Final Post

We have all learnt a lot from this project, and now we have all completely finished our blog posts, this will be the final blog post. We had one or two injuries on the job, during filming one of the props (the knife) actually cut into Alex Cox's hand, and also during one of the fight scenes my left shoulder was bruised quite badly, apart from these two minor injuries the filming went very smoothly along with the whole project.

Overall Evaluation

I personally believe that Matthew Harrop, Alex Cox and I came out of this project having a very good idea of media campaigns and how if we may make a film how we would advertise that fact. There are many thing we learnt during this project and there are also many aspects of the filming and editing etc that we now know that we could have done better in, for example some of the shot transistions were flawed and now if w went back and restarted editing im sure we would do a better job. As a group we did start filming quite late because the pre-planning was a very important stage for us, so when we actually came to filming the trailer we were very organised and did it all very quickly. I personally believe we could have done a better job on parts of the editing but hopefully we have done a good enough job for us to get a good set of marks.

USP

Our unique selling point is the fact that we are not trying to glorify gang violence, quite the opposite. We are merely showing an insight into someone that has been born into that kind of violence and has either got to follow that path or break free, which in modern day society is very difficult to do without something happening to you. All other violent film trailers that I have analysed have glorified violence in a way, and that does hit a wide target audience but many people think about how fake it is and how it would never happen, even though we here stories about things happening like that in every day life. The target audience that we have gone for are those who like violence along with those who may still like it but think that many films like this are too fake for them too watch.

Front Cover Evaluation

We decided to make the front cover packed with all types of different information that the target audience would like to read about, we also chose to have a picture with all three actors (Rafid, Alex Cox and I) with the cameraman Matthew Harrop. The picture was taken with graphitee behind us because we wanted to look like we were in quite an urban place, like most of our film. We have also tried to make it look like exclusive interviews with each of the actors in the top right. We also thought we would mention injuries throughout the film because we did actually have several, so a little bit of the truth was told in the magazine front cover. After analysing all these different front covers we decided it would be best if we packed it with as much information as we could with it still looking proffesional because we didnt think that we would get the same proffessional feel if we went for the minimalist approach.

Teaser Front Cover

Front Cover Analysis - 6

There are several good points to this magazine front cover, firstly the 'EMPIRE' title is in flames, the target audience will think that this looks quite cool and thus find it more appealing. The colours of this magazine front cover also go together very well. Obviously 'Hell Boy' is the main of this particular magazine front cover, but these 'Hellboy' films are very well known so when they come up on the front cover they already have a wide target audience.

Front Cover Analysis - 5

This front cover is also quite effective, the bright glow coming from the picture does attract your attention straight to the middle of the front cover. The exclusives are all very clear which is good because the target audiences see them and automatically get interested. The fact that 'EMPIRE' has an electric font maybe trying to say that the magazine is going to be full of action - a very energetic issue. The background and the main picture are completely different colours which actually works for this because it makes the 'Iron man' stand out more than he would otherwise.

Front Cover Analysis - 4

This magazine front cover is very unique. After looking up a lot of magazine front covers this one really stood out, and if I saw it in a shop I would buy it just because the picture has been edited to perfection, the magazine editors have made it look like the whole magazine is getting ripped in half, obviously this is promoting 'The Hulk' because it truly extentuates his power. Also the way the 'P' in 'EMPIRE' has been edited makes it look likes its been broken in half, the way this has been edited is very impressive and if I saw this in a shop there is a good chance I would buy it.

Front Cover Analysis - 3

I do not think this is a very effective use of magazine front cover, the quote 'BEHIND THE MASK...' is on the wrong kind of background because it becomes very difficult to read when the background gets a bit lighter. They might not have spent as much time on this magazine because it's a collectors issue and so it already has the aquired target audience, it doesn't have any prizes which EMPIRE magazines normally have because they normally aim those prizes at target audiences. Obviously this is a slightly different issue to otheres because it is limited edition and a collectors issue, so it won't have the same connotations as other normal magazines.

Front Cover Analysis - 2

This front cover is completely different to most other empire front covers, it again has quite a minimalist effect on it, the background being completely white and Megan Fox's picture taking up almost the whole cover and the title 'EMPIRE' going behind her head. This effect will have been used because Megan Fox is very famous and a lot of people will buy that issue just to try and win a lunch with Megan Fox. The barcode is put half way down the magazine on the right side, compared to most other magazines where the barcode is normally in the bottom right or left of the magazine. In this case I think EMPIRE wanted to get the full extent of the shadow coming of the picture of Megan Fox so they couldn't put it in the bottom right corner.

Front Cover Analysis - 1

We want something like this for our front cover, we want certain parts to stand out more than others, for example the way they underline the word 'COOLEST' shows that the magazine producers want to make that stand out more than anything else, perhaps because Star Trek has got a reputation of not being one of the coolest thing to watch, so they may be trying to break into a new market. They have names of films at the top which might be them talking about whats going to be talked about in this issue of the magazine front cover. The actual picture is in black and white and the title goes over his head, maybe showing that he is not necessarily the most important actor in this issue of the magazine.

Teaser Poster Evaluation

Most posters are just meant to give a clearer outline of the film, this is exactly what ours did. We went for a simplistic approach for the teaser poster we had our main image which we edited in photoshop, then we had the name of our production in bold across the front of the poster, and underneath the title of the film we put the catchphrase "Britain's most dangerous postcode" to show the target audience that the film is about postcode wars.

Teaser Poster

Green Street Poster

This poster is very similar to ours, although instead of glorifying one character it glorifies two. We also plan on having graphitee in the background, just to show you the area is more urban. The difference is the graphitee that is in our poster isn't our slogan, we did look for a font to make it look like graphitee but we could not find anything so instead we just made WEST 10 stand out as well as possible so we put in a similar font to what "Green street holligans" is in. We have not thought about putting actors names underneath the main characters pictures but that is a good idea, bringing a wider audience to the film. The setting of this poster is very dark and dingy, this shows that they have something to hide or they live for the night.

Twilight Film Poster

I have chosen to analyse this film poster because at the moment everyone is going on about twilight and saying how good it is, this means they must have launched a successful media campaign when it first came out, this poster being a part of that campaign. Obviously the two characters in the poster are glorified, also there is a slogan in the top left hand corner and finally all the details about when it starts at the bottom, the date it enters theatres in bold white font. This is a very minimalist approach to a poster, but it does have all the details the the audience need to know already on it.

The Matrix Poster

The reason I chose this film poster inparticular is because I noticed that it glorifies Neo (the main character of the Matrix). This is almost exactly what we are doing for our film poster apart from there will only be three of us in the picture because we only had three main actors. Alex Cox being the main character overall will be at the front with me and Rafid looking away from the camera in two different directions. I believe this will get the desired effect which is what we want to be simlar to this. Also where it says 'The Matrix' across Neo's legs we are coming to have a catchphrase or a slogan that we also say in the film, this is probably going to be "Welcome To The Neighbourhood" and also a little higher will be the title of the film. In this particular poster Neo actually has light surrounding him, this suggests that he will be known as the protector during the film, which is quite accurate.

Poster Colours

In our poster we have quite a light background with Alex, Rafid and I all in the picture, we want to have text across our bodies in big bold letters that stand out infront of the background, we looked into it and tried and tested about 20 different colours that would stand out the most in the end coming down to a dark red. The text we are going to have is going to be "WEST 10" and then just below that "WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD" we did want this to be written in a graphitee font but you have to pay to download those fonts off the internet even though we did try.

Hot Fuzz Poster

I do not think this is the best film poster because you can't really tell by the poster that Hot Fuzz is actually a comedy. Obviously you can see Nick Frost is copying exactly what Simon Pegg is doing, but that could just mean they are a very tight team and they have begun to do the same things because they spend so much time together. If I saw this film poster without having seen the actual film I genuinely would have believed that this was an action film and not a comedy. Also inside the O of Hot Fuzz they have put a police badge, we tried to emulate something like that in our film poster but it didnt look as proffesional as this.

The Dark Knight Poster

This is one of the best film posters I have seen before. It has a clear slogan "Why so serious?" that can either confuse or intimidate the audience depending or not they have seen the previous Batman films. It also has the jokers face bit imprinted into that is the batman symbol, so it brings two different emotions fear, and safety through one image. This poster is for a film that is obviously going to do well and is something many people are going to talk about, it has had such successful media campaigns in the past that they barely have to say anything in the poster and everyone knows its a Batman film poster.

Teaser Trailer Questionnaire

Our questionnaire consisted of four questions which were to be answered in some detail. Here are the four questions:
What were the films strengths?
What were the weaknesses of the film?
How does the trailer challenge convetional views and beliefs?
What could have been done better?

After collaborating the results we got the following points:
Question 1) The camera angles used were varied and often very professional looking. The soundtrack fits perfectly with the on-screen action.There is a varied length of shot time adding to the montage effect.
Question 2) Some of the voiceovers don't sound entirely in character and dont fit with what is going on on screen.The film appears to follow a narrative and then suddenly doesn't have any continuity at all.
Question 3) The film offers a insight into some racially directed sterotypes of the youth culture. It follows many older generations thoughts on the younger generations today. Has many key features that would challenge the idea of youth crime and violence.
Question 4) Some of the editing could have been improved to create a more flowing production. There were too many shots of people walking around and not enough of the action in the film. Produce an even wider range of camera shots and angles.