Poster Idea #1

To start showing and creating ideas for my film poster I went onto Google to look for some stock images to help me create some examples/drafts so I can see what worked and what didn't. Above is the first one I have made, in a previous poster I said how I really liked the poster for 'Friday 13th' because of the way it has the antagonist standing in the way of the light as if to connote them standing in the way of their victim's hope of getting away and so when I saw this image I thought it would work well, a difference with this though is that it's not the antagonist standing in front of the image but instead the person who would be the the friend or the victim in my storyline and the light behind them asks as a way how highlighting them but could also connote how they stand in the way of their own escape, linking to the possession aspect I have in my storyline. Also, I wanted to hint that possession even more and placed the a pair of bloody hands clawing towards the person, I put them behind them and slightly angled up as it looks like they are going to grab their head or the person mind connoting how they want to or have a hold/control of the person's mind. The colouring of the hands doesn't work very well as in the original image the hands were very pale and they have a

more airbrushed effect compared to the graining background and person however, if I was to use this structure it would be much easier for me as I will be able to have more control on the outlook of the images and be able to take the pictures in the same environment/setting leading to the same look which would help it flow better.

Trial & Error

As I began to to search for images to make little examples of the main image for my film poster I saw this image of a hand and my initial thoughts were to changed the background to black to go with the conventions of a horror colour scheme but then also to make the hand itself dirty like I did for the examples I did for the antagonist's make-up but as I was doing that I found that the hand itself was positioned in a way that made it look welcoming and gentle which didn't create a creeper or sinister vibe when I tried to add dark and dirty colouring to it so I didn't to scratch that however, when I take some images for my poster I still want to try out the idea to see if it was because it didn't look realistic enough and maybe the dirt and darkness/ make-up needs to be applied before hand fro get the correct effect.




When I tried looking again with I came across the image to the right which shows similar to what I am trying to achieve with this idea as it's comes out of the darkness in a welcoming manner but because of it's colour scheme it's un-nerving which made me come to the conclusion that with this
idea it's the colour scheme and the positioning of the hand that will be the most impactful and effective.

Film Review Draft #1

Seeming as I can't add everything yet as I have no finished the main task it's not completely finish yet which is why it's only a draft however, so far I have included facts and some background on the title so that the audience can get a feel for the film and sit's storyline without any indication as to what actually happens but also (like I say in the draft) connotes to the reader to look out for more hidden messages which gives it a sense of mystery and curiosity which always draws people in. Something I know is a good thing to do is to provide both good points and bad points of the film which I found both easy and hard as i didn't want to make my own production sound bad but at the same time I didn't want to be bias so I provided this in a counter argument structure so that the reader got a positive and a negative of the same aspect instead of a whole negative or positive on something.

I still need to add exact figures and involves more credits to the people involved but for now I am happy with that first draft of the text part of the film review, once finished it will hopefully be much longer so that I can create the double page film review however, I don't want to have too much text as I know that, that can actually put people off as it's can look boring so I want to keep it to a good amount so there's a balance of images and text to make it appeal to my target audience.

Past Experience With Reviews

The first thing I want to focus on for my double page film review (ancillary task) is the text so that I can then base the images around what is in it to help it all link in and for each aspect to relate to one another. When it comes to the text I do have some past experience as I have written some film reviews on 'Suicide Squad' and 'The Girl On The Train" for the NCS Blog (National Citizens Service.)
Suicide Squad Review - http://www.ncsyes.co.uk/themix/suicide-squad-review
The Girl On The Train Review - http://www.ncsyes.co.uk/themix/girl-train-review-maddy-flaherty-ncs-grad

From both my own knownledge and doing some research I know that the main things I need to include are:

• A two sided opinion/review because it shows the personality of the writer which could make it more personal for the reader but also it allows for varity and difference from other reviews as it's common for them to be one sided which in effect doesn't give the reader a full picture of the film.
• Some facts and figures because this gives them some insight to the behind the scenes of the film making them feel more knownledgable which is an audience pleasure but it also gives them an indication of what the expect for example, if the film review said that it had a very large budget then the reader is going to expect a well produced and high quality film with special effects.
• No spoilers! Telling the reader the storyline would just ruin the film for them so I want to avoid doing anything like that and leave any plot-twists a surprise but rather hint that that are some so that the reader can expect them which just adds to the suspense as they wait for it to happen. Also, if the readers knows that a particular writer gives out spoilers in their reviews they're less likely to read it which would result in less sells for that magazine or page views (depending on platform.)
• Credit to the actors, companies and individuals involved, this is usually more useful for mainstream films as they will have popular actors in their films which could lead to the reader going to see the film but also, giving credit to any production companies involved, similar to the effects of facts and figures, the reader can take the reputation of the production company and create expectations for the film so, good reputation = good and high expectations.
• A rating, this conventionally comes after a quick sum up of the whole review at the end and the rating is usually out of five stars, the higher the rating the better the film. Sometimes this can be very eye-catching and gives the reader a first look impression on whether the review is going to be good or bad on the sense of what they think of the film.

I am going to start writing up some drafts of a review for my film to help me with the starting point of the double review page.

Antagonist Make-Up

I'm currently thinking of my antagonist's look and how I want to show the use of possession between the female and the antagonist, I've already decided I wanted to have her hands and maybe face look dirty slightly to show the darkness of the antagonist within her. When I was doing some art coursework I saw that the pencil on my fingers gave this sort of effect but when I tried to make it spread it was difficult so instead I used my watercolours to see what effect they gave: (1) Is very little amount (2) I made it darker and added some red to connote blood (3) I made it much darker and spread slightly more up the arm to show the the idea of the evil spreading. After some thinking I decided that it looked better darker as it was more noticable, I thought that maybe I could use the others and gradually build up the darkness whenever is it shown to make it slowly more noticable to the audience which could show the spread from the beginning of the scene to the end.

Seeming as I preferred version three the most, at least for the finishing look of the Antagonist I decided to take some different angled shots of the hand and some side to side shots of what the other characters hand would look like next to the antagonist's so that you can see the difference.

I decided to test out a rough idea of a shot I knew I wanted within my production which was the dark and dirty hand of the antagonist/female to grab another characters to show a clear difference between the two so that anyone in the audience hadn't figured it out now knew, it gives the shot a "gasp" effect which could act as plot-twist. In these picture I used the third version of the make-up and then I used Photoshop CS6 Nikon Editor to change some of settings to see if i could highlight the darkness and evil of the hand while at the same time not changed the clear difference between the two tones. The end result (right) came out to look really good in my opinion, it added a creepiness to the hand while keeping the almost innocent look of the other hand, it also sharpened some of the dark patches on the antagonist hand which actually made it stand out through th whole image but also it looked more natural. To the left you can see the setting's I used, I kept the temperture of the image low becuase the blue didn't show too much in the image but helped with the dark tones within it, also I kept most of the noise reduction settings down as it helped smooth out the image but I also didn't want some of them too low or it looked more cartoony and less realistic which took away the scariness of it and no longer hinted at the horror genre.

I was already going to use Photoshop CS6 when it came to my Ancilary task (Film Poster) but now when it comes to taking the photo's for my poster I will make sure i use a .NEF format so I can also use the PhotoShop CS6 Nikon Editor so I am able to do the same thing with those photos as I have this one.

Antagonist MoodBoard

Poster Layout Ideas

I have begun coming up with ideas and making some decisions on what I think would look good on the film poster and also certain ways of positioning things. One poster I particularly like the look of is 'Friday The 13th' because I really like the idea of having the antagonist blocking the light as it could connote them blocking the hope of their victims or maybe even that the antagonist is standing in the way of their escape, hinting slightly at the storyline but also, even though the antagonist is the same darkness as the background the high shinning behind them almost highlights them connoting at their strength and power, this is something conventionally done when their a hero so for it to be used for an Antagonist is very interesting, it also helps the image and that certain aspect be the most eye-catching and dominant part of the poster.

I have decided that I either want the female being posessed as the main and only person on the poster with some signs to connote the antagonist posessing her such as a paint like substance going up her arm or the 2nd character (the friend) looking worried with a long fingers, dirty hand reaching from behind them prehaps with a light shinning behind the hand to connote the same thing as this Friday The 13th Poster. 

Short Film Title

Seeming as I have decided on my Production Company Name I thought it was a good time to decide on my Short Film Title because that wall I will be able to chose a well-suited font that I can then possibly use for the production company name font or one that matches to get it a slight theme.
I brainstormed some ideas and then picked my three favourites:

• Θάνατος
• Don't Be Fooled
• Look Closer

Θάνατος  is the greek word for 'Death', this is already the word I plan to have be spelled out on the Ouija board and I was thinking and I decided that if I was to pick this title it would help link into the storyline and people would eaily recognise it, I found that this is something done commonly in things such as TV shows and music videos where the title is mentioned within the duration of the show/video/film and it's known to be an audeince pleasure. It also has an interesting aspect to it as it's in another language so people might not understand what it is but almost know what it represents, adding to the mysterious effect that is conventional of a horror film.
For both 'Don't Be Fooled' and 'Look Closer' I came up with for similar reasons. These titles almost act as a warning that the audience would hopefully go and watch the short film with them in mind and wondering what does this mean and actually end up paying more attention to see the connection between the storyline and the title and another thing is it linking to the storyline as neither the audience or the character actually know that the antagonist is the female until the end so it connotes to the audience to watch out for something without giving anything away and almost a "everything is not as it seems" sort of thing.
 
I conducted a small amount of audience research where I asked 30 people in my target audience which Title they preferred and I collected this in a tally chart.
After explaining a brief of my storyline to them without giving too much away but enough detail I found that Θάνατος was the most popular. Some people said that it was interesting and cool, the link between that word and the storyline with the whole greek myth links is also really clever to involve. 

I think my next step it to take the title Θάνατος and try out some different fonts with it to see which one suits it the best and which don't, to then hopefully come to a final decision.  

Production Company Name & Font

From creating some initial Production Name ideas and getting some audience opinions on them I narrowed it down to the following two 'MAD Productions' and 'MAD Entertainment', I then created some examples of the names with three different fonts I really liked the look of and had seen similar ones used in some horror films, my personal favourite one is the middle one as it has some splatters coming from it connoting possibly blood splatters but also the strokes of the font seem sharp and wild linking to the horror genre. I sent these three examples out to my target audience and asked them "Which name do you prefer and which font?" Some I responses I got were:

"I think that Mad Entertainment is definitely the best and well-suited, but the font types depend on the narrative and what kind of horror film you are doing. The last one would work well with a stereotypical gore/spooky/slasher horror, the first one would work well with a psychological horror."

"MAD Productions and I really like the second style :)"

"I think the second style looks the best as it fits in with the horror genre, I think the first font would work well if it was a psychological horror as it's very simples but there's always more then meets the eye just like a any psychology sub-genre. Also, I think MAD Productions is best as it sounds more professional whereas, entertainment sounds less like a horror company but production helps keep the horror vibe going."

"I prefer the production company name of Mad Entertainment and I quite like the 2nd font style for it."

"I like Mad Productions in the middle font or Mad Entertainment in the first font."

"I like the last ones! and i kinda like the sound of entertainment better!"

"I like both names and the two first fonts but I think the middle is the best one."

"I think the 2nd font looks great and the 3rd one too. Ultimately I'd say go with 3rd one which is clear and horror looking"

"The middle font pretty damn sweet!" 

"I'd say 3rd font if you're just only using it for a small horror productions, but if in the long run you're going to create more (non)horror then number 1."

"I think either of these fonts and mad entertainment is better. I think the 3rd font looks more suited to a horror film but I prefer the middle one in general."

"Personally I really like MAD Productions because it sounds professional and can be used for any genre, I also prefer the first font as looks simple but effective and stands out." 

After looking at these responses and opinions and taking in my own preferences I have decided to go with MAD Productions! I came to this decision because like the majority of the responses I got, it sounds more professional but could also but used for more then just horror and possible future projects meaning it's limited to one genre and will work for anything in the same way. For font I have decided that for this particular short film I want it to be the same font so I'm going to test out more fonts on both my Production Company Name and my Short Film Title before I come to a decision however, right now I am leaning towards the 2nd font which is 'Another Danger' because it fits with the horror genre and possibly connoting aspects of the storyline but also, it's the most eye-catching which is just what I want when it comes to the title and production company name in both my main task (short film) and my ancillaries (poster and film review.)