Friday 29 November 2013

Testing the idea of fairy tales against my brief

After all of my research earlier in the year I concluded what was expected/wanted of my trailer into one document called my 'brief'. This listed aspects of my film I would need to consider when constructing my ideas as it directed me and gave me restrictions and ideas on to the type of film I must produce. I therefore thought it appropriate that I reviewed my latest idea against that. I selected some of the points that arose in my brief and then evaluated my new idea against them or decided how I would meet these requirements. This is all detailed in the image below.


Wednesday 27 November 2013

Investigating storylines

I looked at all of the story lines of these popular fairy tales for some inspiration.


Tuesday 19 November 2013

Possible twists

This is the mind map I created of ideas for the 'twist' to our storyline these are the final choices of which we must decide from.

TV drama storylines

I looked on IMDB at the top 10 TV dramas I analysed their storylines for some inspiration and to see why they were so successful.


This has shown me that criminal activity is a popular choice for drama, this theme could provide a useful and much needed twist to my story. Other storylines included themes of...
  • Making a difficult decision
  • Fighting for freedom or control
  • Investigation
  • Following a talented professional
  • Escape
These too could be useful themes for the 'twist' I need to my storyline to make it more dramatic.

Friday 15 November 2013

Next steps


The 36 dramatic situations

When having to think about changing my story line I came across some research by Georges Polti who categorised every dramatic situation that might occur in a performance or story. This research will be useful to the production of my new idea as it will prompt me on the kind of stories I could be working with as my film is going to be a drama.

The 36 dramatic situations include...


Wednesday 13 November 2013

My 25 word pitch ideas

These are 3 ideas of mine for potential 25 word pitches.


My 25 word pitch inspirations

I created this mind-map featuring words I could use in my 25 word pitch. I had to think about what was most interesting about my film and several adjectives to describe my film. I will later need to create a 25 word pitch that...
  • Say something about the characters
  • Has a brief introduction to the storyline
  • Appeals to and captivates the audience
       

    Tuesday 22 October 2013

    Visual treatment

    After writing my treatment I decided to present it in a more creative way. As well as having my written treatment I created this Powtoon presentation with images to enable the audience to visualise what the film may look like in terms of characters, location and shots.

    Friday 18 October 2013

    Coursework check

    I had to quickly review my current progress by looking at my blog. I had to decide my next steps and what I will be doing next in my coursework. This is all detailed in the image below.


    Tuesday 15 October 2013

    Written treatment

    This is the treatment that I produced to outline the story for my trailer. One thing I need to be cautious of when making my trailer is not giving away too much about the film. This is a common mistake in student-made trailers and they therefore do not receive the maximum number of marks as they have failed to meet conventions. The trailer must give some information about the film but only enough to intrigue a prospective audience rather than tell them everything. If they find out everything about the film in the trailer they will not see the point in watching the film and therefore the trailer has failed to fulfill its purpose.

    Monday 30 September 2013

    Assessment for progress report

    Every few weeks our teachers check our blogs. This enables them to give us feedback in terms of what is going well and what might need improving. Below is an image of the assessment sticker that I received, I achieved an A1 grade due to the amount of work that I have produced and the high level of creativity in presentation. I now understand that I must continue to post with regularity using an excellent range of presentation technologies.


    Pitch feedback


    Thursday 26 September 2013

    Initial idea development

    As part of developing this initial idea I created this mood board to give me some visual influences in terms of shots/scenery. This will also give my audience an idea of what the trailer may look like in my pitch.



    Developing a second idea for pitching

    Due to my production partner and I not being able to make a final decision on our idea, based on our current conclusions I decided to develop our two favourite ideas of which we can pitch to our teachers and audience and allow them to decide.

    Initial idea development

    As part of developing this initial idea I created this mood board to give me some visual influences in terms of shots/scenery. This will also give my audience an idea of what the trailer may look like in my pitch.


    Developing one of my chosen ideas

    Due to my production partner and I not being able to make a final decision on our idea, based on our current conclusions I decided to develop our two favourite ideas of which we can pitch to our teachers and audience and allow them to decide.


    Tuesday 24 September 2013

    Deciding on my idea

    I created this table to look at both what would work well in each idea and the possible problems and limitations associated. I decided that overcoming a major limitation in 'disaster' with the scenery would be to copy our idea in our trailer remake task which saw us use playmobil people. This would create a visually engaging piece without any location issues seen with the production of other trailers. After this task both my group partner and I have decided that the imaginary friend idea is our favourite and our next step will be to develop this idea.

    Monday 23 September 2013

    Initial ideas- Disaster


    A struggle with a happy ending
    The struggle is surviving, so yes there is a struggle in the storyline, there will be a happy ending, this would be created if I am to develop this idea 

    Characters that are easy to relate to
    There would be a variety of character ages (main focus on adults), genders and ethnicity's in the film, meaning characters would be easy to relate to, to my target audience.

    Unexpected twists and turns
    The plot is action filled so there would be lots of unexpected twists to the storyline.

    A drama with an aspect of fantasy
    The disaster survival aspect makes it a drama whilst the fact that this has never happened before would make it somewhat fantasy.

    A film about friendship, hopes and dreams
    The film would record various friendships and many peoples hope to survive.

    Initial ideas- My friends


    A struggle with a happy ending
    The struggle sees a mother and father desperately trying to help their daughter understand that her friends are not real.

    Characters that are easy to relate to
    The characters would be in their mid-late 30s and children, they'd also be living in a family settings making all characters involved easy to relate to.

    Unexpected twists and turns
    I can think of this if I develop the idea into a full storyline. It could be something like the young girl running away.

    A drama with an aspect of fantasy
    This is clearly a drama with the 'struggle' aspect to it, whilst the imaginary friends side to the story gives it an aspect of fantasy.

    A film about friendship, hopes and dreams
    There is a key theme of hope in that the young girl forgets about her imaginary friends.

    Initial ideas- Separated

    My first idea 'Seperated' is a film about two twins who are separated at birth and lead identical lives unaware of each others existence. I will use a short checklist to see if it fits the 'brief' that I constructed earlier...

    A struggle with a happy ending
    There is no struggle, it is merely two twins who meet up after years of separation. Once the idea has been developed a little more, there could be a struggle such as accepting the fact that they had a twin all along, this, however, may not be particularly gripping. 

    Characters that are easy to relate to
    The characters would be in their late 20s-30s, and live in family settings making all characters involved easy to relate to.

    Unexpected twists and turns
    I can think of this if I develop the idea into a full storyline.

    A drama with an aspect of fantasy
    This is clearly a drama with the 'separated at birth' aspect to it, and the telepathy makes it somewhat fantasy too.

    A film about friendship, hopes and dreams
    This film is almost more about family rather than friends and has no key theme of hope.

    Monday 16 September 2013

    Finalising my research

    After a lot of research I have enough information for me to be able to construct some initial ideas. All of my research has acted almost as a 'design brief' for a new product. It has not only shown me what is expected of my trailer, not only as a trailer but a trailer of the drama genre, it has shown me what my audience want from a film in terms of the storyline and microaspects and it has also told me what I should and maybe shouldn't include in my trailer. I have simplified my findings into this simple sheet which I can look through when producing my ideas.

    Survey results

    I created a survey to ask my target audience what they liked in a film, this will again help me construct my initial ideas. It is clear that my audience like characters that they can relate to, a realistic storyline with aspects of fantasy and a struggle with a happy ending.


    I also asked my audience 'What makes an interesting story?'. I learnt that my audience like...
    -Lots of unexpected twists/turns
    -An uncertain ending
    -Lots of action to make it interesting
    -The unforeseeable
    -Tension

    Primary research- talking to my audience

    I asked my target audience what their favourite drama films were and why. This will help me create my initial ideas by knowing what the audience want.


    I discovered that my target audience like...
    - A gripping plot
    - Well developed characters
    - An intense film
    - Happy endings
    - Emotive scenes
    - Aspects of reality
    - A message
    - Something that 'pulls on your heartstrings'
    - An engaging story with depth to it

    Influences- How have other films been successful or unsuccessful?

    This is a key question in my research process. By identifying what has made other films successful, I will be able to learn from their successes and perhaps even mistakes so I know what I should include and maybe what I should not include in my trailer/storyline. I will now look at reviews of other drama films to get this information.

    This research will really help me when constructing my initial ideas as it has given me a significant amount of guidance. By knowing what my target audience do or do not like I am able to make my film more successful by tailoring my film to their likes.

    Friday 13 September 2013

    Target audience research- take the survey

    Any film has a target audience which is the group of people that a film is directed at. Many of the film's features will therefore be specifically tailored to that audience and aim to appeal to them. In order for me to create a successful trailer I will need to investigate my audience further and understand what they want from a film. My first step to getting some information I can then work with is to ask my target audience. I have created this survey comprising of five questions which I hope will help me understand what my audience want from a film. This will in turn help me construct a storyline for my trailer.


    Who are my target audience?


    Thursday 12 September 2013

    What have I learnt about the target audience of dramas?

    This video below examines what I have learnt about the target audience of dramas...




    This has helped me realise that the plot must be directed towards an older audience as it is likely to be an older teenage to adult audience who are my target market.

    This however does not mean that all characters are of that age as it is unlikely for a person of that age not to be associated with anyone else from different age groups.

     15  or even 18 and over is still a huge age range for a target audience so there is probably not one common item of which will be interesting enough to base a film around, or a single age of a character that I can easily distinguish. However, what I can do is look at what my audience like about a drama film and possibly mind map some common 'problems' which are key to any storyline and common to those 18+ which will further aid my construction of my initial ideas.

    What I also thought of is although a drama is rated 15 and over simply means it is suitable for that age group, and not directed at them. Many dramas are directed at working age adults. This has helped me to draw in a somewhat smaller target market.

    Identifying the target audience of dramas

    Identifying my target audience is another key task that I must complete before creating my initial ideas, this is because I have noticed that the target audience and the types of characters are strongly related in dramas. In many drama films it appears that the characters are similar to the audience, hence easy to relate to. Therefore I will need to know who my target audience are so I can make my characters easy to relate to, to my target audience. Looking at the other films will also enable me to discover the people who will usually watch a film of such genre and therefore allow me to direct my film to the people that want the film.

    I will do this by looking at other drama films and who their target audience is. From this research I will be able to work out the target audience I will expect to be working with/for.

    Influences-structure

    I also thought that looking at the general structure/layout of a trailer of the drama genre would help me in the construction of my own. It has almost helped me to create a brief for the ideal structure of my trailer and what needs to go where. Obviously I am using this simply as guidance and my final trailer may not follow this pattern exactly.  I created this timeline below to look at the key features...


    What have I learnt from looking at this trailer about structure?
    - The film's rating usually appears first followed by an establishing shot with some camera movement, this is common to many trailers that I have analysed, and must therefore be something I seriously consider when creating my own.
    - A shot that introduces the start of the journey may be required in my own trailer as dramas are often based around a journey that a character embarks on.
    - Also introduce the 'normal' setting for that characters life (such as the family home in this trailer) this forms  a comparison for the abnormal shown such as a change in the characters life which is the issue to which they must adapt or attempt to overcome.
    - Introduce the 'problem' possibly through dialogue, reinforce the fact that this is an issue through editing/mise en scene/sound. So music intensifying, lower-key lighting and maybe slow motion to suggest its significance.
    - Dialogue to describe the problem further, now maybe the introduction of titles. I like how in this trailer the production company is introduced later on, not only does this make it different but it indicates the change in the mood of the trailer, from the protagonists everyday life to the action/events that are now occurring.
    - Action shots which record some (but not all) of the major incidents in the film. Enough to intrigue the audience but too much as to give away the plot.
    -Titles describe action shots.
    -Shorter takes of several action shots.
    - Dialogue that makes the audience want to know what the character is talking about.
    - Film's title.

    Wednesday 11 September 2013

    Influences: common features of drama films

    Looking at the common features/ conventions of drama films in terms of characters, and all of the micro aspects will help me understand what my own trailer should be like. It will also help me to construct a storyline which was the purpose of this task as it has shown me what kind of storyline I should be creating and the kind of characters I will be working with. My research is presented in the presentation below...


    Trailer checklist

    Looking at the two trailers has really helped me move one step closer to creating my own. It not only has shown me what is expected of my genre but shown me some good features of trailers that I may wish to consider using in my own trailer. By looking at what I liked about the two trailers analysed I have come up with a checklist of things I will need to consider when creating my storyboard- that is when I shall refer to it. It also concludes this research as it summarises what I have taken from this research by creating a short list of what I will be considering during planning for production. That was the purpose of this research (to give me more guidance on ideas for shots, scenes etc).


    Influences- drama trailer

    I looked at a second trailer for some influence when creating my own. I created this timeline and picked out particular shots/aspects of the trailer that I liked. This has helped me gather some ideas for my own. This trailer was produced by A2 Media Studies students, I looked at this trailer in particular to see what kind of a product I am expected to produce in order to achieve a good grade. This trailer received an A grade; being able to see what an A grade in A2 Media Studies actually looks like has proved to me that the expectations are high, so I have learnt a lot from looking at this trailer.


    Aspects of this trailer I may consider using in my own
    - Using imaginative shots for scenes that may typically be recorded using another type of shot. Such as an extreme close up of someone's mouth when they're talking rather than a close up.
    - Think carefully about titles, don't just go for standard and boring, try and be as creative as possible.
    - More attention must be paid to editing, don't just go with putting all the shots together and running smoothly and be done with it, try and use creative editing techniques such as the action on  the eye shot uses in the trailer for The Comedown. A split screen is also something not seen all the time.
    - Slow motion can add tension and drama.

    What have I learnt from looking at this trailer?
    - Not to be simplistic, try and be adventurous with editing, shots and the titles used.
    - Use a huge range and number of shots.
    - If a trailer is to use a soundtrack with lyrics they must not overpower what is being said on screen or take the focus away from that.
    - Lighting is an important aspect to consider and must be altered if it does not work well with the mood of that particular scene, small micro aspects of the trailer like this when put right can have an overall big impact on the trailer itself.

    Influences- drama trailer and looking at micro aspects

    I decided to get some influence from other trailers of my genre. I looked up film's of the drama genre using the IMDB database. The film Adore was listed under the theme of drama so I chose to look at the different micro aspects and decide what I like about them and look at the overall composition of the trailer and what I could learn from it. I created the timeline below to look at the cinematography as well as the other micro aspects and I will now evaluate what I have learnt from looking at this trailer...


    What I like about this trailer and what I might consider using in my own...

    Cinematography 
    A lot of shots which are varied, this stops the visual aspect of the trailer getting boring. I particularly like the use of close ups- to extreme close ups. It really helps to draw attention to the subject that the audience need to be focusing on.
    Editing/Titles
    The titles match the films logo, this keeps a consistent design theme which is recognisable.

    Mise En Scene
    Using props to tell stories of the past, this could be important in a drama, which often has to inform the audience of the background story to the problem which the characters now face.

    Sound
    An instrumental soundtrack without voice over keeps the audience's attention on what is displayed on the screen. I also like how it ends with an important part of dialogue with one of the characters saying "I'll never forgive you for this". This acts almost as a cliffhanger because as soon as you think that the trailer has given away too much and you know the storyline, it reinforces the fact that you don't and it leaves the audience wanting to know what the character does not want to "forgive" the other for.

    What have I learnt?
    - Trailers require a variety of shots in different locations as it is unlikely for a film to be set in entirely one location.
    - Drama films often require a lot of close ups as they're based mainly on human emotions and it is close ups that draw attention to that.
    - The editing techniques need to match the mood of that particular scene, for example, you would not use a slow fade in a fast, action-packed scene.
    - The titles do not have to comply to grammatical or the rules of standard English, in fact, if they do not it can help to tell the story more effectively by helping to convey a message.

    My steps before initial ideas

    I feel like my research so far has not given me enough guidance in terms of creating my initial ideas. This has lead to me making the decision to conduct more research. In the mind map presented below are a few ideas of the tasks I am going to complete before creating my initial ideas.


    It is important that my film trailer attracts its target audience, this means I will have to conduct some research into my target market, but first I will need to identify who they are. For research concerning the actual trailer itself including the types of shots and genre conventions I will look at a few more trailers.

    Tuesday 10 September 2013

    Feedback by Sam Richards

    What went well:
    1. Varied types of posts
    2. Good number of posts
    3. Detailed series of posts such as the genre research posts
    4. Creative posts
    Even better if: you made an interview post, or filmed yourself for a podcast

    Current grade: A

    Monday 9 September 2013

    Genre moodboard

    Although I have an idea of which genres I was likely to be working with I have few ideas for a storyline for a film on which my trailer would be based. This lead me to creating a mind map to write down all my thoughts and associations with the genres to see if I could construct any ideas around them. This can be seen below...


    This has given me some influences as to what I may like to include in a film of each genre I explored. It has helped me to decide that scenes from drama are often good at capturing an audience as they portray realistic characters in situations characters can relate to so I will most likely have aspects of drama in my initial ideas for my trailers. I think that I'd like to create a drama possibly with an aspect of mystery or even fantasy. Possibly even with toys as characters but with a main focus on human characters facing a difficulty which is often a key focus of drama films. A fantasy drama is something different which may or may not work and I like the idea of trying something different. My next step will be to construct several initial ideas so that I can decide on which I'd most like to create.

    Wednesday 4 September 2013

    Finalising genre choices and new ideas

    Earlier in the year I created this table to finalise my genre research. It reduces the genres that I am likely to produce my initial ideas around. I made the decisions based on whether I would be able to produce a good quality trailer of that genre after looking what is expected of the genre and if I would be capable of creating such shots/special effects. The genres I finalised are horror, fantasy, drama and fantasy films. I have since decided that a horror film's are usually too stereotypical and predictable. Many horror scenes are often overused and I have therefore decided that due to wanting to make something more individual and unique I wish to remove horror from my selected genres. I have also considered some new themes/genres such as film's set in the recent past or to do with time travel, these films are often engaging as they keep the audience thinking due to the films often jumping between times.  They also, however come with limitations due to costume and mise en scene. This however could be overcome with good planning and prop/costume collection. I also thought of a silent movie, films with toys as the characters and mystery films. My next step will be to start creating a mind-map of ideas and words I associate with genres of which I may be able to draw some initial ideas from.

    Tuesday 3 September 2013

    Notes to remember

    Evaluating my work is very important as it can show me points of my work which need improving it will give me things to work on for my final trailer and has shown me parts of the microaspects which I must pay attention to in order to attain a higher grade. The list below highlights some of the key points that I must improve on, it was through my evaluation that I identified these weaknesses.


    Evaluating my trailer remake: Mise en scene

    I looked at the mise en scene in my trailer remake and evaluated what went well and how it could have been improved. This is important as it will give me some aspects of mise en scene that I must work on for my next production.

    Evaluating my trailer remake: Editing

    I looked at the editing in my trailer remake and evaluated what went well and how the editing could have been improved. This is important as it will give me some aspects of editing that I must work on for my next production.


    Evaluating my trailer remake: Sound

    I looked at the sound in my trailer remake and evaluated what went well and how the sound could have been improved. This is important as it will give me some aspects of sound that I must work on for my next production.


    Evaluating my trailer remake: Cinematography

    I looked at the cinematography in my trailer remake and evaluated what went well and how the cinematography could have been improved. This is important as it will give me some aspects of cinematography that I must work on for my next production.

    Monday 2 September 2013

    Evaluating my trailer remake: Audience reviews

    I asked a few members of my target audience what they thought of my trailer remake, some of their comments are listed below. All of the feedback was positive, I understand that this may be because they did not want to be negative. I will therefore evaluate it myself so I can identify things of which I must improve before shooting my final piece.


    Wednesday 17 July 2013

    Using real people task

    This is the video of where we used real people to produce one of our shots, it will not appear in our trailer remake task, but was a useful task as it enabled us to investigate how it would have been different if we were to work with real people rather than plastic ones.


    Obviously, the mise en scene, particularly props was not ideal, however, this has shown us that films of a fantasy/adventure nature may be difficult to recreate due to the settings and therefore locations suitable, providing mythical creatures/animals that are not usually domesticated and props such as boats.

    Tuesday 16 July 2013

    Using real people

    We have decided to try to work with real people for one of our shots to help us understand what it would be like in the production of our actual trailer. We decided that the shot we would recreate in this way would be shot number 22 where the tiger and the main character crawl around the boat. We will use white curved tables to appear like the boat.

    This shot has required us to find...

    • A life sized tiger
    • A main character
    Our next step is to cast both a young male character and a tiger, preferably a stuffed one because of health and safety issues.

    Tuesday 9 July 2013

    Trailer remake: Location

    I created this moodboard of the locations that I am likely to use in the production of my trailer remake. These include the bathroom, as the bath will be the ocean, garden (for the elephant scene), goldfish bowl- for underwater scenes, river/pond for tea-lights scene/boat disaster, dark room for nighttime scenes and the stables' sand school for the sand track scenes.

    Obviously if I were creating this trailer to a high standard these locations would not be chosen, as they are far from realistic or ideal, this has shown me, however, how I can produce a small scale, independent trailer and has reinforced my learning from my genre research in that in order to produce amazing sets/effects such as those seen in fantasy films like a Life of Pi, sophisticated software and big budgets are often required.

    I have also decided that if I am to use the bath for the ocean/at sea scenes I will use blue food colouring in the water to produce a more realistic blue water look to it. I will also use fairy lights as stars in the night scenes.


    Trailer remake: props

    I created a list of the props that I will require in the filming of this trailer remake. I will now begin to collect these props or find alternatives if they cannot be obtained. Since publishing this list I have also decided I will also require white fairy lights and blue food coloring.



    Trailer remake: Planning

    My first step in planning this small scale, filming research task was to look at how I could recreate the shots in the actual Life of Pi trailer. I created these storyboard like tables which include a drawing of the shot, a technical description of the shot and how I plan to produce it. I have decided, due to the type of th eprops involved that I will use small model toys for characters as it minimises risks of injury which could occur if I were filming real people. It is also easier to shoot a toy boat in a bath for example, than obtain a real boat and shoot at sea. The drawings are very simplistic, but can be understood. There are a total of 36 shots in the trailer that I will be recreating.

    Trailer remake: making decisions


    Genre research conclusions table

    Although I evaluated the possibility of the production of each genre in the presentations I made I created this table as a simplified reference to conclude my genre research. It has helped me to minimise the possible genres I will be working with in the initial ideas stage. It has helped me cut out 6 of the 10 possible genres and I have decided that the genres I am most likely to be working with include Drama, Family films, Horror and Fantasy. Horror and Fantasy, however, are more questionable, but storylines can be created without use of mythical creatures, using just 'magical locations' for fantasy films and horror films can be successful without death scenes. I will be more cautious when creating ideas around these genres so that if I were to decide to produce them they would not be of a poor quality because of the genre choice and my scale of production being incapable of living up to the genre conventions- therefore producing a poor quality trailer.

    Genre research: Dramas

    Genre research: Family films

    Genre research: Musical films

    Genre research: Romance

    Genre research: Fantasy

    Genre research: Horror

    Genre research: Sci Fi

    Thursday 4 July 2013

    Genre research: Comedy

    I created this presentation looking at what a comedy film is, the genre conventions and if I'd be able to produce a comedy themed film trailer. 

    Genre research: Action and adventure

    I created a presentation for the first genre I am analysing. I looked at action and adventure, firstly I defined what an action/adventure film was, secondly I created a moodboard and then I looked at the genre conventions of action/adventure by looking at a trailer. This enabled me to establish what would be expected of my trailer if I were to make one of this genre. I finally concluded by looking at whether or not I would be able to make an action/adventure film trailer.

    Next steps fo research: genre

    In order to produce a film I will need to look at different genres and what is expected of them. I wrote this to clarify my next steps for my research.

    I have decided to look at the following genres:
    Action and adventure, comedy, historical/period drama, sci fi, horror, fantasy, romance, musical, family and crime

      Mise En Scene- lesson task

      I looked at how Mise en scene can be created to work with a particular genre. My group were selected to create make up, costume and settings for the horror genre. We had to evaluate what went well and how the task could be even better. I also looked at what went well with the mise en scene for my coursework piece (an opening title sequence) last year, and what could have been improved.

      This is the Sliderocket presentation I made to record the task and my evaluation of it...

      Target audience

      I created this presentation after completing a lesson on target audience and how micro-apsects can attract  and effect them. I have not yet decided my target audience, but that will be a task after I have decided the genre of the film. This will require some research into genre, however, beforehand, I will be completing a task on Mise En Scene- this will be during class time.


      Magazine test 2: Little White Lies

      This is the second of the test covers I created. This is for the same film, but in the style of the Little White Lies Magazine.


      Magazine test 1

      I decided that to show I understand the conventions of magazine covers I'd create a quick one of my own. This is NOT my final coursework piece, just a small test. I thought that I would create two magazine covers from two very different publications. I decided that I would create one for Empire magazine and then Little White Lies. The image below is that of my test magazine front cover for the magazine Empire.


      Comparing magazines

      It's important for me to understand the differences in magazines in terms of genre, target audience and if they focus on independent or blockbuster films, for example, as I will be able to decide which magazine my film should appear in. Once I have completed my production context task and finalised an idea I will be aware of what magazine my film would be likely to appear in. For example if my trailer is from that of a large scale blockbuster film it would not appear in Little White Lies and if it were a small scale independent film it would be unlikely to make an appearance in Total Film or Empire magazine.

      I created this simple table to easily compare the magazines. This is an incomplex summary of my research which I can quickly refer to later when creating my own magazine front cover.



      Film magazine research: Sight and sound

      I contacted Nick James, the editor of Sight and Sound and asked him a few questions about the publication. This is detailed below.


      Film magazine research: Little White Lies


      Film magazine research: Total Film


      Film magazine research: Premiere




      Film magazine research: Empire magazine

      Being one of my coursework tasks, I decided that I needed to look at  film magazines and their front covers in order to produce my own. This research is essential as it will enable me to understand what is required of my own magazine cover. Looking at common features and conventions as well as how different film magazines vary.

      Below is my first analysis of the film magazine Empire:



      Tuesday 2 July 2013

      Film poster evaluation

      I created this mind map style evaluation to look at the features in my poster and how it achieves its purpose being an advertisement.  I also looked at how effective my poster is in communicating genre, content and release information my finding are presented in the image below.