Re-make of Magazine Cover

I have decided to change the presentation of my magazine cover because I felt that feedback wasn't looking very positive and not many people liked my idea of having the magazine in a landscape, scrap book kind of structure so I deciced to change it to an original, standard portrait layout. This meant also adding and changing text and images. In the end, I preferred this version of my magazine cover anyway and am pleased I chose to do this.

Photo Edit

Prometheus: Marketing

This website shows how marketing gimmicks can make the audience predict the entire storyline and therefore, ruining the film's chance of success. As it is the first science fiction movie to return after more than three decades, Ridley Scott has gone over the top with marketing. Earlier this year, Twentieth Century Fox began screening short teaser promos for the film's debut trailer, and there have also been extensive viral videos and screenshots too.

From this new real media information (posted 30/04/12), I am aware that I shouldn't market my trailer too much as I may give away too much footage and the audience may start predicting the storyline. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to provide screenshots of the movie as people can start bringing them altogether and predicting the storyline. If I were to release screenshots, it would only be a couple from maybe the less important scenes but enough to draw the audience in.

Evaluation Blog

You will find my evaluation blog on this website.

Final Ancillary Tasks

Final Trailer

My final trailer is 1 minute and 10 seconds long. I am happy with this length of time, and I have included all of the content that I wish to. You can tell from my previous trailer draft that I have improved it using advise from Myra Lee. I have done this by removing the dialogue, decreasing the captions, adjusting the structure, quickening the shots and removing the 'crying' shot.

Image Symbolism

I was studying the semiotics in this image and noticed a big representation issue, which also links to the movie, Dinosaur, poster. This is because both have use of a tree silhouette around the male character which suggests he is the more dangerous or mysterious character. The female character has the sun and lots of brightness on her side of the image which symbolises that she is the innocent, happy character.

I feel that the image is non-conventional because the couple's costumes aren't stereotypical - they were themselves to make it more realistic. This makes my movie more of an independent, low key movie rather than a high budget Hollywood movie.

QR Code

This is an example of a postmodern semiotic advertisement, which I found on this website. A QR code is a form of barcode that can hold much more data than the traditional version, including links to videos and websites. QR codes have been around since the 1990s but have become increasingly popular in the UK in the last year or two because smart phones, such as the iPhone, are able to read them. 

The QR code shown above is strongly suggestive of the character's imprisonment. Her eyes gaze out from behind the code as if from behind the bard of a jail cell, while the framing of the image, the thick white margins either side of it and the way the name of the film and its starts are squared off so neatly all seem to contribute to boxing her in. She seems trapped behind the poster, rather than a part of it. This also links to the female gaze theory, which I learnt about in my foundation production. I think this QR code in particular links to this theory because the female character is looking pretty and innocent, like a stereotypical female would. 

I am not going to add a QR code into my work because I feel that technology has improved since they came out in the 1990s, and that is quite old in the media world. Although people with iPhones are able to adapt to them, my target audience may not necessarily own an iPhone and therefore it would be pointless adding a QR code for the sake of trying to be up to date with technology. 

Workshop With Media Professionals

Media professionals, Myra Lee and Phil Chamberlain came into Marlwood to give feedback and advise for our advanced production coursework. Myra is a journalist, lecturer and media trainer who gave advise on our film work. Phil is a freelance reporter and communications consultant who has written news and features for newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Mail. Phil gave advise on our print work.

Here is the feedback from Myra after watching my trailer draft:

- She didn't like the dialogue because it wasn't clear and crisp enough. This I agreed with and planned on taking out the dialogue anyway.
- She thought the titles were too descriptive. She thought the titles were too obvious and cliche so could be changed to something that is going to draw the audience in. Such as "can they live without each other?", because then the ending isn't revealed and it leaves the audience wondering if they get back together or not.
- One of the shots was of the female actress wiping a tear from her face. Myra thought this looked too artificial so suggested removing this clip from the trailer.
- She thought the trailer gave the story away and needs a structure that won't do this. So at the beginning of the trailer will be a shot of the two characters meeting and being in love, then having an argument and then shots of them missing each other.


The feedback that Phil gave me on my poster is that I should enlarge the top imags so that they overlap over the page. I should also make the font larger and edit the main image to remove the tree at the top (seen below). For my magazine cover, I need to include a price and remove on font, sticking to only a couple on there. Phil also suggested I put a price on the magazine cover so I decided on £4 because media magazines are generally around this price.
Here is the before and after image to show how I have edited my main image on my movie poster after receiving feedback from Phil:

Before

After

As you can see I have removed a piece of the tree from the top frame because it looked random and in the way. It was an object that wasn't needed in the image. I had tried taking it out originally but I found it hard to look realistic, however when Phil gave me his feedback I tried again and successfully removed that part of the image.

Draft Ancillary Tasks

These are my first drafts of my poster and magazine cover before I receive feedback and advise to improve them. 

Poster

Magazine Cover

Trailer Draft 2

This trailer draft is 1 minute and 16 seconds long. I would still like to make my final trailer a little shorter. Upgrades and advise for this second draft will be found in the "Workshop With Media Professionals" post, 2 above. I like my final shot of the "coming soon", twitter username, website and production company. I like the variation in fonts to make each one stand out differently. And I have decided to add a twitter name as all media programmes, films etc. are advertising their own twitter users now, so this keeps my trailer up to date with today's media.

Background Music

Here are two music choices that I have to choose for the background in my teaser trailer. Here are the links to listen to the soundtracks through Sound Cloud.

I have chosen The Man Who Can't Be Moved because there is more variation in sounds, instruments, rhythm etc. and seemed to work better with my filming.

Paramore - The Only Exception (Acoustic Instrumental)

The Man Who Can't Be Moved (Instrumental)

Semiotic Analysis & Postmodernism In Relation To My Work

The Ugly Truth

The Ugly Truth is a romantic comedy movie, released in 2009. This is the poster of the movie which is full of semiotics. First of all, instead of a photo shoot with the main actors, they have taken a silhouette images of a female and male (mostly used on public toilet doors), placed a barrier between them and added a red heart image where they believe it belongs. The semiotic connotations of the hearts suggest that females are brainy and more sensible with how they love people, whereas males think more about the sexual side to relationships. This links to the gender theory. 

In terms of my own production work, I'm not using any symbols or signs therefore, semiotics doesn't relate to my work. However, I believe that my trailer is POSTMODERN. The genre of my trailer is romance, and the whole idea was to make it a complete cliche and pastiche of romantic movies. I have used a typical couple and made them be typically in love. This could also be seen as a hyperreality of what love is really like. The love in my trailer is hyped up. Therefore, my text is postmodern because it is a pastiche and uses hyperreality. 

Magazine Cover Drafts With Actual Images & Poster Drafts

Posters:

My audience feedback included the thought that the poster without the black borders looked more professional. With the black borders, it doesn't look like it has been something done on Pages.

Photo Shoot Edits

For the following images I have adjusted the lighting levels which adjusts the brightness and contrast.



This is one of my favourite images because the couple look happy - they are looking at each in the eye and smiling which is the atmosphere that I wanted to achieve in my images.





This is a close up of the couple's faces. To improve, I would have liked the actors to be looking more happy as they look a bit like they're just looking into space. I didn't get many close up images and this was the best one I managed to capture.







I like the location in this image - the couple look like they are in a romantic place and are enjoying watching the sunset. They are cuddled up and are looking comfortable.

I like the fact that you can see some bridge and sand in the background to show they are at a romantic location which helps set the scene.

This is my best portrait image. I wish the actors were looking happier, as they look quite sad. The lighting also isn't great but this was because I was using the video camera to take this image, rather than a normal camera so I wasn't able to adjust any settings.

The next edits are a bit more interesting as I have added layers, borders and lighting affects.

This affect was to add more light in certain areas of the image but I don't like the result as it clearly looks constructed. I thought I would upload it anyway to show development.

Here, I have added lighting in the top left corner with bursts of sunrays shining down which help create a happy and sunny atmosphere. On the day of shooting, it was quite a dreary day so it is nice to be able to use this editing technique in order to make the day look sunnier.

Here I have used a oval fade border but I think it crops out too much of the actors' faces.

Here I have layered two different images, just to see the affect it gives but I don't actually think it works with these two particular images. The top layer has a lower opacity in order to bring the bottom layer through.

Trailer Draft 1 (Without Music) & Test Screening

The planning of my characters didn't work out the way I had planned. I was hoping to have a girly girl and a cute looking male, but instead I have a rocky looking girl and a thuggish looking guy. However, I think that their looks do work together for the movie. This happened because the actors I had in mind were no longer available on the days of filming. Nevertheless, I pulled out some other actors and the footage I achieved works well. This is my first draft of my trailer without background music which I am still deciding on.

I am aware that the dialogue from the characters' is very bad quality and you can hear the wind in the background, so if I decide to keep this in my trailer I shall use a voiceover and just mute the clip. However, this will be hard to keep the wording in sync with the actor so I may just stick to either text on the screen or a narrator voiceover.

Test Screening


I showed my first draft of my trailer to my target audience and they felt that the cuts were too long. They feel like the shots should be shorter and snappier, especially at the end of the trailer when it rounds up the footage.

They were happy with the lighting and shots. The inspiration for these is through the questionnaire that I had my focus group fill out, near the beginning of the project. From the questionnaire I knew that the audience would prefer warm and soft lighting, close up shots, a slow pace and simplistic editing techniques in the trailer. Therefore, I have used all of these affects in my project to attract my target audience.

Originally I had planned to use a pretty, innocent, feminine looking girl with a cute looking male. However, this didn't go to plan because the actors weren't available. Therefore, I have used a female (still wears feminine clothes) who is in the middle of her performing arts degree at The University of England, whilst the male is an aspiring actor who has appeared in various MTV music videos. Both of the actors had a rocky look to them so I thought their image looked good together and felt that it would work for the project.

Magazine Cover Drafts

Using a default image on Pages, I have created a few magazine cover drafts using my chosen masthead name and logo. I have done this to get an idea of the final outcome to see if I like the sketch plan designs that I created earlier on in my project.

Chosen Magazine Logo

I have come to the decision of my magazine cover title logo:

I have chosen this logo because I think the design itself links to media as it is postmodern due to the design. So this is the final decision of my magazine title.

Sketch Plans: Magazine Cover & Poster

I have produced 6 sketch plans - 3 for magazine covers and 3 for posters. As I haven't came to a final decision of my magazine name, I have just used "C'est la vie" for all of the sketch plans but I won't actually be using this name.

MAGAZINE COVER SKETCH PLANS

Mag Cover 1: This magazine cover design sketch is inspired by Aesthetica whilst the image drawn is inspired by the Twilight poster. I have kept it minimalistic and simple in order to keep that feel that Aesthetica creates. This design has a bordered image in the middle of the page with the masthead logo simply at the top of the cover. There will be no text, only the barcode at the bottom and the price which I haven't included in the sketch plan. This image may be quite hard to shoot because it involves a lot of acting and emotion in the facial expressions because it is a closeup shot of the characters.

Mag Cover 2: This magazine cover design sketch is inspired by Sight & Sound whilst the image drawn is inspired by the Like Crazy poster. This magazine cover will have a much more busy composition with text, a full image on the whole of the page, a bordered masthead and heading for the "New Upcoming Movie". The image will have a romantic setting with the couple holding hands, walking towards a gorgeous landscape to fit in with the romantic theme. The text font will vary to add affect and emphasis on certain lexis. In the sketch, the main large text in the middle of the page looks like this:

"A FILM THAT WILL MAKE YOU Laugh & Cry,"


The words emphasised will attract the target audience as they will know whether they want a sad, yet happy romantic film to watch.

Mag Cover 3: This magazine cover design sketch is inspired by Screen International whilst the image drawn is inspired by The Notebook poster. This magazine cover's main attraction is going to be the bold text in the middle of the magazine cover. Again, I have used the "laugh and cry" phrase to attract the correct target audience. Similar to the magazine cover sketch plan 1, the image may be hard to capture due to the emotional facial expressions and setting. The text and captions is to the point with not much text. I have chosen to write "see TEASER TRAILER inside!" to promote the movie more using convergence of a magazine and movie trailer.

POSTER SKETCH PLANS

Poster 1: The main inspiration from the poster sketch plan is from Listen To Your Heart. The grid layout design plays a big part on this poster because there is 5 boxes that will contain an image and 2 other boxes that will contain text. This structure just makes it a lot more clear and planned. The quote presented in the middle of the poster says, "How many times can 2 people come so close, yet they never meet?". This is the catch phrase related to my movie. Rather than just using one image on this poster, I will be using 5 different photos which would mean my photo shoot would be longer but this is fine if I choose this layout for my poster. Similarly to the magazine cover sketches, the title "The heart never lies" will play with different fonts to emphasise certain words in different ways. 

Poster 2: This poster takes inspiration from the poster Love & Distrust. The image has a romantic setting to suit the theme so the audience will immediately know the movie's genre by looking at this poster. The quote is situated at the bottom of the poster where there is negative space so it fits in well there. The same applies for all of the text on this poster. The general composition is busy, especially with a busy setting of the image so with the text, there is no negative space. I have done one poster with a busy composition to see what format works best for a romantic genre. 

Poster 3: This poster sketch is inspired by The Notebook poster. Similarly to the images on two of the magazine cover sketches, this image will involve good acting from the cast to enable facial expressions that the audience will fall for - it must look realistic and like the characters' are actually in love. Again, the title has its variation of fonts to cause emphasis on certain words and the long quote is situated at the top of the page in the negative space. I think overall this composition is quite simple, yet affective and it definitely shows what I want to show. It clearly identifies the genre with the image and the quote and title are presented clearly. 

Sound Cloud

http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks

I have signed up to Sound Cloud a new form of technology that I have come across and used. I will be uploading music that I have recorded for my trailer. You can find these tracks in the above post.

SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere.

Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks.

You can easily share sounds to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare.

SoundCloud can be accessed anywhere using the official iPhone and Android apps, as well as hundreds of creation and sharing apps built on the SoundCloud platform.


I have recorded some singing and piano music that I may be using in the background of my teaser trailer. The songs I have recorded are She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5 and a classical, romantic piano piece by a GCSE music student. I chose these because they fit into the romantic genre.

She Will Be Loved - Kathryn Singing

Romantic Piano Music

Background Music Ideas.

Here are some videos I have found on YouTube of styles of music that I am considering to record to play in the background of my trailer.



This is romantic indie music which is similar to the song in the Like Crazy trailer which is also of this genre. This music could be a genre that my target audience listen to in their spare time.



I recorded Kathryn Sunnocks singing this song because it was high in the UK top 40 music charts at the time of producing my product so this shows I have researched popular music of today, which would help attract the audience.



This is a slow, romantic, classical cover of the original indie version by The Calling. Its slow and romantic features help to set the atmosphere in my trailer.



This is one of my favourite piano pieces and is very romantic which would suit the trailer perfectly for the genre.



This is another beautiful piano cover of "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. Similarly to the previous video, it is romantic and slow and is used in the Titanic movie which is something I researched for my trailer planning.

This week I am recording a female singer and a pianist to use for my trailer. I may end up using them both in the trailer, or only one. I am yet to make my decision on this.

Coming to film the actual trailer

I visited this website to find these questions. These are the questions that they ask themselves when producing a film. Examples of their work are Kidulthood, Life & Lyrics and Sweet 16.

Think about - what do films have in common?

- Representation: Are the character types what you expected? Do you see any of then as stereotypical?

- Setting: Is this typical? What other setting might work?

- Mise en scene: How does this work to confirm a sense of realism?

- Themes: What kind of narrative strands would you expect to be explored in these kind of films?



Is there anything else you can think of that might be considered conventional?

Movie Posters

I have looked at each movie poster by all of the trailers I researched.

The lighting and composition are the main features of this magazine cover. I love how the eye is drawn immediately to the character’s faces, and the composition is so minimalistic. Due to the dark theme to the movie, the poster has stayed faithful to this and kept a dark, shadowy feel. There is minimal text but is still clear for the audience to read. I think this poster focuses more on promoting the image and the characters rather than trying to create a focus point on the text.

The alignment of the text on this movie poster is the most important feature here. I love the consistent text making its way down the poster of different phrases to symbolise the feelings that this movie consists. Similarly to the Twilight movie poster, the lighting really finishes the image nicely. The lighting appears to be coming from a strong sun that symbolises love and happiness. Whereas the Twilight poster was all about keeping it dark and mysterious. This movie poster has quite a busy composition, even the image has background focus points which shows where some of the scenes will take place in the movie.

Again, the lighting takes a major part in this movie poster. Similarly to Like Crazy, the sun appears to be coming from a strong sun and they have a setting placed in the background of the image. However the text on this poster is a condensed down a bit. The title stands out in red, taking the colour from the characters’ clothing. The text is placed in the blank space on the poster to fill the frame.

This movie poster is possibly one of the most famous posters in the world. I love the photo editing done on Photoshop where they have blended two images - one of the Titanic ship and one of the two characters. The composition is perfect - the ship’s end points and leads the eye to the characters’ faces whilst the writing is situated in the blank spaces of the ship.

The image is what does it for this movie poster. The text is rather simple in a standard black, clear font which symbolises the idea of a ‘notebook’. The image itself is stunning, showing the audience immediately that the story is about a romance. The rain in the image shows one of the scenes within the movie too. I love how the lighting behind the characters is shining through between their faces.

The colour palette here is yellowy and white which are quite pure colours. The characters are situated on a beach, suggesting the setting and location in the movie. The film logo of “Dear John” is big and bold, standing out from the rest of the small text. The top of the poster is kept simple with only the actor’s names and the rest of the text at the bottom of the poster. I think this divides the composition perfectly.

The grids on this movie poster is the main feature. They have create boxes of different sizes with different images in each one to show different feelings and themes within the movie. The biggest image is of a couple which suggests romance is the main theme within this movie. The text, similarly to Dear John, is yellow with the main words in the title being bold. The rest of the text is white and a lot smaller.

Real Media

Media Talk Podcast: 21/12/11 The Guardian (Notes)

Twitter and the Kindle have really kicked off this year - they have come to maturity. Mass reports about the football are published in newspapers but everyone would already know about it through online media like Twitter. Before Twitter and social sites, the newspaper would be the first people would hear about news so it was all very shocking news. But nowadays, people tend to hear about news through other types of media.

The Kindle has just reached its tipping point. The battery lasts "forever" but it is not touch screen which is a feature that the users wish it had.

The Eye is said to be the newspaper of the year. The Eye is a condensed version of The Independent. The fact that a smaller version of a newspaper is voted to be the best suggests that newspaper readers prefer less pages to read. The Guardian had a good year in 2011 despite the last week of 2011 being blamed to be involved with the phone hacking.


My ancillary task of a magazine cover can be promoted in all media. Magazine cover can be presented on a Kindle.

Women Representation In The Media

78% of news articles written by men
72% of men on question time
84% radio 4's quest are men

Bookers are the main corporates for these statistics due to their 24/7 pressured environment. 5000 women were dropped from broadcasting in the last two years. The BBC have been accused of victimisation.

'woman on the left' - when Hugh Grant was in court about the Levson Enquiry, there was a woman on the left that was flirting with him.


IN TERMS OF THE REPRESENTATION IN MY WORK:

The woman in my trailer is a typical girlie girl, stereotypically prone to romance and happiness who is pretty and wears pretty clothing. There are always these types of girls in romantic movies as they are easier to empathise with from the target audience which are girlie girls themselves. For example, Rose in Titanic, Allie from The Notebook and Savannah from Dear John.

Rose (Titanic)

Allie (The Notebook)

Savannah (Dear John)

Looking At Ancillary Tasks

My ancillary tasks are a magazine cover and a poster.

ancillary task - media magazines
movie scope
sight and sound
screen international
aesthetica

My favourite magazine covers are by Aesthetica as they incorporate a sense of fashion and concentrate on appealing to the female gender. I want to appeal to females with my trailer so taking inspiraion from this magazine might be a good idea. The logo is simple but stands out in a clear, white box at the top of the page. There is also a border around the image which makes the magazine cover unique. Hardly any text, if any, is situated on top of the image which makes it more media like as rather than it looking like a magazine full of content, it’s more about images. Here are some examples of my favourite magazine covers by Aesthetica:

The magazine, Movie Scope's covers focuses more on portraying portraiture images of actors and actresses. Again, Movie Scope’s logo is in a white box at the top of the page with a white border around the image. But Movie Scope’s logo is partnered with text about the content of the magazine and the barcode, whereas Aesthetica is kept alone with a tiny bit of writing alongside it which I prefer. The text on the image is kept quite minimal just to add a bit of information about its content to attract the audience. My favourite magazine covers by Movie Scope:

Sight and Sound magazine covers focus more on images of actual characters from movies, rather than the actor being themselves. The logo is very bold and eye catching, similar to Aesthetica and Movie Scope - it is presented in a text box to separate from the image. Text is mainly white but picks up a bit of colour from the image.

Screen International’s logo is again, presented in a box on its own with no text within. The text on their magazine covers are kept to a minimum with the images being payed the most attention. The colour palette on both images is mainly red and black - a simple, yet eye catching colour palette to have to stand out on a magazine rack. On the second magazine, I like the edited letter with images within them - this is unique and affective.

I would quite like to name my magazine something media based but spelt in a different language. Here are some of my ideas:
- La Voix (The Voice)
- Whisper
- La Verite (The Truth)
- Expression
- Vox (voice in latin)
- A Diem (an anagram of media but also means "of the day" in latin)
- C'est la vie (that's life in French - I think this is a nice phrase to have and is often used in society)

Here are some logo designs: