FINAL PIECE : Website

{ http://web.alleyns.org.uk/Alleyns_Media_2010/Ben_Rogers_Website_Black%20Box/index.html}

the picture above is a picture of the website in working order

Question 3 : How Effective is the Combination of your Main Project and Ancillary texts? - Director's Commentary

Website : Conventions of a Film Website

Below, I am going to explain the Conventions of a Film Website and how my website keeps to them. For this, I am using the example of Avatar. The image of the full website is below, it contains a hyperlink to the actual website itself.

The first thing that we are drawn to is the large image in the centre of the website that auto-plays when you go to the website. This is present on every film page, because there is no better way to convince the audience that they want to see the movie than through showing us part of the movie. My website has this, except not in an absolute preposterous widescreen.

The second thing that the eye is drawn to is the title. This is always a recognisable font, admittedly Avatar's font is the subject of controversy, due to the fact that it is a 'cheap' font installed on Mac and PC called 'Papyrus' and many fans were distressed at the use of such a cheap font for such an expensive movie. However it noticeable among the market to have a font associated with your film, for example, films like TRON and the Godfather have their fonts mimicked in many things, yet people will always associate the font with the film.My film uses 'Faith Collapsing' font which doesn't have any real associations, meaning that my film can stand alone with it's own font.

The next important aspect of a page is the importance of networking and word of mouth, there must be someway of your website encouraging people to share it among themselves. Websites like facebook, rotten tomatoes and myspace have sites for individual movies that people can 'like', which in itself, makes the movie look more popular and also the reaction of one person to seeing that their friend enjoys a movie, is often to go. My survey, pre-making any of my projects, suggested that people listen to friends' 'word of mouth' more than any form of advertising. So having symbols associated with, and linking to these 'social networks' can only increase success.

One of the final, mainly visual aspects of film website is the background, often comprised of parts of the poster or of the film itself, depending on the suitability of the footage and whether the colour scheme works. I presume that this one for Avatar, is an unreleased poster or just a freeze frame from the film (which is probably much easier to get in a film that it almost entirely HD animation). Mine is just the poster but horizontal with a section of shadow in the centre to emphasize the Text in the middle and to generally make it smoother.

Poster : Technology

Despite the fact that I am going to make a video on this same subject, I thought that I would make a list of all the Software/Technology that I have used to create my advertising package.

In terms of Software I have used :


Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Flash CS5




Final Cut Pro




Adobe Dreamweaver CS5




Livetype





Microsoft Excel






Microsoft Word





Apple Iphoto





Websites and Online Technology that I have used:

Poster : Conventions of a Teaser Poster

A Teaser Poster must always contain a few things, otherwise it will not appear so much as a teaser trailer, as a mess of images. Teaser trailers often have a textured or dark background, with an image in front. The reason for this is, unlike actual movie posters, they are made during production and their aim is to make something that gives away little, and so thus, they do not show a screenshot of a movie or something clear. For Example the poster below is for a movie called Exam, a low budget Mystery Thriller (thus perfect to use to help with my Poster) :

There are no actors shown in this poster.

Only a 'high concept' idea of a plot

It also chooses to highlight that it was on the 'Official Selection' for Edinburgh Film Festival

In fact, many teaser posters don't show actors, just mere symbols representing the characters or plot points. The Black Box itself is the central image of my poster, what it does is highlight the fact that the Black Box is a mysterious object. Below are a few posters that use objects to connote certain things

This poster for Conan (yet to be made) , for example contain a giant sword, which would suggest a great warrior or hero, in the same way that the Black Box would suggest mystery. However as well as this...

There are posters that lure you in with a brand, for example, this new up-to-date 'Batman' poster which shows the painted nails and tattoo associated with the character Harley Quinn, whilst my poster cannot quite do this, it can at least advertise using it's name. The name 'Black Box' and the image 'Black Box' are easy to associate.

Here are a list of conventions that I believe that my poster sticks to:

1)There is a general colour code throughout the poster, of greys, blacks and reds

2)Bold title in a colour that contrasts the background colour, and compliments the look of the poster, whilst standing out.

3) One dominating central image, either representing Mystery (in mine), Action, Conflict or Love

4) A particular font that re-occurs all over the poster. In my case 'Faith Collapsing'

Poster : Final

Above is the final poster, it has added notations on Flickr.com

Poster and Trailer Work : Fonts

My aim with the fonts was to get a vaguely gothic font that appeared primarily creepy and mysterious, as opposed to action orientated.

MAIN TITLE

I decided that for the main title, I wanted a germanic/Old English font but with modern effects. An early favorite was "Deutsche Zierschrift", however it reacted badly to having effects such as 'bevel' applied to it, due to the fact that it was designed to look physically shaded. In the end I chose ''Faith Collapsing" over it, due to the fact that it looked better with editing than the other one. Also, its faded look made the title look more like dried blood which was a more effective look that just a gothic font.

NAME

Next to the title was my name, and to make this look effective, I wanted something that looked like a signature, in the end, I rejected "Bickham Script Pro" (No hyperlink, this font is pre-installed on Mac) on the grounds that it looked too much a font and not like a signature that I would have. I also rejected "Angel Tears", because it looked too much like the 'Coca Cola' Logo, which would look gimmicky. In the end, I chose the font "Quid Pro Quo" because of it's actual similarity to my handwriting, it made the poster look hand-signed. I wanted a level of personalisation, the Ben Rogers' gives the impression that it has been sent by me to the audience as a gift of sorts. I also did this because it reminded of directors like John Carpenter who put their name at the beginning of every title

BILLING BLOCK

When it comes to the billing block, there are two main fonts. I used both of them, but only one of them for the billing block. "Steel Tongs" appears on first glance to be more associated with action, whilst there is more subtlety in "Universal Accreditation". The reason for this is the fact that "Universal Accreditation" is slimmer and rounded slightly, whilst "Steel Tongs" is square and thick. As well as this, it, as a font is more versatile to editing, I was able to achieve a more metallic effect on the wrting than with "Steel Tongs". However, I did use "Steel Tongs" on the rating next to the 15 Certificate. As well as this, on the poster, next to the Billing block there were two little blocks of text, written in "Bordeaux Roman Bold LET" (Installed on Mac), I saw that on the internet this was considered a graphic design font and thought that if it was being recommended by the experts, I might as well use it, it works very well to the metallic effect I applied to it

OTHER FONTS USED

I used the remaining fonts on the award on the poster. Again two of these were described in a different article (here) as Professional, and I thought that Trajan had the Grandeur I was looking for when it came to writing 'Winner', it is a useful font. Helvetica (Installed on all computers) wasn't really used all that much, due to the fact that it is quite plain. I used Metropolitan for one of the Awards because it is an instantly recognisable movie font, and so Film Awards might choose to use it. Justice by Dirt2 is just used to write 2011, and it is a nice looking font I had installed.

Audience Work : Screening

At long last, I have finally shown my trailer to an audience of twelve people as well as, potentially, an upcoming online audience via. youtube and facebook. Here are some pictures of my screening...

From this short questionnaire given to my audience, I have learnt what I need to do and I have already re-cut the trailer to accommodate some of the ideas that were put forward, certain issues were difficult to change, and so some things remain unchanged, but then again, no product is perfect. Underneath are my findings from the questionnaire. As well as this, I will make a Wordle of words (I assume this is the way you refer to a Wordle) out of the summaries put forward by the group.

As a whole, the focus group came back with some pretty solid recommendations.

They conclusively said that the titles needed to remain on screen much longer and so I have edited it, so that the titles write themselves quicker and stay on screen longer, so this should hopefully please the audience, the re-edit has positive feedback on youtube. As well as this, some brightness issues were brought up, and they were dealt with instantly... and also some sound balancing issues which were improved.

Here is a Wordle of Words that were included by the focus group in the questionnaire, the larger the word is, the more times it was repeated. For example, interesting was one of the most common words used.

What became clear from the focus group is that people around the age of 18 would usually go to to movie with their friends, but not alone which would suggest that it is a film that they are partially interested in, but would prefer to go with their friends. A majority of people said that they had friends who would go to this movie. The success within this age bracket is quite surprising, I was sort of aiming at a little higher, with a potential niche audience of older middle aged watchers.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 1

The final basic convention of a trailer is that of the narrative, the narrative of my trailer is that of a kidnapping and the potential revenge. My trailer is shot in a low key way, in which the real action of the film is not shown, this being a convention of film that I am personally not keen on, I found that personally it would intrigue me more, if the ‘hook’ were a little more subtle. In terms of subtlety, I think that what I would have done, if it were allowed by the Exam Board, I would have gone for a trailer with a copyrighted song and the finished product would have more of a minimalist art-house feel such as the ‘Confessions’ Trailer , which even Hollywood Films like ‘The Social Network’ are aiming to mimic. However, my narrative is presented through intercutting to violent flashbacks like in the trailer for (and the movie itself) ‘Memento’, other aspects that are similar to that trailer are the displacement of narrative and the fact that nothing is in its natural order. The narrative also has a undetermined briefcase which is left as a mystery, both the films ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Ronin’ used a briefcase as a crucial MacGuffin in their narrative.

Finally, as per usual, the links to the films mentioned above are below.

The Social Network http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4

Memento: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq9eM4ZXRgs

Confessions (Japanese, No subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1gBAbI8UQQ

Pulp Fiction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFhadqrMPiU

Ronin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFhadqrMPiU

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 2

The next convention in a trailer is to establish a leading character/s. I believe that I did this well. Whilst my trailer is meant to be short, we are meant to get the impression that the Father is a ‘no-nonsense’ character, he is out to protect his daughter from those who have kidnapped her. This character is reminiscent of Liam Neeson’s character in ‘Taken’, however unlike Neeson’s character, he, from the trailer, appears to call assistance which would suggest he may be taking the law into his own hands similar to Michael Caine’s character in ‘Harry Brown’. The character archetype is deeply rooted in many 70s Vigilante/Crime movies such as Charles Bronson in ‘Death Wish’ and Clint Eastwood in ‘Dirty Harry’, hopefully an audience will recognise an attempt to hark back to this rapidly disappearing genre of movie (However, the various resurgences of this genre e.g. ‘Taken’ and ‘Old Boy’ have been wildly successful). The other aspect that he fits in with characters of this type is in his age, the character is meant to be around 40 - 55.The daughter, on the other hand, is tightly in-line with kidnapping victims in movies, she is blonde and wears clothes that denote that she is probably wealthy, films with characters similar to this are ‘Man on Fire’ and ‘Ransom’. However, my character is older than the usual character in a kidnap movie, usually the daughter is around 5-9 years old, whilst the daughter in my film is 15.

Once again, the links to all the film trailers mentioned above are below...

Taken: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvUxdQ4q-Lg

Harry Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2S3SraFmI0

Death Wish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GieK_55uyY

Dirty Harry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Ro0Wiq6v0

Old Boy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno

Man on Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4kLizDXLY0

Ransom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL4fNkypfdU

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products : trailer pt. 1

Certain conventions and clichés embed themselves in the collective mind of the audience, and in the following piece of writing, I will explain how my trailer strives to become reminiscent of, whilst not mimicking, trailers of the same genre.

Beyond the mere genre of the trailer, my trailer keeps to many of the key structural points of a trailer. Throughout the trailer, certain important aspects are established. In general, a trailer must simply outline the location, in my trailer, the location is established through the clearly British accents and the recognisable London suburbs. I chose not to really turn the fact that it is based in London, due to the fact that the plot is not really affected by the fact that it is set in London, in my trailer the location is apparent and not actively demonstrated. To be honest, whilst it is Film Convention to establish setting, in Thrillers, the concept behind them often needs to be strong enough that you could set the film anywhere. Due to the fact that Thrillers, Horrors and Action Movies are in their nature, High Concept e.g. The U.S. Remake of British TV Show, ‘State of Play’ as a Political Thriller movie and the (often line-for-line) remaking of Asian thrillers such as Korean romantic Thriller ‘Siworae’ as ‘the Lakehouse’ and Chinese Crime Thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’ as the ‘the Departed’. These are all examples of a plot transcending cultural barriers, and proof that the plot of a thriller far exceeds the necessity to associate a particular culture to it. Very often in thrillers, there is some form of criticism of certain social status, for example there is often criticism of Bourgeois culture which is an area of society that appears internationally and thus the criticism retains its strength worldwide. However in certain films, such as ‘127 Hours’, the setting does essentially define the film, it provides the real centre-point of the plot. There are also films that are specifically made to portray or critique a particular culture e.g. ‘City of God’, ‘Kidulthood’ and so-called American ‘Hood Films’. My product is aimed not to be specific to British culture, it is meant to create a plot that is recognisable to a multi-national audience.

This will be continued in another blog post. Links to all forementioned trailers are below.

1. State of Play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ME87tEX9Qw
2. Siworae/Il Mare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRe7E5GIq_M
3. The Lake House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V02lqEpbk2Y
4. Infernal Affairs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO4RLrNVbd4
5. The Departed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGWvwjZ0eDc
6. 127 Hours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlhLOWTnVoQ
7. City of God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJdW1TevoyA
8. Kidulthood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vliupa-zi8