Priceless Trailer: Draft 1 Ammendments

This is a slightly improved version of the first draft of my trailer. As suggested by my target audience, those who commented on it on YouTube, suggested I add a bit more footage as they felt they wanted to see more of it. Another audience members suggested I made the volume of the music tracks I chose the same throughout as they thought it wasn't consistent and because I also felt that it wasn't the same, this is the first thing I fixed. I also removed a couple of parts of some clips as they didn't really help or change the narrative in any way. As a whole, I think it is better with these changes, although they are small. I will also be waiting for some feedback from my teacher and will be making some changes in order to try and make my trailer as realistic as possible. 

Trailer Draft 1: Audience Feedback

As previously mentioned, I shared the first draft of my trailer on YouTube in order to receive some feedback. I shared this in a Facebook group chat and asked people to give me both pros and cons as I wanted to get different views and opinions on how I could improve my trailer. So far these are the only comments I received however, I did ask more people so I should have more feedback coming so I can try and improve as much as I can. 

Priceless Trailer: First Draft

This is the first draft for my trailer Priceless. I tried including as much footage as well as inter-titles in order to deliver my films narrative across to my targeted audience in an effective way. I feel like the footage I have filmed generally flows well and I am hoping the story line is in fact delivered to my audience members in the way I hoped. I have shared it on YouTube and I am waiting on some feedback, negatives and positives to see how people think I could improve my trailer in order to make it more appealing.  

Magazine Amendments: FINAL MAGAZINE

This is the final magazine front cover for Priceless, similarly to my poster, I spent a lot of time creating it to make sure that everything was as close to perfect as possible so I wouldn't have to keep making a lot of changes. After I posted this on Instagram, most of the feed back I received was positive which I was very happy about. Along with positive feed back I also received a couple suggestions for amendments. These included comments saying to try and create synergy between the poster and front cover, so I therefore, used the "KG why you gotta be so mean" front that I used both in my trailer and poster to write Priceless in and also added the tagline that I had included on my poster which makes the two products link in nicely as well as giving more detail into the film to the audience members. Another suggestion I got was to try and make the photograph slightly brighter as although the contrast seemed to work nicely, it was slightly too dark so fixed this by decreasing the contrast and increasing the brightness in Photoshop. 

Although I only changed a couple of things, I do think this feedback helped my cover look better. Overall, I am really happy with my end result as I think the colours, layout as well as the font links in nicely and I got a lot of feed back saying it looks like a professional one. 

Magazine Audience Feedback

As previously mentioned on my blog, I posted my magazine front cover on both Instagram and Twitter to get some feedback from those following my accounts. The Instagram account I created as I mentioned before, appeared to be most effective as more of my films followers were interacting and giving their opinions than those on Twitter, however, I still managed to get some useful feed back from Twitter as well. 

I created this collage to show the feedback I got from posting my magazine front cover on Instagram. When I posted the cover, similarly to my poster, I did so asking for both pros and cons in order to see what they thought worked well and what I could improve on. I'm glad I created these accounts as the comments I received were very helpful and allowed me to see what they would like to see on a front cover as audience members to then want to buy it. 

I am planning on reading through them all again and picking out some things I could improve on which would actually look good if I were to do so as I really want them to be as appealing to my audience members as possible, however, in comparison to my poster feedback, it looks like I haven't received a lot of comments that suggest amendments. 

First draft: Final magazine front cover for Priceless

This is my final front cover for the feature of my film on Sight & Sound. To create this, I used Photoshop and tried keeping the generic conventions of Sight & Sound magazine in order to make it look like a professional one.

 I tried keeping a similar colour scheme throughout my magazine in order to make it eye catching and appealing to those viewing. The photograph I chose, in my opinion is effective as it gives audience members an insight as to what this character is like but also other details about her, e.g financial situation and this accomplished through mise-en-scene as out of the window, along with the character as an audience we get a view of appears to be a High Street which suggests to the audience that this character may live on top of a shop. 

For the text, I chose to keep the same shades of yellow and red as those in the magazines masthead to make it all link nicely, I also used black to further accomplish this.Furthermore, I think that the brighter colour, in comparison to the highly contrasted photograph links nicely together. Overall I'm happy with how this turned out as I put in a lot of effort to create it in order to make it all look effective together and I think because I followed the generic conventions of the magazines layout, it does in fact look like an already released/ professional issue. 

I shared this front cover, just like I did my poster on both social media accounts and I am waiting for some feed back from my audience members that follow these accounts and interact through these platforms. I am waiting to see what they think works well and even what improvements they would like to see to make this cover as effective as possible.   

  

Priceless magazine front cover Progression

I created the collage on the left in order to show the progression of the magazine front cover I created. To make this magazine front cover I gradually added each feature to bring it together nicely and make sure each one was placed in the right position to further apply the generic conventions of a magazine front cover and make it look as professional as possible. 

In the first one, the very first thing I did was add a photograph which includes one of my main protagonists (Athena). I then added the logo/masthead on the left hand side and on the opposite side, I added the same coloured box with the same height but slightly smaller in length. This box includes the BFI logo as they are the publishers of Sight & Sound. Above the logo however, placed are both the issue and volume numbers, next to that is the price in British Pounds (£) of the magazine and above that is the release date of this issue. The very first thing placed in that box is the barcode. All of these are important elements of a magazine front cover because it enables all viewers to know how much the magazine is, which issue it is they are reading etc. 

In the second one, I then started adding blurbs etc to give it more of a magazine front cover feel and give viewers an insight as to what they can expect when reading this magazine. As I added a  circle as a puff in red and above that, wrote their typical "Every New Film Reviewed" tagline and underneath that I placed a blurb which usually is seen along with the puff on each issue this particular layout is used on. This blurb is "The Best Films of 2015", this is effective as it lets viewers know that one of the main articles/features of this particular issue is one which reviews all of the best films, in their opinion (an their writers, links with the little tagline under it) of 2015 and the part underneath which says that their writers chose their highlights of the year suggests that Sight & Sound likes giving its audience members a more personal experience as they could then feel that they are getting information directly from directors, which could possibly be their favourite ones. 

In the third one, I then added a second blurb which directly links to the main photograph, allowing the audience to see that one of the main features of this particular issue is about the release of a new indie film named Priceless. I wrote Priceless in Bold-Italics to make it stand out from the rest of the text featured on my cover. On top of "Priceless", I wrote my name as this is a generic convention which lets audience members know who the director of this film is. Beneath "Priceless", however, I wrote a little tagline made to look as though it is something said by one of the magazine's editor, making it a little bit more appealing to audience members. 
The third, one is also the final part of my magazine progression, also seen on the right. This is my first draft as a final front cover and I am relatively happy with it as I tried to follow particular layouts, especially the January one of Sight & Sound to make it look like a cover which could in fact be released/ created by Sight & Sound.

Change of magazine idea (central image)

I previously mentioned on my blog that I wanted to use a photograph like this one on the left while creating a front cover of a magazine as I thought it would be effective and give further insight to the audience about the characters included in my film and hints as to what may happen as the story unfolds.  

However, after I took the shoot for this cover (photographs are included on my blog),  I didn't really like how the photographic series of those ones in particular turned out but I did like one of Athena (one of my main protagonists) which I think would work extremely well with both the layout and themes of the magazine. The photograph I have decided to use is the one on the right because I think although simplistic, it includes elements which can be delivered as hints to audience members as to what is going on or even what will happen with this character throughout my film. I additionally like how highly contrasted it is, linking in with the tougher/darker themes covered within my film, the condensation/rain on the window further helps make this clear. The view outside the window gives hints that this character is one which may be in a difficult financial situation and as she is gazing outside the window this could suggest to the audience members that she may even be in a difficult situation in relation to her pregnancy.  I'm looking forward to creating my magazine front cover as I think it will now  work out a lot better than previously planned. 

Diary Post 11: Editing day 3

I have gradually been fixing the other two elements I was working on which I included in my other editing diary posts. Since I started adding inter-titles with the footage, my trailer is starting to come along a lot better. In this editing session, I purely focused on adding both music and sound to further help the narrative be clear to my targeted audience members. The sounds and music also help with creating and allowing the audience to go through a range of emotions, possibly those which my characters are going through. All of these elements put together, make a trailer look a lot more appealing while also captivate audience members making them want to get involved, find out more about this film and go and watch it once it is released. I am planning on working on it a bit more and once I feel like it is at a relatively good stage I would like to share it on YouTube and ask for some pros well as cons from my audience members.  

Shoot for magazine front cover

These are some of the photographs I took in the shoot which I had the front cover in mind for. I took a lot more photographs, however,  I narrowed it down to these 12 shots because I though these were most successful both as photographs but also as a source for giving more of the storyline of my film to those viewing it. 

In my plan, I said I would used a photograph similar to the second one on the first row as I thought it could make the audience wonder what is happening between the two characters making them want to watch the film. However, after looking at the all, I think a photograph I could use would be one like the third photograph on the third row as it captures Athena in an effective way and still creates the same element of curiosity to the audience members as the other photograph. 

My chosen magazine: Sight & Sound

After researching and analysing a variety of magazine types including Total Film, Hollywood Reporter, Little White Lies, Empire (very briefly at the beginning of Yr 13 for a mock up) and Sight & Sound I have chosen which magazine front cover I would like to create and have my film be featured on an issues front cover. 

Although all of them are well established within different media sectors (Indie and big conglomerates), I think the magazine that would be best suited for my film to be featured on would be either Sight & Sound (S&S) or Little White Lies  (LWL) and this is because of the genre I chose my film to be in which is social realism and due to the fact that these magazines are indie ones which would be more fitting for my film to be on a front cover of rather than a magazine such as Empire which usually includes bigger budgeted films. 

I really like both S&S and LWL as I think they are both extremely effective due to their simplicity yet eye catching layouts. I furthermore like the illustrative aspect LWL includes on their front covers, however, as I already included an aspect like that through my films poster I would like to create a magazine such as Sight & Sound which takes the form of a more traditional magazine and create it using a software such as Photoshop. 

On the right is a collage I created using PicMonkey. These show the different layouts, which are both very common that Sight & Sound create. The bottom ones, are usually those which are special editions or even are created in that layout to enhance something important which may be happening in the film industry. The above ones however, are the ones circulated regularly. They all have the typical rectangular boxes, one bigger than the other which includes the magazines masthead and tagline and one smaller which includes the BFI logo, date and barcode.  All of these magazines are highly effective and the central images are both  eye-catching and interesting and seem to work well with the colours and text fonts chosen. I am planning on creating a magazine front cover such as the one created for the Fish Tank feature (first picture, first row).