Media Texts: Magazine Cover and Film Poster

Magazine Cover

The film magazine cover is another of the media texts required to submit as coursework along with our trailer. When new films come out, magazines such as Sight & Sound, Empire and Total Film will include features in their publications to promote and review these films and this is a key way of reaching the target audience and advertising a film to the public. By producing a striking and bold image to feature on the front of our magazine, it will act as an extremely important advertising method to draw in an audience and build up a hype about the film.

We have decided, by analysing existing film magaine covers in a previous blog, that we should use a close-up image of Erin's face as the front cover of the magazine. Specifically we want to use the last scene of our trailer where she pulls down her hood when crouched in the subway against the graffitti and chipped paint on the wall. At this point in the trailer she looks directly at the camera to address the audience in a direct and almost confrontational way. Most film magazine covers feature the main character of a new film in either a close-up shot of the face or a full-body shot, so we will stick to this theme.

We will try to use a screen-shot of our trailer but it may come out quite pixelated as it is a paused still of our trailer so we may have to arrange a phot o shoot with our actress (Laura Gray who plays Erin) at the subway near her house where we filmed. The only issue is that she has recently dyed her hair from blonde to purple so this will affect the continuity issue, but if her hood is up in the image we may be able to tuck her hair away so it is not visible. A decision as to which magazine we will choose to create a cover for will need to be made, but I think that the Empire logo is the most bold. The added information to the magazine cover will also need to be planned, so I will produce some drawings and sketches to plan the layout. Here are the 3 magazine logos that we can possibly use with our image and edit using Adobe Photoshop:



Film Poster

We have had some ideas about the film poster and have decided to use another shot in the subway as it is a gritty, bleak and urban image which represents the theme of our film. The landscape-format shot features Erin crouched alone in the subway, hinting the seclusion of the character without giving too much away. We can, again, try to use a screen shot of the trailer but it will probably be too pixelated to a photoshoot will be required.

The film title 'Raze' will featured to the left of the image in bold, large letters with the small, dark figure of Erin crouched down to the right of the photograph. It will be a wide shot of the mouth of the subway, with the edges blacked out so that the light of the subway is brighter, but still with an artificial yellow colour. Sketches will again be drawn for the poster design to plan the layout of the page, as additional information such as actor names, production comapny, director/producer names, website address, release date and possibly film reviews need to be added to conform to the conventions of existing film posters. I will look at appropriate typography for our film as well, probably a bold font with sharp edges to represent the gritty theme of our film and the name of it which has connotations of sharpness and destruction. Here are 3 British landscape film posters which act as examples of the layout of our own poster:


This poster for 'Adulthood', which has the closest-themed genre and plotline to our film, features the characters in fairly dim lighting to represent to bleak theme of the film. The characters poses are very bold and almost intimdating, with a good use of lighting.


This poster for 'This is England' has a raw, gritty look to it with the use of a graffiti typeface and confrontational poses by the actors, with a strong use of colour to emphasise the theme of the film by using the colours of the Union Jack. The character dresscodes are also key when representing the era of the film, with their outfits typical of skinheads in the 1980s.


This poster for 'Control' features the image on the right with the film title to the left, with a bold use of colour to emphasise the layout, with a large use of blank space. This is the strongest example of how we will lay out our own poster.

Here are some sketches that have been produced and scanned of two ideas for each - the film poster and magazine cover: Design Sketches

Further Progress Report

The editing process is nearly finished now as music has been added into the trailer and the audio effects are nearly finished. The only things we have left to do with editing is add in the titles, including production company, director name, release date and cast etc. to add an authentic and professional-looking effect to our coursework.

Soundtrack & Audio Effects

So far, the trailer had a rough cut where all of the scenes were in order. then the edit was tightened to stick to the plan, with each shot around the same number of seconds as written on the storyboards. The next part was to add in a piece of music that I though would be effective when supporting and reinforcing the genre, mis-en-scene and theme of our film 'Raze'. I chose a track called 'Cracks' by dubstep artist Flux Pavillion (listen here) as it has a really gritty feel to the song and the genre of dubstep is very popular among young people in contemporary society which will appeal to our target audience (CD cover is pictured right). The lyrics of the song are also very suitable to the character of Erin and the storyline of our film. These lyrics being 'Leave the past behind, just walk away ....When it's over, and the heart break.... And the cracks begin to show'. I felt that these lyrics were strongly representative of the film's plot and Erin's story, as cracks do begin to show in her life and behaviour. The song has a dramatic 'drop' in it where first there is a build-up beat to it and this has been edited to match the part of the trailer where Erin walks over to the attacked victim on the floor and stands over him and smiles. I feel that this part of the trailer fits perfectly with the music and adds a really dramatic effect, with the music really emphasising the scene and signalling Erin's change and making the trailer more exciting.

The audio of the trailer has also been edited, including turning down the non-diegetic soundtrack when there is diegetic speech in a scene. For the scenes with the teacher in the classroom, corridor, subway and bedroom scenes etc it has been necessary to turn up the voices of the characters and turn down the soundtrack to ensure they are heard by the audience so they can understand the plot line of the film. We have also turned down the audio on scenes where there is no sound as there is some crackling and wind noises that disturb some shots. At this stage there is still a little more editing needed to be done of the audio but I am happy with the progress so far.

A 'glass smashing' sound effect has been added to the scene where Erin sweeps her mother's bottles of alcohol off of the kitchen counter top. As we had cushioned the bottles with pillows so they did not smashed, we have needed a sound effect to make the scene look authentic. We sourced this sound effect in the College library and we have found the right sound effect named 'glass breaking' (track 91) on a 'Sound Effects: Volume 04 - 99 Different Sounds' CD. Here is a scan of the CD case:

Visual Effects

Visual effects have also been added to the trailer to give it an authentic look and blend between key scenes. A fade from black has been used at the beginning of the trailer, so there is a black screen that quickly fades to reveal the close-up shot of Erin's eyes opening, acting as an effective and bold opening to the trailer. At the key moment in the trailer where there is a worms-eye shot below Erin as she smiles, we have added in a fade at that point so she smiles and then fades to black as there is a dramatic and loud 'drop' in the soundtrack. This brief black screen in the trailer is a perfect place to add in titles so the next thing to be done is plan what titles will added. A fade-in has been used after this fade-out to softly blend back into the trailer after this brief break to the scenes of Erin in the kitchen with her mother shouting at her. The problem with this scenes is that it features swearing which does not stick to the codes and conventions, as well as the rules of trailers that commonly do not feature overly-violent scenes or swearing as they are played on television and in the cinema all day. It is too late to re-film this scene but perhaps the audio can just be turned down at this point to block the swearing. A fade-to-black has been added to the end of the trailer as well as the music fading out to created a soft and haunting end to the trailer, with the last lyrics:'and the cracks begin to show', playing over the shot where Erin pulls down her hood and stares at the camera. I think that this will be a strong end to the trailer, and perhaps we could add in an echo on the audio to really reinforce this dramatic scene.

Problems

Other parts of the trailer that we have had a few problems with include the scene where Erin attacks one of the female 'bullies' in the corridor after she calls her a freak. The audio is very quiet in this scene so you cannot hear what the female says as the camera is quite far away from the actors and she spoke quite quietly which may be a problem although we will try again to edit the audio of this scene. We wanted to have shouting echoing at the start of the trailer to play over the opening scene of the trailer but we have decided to not do this anymore as we feel that the beginning of the trailer so far is quite strong, with the scenes edited to the beat of the non-diegetic soundtrack. At this stage, the final cut of the trailer will be finished within the next week and we plan to next edit on Wednesday to add in the titles and company idents/logos to the finished edit. As our lecturer is unsure on how to add and edit titles, we will require a quick run-through from another Media lecturer before we can do this. For the time being, I have watched internet tutorials on Premier Pro CS4 such as this one. Once the editing is finished we can focus on creating our other two media texts for coursework, these being the film poster and magazine cover which i look forward to creating. A photo shoot with our actress Laura who played Erin will need to be arranged to take photographs that we can edit and use for our poster and magazine cover. This will be arranged at done, again, within the next week to ensure that all of our media texts for coursework will be finished at a high standard to be handed in in two weeks.

Here is a screen shot of adding the film title to the last shot of our trailer:



Here is another screen shot of adding the UK Film Council logo to the start of the trailer. An ident will also be added at this point to look authentic and stick to the forms and conventions of typical film trailers:

Progress Report

Editing with Adobe Premier

So far I have started editing the film trailer on Adobe Premier. As I have not used an editing programme properly before I have required a little bit of help to briefly tell me about how it works as last year another member of my media group was set the role of editor so I have little experience. As well, we edited on Windows Media Player last year and only used Premier to add titles in. I have enjoyed the editing I have done although I have struggled a little bit as the other member of my group has been away so I have had the full responsibility of editing. At this moment in time, I have put all of the scenes in order and done a rough cut of the trailer although pieces do not appear to fit together properly so I will add in a few more effects, such as fade-ins and outs to make it look more effective.

Music is also an important part of a film trailer to really add to the mis-en-scene of it so I will need to choose a powerful piece of music to represent the genre and theme of our film. I want to have quite a calm and quiet type of music at the start of the trailer, then with a strong piece of music to highlight Erin's change and transition from a quiet and secluded girl at the start of the trailer to an out-of-control, rebellious and violent youth towards the end. I aim to find a good piece of contemporary music, possibly dubstep or drum n bass as they are popular genres among adolescents today, to put as the soundtrack to the trailer to kick in at the point where Erin stands over the male victim on the floor and smiles. I think this would be an effective place to start up a bold and faster-paced piece of music to build up towards the climax of the trailer. Credits will also need to be put into the trailer, but so far in the storyboards we have only drawn in where we will fit in the film's name 'Raze' but other information could possibly be added to give a professional effect. A tag line or slogan for the film could be added in, as well as the names of me and the other member of my group Mia and possibly the names of the actors in our trailer. Therefore I will plan out a few more credits we could add into our media piece, towards the end which is where credits usually appear judging by the research we have done on existing film trailers.

It is important that we still do follow these forms and conventions of real media products that we looked at in the planning stage to give an authentic final piece. When the film trailer is nearly finished, it would also be extremely useful to get more audience feedback on what they they o the trailer. During the planning process we did some feedback within our lesson when we created ideas presentations to show the group which was useful when planning the scripts and storyboards as well as character profiles and complete film storyline. Getting more of the opinions of our intended target audience would be a helpful process as it would highlight and problems we have made or let us know if we could make any improvements to make our trailer more effective and overall successful. I will ask people from our target audience age group what they think of the trailer when it is nearly completely edited, but I am not ready to do this as yet as there is still more editing to be done on the trailer to have it completed by the Easter holidays.

Conforming to Genre & Representations

So far, I feel that our trailer is conforming to our thriller/social realist genre well. We have used realistic locations and dress codes to give the shots a really authentic look. The scenes we have shot in the subway are especially visually representative of our film genre, with the chipped paint, graffiti-ed walls and dirty look really contributing to the gritty and raw effect that we hoped for, adding to the mis-en-scene of our trailer. The way we have represented our characters is important when conforming to a genre and as we are trying to express and explanation as to why Erin turns from being a quiet and shy girl to an 'off-the-rails', antisocial and violent 'hoodie' it is important to do this in a realistic and believable way. It is important not to portray Erin to be an antagonist as well as the protagonist as we aim for the audience to find her story sad and haunting and feel empathy for her character despite the things that she does throughout the trailer.

Erin's dress code is important when portraying this change as visually she looks different when she changes, with her hood up for the rest of the trailer and her short hair being revealed during the final shot of the trailer. The dress codes of the gang of youths is a mixture of school uniform and their own clothes - these being hoodies, caps and trainers. These dress codes are key when visually representing the stereotype of 'hoodies and chavs' as they typically wear these types of clothing. The representations of youths in the whole trailer is fairly negative, but the general storyline is acting as an explanation for why some youths are antisocial and violent, but not an excuse for the disrespectful and aggressive behaviour of some youths today. It is a sensitive matter that we want to address as we feel that a realistic representation has not yet been featured in films before, as thrillers like 'Eden Lake' and 'Harry Brown' are more extreme and dramatized versions of reality, representing youths extremely negatively. The use of fairly dim lighting towards the end of the trailer, as the last scenes are shot at night or in artificial subway lighting, boldly strengthens the theme of our film, representing it to be a fairly dark and haunting thriller with a difference - telling the realistic story of an emotionally-lost teenage girl. The lighting acts as a type of pathetic fallacy, representing the emotions and feelings that are being portrayed in the shot. By creating this storyline for the film, we have already challenged the genre - as thrillers commonly use male, adult protagonists - rather than conform to it. In that way i think we have created something quite different and original with a unique story. In other ways we have still followed the codes and conventions of the thriller genre as we want our trailer to be very authentic and for our final piece to conform appropriately and effectively to the genre.

Film Poster & Magazine Cover

As well as completing the editing process, which will still take a little more time as we are having a some trouble getting frequent use of the editing suites as they're access is limited, the other ancillary texts need to be planned and produced. In order to create the film poster and magazine cover to go along with our trailer, I will need to start sketching ideas and taking photographs or screen-shots from our trailer to use as the main image of these media products. In my blog I have previously research and analysed existing film magazine covers and posters to highlight effective techniques and common conventions of these texts. This will be useful when planning and creating our own and i will be careful to follow and develop the codes and conventions of these products. I would perhaps like to use a screen-shot from our trailer of Erin crouched in the subway at night as the main image for the poster and magazine cover as I think it is a really strong shot according to composition, mood and effect as it really represents the isolation, loneliness and anger that Erin feels as she is pictured sat alone at night, highlighting her vulnerability. There is also a large space to the left of the shot where text could be written, including the film name and the names of the actors and Director/Producer and possibly a slogan or tag line and reviews. Luckily, at the beginning of the year I did a full project on film posters in my Graphic Design class which lead to use creating our own film poster for an existing film as a final piece. I really enjoyed this project and I was very pleased with my final product which was a film poster for 'This is England' so this will be extremely useful when designing and producing an original film poster.

Producing a film magazine cover may be a little more challenging that creating a poster as I have less experience creating such a product. However, from studying Graphic Design for A Levels I am quite confident using Adobe Photo shop which will be a key programme to use when creating both of these texts. Furthermore, my working partner Mia studies Photography and can probably use picture editing programmes better than me so I'm sure she will feel confident when producing these two alternative products.

Overall Progress

To conclude, I am pleased with the progress that has been made so far and there is still quite a lot of time left before the film trailer need to be completed. I will complete more editing sessions and choose music and possibly sound effects to use in the trailer (e.g. smashing of bottles and police car sirens). I will now start planning out ideas and producing sketches for the film poster and magazine cover and choose which particular film magazine I want to create a cover for. All together, everything has gone well so far and I am really enjoying the editing process as it is really helping me develop my own editing skills which will be helpful for the future. However, I have full responsibility of the coursework at this moment in time as the other group member is absent at the moment. I will try and contact her to make some more decisions on the coursework as i do not want to make any big decisions without discussing them with her as it is her work too.