Magazine revised changes

In yesterday's lesson Charley played around with the film magazine, in order to make it look authentic and realistic- that it looks like an actual film magazine. In order to do this she typed in Google romantic genre film magazines and the search result which she used to base the magazine formatting on.


For example the top of the magazine has interactive features such as 'More stars and 'More glamour' which Charley Incorporated in our own magazine, as she felt that not only did it express the genre of our film but it also complimented our other ancillary texts i.e. the poster and the teaser trailer. What I also like about this magazine is that although there is quite a large proportion of  text the title is emphasised by a splash of bright orange which takes the focus away from the busy text. If we did this in our media text and played around with various aspects it would make an improvement from our previous magazine, which did not look convincing enough as a film magazine.

This is the following changes that we did in our magazine:

• At the top above the title we followed the layout that is used in the film magazine above  with the use of 'More Stars', 'More Glamour', More Love and 'More than Ever in order to convey the  conventions of the Romantic Drama. This was done using the colour tool which used a dark neon pink in order to stand out above the title- Fusion.
• The title used Bolts SF font in a dark purple/ pink in the centre of the page in order to be the focus point of the magazine.
• To the left of the title was the price £2 .00 in a spikey pink bubble, to clearly show the reader exactly how much the magazine is. The use of this stylism also conforms to the genre and clearly targets a female readership.
• Under the title is a sub title slogan- First women's film weekly which in contrast to the rest of the text within the magazine is black.
• To the right of that is the date 25th of April 2012 again in a feminine pink font
• The picture of me looking to the right is still used in our magazine and we feel compliments the textual features alot more.
• Following Miss Martins advice we used less text in comparison to our previous magazine and had more interactive features. for example we used  an 'Exclusive 'Id love to work with Brad pitt' confession from Ana De-Jesus which again uses the feminine pink colour. The masthead 'Exclusive' used a long purple strip in order to make it stand out against the page more.
• At the bottom centre, using white font ' Exclusive interviews from the cast of Bitter Twisted Lies. The title is in pink in order to stand out against the rest of the text .
• to the right of me is a double layered circle, the inner saying top 50 Romantic Dramas and the outer a black line.
• To the left of me subheadings - win - free cinema tickets and one night at the Hilton  , reviews- Titanic 3d and the lucky one  

Our final magazine

film poster changes

Today Charley played around with adobe photoshop in order to improve our film poster . She decided to change the hue, the saturation and the contrast of the text in order to create a more stormy,dramatic effect that clearly expressed the tension between all of the characters. She darkened the contrast and added burgundy red with a mixture of dark reddy purple and brown to create a sunset effect, without the beauty of a blazing sun crowned with hazy yellow light to create a dominant yet happy effect. In this case the use of this colour implements the barbaric nature of the trees as they stand in the distant foreground. As I am the closest towards them it suggests that they are trapping me in a web of deceit, the metaphor clearly enhanced through the use of the words lust, love, greed. The rule of thirds also cleverly has been placed by a singular tree inferring that the particular tree embodies it and that each tree symbolises a person. For example you will notice that the trees with love and lust are in a sweet embrace personifying or imitating the actions that Chris and Amiee are carrying out. However interestingly the use of the word greed is on my tree and is supposed to signify me. When watching the teaser trailer this selfish characterisation is not evident, merely a submissive, innocent nice character that at times stands up for what she believes in. However this could suggest that catching them cheat on me, corrupts my innocent nature turning me into a selfish, self absorbed person.This therefore reinforces the title ' Bitter Twisted Lies'

For example the use of the darker colouring was inspired by these romantic drama posters which used a combination of reds, browns and yellows in order to create a scenic background.

revised film poster and magazine ideas

As a consequence of our recent media results, we have decided to create a new film poster and magazine in order to boost our results up even more and achieve our potential since we have more time to do so now. Here are some quick ideas:
Poster- I had a look at some student posters in order to gain some new ideas that could be Incorporated in our own:


For example this poster here alongside the magazine was created by a student named Steph Whitehead and I really like the use of the closeup contrasted against the note booking format that appears that it has been sketched on and is something which is quite original and effective in the sense of evoking the genre. It also appears quite simple in the use of formatting i.e. the titled arched over the protagonist presumably April against pictures in speech bubbles that show her thought processes. Although this was a useful poster to look at in terms of originality, I feel that we need to do something more darker and morbid in order to implement our genre narrative, since looking at this it appears to be a comedy.
The next poster I looked at was Jack Kents film an action/romance genre film. Although this was a completely different genre to what we are doing I really liked the poster and felt that it would be good to incorporate elements from this despite it being a different genre. The good effect of this is that you can make a hybrid genre film conforming to the theorist Derrida's theory and it also means that it attracts a wide audience rather than a niche one.

Looking at this,I came to the conclusion that I could put the following attributes into our poster:

• The use of the black background looks very effective as it looks realistic and authentic,something which we should aim to create. For example the use of the grassy woodland acting as our background I believe did not look as good as we hoped it to be particularly with the photos which had been used with it.



i.e. A picture like this to express my upmost sorrow at the situation that I am in

• The use of pictures for the poster I think should be changed and be taken again. For example we should have a closeup shot like the one shown here,but instead I should be looking down, in a black and white format, tears streaking my weary face,with heavily accentuated makeup.This should be placed against a black background,but unlike our original poster we need to make it look as though it is not just cut out shapes but instead an authentic looking poster.
•  The use  of the tagline 'Lust, Love,Greed should be placed over the top of the photo and should be in the colour red , in capital block font in order to make it stand out against the page, but it should be smaller than the actual title. Then the title should be in another font i.e. White bigger font, but we have to make sure that will still convey the conventions of a romantic drama, just creating a quirky edge in order to connote the title of the film which suggests perhaps the inevitable revenge.



I.e this film poster has used an eye for a horror effect since it is a horror genre, however ours would be used differently to convey a completely different genre altogether.

• Perhaps even more simplistically we could have a closeup of an eye with a a collage of different pictures from the film or other pictures within it. The eye would be heavily accentuated with eye liner, eyeshadow and large lashes in order to make it stand out against the paper. An example of a film poster like this has been shown above.

Magazine- As this is what our weakest ancillary task was we should have particular emphasis on creating this to the best of our ability, for example I have again looked at a students magazine to try and generate ideas on how to create a better film magazine. Since we will probably use a black background for our film magazine, I think we should use the theme of continuity and do the same for ours.

For example the reason I have chosen this magazine, is because although it is a a different genre again, I really like the conventional layout of it and how it appears authentic like a real film magazine. The features are also simplistic but yet effective in the way that it presents itself. Therefore I have picked out the following ideas from it:

• The use of the central picture that has been made prominent in the background is very intriguing, as again it looks very real. For ours we could have a picture of Amiee and Chris perhaps underneath the title fusion which perhaps should use a red font instead of the purple which we used in order to make it similar to Empire but making sure that it is clear that it is aimed for women, since the Empire market does not cater for the female market, generally  males whom enjoy the horror/ action genre. The picture would be centred in the middle but perhaps turned away from the camera to show their isolation from the rest of society, that they need no other than themselves, their lust and love encompasses all.
• At the top of the title, it should have the title Romantic drama of the year and again using the same font to make it look authentic
• Underneath the title should be the words- woman's first film magazine
• Underneath that the title bitter twisted lies in the font that we use for the film poster in order to compliment each other
• Then to the side exclusive interview in small writing then underneath in white boxes what Ana really thinks about her co-stars, are those rumours true? etc
• underneath top 50 romantic drama

Film Poster and Film magazine feedback

In order to help us improve our film poster and magazine after Easter, I asked for feedback on both ancillary texts.
Positive:

• The use of the picture in the background with the juxtaposition between the barbaric gnarled trees behind me and the pure innocence of my character as I look away from the camera in sadness
• The use of interactive features such as interviews and competitions
• The use of Gothic imagery i.e. the trees subverts traditional magazine backgrounds

Negative :

• That the idea is too basic, that we should have created something original and different. This is something I agree with since I did think alot of complex ideas which would have been quite authentic yet unique but we had to think realistically and work with the time that we had.
• Charlotte added that it appeared as though it was created on paint, that again it was too basic, she said the picture was good but the use of the lexis where at times incorrect which of course does not make it professional at all and is as I have detailed in my previous post, something which I have picked up on.
• That it doesn't look authentic magazine, again the picture is good but we need to work on the formatting and use of imagery.

Positive:

• The use of the outer background i.e. me looking out into the distant yet dominant at the same time, as the thought the use of facial expression and positioning looked very effective.
• The positioning of Amiee and Chris's characters
• The use of the tagline as they thought this was very creative and summed up what the binary oppositions of the film were.

 Negative:

• Although the way Amiee and Chris are placed is good, they appear quite 'fake' and look as though they are just cardboard cutouts- Charlotte. I agree with this since they don't quite fit in with the picture and therefore lessens the authenticity.
• The use of the credits at the bottom should be smaller, so that it is  not the predominant focus

Problems with the film magazine

Since uploading our film magazine to Blogger I have realised that it contains a a significant number of errors, i.e. spelling mistakes and phrasing is sometimes inaccurate.However I have reached a problem, as when I try to change the text on Adobe Photoshop, it creates a duplicate layer.

Here you can see that I tried to find out whether I could replace the text with the correct spelling but unfortunately it did not work.

The following mistakes include: proposal, where the 'o' has been missed out, Lack of capitalisation for 'here', interview which has been spelt 'intreview' , look, where one of the Os's has been missed out, lack of punctuation at the end of the big chunk of writing i.e. full stop, needs the lexis 'countdown to the' where the to has been missed out, instead of the top 50 films it should be top 50 romantic dramas and the tag line underneath fusion, the first letters should all be capitalised. However at this present moment I am unable to figure out how to edit the text so I will need to ask one of the media teachers to help me.

Creating film magazine final

•  We began by importing this picture as we decided that we liked it the best since it conveyed a picture of innocence, and betrayal. The fact that unlike the poster, I am not gazing into the lens of the camera, instead I am looking away, which suggests two conflicting personalities- one wants to give up and succumb to the woes and miseries that life has presented to me and the other shows me dominant and challenging as I will not give up. This therefore suggests to the audience that perhaps this is what the film itself will showcase conforming to the conventions of both 'Utopian soloutions' indicating that the audience watch films as escapism from their own reality( despite the narrative being conventionally romantic and in some ways an accurate showcase of real life- However they enjoy watching 'other peoples reality') as well as 'The Maslows hierarchy of need' satisfying the  need of nurture and care, since through this picture a predominant female audience may feel obliged to feel maternal towards me. The use of the costume and the background/location has been kept the same in order to link with the poster itself.
• We thought that the use of a soft feminine colour would fundamentally indicate the target audience of the magazine. Because of this we chose a Pink/violet hue for the 'Fusion' title
• Underneath this we put 'Woman's first film weekly' in black straight narrow font to differentiate from the title and although it is smaller than the title we still wanted it to be one of the main focuses in order to reinforce that it is a woman's magazine. 
• Then to the left of the protagonist photo of me, I thought of- from the makers of 'The Proposal', comes the romantic drama of the year' Bitter Twisted Lies'! Here we take an exclusive look at the film itself and an interview with the lovely Ana De-Jesus herself, to see how she felt about being in her first lead role. I thought this was  a good description, using a colloquial informal tone to appeal to the audience as well as brief context on what we will talk about. It is also a key feature of  film magazines which is why I thought we should include it.

  We used a white font for the majority of the text and then for Bitter Twisted Lies we used a bold dramatic red to stand out against the rest of the text. Underneath this we had the slogan: You've voted we've counted, The countdown to the top 50 Romantic dramas begins...Picture of  Titanic promo still  to suggest to the audience that this the number one Romantic Drama film. I also chose it because it is the number one Romantic film grossing an approximate 2 billion according to' Box Office Mojo'

                                               Then we wrote- See who's number one inside...
• Put bar code at the bottom so it looks authentic  and price at top with title £2

Our final film magazine

Creating film poster final

• Our first  step was to import the pictures unto Adobe Photoshop. We began by choosing a picture of me which we felt would work best on our poster in juxtaposition to Amiee and Chris. The photo we chose was me on top of the mound looking vulnerable( as I am placed at the back of the photo, although there is a hint of a challenge within my eyes, as I gaze adamantly at the couple before me- my best friend and my husband- but the picture shows that I will never get trampled on, that although my heart has been broken, I am not just the submissive housewife, I am domineering and in control. Therefore the  dominant picture of me on mound, works effectively as it shows the juxtaposition between the two characters. It also shows what the teaser trailer hints at, mostly I am portrayed as a victim of a betrayal and of innocence, yet scenes such as the argument scene subverts against the passive norms associated with a characterisation like mine, challenging conventions showing that I am an independent woman, who has her own voice and opinions. The use of costume as detailed in the previous posts  is white skinny jeans, brown high heel boots, grey and white striped vest, black cinch belt and a demin crop jacket to give me the appearance of a fashion icon, again celebrating my independence as a free woman, suggesting that the rest of the film sees me battling with my demons aka cancer and the fight against Chris's infidelity but it also  may detail the lengths I go to to keep my strength with me through these difficult and troubling times. The use of the wild abundant hair billowing out behind me reinforces my independence and free will.
• we then imported the photo of Amiee and Chris, where Amiee is turned away from Chris, wearing hair extensions, almost as though she is looking directly at me, which suggests that she is perhaps feeling guilty for the position that she has put me in but her love for Chris is stronger than her loyalty ties to me. The costume is a black open cardigan, a simple short peach linen shift on top of black leggings. The use of dark colours implement her sins against mine and Chris's matrimony, the hurt that she caused me, who was meant to be my best friend.

In contrast Chris is wearing a green hoodie, white t-shirt  and black skinny jeans. This reflects his laid back approach to life, that although he must feel a shred of guilt, his encompassing selfishness in his characterisation allows him no consideration for other peoples feelings, especially mine his ' boring housewife' .

The use of the colour green blends into the background, making him seem part of the environment but also showing his don't care calm attitude, the white juxtaposes the black of 'sin and suggests that he presents himself to me as a faithful husband  and yet the cracks in our marriage is evident in the film i.e. the lack of positive communication- we are either not talking or we are arguing.

• we then cut around the pictures and layered them on top of the woodland background, in order for the pictures to fit together.



Twilight film poster

• Next we quickly looked at another film poster so we could look out the layout and formatting i.e. we looked at Twilight

Two Lovers and the Last Song to see how we could format the credits in order to make it look more realistic.

• Blurred it together using the blur tool, in order to make it look more authentic and as though it is a film poster
•  We experimented  with different colours  such as Black, white brown and red, before settling on a Dark red font for the title 'Bitter Twisted Lies...'
• I then asked Miss about our taglines, asking as to whether we should have the tagline ' Sometimes the person you love most, is your betrayer' then 'Love,Lust, Greed' underneath. However Miss said we should  just have the tagline- Love, Lust, Greed underneath the title as it is short, snappy and effectively conveys the overall themes and narrative of the film. I thought it would then be a good idea to have Love under Bitter to reflect how my love has turned sour, Lust under Twisted to show Chris's feelings for Amiee and the fact that it is under Twisted reflects that he is twisted because he is going  against our marriage vows, as well as Greed under Lies to show Amiee's selfish nature, the person who is meant to be my best friend- yet callously and carelessly begins an affair with my husband before sleeping with him.. We decided that since the brown did not stand out against the brown, it would better to use  a black since this stands out against the background alot more.
•  We then experimented with fonts for the title ' Bitter Twisted Lies'. First we tried the font Palace script font, which looked effective but  we wanted it bolder but wanted to keep the calligraphy format, to reflect the genre of the poster, in order to conform to the conventions of our film teaser. Therefore our magazine needs to do the same.
•  We decided on Ancestry SF, in a dark brown-red- which fitted with the background and made it seem quite rustic and earthy.
• We then moved onto the Credits  which we used in white Admuilg font, as it conformed to the conventions of authentic looking credits- Touchstone Pictures presents Charley's Johnsons ' Bitter Twisted Lies', a Film 4 Production  Ana De- Jesus , Amiee  Bretherick and Chris Styan, Music by Amir Malekzadeh, Co- Producer Ana De-Jesus, Costume Designer Louise Frogley, Production designer Nelson Coates, Produced by Charley Johnson and Ana De-Jesus. Underneath 'Coming soon Summer 2012. This formatting was based on the ' Last Song' Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. This was because I like how the credits were both placed, the use of font stylism as well as the size, which added to it looking like a real Romantic Drama poster.

Our final poster...

The two pictures which we chose.

Film poster shots: take two Period one

Since our previous film poster shots did not work when uploaded on the computers, we decided to do it again and incorporate a different idea. Charley suggested that we have me in the distant foreground isolated from Amiee and Chris, as their love for each other swamps me and I am left alone. Today we only did shots of me since Chris and Amiee did not have this lesson free. We did shots against the backdrop of the school field, the Autumn leaves on the floor, the trees bare creating quite a barbaric yet beautiful background, a juxtaposition of my two conflicting characterisations- innocence vs strong will. The use of costume was also extremely important. I was wearing white skinny jeans- representing purity and innocence as well as implementing my fashionable character, brown high heeled boots to display a sense of wild dominant power, that I may be segregated from Chris and Amiee but I am proud of who I am and I will never let anyone break me. I am also wearing a grey stripey vest top with a black cinch belt and a demin crop jacket. To display my wild dominance I have let my hair down, and the curls are gently blown behind me as the wind takes force. I also tried a range of different positioning including looking out over the hill, looking over my shoulder, looking to my right sadly, standing with my feet apart and looking directly at the camera a hint of a challenge gleaming in my eyes.

Costume White skinny jeans 
Brown buckled high heel ankle boots
 Demin crop jacket

 Grey striped top



 Cinch belt


Film poster shots

Location shots for film magazine and poster

We chose the school field for our location because it provides a typical and conventional 'Romantic Drama' setting  for the background of a film poster, yet for our magazine it subverts traditional use of black and white backgrounds and this was something inspired by Jack Kents film poster which also used a woodland background which worked effectively and it got full marks.

Another inspiration was the postmodern romantic comedy 500 days of summer which uses iconic and scenic park bench and woodland scenes which I have included below. I have also included a link to the video from which I attained it from.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvbCELnI3U

evaluation activity 4- how did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

This collage of photos here shows what technological devices we used split into the following sub sections:
Social networking/sharing sites, physical technology- hardware, software programs and information based sites.
Social networking/sharing sites
Blogger- This was used to note down all the information from lessons i.e. editing as well as enabling us to keep track of our progress and become the basis for our research and planning and other such posts. In both our portfolios we used Blogger, although I feel that I have used it more competently this year, since the posts are all relevant, concise with good use of digital technology to show the examiner specifically what I have done.
Youtube- This was used in both the research and planning stage to look into similar genred films as well a being the location in which our film was uploaded to. This allows interactivity as people can comment/dislike/ like or add response videos which allows your film to become widely advertised as such. In both my portfolios Youtube was used to upload our films. However in my advanced portfolio I used Youtube for exstensive research into similar products both student and professionally made, sound effects i.e. the clock ticking .
Facebook- This was used to upload our video in order to have a more immersive social interaction input in comparison to our foundation portfolio where it was just uploaded onto Youtube. Therefore it is useful to upload it unto Facebook because it allows more commenter's to give us feedback.
Physical technology
 HD VI video camera made by GE- this was used to film our footage and take costume/location/mise en scene shots. One of the most important features of this camera device is the HD definition aspect which allows us to have clearer shots, even when we were indoors, which meant that the action was clearer for the audience to pick up. However in some shots, there was clear pixellation on the screen, particularly in one of the bedroom scenes between Amiee and Chris, but in a way this acted to the effect of intimacy. In comparison to our foundation portfolio I found that the shots appeared less clear, despite being an advanced version of the camera we had last year.However this may be because the majority of the scenes were filmed outside which meant that the shots are usually going to be clearer.
Tripod-This was used to steady the shots creating still footage, particularly when we were creating complex shots such as pan/birds eye angle. However interestingly we did not use these experimental shots, since even with the tripod, there is was lack of control over making it steady. However our shots is in comparison to our foundation portfolio are alot steadier, indicating that the tripod is a useful media tool when filming.
Blackberry- This was used when I was practising film poster shots, trying out different effects. On the Blackberry I used a program called Photo Ultimate which allowed me to create such effects as was showcased in the Blog post that I made on it. This is in comparison to our foundation portfolio where I used basic hardware devices. The effect of the blackberry means that by taking pictures there, it is therefore more accessible where ever you are.
Software programs
Adobe Premeire Elements 7- This was used to edit our footage, making alterations such as cutting/ speeding up footage/ uploading music ect. The progression between our foundation and advanced portfolio is very evident. For example we used basic editing tools such as fade to black in order to conform to the conventions of a horror genre.This was inspired by the 'The Ring' where the used a fade out fade in sequence to transcend from a normative scene into the villain coming out of the televison. The use of this basic editing technique allows it to transcend effectively. However in our advanced portfolio we used the dip to white tool to signify a flashback, expressing a more advanced form of editing. This was inspired by 'Dear John' where Amanda Seyfried looks back on the time she spent with John and the happiness it brought her.
Adobe Photoshop- This was used for both a practise film poster creation as well as well as the official film poster. Primarily for the practise film poster it was only used for scale and magic eraser which cut away the background of the picture whereas Photoshop was used fully for  the real poster. This shows progression as this was not used in our year 12 production.
Adobe Illustrator- This was used in the secondary stage of the practising film poster process and created opportunities such layering backgrounds which I used to put flames at the back of the woman since the name was aptly called ' Sacrifice'. This was an interesting programme and something which I had not come across before.
Mindjet Manager- This was used for research and planning in order to show the development between each idea. In this instance I used it for Mise-en-Scene research looking into location costume ect and comparisons between other film characters. Again this is a new programme which I just discovered this year and was a really effective way of grouping information together.
Cubase- This music programme was used to record Amir's soundtrack composition and layer sound. This was a new programme similar to dance ejay which also has the same tools, but cubase is more professional, allowing us to make a more professional production.
Prezzi- This advanced Power Point programme is a cross between Mindjet Manager and Powerpoint with more interactive features such as embedding YouTube video. This was important for showing proficient use of IT and was again a new innovative programme that allowed me to group information but in a fun and interactive way.
Microsoft Powerpoint- this was used to briefly outline film magazine research and was something that although I had used before, I had not imported it unto Blogger, which shows variation in the use of IT
Microsoft Word- this was used to create mood boards and collages for Research and Planning. This shows advancement in correlation to the foundation portfolio because I did not create collages last year.
Microsoft excel- This was used  to derive questionnaire results asking participants a number of questions such as typical conventions. This again was not used last year and was  a good way of showing quantitative data.
Paint- This was used to put print screens and crop the pictures. This year I used Paint more to crop and alter print screens, to evidence my blogs instead of being standard text like I did last year.
Pearl and Dean- this was used to obtain audience statistics in order to apply the information to our own film.In both portfolios I used Pearl and dean.
Rotten Tomatoes- This was used to obtain film information on ratings and summary of the film. I used this in my advanced portfolio as I thought it would be good information to add to my research and planning.
IDMB- This film database gave cast information which I used to compare characters and again something which helped my research and planning stage.
Box Office Mojo- This was used to research into the top romance dramas in order to see what conventions made them so successful and was used  in both productions
Wikipedia- This was used to research into similar genre films and was used  in both productions.

This was the camera which we used.

The tripod which we used

This was the computer we used for most of our project.