrative in our film with the audience seeing flashbacks of Damian and Lily's past relationship, but as the film goes on it is revealed that Damian killed his wife and is seeing mere visions of her, so in terms of continuity our film could be seen as conventional within its genre. In terms of technical continuity, another convention within the Thriller genre is fast paced, action scenes, and again, our film includes jump cuts short shot lengths in certain scenes, we used this editing technique in order to reflect Damian's desperation and anger. We also stuck to the conventional 180 degree rule in our shots in order to avoid confusing our audience, and adhered to the 30 degree rule. We made sure to include a track in zoom out shot of Damian just before the flashback scenes in order to keep good continuity, we may have confused our audience with a sudden transition from the present to the past without this 'transition' shot. Our match on action shots were also filmed correctly to ensure good continuity. 
In terms of content our film is very reflective of it's genre. Our film contains a strong male lead character and a subservient female character. However, in most conventional thrillers the lead male characters are the protagonist whereas in our film Damian has a sort of anti-hero role and then as the film reaches its end you realise that he was in fact the antagonist of the story, which is a move away from the conventional thriller narrative of the male hero. We did however include a female doctor which subverts the traditional view of male doctors and female nurses. The plot line is also reflective of the genre with it being non-linear, examples of similar films to ours which implement no-linear plot lines are The Sixth Sense and Shutter Island.
Our film contains a pastiche to American History X, with the flashbacks being in unsaturated black and white to represent past memories. We used this technique first and foremost to differentiate the past and present, however, we thought this would be a good way to express Damian's disconnection with his past and present the images in a hazy, illusory way. We also used a voiceover which is a pastiche to Fight Club. This film also contains psychological elements, so we took this idea and used it to help bring Damian to life and tell his story from his point of view, before the actual events that took place in our film were revealed. 
The main audience pleasure that our film provides is emotional pleasure from seeing the relationship between Damian and Lily go from seemingly loving to abusive and eventually Damian killing Lily. We wanted this to come across as heart wrenching and really tap into the audience's emotions, and I think we achieved this, with reference to Richard Dyer's theory of entertainment stating that 'intensity' being vital for audience satisfaction, I believe our film achieved great emotional intensity. I believe our film relates to two more elements of this theory, community and transparency. We achieved a sense of community by having Damian and Lily being in a romantic relationship. In terms of transparency the audience are kept in the dark slightly about Damian's intentions but as the film goes on the audience do encounter a high level of transparency as Damian is revealed to have been certified insane.
We took influences from several films during the making of The Forgotten Truth. Fight Club provided inspiration for the voice over, American History X for the flash backs and Shutter Island for the nonlinear storyline, despite this our film does manage to stay original and true to its genre.
Friday, 27 March 2015
Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our A2 media film "The Forgotten Truth" uses conventions of a psychological thriller as the costumes used portray the story line in our chosen genre. As the Doctor wears a lab coat, signaling their medical profession which makes the film look more realistic. In the TV series American Horror Story which is based around this genre, the doctor and psychiatrist wears a lab coat, making his character seem intimidating and important, which is what we tried to portray through our costume.
AHS Doctor
Doctors white coat in our film
Although I do believe our film challenged the convention of real media also as our character Damion's costume didn't fit with the typical mental asylum setting, not conforming to expectations. Damion wore a grey t shirt through the film, changing into a coat in some scenes, but we felt because he didn't believe he was in a mental asylum and he didn't understand why he was there in the first place, he was able to wear casual clothes. As mental institutions probably wouldn't let patients wear their own clothes especially if they had done something extremely bad to be there, we based our idea from the film Shutter Island. Due to this film using the idea of the mental institution letting the male protagonist create his own image of what he thinks is going on, allowing him to dress as a police officer and live in a made up world of his own. We had the idea that the mental institution would probably care for Damion's sanity and allow him to dress as he pleases because of the stress and illnesses that he has.
Damion's casual outfit
Teddy's outfit in Shutter Island
We used a location of a hospital bed room in our college to create a scene that looked like a mental institute. This is usually what would appear in the psychological thriller setting as our story line includes this, similar to the mental hospital room from Gothika. The location does subvert the stereotype slightly due to it being filmed in college hallways, so college signs were evidently there.
Our main convention is the plot twist which most psychological thrillers have included in their narrative, to keep the audience enticed and play with their expectations, which would also play with their mind, the two elements that are involved in this genre as they gain to understand the unstable characters and their background story. The plot twist we decided upon was that Damion discovers he in fact murdered his wife, which was inspired by one of my favourite films, Shutter Island, as a similar story ending happens here when the main character discover his wife had murdered his three children and so therefore he murdered her in a traumatic state.
Plot twist of Damion killing wife
Another factor would be an unreliable narrator because of Damion's state of mind, being schizophrenic and having irrational reoccurring thoughts meaning his side of the story that is shown may also be deceiving to the audience. The audience probably won't believe that his wife is lost inside the hospital that he's seemingly in, this will play with their perception on the film and make them wonder whether it's reality or created in Damion's mind. The thought of this is shown in other films such as Psycho as it uses elements of loss of identity when the character dresses as his mother to murder guests at his hotel. We created a clip similar to the murder scene when Damion murders his wife, using a silhouette to show his loss of identity when he becomes ill but also so that the audience can't see who it is who's really killing her. This is done in Psycho during the murder scene as when the hotel owner murders his guest in the dress of his mothers, you can't tell who it is, playing with the audiences mind and also showing his change of identity when committing an act so violent such as murder. Murder and death is also one of the main themes in this genre, characters being faced with death like these two will have to face this through the entirety of the film, typical of this type of film.
Psycho-silhouette figure
The Forgotten truth: Silhouette figure
Continuity editing is used in our film to create a sense of time however our film works slightly differently using the idea from Memento where the film events work backwards. As we decided that we'd show Damion waking up in the mental asylum and searching for his wife, rather than the usual and expected story line of murdering his wife and then waking up in a mental asylum, regretting what he'd done. This was edited together using Final Cut Express in which we used over the shoulder shots to show the audience what Damion was looking at as he wasn't in the right state of mind for him to reveal this, not knowing what he'd done. Richard Dyer's theory of entertainment states the audience watch a film to escape from reality and they'll watch a film if it offers them something they don't have in their own life. Over the shoulder shots put the audience in the characters mind, making them relate to the character and hopefully enjoy the film because of this.
Then we used a title sequence in which we placed an effect/transition over the top to move the letters, as though they were moving in the way Damion's mind was working, it represented this. This is similar to the television series AHS in the format of the title, the letters moving accompanied by intense music. The letters moving could also have some representation of mental institutions in an old era, the forms of torture that took place were things such as high voltage to shock the brain, which would be creepy when represented in a title sequence. The film title it has similarities with is Se7en because of the flickering title and the moving format.
The editing we used was involving a journey montage of Damion searching for Lily through different corridors, the match on actions displayed through each shot shows how the scenes fit together, creating a realistic element of time for the audience as they'll believe Damion is looking for Lily quickly, searching everywhere he can. This is similar to the The Lovely bones as the main character attempts to gain the attention of her father, searching for him.
Our film uses typical conventions such as a male and female relationship in the psychological thriller genre and the male killing the female, as it's usually the males in these sort of films who hold the most power. However this is debatable as a lot of female characters especially in this genre develop mental illnesses and are seen as crazy by male characters like in the film Gothica, the female character is seen as crazy by most men in the film and is put into a mental institution.
In this way, our film subverts the stereotype as you wouldn't usually find a man in a film going mentally ill, except of course in Shutter Island. Therefore I feel because of the unexpected lead character in this film, a more male based audience would watch it as they'd be drawn to the new idea of a mentally ill male. However our overall audience is teen based.
Also our non-diegetic sound is the usual type that appears in this genre as before hand I researched into music found in psychological thrillers and people would expect the music to be intense, creepy music like the kind you hear on the film Sinister. The music is used to affect the audience after they watch the film, creating a suspense during their viewing time but also making it memorable so they remember exactly what happened during the music was played. We a drum beat on top of the scene where Damion discovered his file, creating an intense moment as the drum beat played, the audience's heart would beat faster, making them scared of what's to come. This can be seen in Sinister when the 'Boogie man' appears, the music accompanies him so they audience know what to expect on a particular moment in a scene. We used a voice over through the film to covey an opinion from Damion, so his illness was shown rather than just an aggressive side that the audience may not understand. Voice overs are usually used in these sorts of films as the plots can sometimes be confusing, so the audience need a bit of extra information from the main character. Like this one from Sin city
The film script leans quite towards a romantic tragedy when you read the romance involved as our main character discusses him finding his wife, however in the particular context, it can't be considered a romantic tragedy as it uses too many elements of mental illness and death.
Overall our audience feedback provided with the information that they enjoyed our film, declaring that the scenes fit well and the story line was intriguing, making us happy that we followed the usual psychological thriller expectations of creating a character who the audience want to follow and know about. Damion was an intriguing character as in previous films I've mentioned such as Shutter island, the audience gain satisfaction from discovering new things about characters and finding the plot out before the film ends, involving them in our product. Closeups of Damion's and Lily's relationship proved their love was realistic as the audience saw what they used to be and what they eventually turned into, when arguing. This allows the audience to really gain a wider insight into the plot of the film as they learn a lot about the characters throughout.
Equally this closeup shot from Shuter Island shows insight into Teddy and his friends relationship
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Our A2 media film "The Forgotten Truth" uses conventions of a psychological thriller as the costumes used portray the story line in our chosen genre. As the Doctor wears a lab coat, signaling their medical profession which makes the film look more realistic. In the TV series American Horror Story which is based around this genre, the doctor and psychiatrist wears a lab coat, making his character seem intimidating and important, which is what we tried to portray through our costume.
Doctors white coat in our film
Although I do believe our film challenged the convention of real media also as our character Damion's costume didn't fit with the typical mental asylum setting, not conforming to expectations. Damion wore a grey t shirt through the film, changing into a coat in some scenes, but we felt because he didn't believe he was in a mental asylum and he didn't understand why he was there in the first place, he was able to wear casual clothes. As mental institutions probably wouldn't let patients wear their own clothes especially if they had done something extremely bad to be there, we based our idea from the film Shutter Island. Due to this film using the idea of the mental institution letting the male protagonist create his own image of what he thinks is going on, allowing him to dress as a police officer and live in a made up world of his own. We had the idea that the mental institution would probably care for Damion's sanity and allow him to dress as he pleases because of the stress and illnesses that he has.
Teddy's outfit in Shutter Island
We used a location of a hospital bed room in our college to create a scene that looked like a mental institute. This is usually what would appear in the psychological thriller setting as our story line includes this, similar to the mental hospital room from Gothika. The location does subvert the stereotype slightly due to it being filmed in college hallways, so college signs were evidently there.
Damion's hospital room
Gothika hospital room- similar coloured clothing reflects where the characters are and the confused facial expressions/actions show their illness and the genre.
Our main convention is the plot twist which most psychological thrillers have included in their narrative, to keep the audience enticed and play with their expectations, which would also play with their mind, the two elements that are involved in this genre as they gain to understand the unstable characters and their background story. The plot twist we decided upon was that Damion discovers he in fact murdered his wife, which was inspired by one of my favourite films, Shutter Island, as a similar story ending happens here when the main character discover his wife had murdered his three children and so therefore he murdered her in a traumatic state.
Plot twist of Teddy killing his wife
Another factor would be an unreliable narrator because of Damion's state of mind, being schizophrenic and having irrational reoccurring thoughts meaning his side of the story that is shown may also be deceiving to the audience. The audience probably won't believe that his wife is lost inside the hospital that he's seemingly in, this will play with their perception on the film and make them wonder whether it's reality or created in Damion's mind. The thought of this is shown in other films such as Psycho as it uses elements of loss of identity when the character dresses as his mother to murder guests at his hotel. We created a clip similar to the murder scene when Damion murders his wife, using a silhouette to show his loss of identity when he becomes ill but also so that the audience can't see who it is who's really killing her. This is done in Psycho during the murder scene as when the hotel owner murders his guest in the dress of his mothers, you can't tell who it is, playing with the audiences mind and also showing his change of identity when committing an act so violent such as murder. Murder and death is also one of the main themes in this genre, characters being faced with death like these two will have to face this through the entirety of the film, typical of this type of film.
The Forgotten truth: Silhouette figure
Continuity editing is used in our film to create a sense of time however our film works slightly differently using the idea from Memento where the film events work backwards. As we decided that we'd show Damion waking up in the mental asylum and searching for his wife, rather than the usual and expected story line of murdering his wife and then waking up in a mental asylum, regretting what he'd done. This was edited together using Final Cut Express in which we used over the shoulder shots to show the audience what Damion was looking at as he wasn't in the right state of mind for him to reveal this, not knowing what he'd done. Richard Dyer's theory of entertainment states the audience watch a film to escape from reality and they'll watch a film if it offers them something they don't have in their own life. Over the shoulder shots put the audience in the characters mind, making them relate to the character and hopefully enjoy the film because of this.
Then we used a title sequence in which we placed an effect/transition over the top to move the letters, as though they were moving in the way Damion's mind was working, it represented this. This is similar to the television series AHS in the format of the title, the letters moving accompanied by intense music. The letters moving could also have some representation of mental institutions in an old era, the forms of torture that took place were things such as high voltage to shock the brain, which would be creepy when represented in a title sequence. The film title it has similarities with is Se7en because of the flickering title and the moving format.
The editing we used was involving a journey montage of Damion searching for Lily through different corridors, the match on actions displayed through each shot shows how the scenes fit together, creating a realistic element of time for the audience as they'll believe Damion is looking for Lily quickly, searching everywhere he can. This is similar to the The Lovely bones as the main character attempts to gain the attention of her father, searching for him.
Our film uses typical conventions such as a male and female relationship in the psychological thriller genre and the male killing the female, as it's usually the males in these sort of films who hold the most power. However this is debatable as a lot of female characters especially in this genre develop mental illnesses and are seen as crazy by male characters like in the film Gothica, the female character is seen as crazy by most men in the film and is put into a mental institution.
In this way, our film subverts the stereotype as you wouldn't usually find a man in a film going mentally ill, except of course in Shutter Island. Therefore I feel because of the unexpected lead character in this film, a more male based audience would watch it as they'd be drawn to the new idea of a mentally ill male. However our overall audience is teen based.
Also our non-diegetic sound is the usual type that appears in this genre as before hand I researched into music found in psychological thrillers and people would expect the music to be intense, creepy music like the kind you hear on the film Sinister. The music is used to affect the audience after they watch the film, creating a suspense during their viewing time but also making it memorable so they remember exactly what happened during the music was played. We a drum beat on top of the scene where Damion discovered his file, creating an intense moment as the drum beat played, the audience's heart would beat faster, making them scared of what's to come. This can be seen in Sinister when the 'Boogie man' appears, the music accompanies him so they audience know what to expect on a particular moment in a scene. We used a voice over through the film to covey an opinion from Damion, so his illness was shown rather than just an aggressive side that the audience may not understand. Voice overs are usually used in these sorts of films as the plots can sometimes be confusing, so the audience need a bit of extra information from the main character. Like this one from Sin city
The film script leans quite towards a romantic tragedy when you read the romance involved as our main character discusses him finding his wife, however in the particular context, it can't be considered a romantic tragedy as it uses too many elements of mental illness and death.
Overall our audience feedback provided with the information that they enjoyed our film, declaring that the scenes fit well and the story line was intriguing, making us happy that we followed the usual psychological thriller expectations of creating a character who the audience want to follow and know about. Damion was an intriguing character as in previous films I've mentioned such as Shutter island, the audience gain satisfaction from discovering new things about characters and finding the plot out before the film ends, involving them in our product. Closeups of Damion's and Lily's relationship proved their love was realistic as the audience saw what they used to be and what they eventually turned into, when arguing. This allows the audience to really gain a wider insight into the plot of the film as they learn a lot about the characters throughout.
Evaluation question 2
2 How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
The purpose of our film was to provide entertainment to the audience in order to intrigue them into the storyline. We used elements from the genre psychological thriller such as black and white scenes like in the film Memento, to please the audience of our film. The black and white sequence signals the past and this is also done through the narrative working backwards, which we attempted in our film. As our film begins with Damion waking up in a mental asylum and then ending with his realisation of what he’s done, playing with the audiences mind and allowing everyone to have their own interpretation and piece the film together.
Our film adapted throughout the planning stages on blogger, to ensure we created a film which was entertaining and kept the audience on the edge of their seat during the film and especially on the plot twist. We did this by creating a treatment to show what the overall film was about after we had collected all of our ideas and using our audience questionnaires to put a final certificate on the film, now with the knowledge of who our audience was.
What we were trying to achieve with our main product
Our film is a psychological thriller. Films of this genre usually involve innocent victims, doctors and mental illnesses which is what we used to try and portray this type of film. The themes in our film are remembrance and death as the whole storyline is trying to remember a death and then dying as an effect of this. The music is very important in a psychological thriller as it impacts the entire film and the way it’s perceived by the audience. An audience would expect suspense and intense music in this genre and would be surprised if this wasn’t included. Our film uses dialogue to give more information about the plot and who certain characters are, as well as a voiceover of Damion explaining who he’s looking for. This makes it simpler to understand and although psychological thrillers are usually background music based as a lot of dialogue makes it less intense, we felt by adding a voiceover, it would give the audience a basic outline of the storyline, allowing them to gain an in depth view on our film.
We used codes and conventions that are typically found in psychological thrillers. This includes the theme of death as most films that are similar play on this idea and have secrets in the plot, which often ends in death or a death that’s happened previously in the film. But also editing such as the black and white scenes to show memories, which have appeared in other films of this genre such as Memento. The only subvert in audience expectations would be the hanging as you would expect the mental institute to be quite strict on security depending on the time. Also we have a female doctor which would be unlikely to appear in these sort of films as they’re usually very male based audiences that watch them.
We also used props such as the photograph to show what Damion was remembering but also clothing like the doctor's coat to symbolise the character being a doctor. This made the film seem more realistic to our audience who would expect this sort of planning for the film of this genre. Our main aim was to provide the certification 15 audience entertainment and a psychological thrill from the short film and complex storyline.
Poster
After we created our film, I started to research into similar film posters in order to produce a rough draft and final film poster that would represent our product. I looked into similar genres of films and looked at posters which included dark backgrounds, characters and good slogans/titles.
I found these 4 posters which I took inspiration from for our rough draft and final film poster. The film poster Premonition was analysed for our final poster because of the creepy looking background as it shows the characters face in the trees, symbolising the character being involved in the setting, the woods, in the film. The differing in the red text compared with the white underneath stands out against the dark background, making the film appear as a horror/thriller. I analysed Gothika to create a similar poster as the character’s face from the film is pictured on the poster, meaning you know the film will be quite chilling from the reaction on her face. Atticus Institute’s background seems psychological because of the ghostly body coming out from the women, giving the effect of a ghostly storyline, which we could have used in our film poster as our film involves a ghost.
Finally the film Shutter Island was my main inspiration for our film as the storyline was very similar and we took aspects from the film, such as the character in a mental asylum searching for his wife and the mental asylum setting, as well as the character of the doctor. Due to the storyline being so similar, I felt that we were able to create a similar film poster as this film poster reflects the storyline of the film, a character who’s full of hatred, trying to find out the truth. As the light from the fire represents him searching for the truth in a dark setting. The text matching the fire makes the audience want to watch the film as the poster looks interesting.
Although all of the posters are for different films, they were all quite similar as they all included a background image of the character in the film, giving the audience a feel of what these characters are like which would maybe tell them the genre as if the character looks sad they know it’s a tragedy. The text on each also stands out against this image, so the audience know what the film is called and who is involved in it. The fact that there’s only one character pictured in each of these posters show it’s them who become psychologically damaged in the film as they’re the main characters.
Layout of film poster
Beginning with a film poster layout, I portrayed similar aspects onto my rough draft. This includes the film title at the top, the background/photo below and the credits underneath this, which is the classical layout.
Poster
Firstly, I created a rough draft film poster with Photoshop, which showed the genre of our film.
I then analysed this to show why the audience would be attracted to this film.
This is our final film poster, which we used to advertise our film. I analysed this film poster to show what aspects we had used from other similar film posters and certain things included in the poster to show its genre. The film poster included credits which show the audience who made the film as this could be a good selling point, perhaps people recognise the production companies name or who made the film, making them want to watch it. I finally added a release date so the audience know when to expect to see the film, as this knowledge would draw more people into watching it, as they know exactly where they can find it.
Radio trailer
Before making our radio trailer, I searched into existing radio trailers in order to get a feel for the expectations of this genre. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a psychological thriller film on the radio, however I found a Doctor Who trailer which shares similar elements like sound effects, indicating what’s happening for the audience who are only listening rather than watching. I discovered that this radio trailer uses speech and dialogue to tell the audience what’s happening, however doesn’t give the entire story away, leaving them intrigued to watch. Using music from the film reinforces the genre of the film, setting an expectation of a psychological thriller for the audience and a voiceover on the trailer creates understanding, making the film easy for the listeners to understand. My main aim for our radio trailer was to make it so that the audience could easily understand what was happening and the summary of the film just by listening, by doing this I’d have successfully created a product that would represent our film.
I then looked at the film Terminator as I found a trailer for this and listened to the audio to give the same effect as a radio trailer. Although it’s more action based, the features involved would be similar to my radio trailer as the audio reflects what’s happening in the film. This is what all radio trailers attempt to do successfully.
The dialogue also involves reviews from critics and newspaper, giving a rating for the film, which by including this in our film trailer intrigued people to watch it as they would gain a sense of whether the film was good. So I then looked into what we would include in ours:
Radio trailer message
We then made a final decision and created a script for our radio trailer by incorporating parts of example radio trailers that we looked at:
"The Forgotten Truth"
"Starring Hayley Townend & Dale Cook"
"An extreme psychological thriller that'll blow your mind"
"An original HVRD production"
"Remember"
"Available on YouTube on the 25th January "
The voiceover for our film was performed by Hayley’s dad who read this script slowly, so we could include sound effects and music from our film over the top. By using the title of the film, it tells the audience directly what our film is and then by giving information about the genre, it verifies whether the audience will enjoy it. Telling the audience who is starred in the film may encourage them to watch as they could have seen films with these actors in beforehand and so know what to expect in terms of acting skills and maybe even storylines, depending on what type of films these people are usually in. We used a quote from our film ‘Remember’ to give the audience a taste of what the film includes i.e- a male character attempting to remember what had happened in the past with his wife. This slogan is also used on our poster, giving the same message and a hint to the story plot. By giving a release date, we know that we’ll gain a wider audience as a lot of people will just have a look at the film, even if they don’t enjoy this genre.
The audience can identify our film as a psychological thriller due to the voiceover stating its genre and the voice over of Damion declaring his love for Lily, which is then contrasted with the creepy sounding music in the background, signalling something has gone wrong. This music may entice the listener to watch the film as it sounds intense, giving an initial overall feeling of the film. The audience may also be able to tell the location of the film and the setting by the accents of the characters which will then be shown through the setting. By the narrator stating the production company, the audience will know it’s a film.
Conclusion: How effective do you think the two ancillary texts are in selling your production?
The poster-
The poster had to look professional in order for our film to be advertised realistically and gain a wider audience as the film poster was the first thing that reflected our genre and plot. By looking at previous film poster examples and similar genres of film posters, we were able to create a poster that advertised our product in the right way. Using Photoshop, it was simple to make the poster and yet the layout looked professional, saving us time and money, but also the heightened expectations for a good film. If the audience saw a poster that looked poorly made such as my plan for a finished film poster:
They wouldn’t be intrigued to watch the film, so after re creating this poster until we achieved a final draft, we knew we would have audience support.
Also by using a real image from the film, it made the audience enticed to know what would happen with these characters and their relationship. This is why our film poster presents the film well and advertises the final product completely. I wouldn’t adjust our final film poster too much. However from my first poster plan, I feel that by adding a real image of a hand rather than one from Google, I could create more suspense for the audience when they see my poster.
Radio Trailer
The radio trailer successfully engages our listeners, by conveying psychological aspects of the film like death and illness by forgetting such a horrible act that Damion did. Yet also shows the romance that goes wrong, signaling a thrill for the audience as they are able to see the relationships faults and why Damion kills his wife. I think that our trailer would be effective at promoting our film because it uses all of the elements that exist in a radio trailer, as I know from research. Our target market was a teenage audience and due to the genre of the film being well portrayed in the radio trailer, I felt that we had a very good chance of gaining our target audience.
In my opinion our two ancillary texts reflect our media products well because we showed our creativity throughout and gained inspiration from similar films, like Shutter Island, promoting our film genre and storyline.
Results of questionnaire on two ancillary texts- conclusion
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