Adjusting my poster

When making the poster for the first time, I accidentally set the size to A4. This meant that when I went to print it onto A3, it was stretched and became pixelated. To fix this, I made a new project and made it fit to A3. I also adjusted all the layers from my original poster to fit to an A3 background

Audience Research For First Render of Short Film - Audience Research

Audience Research For First Render of Short Film - Audience Research

We have created a first render of our short film. This is not the final product that will be submitted, however, it is very close to how the final product will look and sound. What we are going to do is show the rendered short film to 10 members of the target audience. We will show each member the short film multiple times. Then we are going to ask them a few questions:

• What did you think of the short film?
• Could you clearly understand why the protagonist wanted to kill himself?
• Do you think the protagonist ended his life?
• Was it clear the protagonist was lonely?
• Was it clear that the protagonist was content with killing himself?
• Are there any issues in the image editing that stood out to you as you watched the short film?
• Are there any issues with the sound editing that you noticed when you watched the short film?
• Were there any parts of the short film that didn't make sense or made the short film boring?

Before we showed the short film to the group of the target audience we had a group screening with all the group members. During this, we had a look at some aspects of the short film and made sure that we were happy with the final product that we had created. The main thing that we changed is we got rid of the text that said "The next day". This is because we felt that it made the short film look less professional and it is not normally seen in real short films. This meant that we had to create a black screen between scene 1 and scene 2 to make it clear that it was a different day between the two scenes.

The Video We Showed:

The Feedback:

• What did you think of the short film?

All the people that viewed the film said that they enjoyed watching it. They said that it wasn't too long which could have made it boring, however, it was not too short so that information could have been missed. Also, lots of the viewers noticed the subtle repetition within the short film which was used to emphasise certain parts of the film, for example, in the scene where the protagonist sees his friend again and then the friend disappears. 

• Could you clearly understand why the protagonist wanted to kill himself?

All of the members of the audience understood why the protagonist wanted to kill himself. However, some of the members of the audience thought that the protagonist killing himself  was very extreme. They felt that if the story was more explanatory showing that he has been lonely for a very long time then it would have made more sense for the protagonist to think about suicide. 

• Do you think the protagonist ended his life?

The short film left a cliff hanger which all of the members of the audience really liked about the short film. They liked it because it left them some uncertainty about whether he would have actually tried to commit suicide or not. This is what we wanted the audience to think. Also, we asked whether they think that he went through with the suicide or not. Some of the people said yes because they assumed that this person didn't have any friends for a long time. On the other hand, most of the people though that he didn't kill himself they just thought that he was thinking about it. As a group, we felt that the protagonist wouldn't have killed himself because it would have been a very drastic thing to do.

• Was it clear the protagonist was lonely?

All of the members of the target audience said that they could clearly see that the protagonist was lonely. Also, they said that they liked how the protagonist was doing things on his own that he used to do with his friend, however, he is doing them on his own. This adds a good element of repetition to the short film.

• Was it clear that the protagonist was content with killing himself?

Most of the audience could tell the protagonist was content with killing himself. They said that the final shot in the short film showed that he was content with killing himself. We were worried about this shot because it was very hard to convey to the audience that the protagonist was content because the protagonist was not played by an actor. However, some of the audience were a bit confused with the last shot and they said it would have been better to show that he was content in a better way. Also, they said that once we told them that the protagonist was meant to be content with killing himself then they could see it more clearly from the final shot.

• Are there any issues in the image editing that stood out to you as you watched the short film?

They said that they couldn't see any major issue with the image editing in the short film. However, one thing they did say was the during shots where there is a lot of movement the was a slight blur or ghosting around the movement. This was an issue with the camera and the export that we did notice, however, there were a lot of still shots in the short film that were in focus and not blurry so we decided to leave this issue. Also, it would be very hard to get rid of all of the blurriness that appeared in the short film.

• Are there any issues with the sound editing that you noticed when you watched the short film?

They said that there was only one noticeable issue with the audio of the short film. This was that at the end of the short film the car screeching sound only played through the left speaker of their computer. This is not a huge issue because the sound is still clear, however, this is a small detail that makes the short film seem less professional.

• Were there any parts of the short film that didn't make sense or made the short film boring?

The final question that we asked the group were any parts of the short film boring. All the people that view our short film said that none of the parts of the short film were boring. This is good because during the editing process we made sure to be thorough when choosing what should be in the short film to make sure that anything that was in the short film was relevant to developing the story or intriguing the audience.

Poster Draft Jake

For our poster, we all had to make a draft with different idea. This is so that we could get range of choice when it came to deciding which one we were going to use. For my poster, I wanted to create a dark theme to show the protagonists emotions in the short film to display narrative. To do this I used a portrait orientation to get a large image of the protagonist in the shot. I used shading to make the protagonists face darker and look more emotional.

Making Changes to My Poster-Connor Hilton

After looking over my poster with my group and teacher, I have decided to make some slight adjustments to my poster.

Original Poster Draft:

As you can see the title on this poster is quite thin and small which would make it harder to read from a distance. Also some of the letters in the title are harder to see than the others because of the scenery in the image. These are the two things that needed to be changed about my poster.

Original Poster Draft:

As you can see I have changed the size and boldness of the title to make it easier to see from far away. I have also added a white glow around the text to also make it stand out from the scenery. Lastly, I adjusted the spacing to match the thickness of the text.

Making Adjustments to my Poster - Sam Swinson

Making Adjustments to my Poster - Sam Swinson

I have made some adjustments to my short film poster. This is because it is going to be put forward as one of the final short film posters. This meant that I had to make the poster pixel perfect so that when it would be printed it would look like a real short film poster.

How I made the adjustments:

The first thing that I did was to look at the first poster draft that I created and see how it looked on the screen at different distances. Then I made some small adjustments like I changed the size of the text that showed how gave the summary review.

Then I printed the poster to see how it would look. This is because the posters are designed to be printed and sometimes when you print then you can see the finer details and the smaller things that need to be changed about the poster. After this I changed the colour of the title to white and then I made the text thicker to make it stand out more on the page. This was because it didn't stand out when looking at the print version of the poster because it was too thin and when you looked at it from a distance it was hard to see.

Original Poster Draft:

Final Draft:



Title sequence for short film

For our title sequence, we used a shot of our protagonist and friend walking towards the camera. We used this because we wanted the audience to see them together right as the short film began. This was to show their intimacy, it also has relevance as you seer the protagonist happy with his friend and later on in the short film, the audience sees him in a different way without his friend. We spaced the letters of the title apart to symbolise the loneliness of the protagonist within the short film. When filming, we framed the shot to purposely leave space for the title.

The Process of Editing our Short Film - Editing Short Film

The Process of Editing our Short Film - Editing Short Film

Image Editing:-Connor

During the image editing process there were a few shots that we had adjust such as the shots taken on location at the bridge road. For these shots we had to adjust the brightness of some of the shots because the lighting was natural and light and dark in different places. We shot in two different lighting situations which made some shots look darker than the others. So, to fix this we adjusted the brightness of the shots taken in the darker areas to match the brightness of the shots taken in the lighter areas.


There were some shots in the storyboard that ended up being changed or not used at all either due to them not working or being badly filmed. The first shot that we removed was during scene 7, it was a long shot of the protagonist lying on the bed inbetween messages, we had trouble getting this shot to work as the camera wouldn't focus on the protagonist and it was hard to film properly as we were filming in a relatively small room. The shot also seemed like it was fairly pointless and didn't have much purpose other than to create time between messages being sent and received so we didn't have a problem with removing it from the film. Also, there was another shot during scene 8 that wasn't filmed as we may have liked so we had to cut the shot early. The shot was a pan into a tilt from a low angle to a high angle of the protagonist. Most of the shot was fine, however towards the end of the shot the camera wobbled slightly which we didn't notice at the time of filming.


For the majority of the short film we mainly used fade and cross dissolve transitions. We used fade in and out transitions when there was a change of location (change in scene). We did this because it provides a clear stopping point to a scene and a clear start point to the next scene. We used a cross dissolve when time passed in the same location. Using the cross dissolve is a quick transition that is a clear indicator of time passing and doesn't confuse the audience into thinking that the location is changing.

Sound Editing: - Sam

Sound editing is a key part to editing any short film. This is because the sound is half of the information that the audience will receive. The sound editing includes adding foley's, non-diegetic background music and diegetic sound like dialogue.

Dialogue:
While we were filming we made sure to use a sound recorder when there would be any dialogue in the shot. We only had 3 shots that had dialogue in them which meant we didn't have to record a lot of dialogue. This meant that editing the dialogue together was very easy because all we had to do was line up the sound recorder sound with the moving image from the camera and because we only had to do this 3 times is was very quick. Then we had to adjust the volume of the dialogue so that it was loud enough to hear, but, not too loud that it would deafen the audience.

Foley:
We recorded a few foley sounds with the sound recorder while we were shooting. These included:

• Mouse clicking sound
• Footstep sound
• Ball hitting wall sound
• Message ping sound

Recording the sounds separately gives a lot more control over the sound when we were in the editing phase. This meant that we could increase the sound of the foley if we felt it was too quiet without increasing the volume of the on board camera. Having a recorded foley for the footsteps was very useful when it came to the sound editing of the woods scene where the protagonists friend disappears. This was because we were able to fade the footsteps sound in so that it could just about be heard. 

Non-diegetic Background Music:

The non-diegetic background music is a key part of any moving image production because it can help convey emotion and atmosphere to the audience. It can be very hard to find the correct background music that would enhance the effect that the moving image is trying to having on the audience without it being over the top. This is why we spent a lot of time picking the correct background music for certain scenes. What we found when we were looking for the music is that it is very hard to find happy background music that does't ruin the mood of the piece. For this reason in most of the happy parts of the short film we don't have any background music because we couldn't find any that would fit properly. This means that there is only background music for some of the sad parts of the short film to help the audience sympathise with the protagonist and his loneliness.

Once we had selected the background music that we were going to use we then had to put them into the short film. When doing this we were very conscious that we didn't over use the background music because it would make it seem like a music video instead of a short film. Therefore, we didn't use a lot of the background music, however, we used enough to enhance the feel of the particular scenes.

Then we adjusted the levels of the background music so that it wasn't too loud and we added fades in and out to make the music seem more seamless.

The group as we were looking for non-diegetic background music

Wipe Transition: - Connor

We originally had the idea of having a slow wipe transition during scene 1 when the two characters are walking home through the woods. The transition was going to be used on a long shot from the side of the two characters. The idea was to have a wipe transition in the direction that the two characters were walking and the edge of the frame would follow the characters and the next shot would begin behind the other.

 

As you can see from the video above, the transition ended up not really work well. The transition is distracting and confusing as you end up seeing the characters on screen twice. The transition mainly didn't work because it was distracting which is not the intended effect of a transition, a transition should be a subtle effect that has an effective impact.

Fade Away Transition: - Sam

The fade away transition is a key part of our short film. This is where the protagonist's mind plays a trick on him because he sees his dead friend. Then the audience see his dead friend disappear and then the protagonist turns round to look at his dead friend, but, he is not there.


Before we went out on the actual shoot we practised creating this shot in the corridor of the college. Then we took the footage we filmed and made one of the characters disappear. This meant that when it came to the actual shoot we knew what to do and how to film it.


How we edited it together:

1. This is the shot has only the protagonist in it and this is going to be used to make the friend disappear. We used the crop tool to crop half of this shot so that the protagonist could not be seen in the shot.
2. A cross dissolve is used to fade between the shot with the friend in and and the shot without the friend in it so that there is a fade away effect.
3. The shot below this on the timeline is the shot that has both the protagonist and the friend in it.
4. This is the result after the friend has faded away.

When filming this shot we made sure not to make the camera at all because even a slight changing in camera angle or position and then the shot would be ruined and we would have to go back and re-shoot the shot. So when filming both of the shots that were needed to create the fade away effects we made sure to only touch the start and stop recording button and then just leave the camera alone.

However, we did have an issue that we had to overcome when we were editing this shot. The issue was because the two shots were lit differently because we were using natural lighting. This meant that there was a massive line down the middle of the screen where the two differently lit shots met. To overcome this issue we used the brightness and contrast filter that is in Final Cut Pro. Then we made the shot darker so that it would match the shot underneath it to give a convincing fade away effect. We ended up having to decrease the brightness to 0.71 to make the shot look correct and to make it so that there was no line down the middle of the screen.

Here is how the scene looks now that we have finished editing it and after we created the fade away effect:

(insert video)

The group as we were editing

Jakes poster draft ACTUAL POSTER

American honey - poster research

American Honey

American honey is about a teenage girl who decides to join a magazine sales crew and starts ;partying, breaking the law, young love and travelling with a group of other youths. 

MRANG Concepts

- Audience

- Genre

- Representation

Audience

The Audience this would appeal to is most probably the young adult age group. This is because its possibly something they would want to do and therefore can relate to the characters. This could also appeal to a middle aged audience. This is because it could remind them of their youth and could be nostalgic making them want to watch it. 

Genre

The genre of this could be seen due to the clear image of what we assume is the protagonist. This could be seen as social realism as it has a real character possibly looking for a ride to hitchhike. It could also be seen as a drama as it has real characters going though unexpected experiences in America.

Representation

From the underlying theme of America with red, white and blue, we can assume it is set or the protagonist is possibly American. From the image of the protagonist, we can see that she has tattoos. This could suggest her youth or being 'different from the crowd.' From how the stars are falling onto the protagonist, it could connote that she wants the American lifestyle or thinks she will find her way there. As there is nothing around her and all we can see is the sky, it connotes freedom linking into the theme of the American lifestyle.

Structure

The orientation of this film poster is portrait. This is to the full image of the protagonist in focus for the audience to see. With this, we see the Title at the top surrounded by big stars such as Shia Labeouf. This is a common convention when films have big stars in as fans of the actor will be more likely to go watch it and, may make people regard the film as better as it has bigger stars.

Couple in a hole - poster research

Couple in a hole

Couple in a hole is a short film about a middle aged couple from Scotland who live in a man made cave in France. After their son dies, the mother becomes depressed. After a while, her condition deteriorates and the farther makes his last stand and tries to repair their life.

 MRANG Concepts

- Representation

- Genre

- Narrative 

Representation

This short film poster appears to be made from snapshots from the film. This is to give insight into what is happening and who the characters are. From this, we see that the characters appear to be poor or possibly unemployed. This is because they have little to no clothing when we see it and the pail white skin suggesting they are not healthy. From the tree, Combined with the tree, we can infer that they possibly life in forest, or they are all one large family, the tree symbolising the family tree.

Genre

The Genre of this short film is portrayed well through the poster. First, from how the characters are shown arguing and mid reaction, it gives the impression that it is social realism as their is conflict between the characters. It could be argued as a drama for the same reasons. However, it may be over exaggerated for entertainment purposes. This is also because with the dead tree and pale white skins of the characters, it could symbolise death therefore linking in to the drama genre.

Narrative

At the top of the tree in the poster, we can see the same women multiple times. This could be showing how she changes through the story. We can assume this is the protagonist as she appears multiple times bringing the attention of the audience to her wherever they look. From how the tree appears to be holding up all the characters with a larger women in the middle, it could connote that they are her memories.

Structure 

This poster is in landscape. This is so that we can get a full view of the image of the tree with the characters in it. It also leaves space for the producers to put extra information in such as reviews, billing blocks, awards and much more which is a common convention for posters.

Poster research - The Gravediggers son

The Gravediggers son

The Gravediggers son is a gothic horror by Jake Yard about a gravedigger in poverty who is struggling to make ends meet for his son. Unable to do so he resorts to grave robbing which leads to "haunting consequences." 

MRANG concepts

- Genre

- Representation
- Audience


- The title of this short film is prominent as it makes you assume the character underneath it is the gravedigger. This is useful to the audience so they have some insight to the short film.
- The director of this short film is clear at the top of this poster, this infers that he has made other short films which possibly means people may want to watch this as it was directed by him.
- In the lower part of the poster, we can see the awards that it has. This may make people more likely to watch it as it infers the short film is worth watching.

Genre



The Genre of this short film is likely thriller or horror. This is because of the image used in the poster. As it has quite a dark theme it connotes a dark theme within the short film which suggests it could be a horror. It could also be a Thriller because of the dark theme. However, it could also partially be social realism, this is because it is mainly about a farther trying to care for his son.

Representation

In this short film, the representation of the gravedigger is that he is working class. This is because of his profession, grave digging, which is unskilled labour inferring he is not paid very much. From this poster, we could also infer that the gravedigger has a dark personality. This is because he is surrounded by darkness possibly reflecting his personality.

Audience

The audience this poster would attract is an older audience. This is because is has a deep story line behind it of parent hood for the poor which older audiences who have children could relate to. However, it may appeal to young adults because it has a certain mystery behind it due to dark lighting and the use of the back ground image complementing it.

Structure

The structure of the poster is in portrait, this is so we can get a full body shot of, what we can assume,  is a character from the short film with the title, awards and billing block all clearly visible for potential audiences.  

Connor Hilton Short Film Poster Photoshop Draft

Creating My Short Film Poster Photoshop Draft for 'Alone'

I have created a draft of what the poster for our short film might look like. I created this draft of the poster using Photoshop CS6 which is a photo editing package created by Adobe and is used often by artists. This kind of software is often used to create posters for short films and feature length films because of the wide variety of effects and tools that are available to the user. Before creating the draft the group went out to take some high quality images so that they would look good when blown up to poster size.

Step By Step Process:

Step 1:

The first thing that I did after taking the images for the poster was set up the photoshop document. I first selected the international paper size and selected the A3 size. I also changed the resolution to 600 to make sure that it wont look blurry when you print out the poster. Lastly, I switched the width and height to change the orientation of the page to landscape.

Step 2:

Then I added my desired background image to the document. I had to choose which image I wanted to use carefully as this would be the focus of the poster. Once the image was placed in the document I adjusted the size so that it would fit the dimensions of a film poster better. I also adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image slightly to make the image look slightly better.

Step 3:

Next I added the title to the image. I used the font Agency FB for this title. I then adjusted the spacing of the letters so that they were slightly further apart and this added emphasis to the text. It also made the text fill the space so the top of the poster didn't seem empty. I also added a very slight drop shadow to the text which gives the text a small shadow and adds emphasis to the text.

Step 4:

The next thing I added to my poster was the quotes from reviews underneath the title. I did some research previously to see what types of things could be said here and which companies might review a film like ours. I decided to add "Outstanding"-Little White Lies and "Mesmerizing"-Short of the Week. 

Step 5:

After this I created the awards for the poster. I searched online for the leaves that conventionally surround the award text and then I did some research into film festivals and the awards they give. After this I added the awards to the poster with the awards being for "Best Short Film Slough International Film Festival 2016" and Best Narrative Cambridge Short Film Festival 2016".

Step 6:

The last step is to add the billing block. For this I used a font called 'Credits' and typed the billing block out. After I had typed it I made some words such as the actor names and the production company names larger than the other text as this is conventional on a film poster. Doing this also adds emphasis to certain main parts of the billing block. 

Short Film Poster - Final Photoshop Draft - Sam Swinson

Short Film Poster - Final Photoshop Draft - Sam Swinson

Here is the final Photoshop draft of the short film poster for the short film that I have created.

The Poster:

The Process of Making My Short Film Poster Draft - Photoshop Draft of Short Film Poster - Sam Swinson

The Process of Making My Short Film Poster Draft - Photoshop Draft of Short Film Poster - Sam Swinson

I have created a draft of what the poster for our short film could look like. I created this draft in Photoshop which is an Adobe photo editing package used by lots of professional artists. This piece of software is often used to create real film posters because of all the tools that it offers to the user. To create the Photoshop draft we went out to take some pictures that were very high resolution so that they could be printed out and not look blurry. Then I added the conventions of a short film poster to the picture and saved the whole poster as a high-quality A3 picture document.

Step By Step:

There were lots of steps involved with creating the final Photoshop Draft for the short film poster which are as follows:
Step 1:
The first thing I did was to create a new Photoshop document which would be the starting point for the short film poster. This is where all the different elements of the short film poster will be assembled together. The size of the document is an A3 piece of paper. However, the way photoshop originally set up the document was in portrait and I wanted my poster in landscape. Therefore, I switched the height and the width of the document to make it landscape. Also, I upped the resolution of the document from 200 to 600 because if these pictures are printed then the higher the resolution is then the less chance there is of the poster looking blurry when it is printed.

Step 2:
Once the document has been created I placed a background image in the document. This would be the focus of the poster which meant I had to choose my image very carefully. Once the image was in the document I adjusted the size of the images so that I looked better and it would fit in with the elements of a short film poster better.

Step 3:
Then I added some effects to the background image. Firstly I used a paint brush that was very soft and paint black over the protagonist on a new layer. Then on another new layer, I painted white with a soft brush over the protagonist's friend. Then I lowered the opacity on both of these layers so that they were almost transparent. This gives a subtle effect making the protagonist seem darker and the protagonist's friend seem lighter whilst keeping the background as it was. Then I added a small vignette border to the background image which darkens the corners of the background imaged and it makes the center of the image seem lighter.

Step 4:
Then I added the title of the short film to the poster. The title of the short film is 'Alone'. We have to use the same font for the title on the film poster as we used in the short film itself which meant I used a font called 'Bebas Neue'. This title and the font were appropriate for our short film for reasons that I explained in an earlier post. Once the title was placed on the image I kept zooming in and out to see what the poster would look like small and what it would look like big. After doing this I realised I would have to add an effect to the title to make it stand out more from the background. I tried 2 different ways of doing this and I ended up going with the second version of it because I felt it looked better. When placing the title on the screen I used guides to find the centre of the document and then made sure that the middle of the O was in the middle of the screen.

Title Effect Version 1

Title Effect Version 2

Step 5:
The next thing that I did was to add some review summaries and some star ratings for the short film. For the star ratings, I found some pictures of stars on the internet and then imported them into my document and aligned them with some summary reviews. The summary reviews are the single words of phrases that are used to entice the audience into watching the short film. I used some guides to help line up the reviews part of the poster and make sure that it is pixel perfect. I used guides at the edge of the title which lined up with the edge of the summary reviews. Also, I lined the star ratings up in the middle of the summary reviews.

Step 6:
Then I created some awards that would be displayed on the short film poster. To do this I looked at some real short film awards from places like the London Film Festival and then I created my own. I obtained a picture of some Laurel Leaves which are the bits that go around the awards. Then I added text in between the leaves saying 'Best Short Film' and 'Best Narrative'. Then I placed these awards below the title and this added some symmetry to the poster.

Step 7:
After this, I created and added a billing block or a credit block to the bottom of my poster. This was very simple to do because there is a credit block font that allows you to create the billing block easily. All I had to do was adjust the size of certain parts of the font. For example, the names of people involved were big 'Sam Swinson' and the additional parts were small 'Edited By'. Then I placed the billing block at the bottom of the poster, but, I was not right at the bottom because I left space for company logos.

Step 8:
Next, I added some logos from companies underneath the billing block right at the bottom of the poster. I added the London Film Festival logo and the Lottery Logo. Also, I added the White Woolf Productions Logo to the side of the poster in the corner because that is the production company that makes this short film.

Different Parts of the Poster:

Here are the main parts of the poster that I have created:

• Awards & Reviews

• Billing Block

• Title

• White Wolf Productions Logo

Decisions:

Through the process of created my Photoshop draft of my short film poster I had to make some decisions about the look of the poster and the information on the poster.

• Firstly, I had to decide what image I was going to use for the background image of the poster. I narrowed this selection down to 3 pictures. The reason I decided to choose the image that I did was because it looked very visually appealing and it gets the audience thinking when they look at it.

• Another decision I had to make was the font style of the title. I had two different versions of the title and both looked good on the poster. However, I decided to go with the second of the two font styles because it looked better from a distance and stood out more from the background.

Changes to the Poster:

After reviewing my short film poster, I have had to change on an aspect of the short film poster. The change I made can be seen below:

What I have done is remove the star rating from the short film poster because often the companies that review the short film they won't give a star rating to the film. Additionally, I have added a line of text under the summary review which states the name of the company that gave the review. This is done in the same font as the summary review, however, it is a smaller text size than the other word because it is less important. This gave me more room to increase the size of the summary review text because the star ratings previously took up a lot of space. On the other hand, I didn't make the text too big because when it is printed out on A3 I want to make sure that the summary review doesn't take away from the title of the short film. Furthermore, I have changed the colour of the 'Best Narrative' awards that is in between the two summary reviews. I did this because having the two awards in different colours made the poster look disjointed so now having them both white with a black outline makes them stand out from the background and it doesn't make the poster seem disjointed.

Notes on Blindness - Short Film Poster Research - Sam Swinson

Notes on Blindness - Short Film Poster Research - Sam Swinson

This film follows an old man just days before the birth of his first son. In order to make sense of the upheaval in his life and he begins keeping a diary on audiocassette. This film encompasses dreams, memory and imaginative life, excavating the interior world of blindness.

MRANG Concepts:

Here are the three MRANG concepts that I am going to apply to this short film poster:

• Narrative
• Representation
• Media Language

1. At the top of the poster there some awards that this film has won. This is good because it shows the audience the quality of the film because they are very well known film festivals which are recognised to give awards to very good quality films. Some of the awards it has won are Sundance, Sheffield Dog/Fest and San Francisco film festival.
2. Also, there are star reviews which are a visual representation of how good this film is. This gives the audience a quick idea of the film and because they are 4 and 5 stars it may entice the audience into watching the film.
3. Additionally, there are some summary reviews which are just a few words that describe the film. These are also, used to show the audience how good the film is and entice them to watch it. 
4. The title appears on the film poster and it is the largest text on the poster. However, it uses the same font as the rest of the text which is good because it is easy to read and it makes it fit in well with the poster. On top of this, the text colour is a dark blue which matches the colour of the protagonist and it also, stands out very well from the light background which means you can read it clearly from a distance and it stand out when looking at the poster.
5. Just below the billing block are some references to websites for the film. This includes a dedicated website for the film, a Facebook page, a Twitter page and a hashtag to use which means that people can find out what other people are saying about the film.
6. Also, there are some logos of companies which are involved in the production of the film. If the audience see a logo that they recognise and they know that company has made good films in the past then they are more likely to watch the film.
7. In the man there are other pictures that are overlayed over the man. This represents the memories that the protagonist is thinking about after he goes blind.
8. Also, the close-up on the man shows that he is wearing glasses which are commonly worn by blind people or it could represent that he has always had eye troubles before he went blind. 
9. This is the protagonist of the film because he takes up a lot of the poster to bring attention to him.
10. The background of the film poster is a white colour. This created a massive contrast between the protagonist and the background to make him stand out more. This could also, represent that the protagonist can see anything anymore apart from the memories that he has stored in his head before he went blind.

Layout:

• Along the left side of the poster, there is all the text information that follows the same line and it all uses the same font. This information included is:
• Awards
• Star rating
• Summary review
• Title
• Director
• Billing block
• Websites
• Company logos
• Then on the right side, there is the protagonist with some pictures that appear to be memories overlayed on his head.

Title:

• The title of the film accurately represents that film itself because it is called 'notes on blindness' and it is about blindness from the perspective of a blind person.
• Also, it is the biggest text on the poster which is done to draw more attention to the title of the film.
• In addition, the title is in the same font as the rest of the text on the poster which keeps it consistent and it is an easy to read font. 

Review and awards:

• This film poster has lots of reviews and awards on it.
• The awards it has won are:
• The Sundance Film Festival 2016
• Sheffield DOC/FEST Storytelling & Innovation Award 2016
• The San Francisco Film Festival 2016
• It has 2 four star ratings and 1 five star rating.
• Also, there are some summary reviews about the film:
• "a sensitive, moving and poetic recreation of one man's experience of looking sight"
• "miraculous... a beautiful, accessible and thoughtful work of art"
• "audaciously ambitious, formally inventive revelatory cinema"
• "profound and deeply affecting"

Spacing:

• This film poster has a lot of information on it, however, it doesn't look too overcrowded which is good because it means that the audience isn't hit with a lot of information at once.
• All the text is spaced out well to take advantage of the space to the left of the protagonist and it is easy to read because the text isn't crammed together.
• Also, all the text is on one vertical line which makes the poster look very professional. 

Audience:

• The audience for this film is more focused to adults who are either male or female. 
• Also, it is for people who like drama films because the poster shows that it is a drama film due to the memory that the protagonist has when he is holding a woman when it is raining.

Website:

• This film has a dedicated website which is referenced on the poster.
• The website is notesonblindnessfilm.com and it shows the film poster and it shows different ways that you can buy the film.
• Also, this film makes use of social media:
• Has a Facebook page
• Has a Twitter page
• Has a hashtag that you can use to talk about the film

Billing Block:

• The billing block is at the bottom of the left side of the poster.
• It includes the following information:
• Production companies
• Producer
• Director
• Title
• Composer
• Costume Designer
• Writer

Poster Research - This Is England - Connor Hilton

Poster Research - This Is England - Connor Hilton

Film Synopsis:

Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), who lost his father in the Falklands War, earns the respect of skinheads when he stand up to their teasing. He becomes part of the gang and enjoys hanging out with his new friends. Trouble starts with the return of Combo (Stephen Graham), a racist ex-convict. With the gang divided into two factions, Shaun sides with Combo and, unfortunately, finds in him a father figure.

MRANG Concepts:

• Representation
• Genre
• Media Language

1. The film has won awards such as "best film" and "most promising newcomer" which tells the audience that the film is likely to be worth watching. The audience may see the logo for the awards and instantly value the film more because it has won awards. 
2. The poster features some quotes from reviews and shows the star rating that the film was given. This has a similar effect to the awards as it tells the audience that the film is good and worth watching. 
3. The title is separated into three colours, red, white and blue which are the colours of the Union Jack flag. This is effective because it links with the title and shows that the film is based in England and further shows the message that the film is about a group of British people in England
4. The characters are shown in a line up against a sheet metal wall. The characters costume is used to represent the working class of England. The hair and make-up is also used to represent the working class as the male characters all have shaved heads and the female characters are all wearing make-up that makes their skin look very white with very dark eye makeup. The characters are all standing in intimidating poses which connotates the genre of crime to the audience.    
5. At the very bottom of the poster, in very small text, the website for the film is listed (www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk). This is another good way of promoting the film as the poster might get people interested and then they can go to the website to see all the information about the film. Having a website also allows for the link to be shared easily on social media to reach a wider audience. 
6. Lastly, in each corner at the top of the poster we can see the flats that are common in England. The flats are mainly used by working class to middle class people which is again representing the group of working class people.

Structure:

The poster is in the landscape orientation. This allows for the wide image of all the characters in a line up against a wall to be used. It also gives more space for any titles or text on the poster. The poster has a lot of extra information listed at the bottom of the poster which is a convention that many posters use.