Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts
Monday, 9 May 2011
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Friday, 6 May 2011
Evaluation Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has been invaluable to us. To make as professional, well targeted, a promotional package as possible, we relied on outside opinions from our target demographic to offer unbiased critique on our work.
First impressions are important, hence we wanted a title which we felt represented our film and would entice our target audience. After drafting three prospective titles, based on a map of key words, we produced a survey to receive feedback on which our prospective audience found the most appealing. As well as the main question about our film's title, we included questions about the participant, such as their age and sex, how often they visit the cinema, and about their interests. This enabled us to not only discover the most popular title overall, but the title that was the most popular with our target demographic/audience.
To receive targeted responses from our key demographic/audience again, as we felt this was the most valuable audience feedback to us, we posted the first mock up of our teaser poster on to my fashion blog on Tumblr. In doing this, we were introducing ourselves to our absolute key audience; predominately females 18-34, with a strong interest in fashion modeling, who pursue this interest as recreation. We received quite a few comments, including:
"This looks interesting... but the combination of the shadowed background and hair falling across her face is giving off more of a thriller feel."
"Assuming the tape measure is the main focus, you may want to remove some of the other factors. The tape measure didn't catch my eye when I first looked at the poster, and it took me a while to realize what I was supposed to be looking at."
"This looks quite professional! It has a lot of potential, but there's something off... I think it's the top/skin/bottom proportions. They're uneven."
We found this feedback to be so valuable, because we too had felt something was off; but it took an outside, unbiased, critic to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
With this constructive criticism, we were able to develop our teaser poster. We changed the orientation from portrait to landscape, cropping the head away to remove the thriller-like and distracting covered face and to equalize the proportions of the top/skin/bottom. We used this change of orientation to our advantage, creating a billboard teaser from the background of the posters for "Picture Me" and drawing inspiration for the style from the popular Calvin Klein campaigns. Having read that "the tape measure didn't catch my eye when I first looked at the poster", we hoped that, even though we had tidied the poster up and drawn better attention to the tape measure, should the tape measure still not catch some members of our target audience's attention, perhaps the pretention of a renowned fashion brand would.
We re-uploaded our new poster, and received much more positive comments. Most included acknowledgement of our Calvin Klein campaign inspiration, which was very re-assuring, and the user who commented before about the shadowing and hair combination said; "Much better :) The shadowing looks great now, much more atmospheric... more ominous instead of scary."
Whilst we really took advantage of audience feedback to develop our poster, and found it very valuable, we feel that we could have connected with our audience more during the development process of our website. We focussed more on drawing inspiration from and challenging the conventions of other websites we had researched, and, as we received very positive feedback from our classmates throughout the process, we did not feel that we needed to change anything. However, in hindsight, I wish we had also appealed for opinions from our target audience as we did with our poster, because at times we have wondered whether our poster has come out as too generic and not fashion orientated enough.
After editing the first sequence of our trailer, including the sequence to the intro of Paramore's "Decode", our production company logo, and a scene of dialogue between Cindy's character and her friend, we uploaded it to all of our Facebook accounts. With the majority of people on Facebook, uploading a section of our trailer to the site was similar to launching it to a sample of a "real world" audience.
The comments we received were positive about the music we chose, and felt the editing worked in sync. We received one comment from an 18 year old female (so in our target demographic), which said; "I feel really sorry for the girl in the intro. The scenes with her mother and boyfriend were very sweet and she looked so sad thinking about them." We were pleased that the intro had receive our desired sympathies from a member our target audience, and that she had realized that Cindy's character was reflecting on our past; it told us that we had edited the intro well.
However, the scene of dialogue after our production company intro (a scene between Cindy's character and her friend, walking towards a post box with an envelope, containing Cindy's modeling photos for the agency but this is never mentioned, whilst Cindy's friend asks Cindy if she "is sure she wants to do this", never mentioning what "this" is) received predominately negative feedback. For example, "I don't understand, what is the "this" they're referring to? Is it her modeling?" (which came from a friend who knew the theme of our film before watching) and "I don't think this adds very much to your trailer other than confusion, to be honest. Perhaps cut it?"
Having found audience feedback so valuable during the production of our teaser poster, we decided to trust it again and cut the small scene of dialogue.
- Trailer: We felt like scenes were moving too fast, Ryan "liked, didn't feel like he was missing anything, was definitely interested to see more." not so keen on font. He's opposite sex to our demographic, but has same interest in the arts and fashion.
The next time we shared our trailer with outside critics was after we had cut all of the scenes to fit our music, to both the "Decode" intro and the intro to Muse's "MK Ultra". The fast pace of "MK Ultra" had lead to our cutting our scenes quite finely to run in sync with it.
First impressions are important, hence we wanted a title which we felt represented our film and would entice our target audience. After drafting three prospective titles, based on a map of key words, we produced a survey to receive feedback on which our prospective audience found the most appealing. As well as the main question about our film's title, we included questions about the participant, such as their age and sex, how often they visit the cinema, and about their interests. This enabled us to not only discover the most popular title overall, but the title that was the most popular with our target demographic/audience.
To receive targeted responses from our key demographic/audience again, as we felt this was the most valuable audience feedback to us, we posted the first mock up of our teaser poster on to my fashion blog on Tumblr. In doing this, we were introducing ourselves to our absolute key audience; predominately females 18-34, with a strong interest in fashion modeling, who pursue this interest as recreation. We received quite a few comments, including:
"This looks interesting... but the combination of the shadowed background and hair falling across her face is giving off more of a thriller feel."
"Assuming the tape measure is the main focus, you may want to remove some of the other factors. The tape measure didn't catch my eye when I first looked at the poster, and it took me a while to realize what I was supposed to be looking at."
"This looks quite professional! It has a lot of potential, but there's something off... I think it's the top/skin/bottom proportions. They're uneven."
We found this feedback to be so valuable, because we too had felt something was off; but it took an outside, unbiased, critic to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
With this constructive criticism, we were able to develop our teaser poster. We changed the orientation from portrait to landscape, cropping the head away to remove the thriller-like and distracting covered face and to equalize the proportions of the top/skin/bottom. We used this change of orientation to our advantage, creating a billboard teaser from the background of the posters for "Picture Me" and drawing inspiration for the style from the popular Calvin Klein campaigns. Having read that "the tape measure didn't catch my eye when I first looked at the poster", we hoped that, even though we had tidied the poster up and drawn better attention to the tape measure, should the tape measure still not catch some members of our target audience's attention, perhaps the pretention of a renowned fashion brand would.
We re-uploaded our new poster, and received much more positive comments. Most included acknowledgement of our Calvin Klein campaign inspiration, which was very re-assuring, and the user who commented before about the shadowing and hair combination said; "Much better :) The shadowing looks great now, much more atmospheric... more ominous instead of scary."
Whilst we really took advantage of audience feedback to develop our poster, and found it very valuable, we feel that we could have connected with our audience more during the development process of our website. We focussed more on drawing inspiration from and challenging the conventions of other websites we had researched, and, as we received very positive feedback from our classmates throughout the process, we did not feel that we needed to change anything. However, in hindsight, I wish we had also appealed for opinions from our target audience as we did with our poster, because at times we have wondered whether our poster has come out as too generic and not fashion orientated enough.
After editing the first sequence of our trailer, including the sequence to the intro of Paramore's "Decode", our production company logo, and a scene of dialogue between Cindy's character and her friend, we uploaded it to all of our Facebook accounts. With the majority of people on Facebook, uploading a section of our trailer to the site was similar to launching it to a sample of a "real world" audience.
The comments we received were positive about the music we chose, and felt the editing worked in sync. We received one comment from an 18 year old female (so in our target demographic), which said; "I feel really sorry for the girl in the intro. The scenes with her mother and boyfriend were very sweet and she looked so sad thinking about them." We were pleased that the intro had receive our desired sympathies from a member our target audience, and that she had realized that Cindy's character was reflecting on our past; it told us that we had edited the intro well.
However, the scene of dialogue after our production company intro (a scene between Cindy's character and her friend, walking towards a post box with an envelope, containing Cindy's modeling photos for the agency but this is never mentioned, whilst Cindy's friend asks Cindy if she "is sure she wants to do this", never mentioning what "this" is) received predominately negative feedback. For example, "I don't understand, what is the "this" they're referring to? Is it her modeling?" (which came from a friend who knew the theme of our film before watching) and "I don't think this adds very much to your trailer other than confusion, to be honest. Perhaps cut it?"
Having found audience feedback so valuable during the production of our teaser poster, we decided to trust it again and cut the small scene of dialogue.
- Trailer: We felt like scenes were moving too fast, Ryan "liked, didn't feel like he was missing anything, was definitely interested to see more." not so keen on font. He's opposite sex to our demographic, but has same interest in the arts and fashion.
The next time we shared our trailer with outside critics was after we had cut all of the scenes to fit our music, to both the "Decode" intro and the intro to Muse's "MK Ultra". The fast pace of "MK Ultra" had lead to our cutting our scenes quite finely to run in sync with it.
Evaluation Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
As a promotional package overall, I think the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks is very effective.
Across all three products, we have used a minimalistic and exposing aesthetic, as we are representing our film, which is an exposé style drama about the modeling industry. We needed to make this clear to our target audience (females 18-34, cosmopolitan, with an interest in the fashion industries), and from our research we were able to understand icons of this theme; such as minimalism, powerful images, and references to fashion houses. To produce the best representation of our film, we considered all of these elements and incorporated the most representative into all three of our products.
Using a predominately monochromatic palette for our teaser poster and website were how we achieved our minimalistic aesthetic, and the stark images used in our teaser poster and trailer supported the exposé style we have attempted to achieve with our film. We downloaded the minimalistic Calvin Klein font and created a title for our film in Adobe Photoshop CS3 which we were able to use across all if our products, to enhance the references our film contains to the real fashion industries and stories for our audience.
Using the same title font across all of our products also acted as a constant, to make it clear to audience that each piece of material is promoting the same film.
As well as being consistent in style as a set, each piece of material also has its own strengths as a promotional tool, which, when combined, enables the whole package to have covered three different styles of advertising for three slightly different consumers. Should our film be being released, the teaser poster would be the first piece of promotional material released. It's simplicity allows for even the more passive members of our target audience to be able to consume the strong iconic image and the basic information we provide with little concentration.
Our trailer would be next to be released, developing upon the initial interest our teaser poster would have created by providing more information for members of our target audience who are a little more focussed. Finally, our website would be available for members of our target audience who have developed a strong interest in our film and would like to research more information. We, as a group, feel that the three stages of promotion our package establishes combined is very effective in reaching out to our target audience and creates the best chance of our film's success.
Across all three products, we have used a minimalistic and exposing aesthetic, as we are representing our film, which is an exposé style drama about the modeling industry. We needed to make this clear to our target audience (females 18-34, cosmopolitan, with an interest in the fashion industries), and from our research we were able to understand icons of this theme; such as minimalism, powerful images, and references to fashion houses. To produce the best representation of our film, we considered all of these elements and incorporated the most representative into all three of our products.
Using a predominately monochromatic palette for our teaser poster and website were how we achieved our minimalistic aesthetic, and the stark images used in our teaser poster and trailer supported the exposé style we have attempted to achieve with our film. We downloaded the minimalistic Calvin Klein font and created a title for our film in Adobe Photoshop CS3 which we were able to use across all if our products, to enhance the references our film contains to the real fashion industries and stories for our audience.
Using the same title font across all of our products also acted as a constant, to make it clear to audience that each piece of material is promoting the same film.
As well as being consistent in style as a set, each piece of material also has its own strengths as a promotional tool, which, when combined, enables the whole package to have covered three different styles of advertising for three slightly different consumers. Should our film be being released, the teaser poster would be the first piece of promotional material released. It's simplicity allows for even the more passive members of our target audience to be able to consume the strong iconic image and the basic information we provide with little concentration.
Our trailer would be next to be released, developing upon the initial interest our teaser poster would have created by providing more information for members of our target audience who are a little more focussed. Finally, our website would be available for members of our target audience who have developed a strong interest in our film and would like to research more information. We, as a group, feel that the three stages of promotion our package establishes combined is very effective in reaching out to our target audience and creates the best chance of our film's success.
Evaluation One: In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Trailer:
When planning and producing our film trailer, there were many elements of other films, television shows, and their respective trailers which influenced our group's decisions.
One of the trailers which we came to look to the most throughout our pre-production research was the trailer for Joel Schumacher's 2010 film "Twelve". "Twelve" is a film that touches on many similar themes to our own, and is targeted towards the same audience. The element to the trailer for "Twelve" that we found the most interesting was the retrospective opening.
The trailer for "Twelve" opens with a long panning shot of Chace Crawford's character, White Mike, at an emotional low point.
This single shot is intercut with flashbacks to the protagonist's most poignant memories; memories of his deceased mother. This effect is used as an establishing sequence for the audience. It establishes a key moment from the protagonist's past, which in turn establishes a key element to his emotional state and establishes how the following events shown in the trailer started to unfold in the film's world.
As a group, we liked this technique because it was quite unique and drew audience interest. (In an industry as competitive as the film industry, a drawing first impression from promotional material is essential to a media product's success.)
We used this technique with a similar single long panning shot of our protagonist at her low point, at the pit of her story; when she has become homeless. Although this showed a specific key moment in our plot, whereas the trailer for "Twelve" just showed an unspecified moment when the protagonist's low emotional state was open to the audience, we still felt this was not a plot spoiler; it's not the ending of our film, it's the pit of the protagonist's story. Rather than being a plot spoiler, we felt that it would be an incentive to the audience to see the film to see how the character recovers from the situation.
We considered using a still long shot which zooms into a close up shot of our protagonist, but felt that the pan, in the direct style of the "Twelve" trailer, worked far better. The pan's moving to focus on our protagonist on the street was a far better representation of this shot being from a passing person's (or the audience's) perspective, in contrast to the flashbacks which are from the perspective of our protagonist.
As in the "Twelve" trailer, we used literal flash transitions between our panning shot and the flashbacks. However, we developed upon "Twelve"'s use of poignant memories, which were used to establish their protagonist's mental state which was key to establishing their film's plot, by using happier memories, which establish the difference between where our protagonist has come from to where she is now, which is key to establishing our film's plot.
Other trailers we looked at also influenced decisions we made about the production of our trailer's opening. For example, we looked at the trailer for "Black Swan" as it is another film which touches onto similar themes to our own, and found it's use of color interesting.
The washed out effect represented the emotional draining Natalie Portman's character Nina suffered due to the strain of her career, and we decided to emulate this coloring on the panning shot in our trailer's opening with a color filter in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 to represent the emotional draining of our protagonist due to the strain of her career.
We developed upon this technique by using a warmer color filter on the flashbacks in our trailer opening to contrast with our protagonist's drained, "cold", emotional state after her career has taken everything from her, with the happier, "warmer", emotional state she was in prior to modeling.
The same washed out effect was used in another trailer we looked at, for the documentary "Picture Me". In this trailer, washed out, over bright, coloring is used to represent the documentary's exposé style, "shining the light" on the modeling and fashion industries.
We decided to emulate this effect on scenes from our trailer which were inspired by true stories we had read about in the media and seen in other films and television shows, scenes which were more exposing. However, after showing a sequence from our trailer to our Media Studies class, who are close in age to our target audience, the feedback we received was negative towards this decision. Class members thought the differences in coloring on different scenes in the sequence made it feel disjointed. So, we reversed the decision and made the coloring on our trailer, post the opening, constant.
As mentioned, many of the scenes shown in our trailer were inspired by true stories we had read about in the media and seen in other films and television shows, and a few were inspired by fictional stories with an element of truth. This was because we wanted our film/trailer to have as high a level of verisimilitude as possible, and for us to be able to tell as honest and exposing a story as possible. For these stories, we looked to print and online fashion media sources which are targeted towards our audience (such as more "accessible", lower end fashion magazines like "Grazia", and more popular online fashion blogs like "The Cut"), and documentaries and television shows like "Picture Me" and "The Beautiful Life". We took themes from real stories, such as the sexual harassment charges associated with photographer Terry Richardson and often speculated about extreme diets/eating disorders, and developed upon them by amalgamating them into one plot.
We turned this plot into a sequence of key scenes for our trailer by editing to a piece of music with a strong beat and a mood which reflected our film, a technique we drew from, again, watching trailers for films similar to our own, such as "Twelve" and "The Social Network".
Post it's opening, the trailer for "Twelve" picks up pace with the song "Kids" by MGMT, to reflect the should-be innocence of the film's characters, before progressing into the even faster-paced and more erratic "MK Ultra" by Muse, to reflect the actual insanity and downward spiraling effects of their situation. As a group, we liked the use of "MK Ultra", and the editing of scenes in the trailer in correlation with the song's rhythm, in particular.
The trailer for "The Social Network" uses the same editing technique, to a cover of Radiohead's "Creep". With each beat, the shot changes. This makes the trailer easier for the audience to watch as the visuals are in sync with the audio, which, with the fast pace, helps to sustain interest.
Hence, editing our trailer in sync with our chosen music is a technique we were keen to use. For our trailer's opening, our music choice was more atmospheric, because our shots were longer and our priority was to build the film's mood. For this we used the intro to Paramore's "Decode", which has been used in retrospective sequences in the trailer for the film "Twilight". As we moved into our main sequence, where we wanted to build tension and represent our character's losing control, we moved into the intro of Muse's "MK Ultra".
Teaser Poster and Website:
To draw inspiration for our teaser poster, we looked at the posters for several films and television shows similar to our own film. Whereas for our trailer we researched several example trailers of differing but similar themes to our own to explore all of the conventions which appeal to our target demographic, for our poster we focused on researching example posters which were targeted towards our demographic and are for media products which explore the same themes as our film, because a teaser poster needs to make more of an instant impression.
The three posters we were most inspired by were for the documentary "Picture Me", and television shows "The Beautiful Life" and "Beautiful People". A constant convention amongst them was minimalism; with monochromatic or light coloring, and characters dressed in little (to none, in the case of "The Beautiful Life") basic clothing. We used this idea whilst drafting and creating our initial poster, shooting our protagonist with a full body shot, wearing a simple shirt and trousers set, against a white background. We developed upon this by adding a tape measure around her waist, and having her face covered by her hair as she looks down at the measurement, to represent where the focus of her mindset becomes directed in the film. Using Adobe Photoshop CS3, we adjusted the coloring of the image to black and white, and used simple Arial font, similar to that used on all of the aforementioned posters. We liked the finished effect, feeling that it represented the exposé nature of our film.
However, after receiving audience feedback, we realized a full body shot was not enabling the audience to focus on the tape measure, a key symbol of our film. We looked back at the original posters which had inspired us, and noticed the billboard in the lower half of one of the alternate posters for "Picture Me".
We decided to develop upon this inspiration and challenge the convention of using a traditional poster to promote our film. The minimalistic approach to design was still a theme that we wanted to use, so we researched minimalistic fashion billboard campaigns. Calvin Klein stood out to us, as the clothing collections themselves are minimalistic in design and are promoted in black and white images each season. In emulation of this, we shot our image with our protagonist wearing the same trouser and shirt set as before, against a white background, and in black and white. However, we also made some developments, coloring the skin of her stomach to draw even more of a focus to the character's weight obsession. To finish, we downloaded and used the Calvin Klein logo font to add our film's name and "coming soon" to the poster.
We used the same minimalistic approach whilst producing our website. We looked to the websites for the same films we had been researching for inspiration for our trailer edit and poster.
The website theme we drew the most inspiration from was from the website "Picture Me". It was in keeping with the minimalistic them were using across our media products, and the clean layout allowed information to be easily consumable for our audience. Hence, whilst browsing the galleries on Wix to find a template to edit, we were looking for (and found) one which was similar to this website.
However, we also wanted our website to represent the dark undertones our film features. To do this, we challenged to conventions of the minimalist, white background, black font, fashion media websites and reversed their color scheme, using a dark background with a white font. Before we applied this to our website, we were concerned that it may be reflective of a film from the horror genre, but we were pleased with the finished result and audience feedback was very positive.
When planning and producing our film trailer, there were many elements of other films, television shows, and their respective trailers which influenced our group's decisions.
One of the trailers which we came to look to the most throughout our pre-production research was the trailer for Joel Schumacher's 2010 film "Twelve". "Twelve" is a film that touches on many similar themes to our own, and is targeted towards the same audience. The element to the trailer for "Twelve" that we found the most interesting was the retrospective opening.
The trailer for "Twelve" opens with a long panning shot of Chace Crawford's character, White Mike, at an emotional low point.
This single shot is intercut with flashbacks to the protagonist's most poignant memories; memories of his deceased mother. This effect is used as an establishing sequence for the audience. It establishes a key moment from the protagonist's past, which in turn establishes a key element to his emotional state and establishes how the following events shown in the trailer started to unfold in the film's world.
As a group, we liked this technique because it was quite unique and drew audience interest. (In an industry as competitive as the film industry, a drawing first impression from promotional material is essential to a media product's success.)
We used this technique with a similar single long panning shot of our protagonist at her low point, at the pit of her story; when she has become homeless. Although this showed a specific key moment in our plot, whereas the trailer for "Twelve" just showed an unspecified moment when the protagonist's low emotional state was open to the audience, we still felt this was not a plot spoiler; it's not the ending of our film, it's the pit of the protagonist's story. Rather than being a plot spoiler, we felt that it would be an incentive to the audience to see the film to see how the character recovers from the situation.
We considered using a still long shot which zooms into a close up shot of our protagonist, but felt that the pan, in the direct style of the "Twelve" trailer, worked far better. The pan's moving to focus on our protagonist on the street was a far better representation of this shot being from a passing person's (or the audience's) perspective, in contrast to the flashbacks which are from the perspective of our protagonist.
As in the "Twelve" trailer, we used literal flash transitions between our panning shot and the flashbacks. However, we developed upon "Twelve"'s use of poignant memories, which were used to establish their protagonist's mental state which was key to establishing their film's plot, by using happier memories, which establish the difference between where our protagonist has come from to where she is now, which is key to establishing our film's plot.
Other trailers we looked at also influenced decisions we made about the production of our trailer's opening. For example, we looked at the trailer for "Black Swan" as it is another film which touches onto similar themes to our own, and found it's use of color interesting.
The washed out effect represented the emotional draining Natalie Portman's character Nina suffered due to the strain of her career, and we decided to emulate this coloring on the panning shot in our trailer's opening with a color filter in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 to represent the emotional draining of our protagonist due to the strain of her career.
We developed upon this technique by using a warmer color filter on the flashbacks in our trailer opening to contrast with our protagonist's drained, "cold", emotional state after her career has taken everything from her, with the happier, "warmer", emotional state she was in prior to modeling.
The same washed out effect was used in another trailer we looked at, for the documentary "Picture Me". In this trailer, washed out, over bright, coloring is used to represent the documentary's exposé style, "shining the light" on the modeling and fashion industries.
We decided to emulate this effect on scenes from our trailer which were inspired by true stories we had read about in the media and seen in other films and television shows, scenes which were more exposing. However, after showing a sequence from our trailer to our Media Studies class, who are close in age to our target audience, the feedback we received was negative towards this decision. Class members thought the differences in coloring on different scenes in the sequence made it feel disjointed. So, we reversed the decision and made the coloring on our trailer, post the opening, constant.
As mentioned, many of the scenes shown in our trailer were inspired by true stories we had read about in the media and seen in other films and television shows, and a few were inspired by fictional stories with an element of truth. This was because we wanted our film/trailer to have as high a level of verisimilitude as possible, and for us to be able to tell as honest and exposing a story as possible. For these stories, we looked to print and online fashion media sources which are targeted towards our audience (such as more "accessible", lower end fashion magazines like "Grazia", and more popular online fashion blogs like "The Cut"), and documentaries and television shows like "Picture Me" and "The Beautiful Life". We took themes from real stories, such as the sexual harassment charges associated with photographer Terry Richardson and often speculated about extreme diets/eating disorders, and developed upon them by amalgamating them into one plot.
We turned this plot into a sequence of key scenes for our trailer by editing to a piece of music with a strong beat and a mood which reflected our film, a technique we drew from, again, watching trailers for films similar to our own, such as "Twelve" and "The Social Network".
Post it's opening, the trailer for "Twelve" picks up pace with the song "Kids" by MGMT, to reflect the should-be innocence of the film's characters, before progressing into the even faster-paced and more erratic "MK Ultra" by Muse, to reflect the actual insanity and downward spiraling effects of their situation. As a group, we liked the use of "MK Ultra", and the editing of scenes in the trailer in correlation with the song's rhythm, in particular.
The trailer for "The Social Network" uses the same editing technique, to a cover of Radiohead's "Creep". With each beat, the shot changes. This makes the trailer easier for the audience to watch as the visuals are in sync with the audio, which, with the fast pace, helps to sustain interest.
Hence, editing our trailer in sync with our chosen music is a technique we were keen to use. For our trailer's opening, our music choice was more atmospheric, because our shots were longer and our priority was to build the film's mood. For this we used the intro to Paramore's "Decode", which has been used in retrospective sequences in the trailer for the film "Twilight". As we moved into our main sequence, where we wanted to build tension and represent our character's losing control, we moved into the intro of Muse's "MK Ultra".
Teaser Poster and Website:
To draw inspiration for our teaser poster, we looked at the posters for several films and television shows similar to our own film. Whereas for our trailer we researched several example trailers of differing but similar themes to our own to explore all of the conventions which appeal to our target demographic, for our poster we focused on researching example posters which were targeted towards our demographic and are for media products which explore the same themes as our film, because a teaser poster needs to make more of an instant impression.
The three posters we were most inspired by were for the documentary "Picture Me", and television shows "The Beautiful Life" and "Beautiful People". A constant convention amongst them was minimalism; with monochromatic or light coloring, and characters dressed in little (to none, in the case of "The Beautiful Life") basic clothing. We used this idea whilst drafting and creating our initial poster, shooting our protagonist with a full body shot, wearing a simple shirt and trousers set, against a white background. We developed upon this by adding a tape measure around her waist, and having her face covered by her hair as she looks down at the measurement, to represent where the focus of her mindset becomes directed in the film. Using Adobe Photoshop CS3, we adjusted the coloring of the image to black and white, and used simple Arial font, similar to that used on all of the aforementioned posters. We liked the finished effect, feeling that it represented the exposé nature of our film.
However, after receiving audience feedback, we realized a full body shot was not enabling the audience to focus on the tape measure, a key symbol of our film. We looked back at the original posters which had inspired us, and noticed the billboard in the lower half of one of the alternate posters for "Picture Me".
We decided to develop upon this inspiration and challenge the convention of using a traditional poster to promote our film. The minimalistic approach to design was still a theme that we wanted to use, so we researched minimalistic fashion billboard campaigns. Calvin Klein stood out to us, as the clothing collections themselves are minimalistic in design and are promoted in black and white images each season. In emulation of this, we shot our image with our protagonist wearing the same trouser and shirt set as before, against a white background, and in black and white. However, we also made some developments, coloring the skin of her stomach to draw even more of a focus to the character's weight obsession. To finish, we downloaded and used the Calvin Klein logo font to add our film's name and "coming soon" to the poster.
We used the same minimalistic approach whilst producing our website. We looked to the websites for the same films we had been researching for inspiration for our trailer edit and poster.
The website theme we drew the most inspiration from was from the website "Picture Me". It was in keeping with the minimalistic them were using across our media products, and the clean layout allowed information to be easily consumable for our audience. Hence, whilst browsing the galleries on Wix to find a template to edit, we were looking for (and found) one which was similar to this website.
However, we also wanted our website to represent the dark undertones our film features. To do this, we challenged to conventions of the minimalist, white background, black font, fashion media websites and reversed their color scheme, using a dark background with a white font. Before we applied this to our website, we were concerned that it may be reflective of a film from the horror genre, but we were pleased with the finished result and audience feedback was very positive.
Planning - Title Ideas and Audience Feedback.
With our filming script finished and the production of our supporting media (poster and website) underway, our group now has a very clear vision of our film and its message, and are able to start discussing potential titles.
We are all agreed that our main theme is our protagonist's struggles with her weight as she pursues entering the modeling industry, and that this should be reflected within our title. This lead us to list various "keywords" associated with extreme dieting and modeling, such as; weight, size, measure, thin, figure, image, face, perception, beauty. From these we were able to draw up three potential names, all of which we would be content to attach to our film. These are; Thinspiration, Extreme Measures, and Weighted Decision.
As we have three potential titles which we, as a group, feel could all work for our film, we turned to our potential audiences for feedback about which they feel is the most intriguing; the one which would be most likely to draw them to see our film, which, of course, is our main objective.
I made a basic survey for us to use to collect the opinions of our potential audience, and also to get to know a little bit about them. For example, we know that our target audience is females 18-34, so by including those surveyed's genders and ages in with their feedback, we can get an idea of which title is the most popular overall, and which is the most popular with our target market.
We are all agreed that our main theme is our protagonist's struggles with her weight as she pursues entering the modeling industry, and that this should be reflected within our title. This lead us to list various "keywords" associated with extreme dieting and modeling, such as; weight, size, measure, thin, figure, image, face, perception, beauty. From these we were able to draw up three potential names, all of which we would be content to attach to our film. These are; Thinspiration, Extreme Measures, and Weighted Decision.
- Thinspiration is drawn from our protagonist's initial "inspiration" to start modeling and, as a result, extreme dieting. We feel that it highlights her obsessive nature about pursuing both. It is also a reference to the real world pro-anorexia websites which bring together communities of extreme dieters to share tips and images of their "thinspirations"; often the thinnest of models.
- Extreme Measures is drawn from our protagonist's determination and will to do whatever it takes to succeed. The "Extreme" portion of the title is a direct reference to her extreme dieting, and the "Measures" references her reasons for her actions; to fit into the fashion industry's small standard sample size. The "Measures" portion would also reflect the image on our poster, should we chose to use one of the designs featuring a tape measure.
- Weighted Decision is drawn from the drastic decisions our protagonist makes in her pursuit to be a model; in particular her decision to follow an extreme diet to drop her weight. We feel that the title highlights just how drastic a decision this is, with the "Weighted" portion of the title not only being a reference to what the decision is concerning, but also the impacts it has on her life.
As we have three potential titles which we, as a group, feel could all work for our film, we turned to our potential audiences for feedback about which they feel is the most intriguing; the one which would be most likely to draw them to see our film, which, of course, is our main objective.
I made a basic survey for us to use to collect the opinions of our potential audience, and also to get to know a little bit about them. For example, we know that our target audience is females 18-34, so by including those surveyed's genders and ages in with their feedback, we can get an idea of which title is the most popular overall, and which is the most popular with our target market.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Planning - Poster Design Ideas.
I have started drafting a few ideas for our poster's potential layout. All three are very basic sketches, as their primary purpose is for our group to gain an idea of the composition options for our poster, and for us to start planning which one would be best to promote our film and how we could shoot and edit it.
This first option shows our an extreme close up of our protagonist's face and neckline, with her being "strangled" by a tape measure. This composition suggests the pressure that our protagonist is under as an aspiring model, in particular due to weight issues. However, it could have more of a horror genre connotation.
This second option is also an extreme close up, this time of our protagonist's waist, and also utilizes a tape measure as the main focal point. I have used the tape measure again as I think it is a good symbol for our film; weight issues will be prevalent, and will be the cause of our protagonist's downward spiral into other issues. Setting it against her waist rather than her face took away the horror connotation the previous poster could have had, and also stops the audience from being distracted between two focal points (the actress's face and the tape measure). With the former poster, we would have had no visible clothing on our model, as only her face and shoulders were on view, similar to the "The Beautiful Life: TBL" nude shots, however with this poster we would have her in simple blue jeans and a white vest (which we would offset the title); still keeping her a blank canvas, vulnerable to corruption.
This third option takes a different direction to the previous two posters. We have our protagonist dressed in the same blue jeans and white vest as in the former poster, for the same reasons, but we have her in a long shot showing her full body rather than an extreme close up of a specific area. In the foreground, there is a camera showing a retouched, clichéd "model-esque" image of our protagonist, in full hair and make up, on the display screen. The camera is pointing towards the "real" depiction of our protagonist; a very vulnerable looking girl, in plain clothes, with invisible hair and make up. The use of composition and contrasts in styling are to symbolize our film's exposing the real model, not the one the camera creates. However, unlike the former two drafts with their use of the tape measure, this poster does not pick up on particular themes or the downward spiral our protagonist will experience, and the more detailed layout may be more difficult for passing audiences to read messages from.
This second option is also an extreme close up, this time of our protagonist's waist, and also utilizes a tape measure as the main focal point. I have used the tape measure again as I think it is a good symbol for our film; weight issues will be prevalent, and will be the cause of our protagonist's downward spiral into other issues. Setting it against her waist rather than her face took away the horror connotation the previous poster could have had, and also stops the audience from being distracted between two focal points (the actress's face and the tape measure). With the former poster, we would have had no visible clothing on our model, as only her face and shoulders were on view, similar to the "The Beautiful Life: TBL" nude shots, however with this poster we would have her in simple blue jeans and a white vest (which we would offset the title); still keeping her a blank canvas, vulnerable to corruption.
This third option takes a different direction to the previous two posters. We have our protagonist dressed in the same blue jeans and white vest as in the former poster, for the same reasons, but we have her in a long shot showing her full body rather than an extreme close up of a specific area. In the foreground, there is a camera showing a retouched, clichéd "model-esque" image of our protagonist, in full hair and make up, on the display screen. The camera is pointing towards the "real" depiction of our protagonist; a very vulnerable looking girl, in plain clothes, with invisible hair and make up. The use of composition and contrasts in styling are to symbolize our film's exposing the real model, not the one the camera creates. However, unlike the former two drafts with their use of the tape measure, this poster does not pick up on particular themes or the downward spiral our protagonist will experience, and the more detailed layout may be more difficult for passing audiences to read messages from.
Research - Analysis of "The Beautiful Life : TBL"'s Advertising Campaign and Others.
With our plot themes finalized and the writing of our plot underway, it is now time for our group to start shifting some focus onto our supporting products; we will be making a poster to advertise our film and a website to complete our promotional package.
Before we start drafting ideas for our poster, I have done some research into posters for other films which also target our female 18-34 demographic and/or are of our genre. As this article on Empire Online highlights, particular genres have particular clichéd conventions in the way that their posters are constructed; hence, I will be looking out for conventions that I can spot within the posters I will be looking at.
The first, and main, advertising campaign that I will be looking at is the one for the television show "The Beautiful Life : TBL", as, despite the show's eventual failings, it was a successful, well targeted campaign for a show which explores similar themes to our own film and was produced for a television network which targets the same demographic as our group.
"The Beautiful Life : TBL" utilized both print and online media for its promotional campaign; as we will be with our poster and website. The show was promoted through the acclaimed cast's Twitter feeds, attaching to each Tweet a TwitPic of one of the show's posters bearing the tagline "What are you looking at?", to reach a mainstream audience, and during New York Fashion Week through New York Magazine, with the event's 4000 well connected attendees receiving an edition of New York Magazine featuring an ad spread for the show, to pique the interest of their more specific target audience.
Above are the four posters that were used for the show's main campaign, featuring nude shots of the four principal cast members, shielded by a banner containing the show's title and tag line.
The first message that these posters convey is that the life of a model is going to be stripped bare; as represented with a literal visual metaphor. I like the way that these posters have conveyed this message, as it is simple, eye-catching, and the message is easy to interpret - even at a glance. As we will be attempting to strip the falsehoods of the modeling industry away with our film/trailer, the message that these posters are attempting to convey and the way that they convey them could be of inspiration to our group.
The second message that these posters convey is more of a statement about the characters; all three of the characters who are established models (top left, Ashley Medekwe as Marissa; bottom right, Sara Paxton as Raina; bottom left, Corbin Bleu as Isaac) are facing the camera in a full body long shot, which, combined with their body language, symbolizes their confidence. The character who is an aspiring model, new to the industry (top right, Ben Hollingsworth as Chris), is facing away from the camera and has a far more timid and unsure body language. As our protagonist is an aspiring model, our group can draw more inspiration from the representation of Ben Hollingsworth's character Chris and "his" poster.
In summary, things that I liked/think our group could draw inspiration from :
The literal metaphor used to convey the "stripped bear" message.
The simplicity of the campaign; it's eye-catching and makes it easier for an audience to consume information at a glance.
The composure of the top right, Ben Hollingsworth as Chris, "aspiring model" poster, and the actor's body language.
Things that I didn't like/don't think our group can draw inspiration from :
The "confidence" of the composure of and body language used in the other three posters; connotes a model with more experience and industry knowledge than our own protagonist.
The "retouched" look of the posters; the aim of our film is to show a less glamorous side to the modeling industry, a more realistic and relatable take, hence we should convey this within our poster.
Some other posters which target our demographic that I have looked at, based on previous research, include:
Before we start drafting ideas for our poster, I have done some research into posters for other films which also target our female 18-34 demographic and/or are of our genre. As this article on Empire Online highlights, particular genres have particular clichéd conventions in the way that their posters are constructed; hence, I will be looking out for conventions that I can spot within the posters I will be looking at.
The first, and main, advertising campaign that I will be looking at is the one for the television show "The Beautiful Life : TBL", as, despite the show's eventual failings, it was a successful, well targeted campaign for a show which explores similar themes to our own film and was produced for a television network which targets the same demographic as our group.
"The Beautiful Life : TBL" utilized both print and online media for its promotional campaign; as we will be with our poster and website. The show was promoted through the acclaimed cast's Twitter feeds, attaching to each Tweet a TwitPic of one of the show's posters bearing the tagline "What are you looking at?", to reach a mainstream audience, and during New York Fashion Week through New York Magazine, with the event's 4000 well connected attendees receiving an edition of New York Magazine featuring an ad spread for the show, to pique the interest of their more specific target audience.
Above are the four posters that were used for the show's main campaign, featuring nude shots of the four principal cast members, shielded by a banner containing the show's title and tag line.
The first message that these posters convey is that the life of a model is going to be stripped bare; as represented with a literal visual metaphor. I like the way that these posters have conveyed this message, as it is simple, eye-catching, and the message is easy to interpret - even at a glance. As we will be attempting to strip the falsehoods of the modeling industry away with our film/trailer, the message that these posters are attempting to convey and the way that they convey them could be of inspiration to our group.
The second message that these posters convey is more of a statement about the characters; all three of the characters who are established models (top left, Ashley Medekwe as Marissa; bottom right, Sara Paxton as Raina; bottom left, Corbin Bleu as Isaac) are facing the camera in a full body long shot, which, combined with their body language, symbolizes their confidence. The character who is an aspiring model, new to the industry (top right, Ben Hollingsworth as Chris), is facing away from the camera and has a far more timid and unsure body language. As our protagonist is an aspiring model, our group can draw more inspiration from the representation of Ben Hollingsworth's character Chris and "his" poster.
In summary, things that I liked/think our group could draw inspiration from :
The literal metaphor used to convey the "stripped bear" message.
The simplicity of the campaign; it's eye-catching and makes it easier for an audience to consume information at a glance.
The composure of the top right, Ben Hollingsworth as Chris, "aspiring model" poster, and the actor's body language.
Things that I didn't like/don't think our group can draw inspiration from :
The "confidence" of the composure of and body language used in the other three posters; connotes a model with more experience and industry knowledge than our own protagonist.
The "retouched" look of the posters; the aim of our film is to show a less glamorous side to the modeling industry, a more realistic and relatable take, hence we should convey this within our poster.
Some other posters which target our demographic that I have looked at, based on previous research, include:
This poster for ABC family's television series "Beautiful People". Like the posters for "The Beautiful Life: TBL", this poster is very simple and, to a lesser extent, eye-catching. What I like about/can draw inspiration from this poster over the posters for "The Beautiful Life: TBL" is the less retouched look, the less glamorous aesthetic. "Beautiful People" was about a family moving to Manhattan from New Mexico, hence their uncertainty about their new environment is not dissimilar to the uncertainty our character would be feeling, and has been represented in a similar way in this poster to the way that we could in our poster. The less glamorous/less confident approach this poster has taken contrasts with:
This poster for The CW's television series Gossip Girl. Whereas "Beautiful People" was showing the lives of a less glamorous family living in NYC, as we will be showing a less glamorous side to modeling, "Gossip Girl" heightens the glamor in all of its themes; and this is represented with its poster. All of the characters in the "Gossip Girl" poster look confident and comfortable in their environment; aside from Penn Badgely as Dan and Taylor Momsen as Jenny, who's characters are new to the Manhattan high society environment and have this uncertainty represented with a similar turned away/less confident body language to the "The Beautiful Life: TBL" poster with Ben Hollingsworth.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Planning - Mood Board.
As our group have now settled on our target demographic and the theme for our film/trailer, we have started looking at various sources of media for ideas and inspirational content that will be useful to us during our production. I have looked at examples from three forms; advertising, television, and film, to gain as much information about how our genre should be targeted as possible. As a group, we have been looking at the print media that our demographic would be interested in reading; being a fashion conscious female between the ages of 18-34, these have included the "younger" fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Teen Vogue. Whilst we have studied traditional Vogue and other higher brow fashion publications such as Harper's Bazaar and Tatler, this has been more so for detailed insight into the fashion and modeling industry rather than for insight into how to target our audience. The more traditional, high brow print fashion publications tend to target a wealthier, more intellectual, fashion niche, whereas, producing a film for general release, we need to be more open.
Below is the mood board that I have created for us to use, based upon the group's and my own research. Our target demographic being quite social media and fashion conscious, I have been using the internet (fashion blogs in particular) and magazines as my primary source for content. I constructed the mood board using Adobe's Photoshop CS5.
I have attempted to represent the direction that we, as a group, see our film going in. I have used an organized, tiled layout with all of our themes, major and minor, mixed in with each other to be able to glean a clear idea of what sort of image we and our film/trailer will be depicting.
Below is the mood board that I have created for us to use, based upon the group's and my own research. Our target demographic being quite social media and fashion conscious, I have been using the internet (fashion blogs in particular) and magazines as my primary source for content. I constructed the mood board using Adobe's Photoshop CS5.
I have attempted to represent the direction that we, as a group, see our film going in. I have used an organized, tiled layout with all of our themes, major and minor, mixed in with each other to be able to glean a clear idea of what sort of image we and our film/trailer will be depicting.
Research - Analysis of "Picture Me : A Model's Diary".
"Picture Me : A Mode's Diary" is a documentary made by (now) former model Sara Ziff and director Ole Schell, which charts Ziff's rise to acclaim and discusses well and lesser known controversies associated with the modeling industry. It was released to audiences in late 2010, and won several prestigious awards, including "Best Fashion Film" at the Milan International Film Festival.
It's interesting for our group to look at, as it touches on and gives examples of the themes we will be representing in our fictional film/trailer, but in a non-fictional context. It is essential that we look at documentaries like this to find factual inspiration, as we would like our film/trailer to have as high a level of realism and verisimilitude as possible.
Themes from the film that we are discussing showing in our own include:
We have also looked at the film's trailer, to learn from its construction and the editing of those scenes which present similar/the same themes as those that we will be exploring.
(Trailer analysis.)
US Release Poster for "Picture Me".
As the poster above suggests, the movie looks behind the scenes at the lives of the models featured in the glamorous advertisements we come into contact with every day, exposing both the highs of the career (representing and walking for some of the world's top fashion houses, the Fashion Week after parties, and a six figure salary) and the lows (maintaining an abnormal shape to suit the industry's unrealistic demands, the degradation, the exhaustion, and the more common low salary - making it hard to cover even the rent alone in one of the world's fashion capitals).
It's interesting for our group to look at, as it touches on and gives examples of the themes we will be representing in our fictional film/trailer, but in a non-fictional context. It is essential that we look at documentaries like this to find factual inspiration, as we would like our film/trailer to have as high a level of realism and verisimilitude as possible.
Themes from the film that we are discussing showing in our own include:
- Differences between the lives of the few top models and an aspiring model.
- Issues with image.
- Sexual harassment.
We have also looked at the film's trailer, to learn from its construction and the editing of those scenes which present similar/the same themes as those that we will be exploring.
(Trailer analysis.)
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