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:

Website: Website draft

This is a draft of the final appearance of the website, though some of the levels have to be sorted and the youtube clip is not attached to it, and the links to facebook and potentially myspace are non-existent. It is designed off the aspects of the poster, that I have made previous to this. This tends to be the norm with websites, the poster design is in some way reformed and animated, but the general gist of it still remains.

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