Final Poster

Since the last post, I have also added a slight drop shadow on the title to make it stand out, and changed the background from white to a slight grey, to make the colouring seem less harsh.

Making my Poster

These are a selection of photos I took during my photo shoot. The original ones of Chloe wearing black didn't produce very good photos, due to the prominence of dark colours, so I did another photo shoot of just her, wearing the clothes in the bottom right corner.



My first attempt at a poster, this is when I realised
that Chloe's costume wasn't sufficient in these photos.
This was a photo taken for fun, but I thought represented the film too.



Of Andy's photos, I chose DSC2020
for my final design
(top row, second from right in top photo)

This is the final image I chose of Chloe the second
time round



Cleared up the skin on both actors to make them look more attractive.
The difference this made is shown in the image above.

Adjusted the lighting in the image by adding a layer mask and
adjusting the lighting settings

Relating the poster to the screen at the end of my trailer,
I did the title in the same font and colours



I added extra text, and matched the fonts of the title and release date, I then used a ruler guide to ensure the actor
names were level with each other. Fonts: Plantagenet Cherokee (title and release date)
Tennesse Heavy SF (actors)
Tennesse SF [Bold] (tagline)

added tagline and recommendation in colours which matched the colour scheme already in the trailer, also used the same fonts that were on the poster to match the house style

Looking at existing film posters for the production credits at the bottom, I then copied the same information for mine in the image above, I used Modern735 BT font but ended using that and Agency SF both at letter spacing -75%

final production credits, smaller text is at 12pt and the top wording is in Modern735 BT and the main body text is Agency SF

I removed the recommendation, as I couldn't get it to look as professional as the rest of the poster. I also added small versions of my distribution and production company logos at the bottom with the production credits as this is often done in professional posters.

Taglines + Credits

Possible Taglines:

Two people a broken leg and road trip across the country... what could possibly go wrong

The things you do to get to the top

You need more than one leg to get the the top

He's broken but she's stuck

With a broken leg, maybe you need sticking together?

I used the bottom line for a while,
but then decided (and a small amount of audience feedback showed this too) the shortest line would have the most impact and therefore changed it to

'He's Broken, but She's Stuck'

Credits

The credits at the bottom of the poster are as shown below:

Panoramic Films and Happiness Productions Present an Alex Matthews Production Andrew Keating Chloe Radford Lucy Poynter Nadine Shambrook Freddie Hitchcock Costume Design Imogen Starkey Music by Alex Day Edited by Tom Cella Screenplay by Melissa Molloy Produced By Laura Skelton Directed by Alex Matthews
All the names are real, except Freddie Hitchcock and contributed to the project in some way,

• Freddie Hitchcock- I added as romantic comedies typically have 2 lead females and 2 lead males
• Andrew, Chloe and Lucy all starred in the trailer
• Nadine is a media student also doing her A2 coursework and therefore has guided me in making general decisions
• Laura, Imogen and Melissa did a similar job to Nadine, but from an audience point of view
• Alex Day was the music artist I used
• Tom lent me his car, let me use Adobe Photoshop CS6 at his house and helped me with setting up the green screen

Layouts

I created the above layouts to find a good way of organising the layout of the poster so I can apply it quicker to the actual design. Using some feedback, the most popular seem to be the leaning images (top middle and bottom right); least popular: bottom middle. Using this feedback, I shall apply a version of those two to the poster.

Poster Ancillary

I found a site showing the seven cliche's of romantic comedy film posters.

Back to Back



3 close ups



2 close ups



Sitting down

Leaning

Collage





Piggyback

I think these are all good poster designs as they portray a divide between the characters as most of them show a gap between the characters such as the back to back design and montage designs.

Some designs emphasise more on the love aspect, such as two or three close ups, as close ups look more intimate suggesting more of a happy ending.

Posters like the piggyback and sitting down design usually emphasise the comedy as a piggyback is a comedic pose and in the sitting design the characters are usually in some sort of awkward situation, making it look comedic.



Fonts

Similarly to magazine covers, titles tend to be in bold fonts, some titles are larger than others. The colours of the font are usually opposing the colour scheme of the poster, however may match it too. The poster below for Knocked Up (2007, dir. Judd Apatow) shows all the text in the same colour and similar fonts, creating a house style.

example of an awkward situation
with characters sitting
down on a film poster

Extra Information on posters
Title
Tagline
release date
quote or recommendation
production credits
actors names

bibliography for this post:

http://www.empireonline.com/features/romantic-comedy-movie-poster-cliches

Final Magazine Cover

Making my Magazine Cover

Title

Market Research

What would you read a film magazine for?
Entertainment (characters, plot lines)
||||
Information (history of film, actors)
0

Would you read it for information about:
Actors/directors
0
New/upcoming films
||||
Older films
0
Characters
0

What would you like to see on the cover:
Character (in costume)
||||
Actor (not in costume)
0

How many people would you like to see on the cover
one
0
two
0
More
||
Irrelevant- all main characters
|||

Should the cover reflect the storyline of the film it shows 
Yes
|||
No
||


From this I have I gathered my magazine cover should have:

• articles about the content of other new and upcoming films 
• both main actors in costume as the main feature photo
• be able to tell the film is a romantic comedy

Romantic Comedies on Magazines

Bibliography, cover archives
Entertainment Weekly
Total Film
Empire

Magazine Layout

Using all my research on magazine cover formats, I decided this was a good representation of the conventions showed. Things like the 'more inviting articles names and themes' are both subject to move, but would roughly be on the sides, and take up a small amount of space.

Ancillary 1- Magazine cover

For my first ancillary task, I am going to do a magazine front cover with my film as a feature in the magazine.

These are screen shots of the front covers of some film magazines. Empire, Total Film and Sight&Sound.

• Sight&Sound is distributed and owned by the BFI, the British Film institute. 
• Empire is owned by Bauer Media who make other magazines such as Grazia, Kerrang and MCN. 
• Total Film is owned by Future Publishing Ltd who also publish other magazines about cars, games consoles and other technology based things.  
• Entertainment Weekly (EW) is owned by Time Inc. which is the print media brack of Time Warner. Time Inc. also own: Sports Illustrated, Fortune, People and InStyle,

Total Film and Empire and EW have their own websites for extra information and to serve as marketing and another media platform.
However, Sight&Sound doesn't have its own website, but has its own part of the BFI website but still fulfils the same purpose as Empire's and Total Film's website.

As you can see, all the images have the following aspects:

• magazine title
• feature photo of one film/actor
• date and issue number and bar code
• name of the film corresponding to feature photo
• names of some articles inside
• names of films mentioned inside

Sight&Sound is different to Empire and Total Film, it focuses more on the history of film and seems more of an informative magazine, opposed to the other two, which I would class as entertainment magazine.

The articles in Sight&Sound are more niche and focus on older, classic films and appreciating the British talent of film making. However the other two are more of an update of what's new in the cinemas or being released with a much less strong emphasis on older, classic films. EW is a mixture of both, it focuses on the actors of the films, and the entertainment aspect, but has a more simple cover similar to Sight&Sound.

Source here

• Also, from the appearance of the front cover of Sight&Sound, it looks more informative, with less bright colours and a more of a house style which they have matched to the actors wardrobe. 
• On the other two there is a house style or colour theme present on the front cover, however, on Empire, it is much more subtle, with many shades of that colour, opposed to Sight&Sound's one shade of orange. 
• On Total Films, there is less of a colour theme, besides the fact that the majority of the text is white or grey. This however may be because their feature film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005, dir. Tim Burton) is a film connoted with bright colours and being slightly eccentric, therefore if they are to give the correct idea from this film, going with contrasting colours, is appropriate. To the left there is an image of another Total Film magazine cover, one of a more serious film and it is obvious here that there is a house style individual to each issue, Charlie and the Chocolate factory is just an exception to having a colour theme to reflect the film.

Also, in most of the magazine covers I have seen, a bit of the feature photo overlaps the title. This makes the film look more important than the magazine, making audiences buy it for the film featured and not for the magazine. An exception to this is again, the Charlie and the Chocolate factory cover of Total Film. This may be because an close-up is used therefore the image would cover the majority of the magazine title, making people unable to read it, which is useless in marketing a magazine. Also the character's top hat is what is obstructing the text, however this is an iconic part of the character, and therefore in removing it, may make the character less recognisable. Also, in EW, although the characters head doesn't directly overlap the title, his ear does, showing they are using this alyering technique, just more subtly.

The text in the Bourne Legacy cover of Empire is slightly translucent, which makes the cover look less cluttered. In comparison to the other covers, I think Total Films has the most text and looks very busy. Empire have combated this by making some font translucent so the image can still be seen. Empire's Tintin cover is the least cluttered, this may be because Tintin was such a huge film, Empire expected readers to be drawn in just by the image and would not need any extra infomation. Sight&Sound and EW both use more simple covers and focus mainly on the content.


All images have the image source above the cover except the Bourne cover which is from
http://www.empireonline.com/gallery/image.asp?id=61792&caption=&gallery=3819

BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)

A green screen is shown at the beginning of a trailer (and film) to show parents whether the film is suitable for their children or not. I went to the BBFC website to find out more about this.

Below are the specifications for the main classifications, I didn't include 18 as it was obvious to me I did  not meet the criteria.

By looking at these specifications, I have decided my trailer is rated U. However; I think if this was to become a full length film, some milder aspects which are barely touched on in the trailer, would be elaborated more and making the film a PG or 12.

I then looked at 12A or higher films, and compared their film rating with the one given on the trailer. I found, most romantic comedies have a U rated trailer, when the film is rated 12. They may have another, higher rated trailer to give a more insightful look into the film, but if they have used a U band trailer, they can approach the largest audience. An example of this is....

On the BBFC website it states
'All theatrical advertisements, regardless of time duration, will need to be submitted for classification.
Adverts shown theatrically must display the symbol of the category awarded for a minimum of five seconds, before the work begins, or burnt into the bottom left or right corner of the frame itself.'


This is the rating screen that I shall show for 5 seconds before my work.




Although BBFC rates the films, often the screen shown is rated by MPAA ( This is shown by Submarine (2010, dir. Richard Ayoade) which is a British film, and only has limited release in the USA. However, as seen below, has the rating approved by the MPAA.

Bibliography for this post:

http://www.pbbfc.co.uk/guides_U.asp

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/
Classification notes from downloadable PDF from http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/- but also available on the same page to read.
Image from: http://www.moviemanmenzel.com/MovieTrailers.php

Production/Distribution



Final Distribution Logo

Final Production Logo

Production/ Distribution Companies

I originally wrote the names of production and distribution companies in my trailer. [right]

 I then went onto research more into how trailers presented their production and distribution companies, and found all the romantic comedies I looked at; used the logo of the companies to represent them in trailers, rather than just stating the name. Below are the most common production and distribution companies; and when the companies were shown in the trailer:

From this you can see, the logos are most often shown as the opening title or straight after a shot establishing shot (6 films); or after the lead male has been introduced (2 films)

There were also 3 films where the only reference to the production and distribution companies were the end screens, which none of the other trailers had.

This may be because in the case of It's a BoyGirl thing (2006, dir. Nick Hurran) (bottom image) there is five production companies, and therefore may not fit to show all the logos of these.

In the case of The Rebound (2009, dir. Bart Freundlich), the production and distribution companies used are not very heard of and therefore may affect peoples initial judgement of the film.

From this research I have decided to make my own production and distribution company logos. The convention of these (at least in the major romantic comedy ones, above) is a grand photo, simply with the text displaced over it, with a connection between the title and image.  I will therefore, use an original photo of mine and create logos for my film.

Title Screens

These screens will be shown at the end of the film, with one comedy scene between the title of the film and the release date. I made these on Photoshop using Plantagenet Cherokee font.

 

I made two release date screens to match the formatting of the title screen. I put both into the trailer to see what fitted best. I decided the use the one without the Vignette as otherwise the two screens looked too similar.

One design

Chosen Design

Fonts

I initially went through the fonts available on the Mac and looked for any that I thought had the same connotations as a romantic comedy. The things I was looking for in the font were connotations of:

• happy
• a little feminine, but not too much
• most likely sans serif
• perhaps handwritten look

From this these ideas I picked out the fonts:

Using the research in my post Titles in Trailers, I looked at the fonts used when displaying the film title in trailers. Just My Luck (2006, dir. Donald Petrie); Made of Honour (2008, dir. Paul Weiland); She's Out of My League (2010, dir. Jim Field Smith); No Strings Attached (2011, dir. Ivan Reitman) all used sans serif fonts.

• Just My Luck uses a funky, simple font, matching with the colour choice. The smaller letter spacing in the title makes it look quite elegant as well
• Made of Honour, is more bold and striking, which matches with the capitalisation, this effects is used similarly on She's Out of My League, but with a gradient used in the font colour.
• No Strings Attached is a mixture of the two styles seen before; it is very simple, yet still gives a bold effect.
• Definitely, Maybe and 27 Dresses are both serif fonts and give a more classy, traditional look. Especially 27 Dresses which uses a contrast of colours to break up the title.

All the titles are on two or more lines, or the words overlap slightly, as in 27 Dresses. This keeps the text in the centre of the screen whilst having it as large as possible.
Most of these titles broke some of the conventions I was originally looking for as the bold, large, capitalised fonts that the majority of them use are not considered feminine. If I was go by the conventions I have seen and the fonts I have picked out, I think Futura or Coolvetica is the most suitable. However the styles used in 27 Dresses and Definitely, Maybe show that not all films use bold fonts, and any of the fonts chosen could be suitable. Therefore I will judge on which I think looks the best aesthetically; which I believe to be Marker Felt or Futura.

Titles in trailers

After doing research into how titles are presented in trailers from this I would chose my own

• film title
• style of presenting title
• when to present it
• how to present the release date

Titles
The above research concludes that every film I came across that the title would be present as the penultimate scene, with a verbally funny scene following it and then followed by the release date or 'coming soon' depending on how early the trailer was produced.

It also shows that all films present their title on a screen of it's own. None of them show the text over a film clip or similar, it is a still, relatively plain background.
Also in presenting the titles, a vignette style seems popular as it was used by Just My Luck and She's Out of my League. Perhaps this is because it draws attention to the title without being too obvious. I have also noted that 3 of the films researched here; the titles are capitalised. Also, Made of Honour and Definitely, Maybe have used a line design to illustrate the two halves of the title; this idea would only work with longer titles or words that could be split into two different connotations. The colours most used here is blue; then pink. Perhaps this is because these are the two main colours associated with gender, which is a prominent part in romantic comedies.

Release Date
She's Out of my League (2010, dir. Jim Field Smith) has numbers on the release date screen as a main theme of the film is numbers; this links the date to the rest of the film; as well as the phrase 'It'll all add up' above the date; suggesting all questions shall be answered according to the trailer, this is perhaps the most decorative of backgrounds used.

27 Dresses has the most prestigious look titles, this may be because the main theme of the film is weddings, which are prestigious events; this also leads to R.S.V.P above the release date, as you RSVP to a wedding invitation, using this also engages the audience as they feel 'invited' to watch the film.

To relate this aspect to my film; I could have a line similar on my end screen:

• Come along for the ride on [date]
• Stick around for [date]

These all play on the theme that the main characters are stuck together and on a road trip. I think I prefer 'Stick around for...' as it relates more to the title I have chosen, and therefore linking the trailer together more and having more for the audience to remember the film by.

Films used in this post:
Just My Luck (2006, dir. Donald Petrie)
Made of Honour (2008, dir. Paul Weiland)
She's Out of My League (2010, dir. Jim Field Smith)
No Strings Attached (2011, dir. Ivan Reitman)
Definitley, Maybe (2008, dir. Adam Brooks)
27 Dresses (2008, dir. Anne Fletcher)

Titles

I looked at some of the most successfull romantic comedies to see how they structured their title and came up with this list.

Valentine's Day (2010, dir. Garry Marshall)
When Harry Met Sally (1989, dir. Rob Reiner)
Pretty Woman (1990, Garry Marshall)
Confessions of a Shopaholic (2008, dir. PJ Hogan)
Knocked Up (2008, dir. Judd Apatow)
No Strings Attached (2011, dir. Ivan Reitman)
Leap Year (2010, dir. Anand Tucker)
Shallow Hal (2001, dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008, dir. Nicholas Stoller)
Easy A (2010, dir. Will Gluck)
Rumor Has It... (2005, dir. Rob Reiner)
50 First Dates (2004, dir. Peter Segal)
4 Weddings and a Funeral (1999, dir. Mike Newell)
Love Actually (2003 dir. Richard Curtis)
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001, dir. Sharon Maguire)
(500) Days of Summer (2009, dir. Mark Webb)

• The majority of these titles contain 2 or 3 words
• Mainly focused on women
• Holidays mentioned in titles
• If a holiday is in the title, it takes up the majority of the title (4 Weddings and a Funeral, Leap Year, Valentine's Day, (500) Days of Summer )
• Few actually mention love (Love Actually, 50 First Dates, Valentines Day)

Most make reference to an aspect of relationships:

• Paying attention to looks- Shallow Hal / Pretty Woman
• First Meeting- When Harry Met Sally
• Dating- 50 First Dates
• Getting over an ex- Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• 'Friends with Benefits' - No Strings Attached
• Getting pregnant- Knocked Up

However, all the titles mentioned (perhaps with the exception of Valentine's Day and Love Actually) could be any genre, it is only the context it is put in that allows the romantic aspect to be recognised. Still, the most obscure titles which, are those with a prominent theme in the film:

• Easy A- the word 'easy' related to relationships can mean a girl is promiscuous but 'Easy A' can be connoted to school life. However in this film the main theme is related to both, however mentions Hester Prynne's 'Scarlett Letter'; where a girl is made to wear a red 'A' to stand for adulterer
• Leap Year- The film shows the run up to 29th February and the main theme is the folklore that allows women to propose on this day
• Confessions of a Shopaholic- although 'Shopaholics' are something more connoted with women, purely from the title alone we can only be sure that the main theme is shopping.
• 4 Weddings and a Funeral- From the title alone, this film could be about any aspect of weddings or funerals, and although weddings are associated with weddings a lot; funerals not so much. This film actually looks at the dynamic relationships between friends during these five events.

My film's main themes are being stuck with someone you don't like, and the males broken leg- working with this idea I came up with

Stuck With You
Being Stuck With You
Broken Journey
Broken Promotion

Broken Journey I think has too many negative connotations; although could be plausible for a romantic comedy, it sounds more like a thriller, or perhaps a parody as the two words are not normally used with each other

Broken Promotion has some of the same problems as the previous title, although does sound more like a romantic comedy, but the connotation of that suggests a 'broken heart' in result of the promotion, opposed to the actual leg. Although this allows this would surprise the audience when viewing the film, as it is purposely misleading the audience, it may put some viewers off when they realise the storyline is not as they expected.

Being Stuck with You is a better title and it highlights the main theme without drawing on the broken leg, which would be elaborated on in the trailer/film. However I think it is too wordy and my research showed that titles were on average 2 or 3 words.

 I removed the 'Being' leaving me with 'Stuck With You'. This line is almost said in the trailer as the male says 'You're the one stuck with me' yet the film is portrayed from the females point of view, leaving the phrase to become 'Stuck With You'. It is a short title, and I think fits all the conventions of the titles I researched.

I did some audience feedback and the results are as followed for the title they thought was best for a romantic comedy and the results matched my reasoning.

Filming (6)

9th November 2012

cutaway scene of male being rebellious- portraying him as drunk in the middle of the day.
Filmed in my back garden, to represent parkland, it will show it is the middle of the day due to the lighting Male looking dishevelled and hungover with empty drink bottles in his hand in daylight abondoned in the middle of the day
props: crutches

male reaching for phone
filmed at my house to provide a home atmosphere
MCU of male reaching for phone
cutaway of phone
MCU of male falling

props: phone


Car scenes
filmed on Leighton Buzzard Bypass bridge showing the car pass through the shot
birds eye shot from bridge
side shot of car driving pass filmed on a residential street in Aylesbury. Camera placed on the side of the road as car drives past.

Interim feedback (2)

I showed some of the target audience my film and interviewed them for feedback. I also included a few people that weren't my target audience to get a well-rounded view of how it looks more technically as a trailer.
1) Do you normally watch romantic comedies? 2) If this came on TV or similar, would you recognise it as being a film trailer?
3) Are there any parts that are particularly good? what and why..
4) is there any part that you didn't like or didn't think was very good? what and why...
5) Can you understand the storyline?
6) Is there anything that looks out of place for a romantic comedy?
7) Is the music suitable?
8) Any other comments/improvements?

This is the version of the trailer that the audience saw:

and their comments:

Shooting Script

Artists

From my research I found that pop music was mainly used in romantic comedies. To avoid issues with copyrights and similar, I decided to use the music of lesser known artists and those who are happy for theyre music to be used.

Alex Day is an independant musician who is happy for anyone to use his music, he sees it as free exposure if anyone wishes to use his music, so is perfectly happy to let people use it. In this video 4minutes and 52 seconds in, he states that he's happy for anyone to use his music.



Below are some tracks by Alex that I think could be possible to use within the trailer. I have used annotations on them to show which parts of the song may be suitable for the trailer.

Forever Yours- Alex Day

• Lyrics have a general theme of friendship and travelling- similar to trailer

• fast tempo, upbeat 

Forever Yours- Alex Day [Instrumental]

• at time too dark and too much bass

 

Good Morning Sunshine- Alex Day

• as the majority of the trailer is about dislike- perhaps in general the song is too happy

Lady Godiva- Alex Day [Instrumental]

• very vairable- some bits could work very well, whilst others may not work at all

 

Holding On- Alex Day

• big gaps of lyrics break the song up and allow it to be used over dialogue easier 

Candy Floss- Alex Day

• in general, the song is a bit childish 
• should avid speaking sections 

This Kiss- Alex Day [Instrumental]

• no parts that really should be avoided, all sections fit the trailer

 I wanted some soundtrack for the interim feedback stage so I simply placed the majority of This Kiss over the video as that has the least faults. For the final video I will use pieces of a variety of these tracks, depending on what mood I require or the timing and beat.

Soundtrack

trailer use non-diegetic music in trailer to accompany it. The soundtrack in a trailer will reflect the genre of the film. So Horror's would use dark, ominous sounds, whereas romantic comedies would have more upbeat, love songs. To reinforce this assumption, I will research it.

• Upbeat

• Electronic

• Barely uses lyrics

• stops suddenly for gags

• voiceover speak over any lyrics

• Acoustic

• Love song

• more than one song; some lyrics/ some not

• R&B/Soul

• Stops suddenly- restarts after gag

• more than one song; some with lyrics, some without

• background music no distinct relation to content

• electronic

• suddenly stops

• several famous songs with lyrics- pop, alternative, acoustic

• all with lyrics except intro

• soundtrack included and features known songs and bands

From this I have found that there is usually more than one song in a trailer and some include lyrics and some do not. Also, the music will be from one genre, and it is normally pop, or something similar. Even though the songs in the Confessions of a Shopaholic trailer are R&B/Soul, they are still well known songs and therefore could be classed as Pop.

Interim feedback

After discussing with others what I had edited so far, I decided to slightly alter the story board, by removing the door scene and adding a scene where the lead male is actively shown as annoying.

According to my research here, this scene should be in a masculine environment such as a sport or bar or cards environment to reinforce the male stereotype. However, I slightly adapted this convention and have decided to make the scene of the male, hungover, waking up somewhere odd, showing lack of responsibility

Front door, either inside or out

Possible places I could do this are:

staircase (home)

Parkland

I decided to choose the park because, this would represent him as the least responsible, as the others were in a home environment.


I also chose to add a scene in where the male flirts with the female.
The scene will consists of two over-the-shoulder shots, one of the male saying
'You know you want me, secretly'
then a reaction shots of the female looking offended
This will take place in a cafe setting, as this is a typical romantic comedy location.

Canteen (cafe)

I will use the school canteen, as there may be issues with filming in an actual cafe, and the canteen has a similar cafe atmosphere.

I have also got rid of the idea to have a concert scene, as I believe it is too much too organise for a short clip which may not even give the desired effect and may not be clear what I am trying to achieve,