Ancillary Products: Research - Magazine Review: Mood Board

For my second ancillary product I have decided to create a double page magazine review for my film. Therefore I have created a mood board, that will allow me to develop initial ideas for my own project. 

I have created a mood board featuring a variety of double page magazine film reviews. I have included reviews from a variety of different magazines and a range of different film genres, in order to decipher conventions that are used most commonly within magazine reviews. One feature that has been made apparent to me through this mood board is the use of a screen grab from the movie as the main image of the review. Along with this, the colours and fonts used have generally been chosen to coincide with the colours and tones of the main image. From this I can therefore determine that the key image is central to the the review page. This image provides an isight into the film as it displays the main protagonists and often provides an insight into the location of the film.

Ancillary Research: Poster - Consolidation of What I Found

The most significant feature I found during my poster research was that each design used a strong colour scheme. The most notable use of this can be seen in the 'Palo Alto' poster. The pink colour wash over the main image made the entire poster more visually striking, thus creating a strong marketing campaign. This is something I will be considering using in MY own product, as the colour can also reflect aspects of the narrative. For example, the pink colour scheme of Palo Alto reflects the themes of femininity and relationships that are prominent within the film.

During the filming process of our own short film, we shot a scene of our character in front of a sunset. From my analysis of the 'King Jack', I have found that sunset lighting can connote themes of happiness and suggest a pleasant atmosphere. As we are trying to convey a positive perspective of youth and growing up, I may consider using footage from this filming day in my poster.

Another prominent feature within coming of age posters is their use of the colour green. Green typically connotes growth, and thus is a fitting colour to promote a coming of age film. Therefore, this may be something I should include in my own poster as there are clear references to growth in our title, 'Growing Up'.

Critical acclaim is also present on almost all of the posters. This has the effect of enticing the audience as they see that the film has been well received and therefore it is likely that they will enjoy it too. Positive reviews may also be used to provide an insight into the narrative of the film. For example in the 'King Jack' poster, one of the reviews references it being a 'rite-of-passage movie'. Thus allowing the audience to identify the genre of the film immediately.

It is also clear that the key image of most of the posters is the protagonist of the film (often with their friends or partners alongside them). This is something I am very likely to include in my product as it introduces the main character immediately to the audience and displays them as a younger person. Often the character will be using their facial expressions to suggest the tone of the film. For example, in the 'Palo Alto' poster the main character looks vulnerable thus suggesting a darker element to the narrative.

Ancillary Product: Poster Analysis - King Jack

Ancillary Research: Poster Analysis - Palo Alto

Ancillary Research: Poster Analysis - Perks of Being a Wallflower

Ancillary Poster Research: Moodboards

For our first ancillary product we have chosen to create a film poster. I have created a moodboard of film posters within the genre of my film, in order to develop initial ideas. 

Whilst researching the coming of age genre, within the medium of short films, I found that it was a genre that has very rarely been explored. Therefore, there were very few short film posters that I could use for analytical purposes. I have therefore chosen to use posters for coming of age feature films whether that be independant or bigger budget productions.

Conventions of a film poster:

• A focal point to draw the viewer's attention.
• The title is displayed in a large, bold font. 
• The genre of the film is clearly defined. 
• There is an indication of the film's release date. 
• Reviews, awards and praise the film has received. 
• Information on the director, cast and production company and other institutional information, (typically displayed at the bottom of the page). 

Purpose of a film poster:
The primary purpose of a film poster is to advertise the movie to it's particular target audience. The poster will typically provide some insight into the narrative and genre of the film and will often display the key protagonist within the main image of the poster. Posters also provide information for the target audience and will usually display a release date, critical acclaim and institutional information.

Filming Day Seven

We planned for this day to get the majority of out filming completed. Firstly we shot the scene in which the protagonist is taking an exam. We shot this footage at school and used props such as pens and paper. We shot this scene from a variety of different angles so that we could edit the sequence in such a way that would reflect the character's stress.

PICTURES

We then filmed Molly listening to music in school. We changed her costume for these scenes so that it would appear to be a different day. We also shot each clip from the same angle as we plan to edit the clips together into a montage sequence.

PICTURES

After this we shot the scenes of the character jogging in a forrest. For this we travelled to Newbottle Woods. We changed Molly's costuming and hair for this scene, to show that she is exercising. We shot a variety of different angles of the protagonist running towards a sunset. We also shot a scene of her listening to music with the same shot types as we had in earlier earphone clips.

PICTURES

We then shot the character scratching out initials from a tree at the same location. For this scene we filmed a variety of angles of the character coming across the tree, then proceeding to scratch at the initials using her car keys.

PICTURES

Later in the day we filmed Molly and myself drinking alcohol. We filmed this at Lucy's house and used canted angles and fast camera movements to correspond with the intoxication of the characters. We also filmed myself and molly putting on makeup before the scene to present us as getting ready to go out.

PICTURES

Finally, we filmed Molly revising for her exams. To shoot this we used a light box to at the forefront of the image to display the countdown until the exams. We kept the camera in exactly the same position and shot a series of small clips. In each clip the countdown changed, displaying that the character was getting closer and closer to having to sit her final exams. In each scene we increased the amount of paper and books in front of Molly and also changed her costume, hair and makeup in order to present time progressing.

Call Sheet 7