Evaluation question 2

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is your combination in your main

production and ancillary texts?

Ahmed Khan

The brief of our assignment

The main objective for our coursework was to create a 5 min short film.

We also had to create an ancillary task individually. The ancillary task involved creating a film poster and a film review to promote our video.

How did my poster meet the romantic-comedy genre?

The tagline which was created as a group is used in my poster to describe the overall plot in one line. It gives the poster more meaning. With the meaning of running out of time I used Lara in the poster revealing her watch to connote that this film has something to do with time and emphasises the tagline.

I used a simple font BlairMdITCTTMedium for the title so its easy to read. However I made it stand out by increasing the size and dropping shadow behind it to separate it from the background. I also used the colour font red which connotes romance. Another reason why I decided upon using red is because the colour would stand out from the rest of the poster, as only a few important things are filled in red, the rest are dull and grey.

To give the idea that the film wont have a happy ending I added a dark misty cloud background. I made this with the desaturation of the cloud image to change the colour to grey. I later gave it more of a misty look by adding the ‘cloud’ effect on Photoshop. To enhance the richness of the cloud background I increase the contrast highs and lows.

To emphasis the title of ‘Bad Luck’ I added rain to my poster which I made myself by adding noise to the picture then motion blur. To make the rain look aggressive and harsh I added cc lens correction. The harshness of the rain correlates the harshness of Bobby’s bad luck in the storyline.

How did my poster meet the romantic-comedy genre?

The images used of Bobby and Lara are both desaturated. I done this so they blend in well with the background and don't feel as if they don’t belong in the overall poster. However I did keep the red colour in both images just so the poster doesn’t look to dull and indicate that this film is about romance and love. This is emphasised with the rose in Bobby’s mouth still having a tint of red which connotes love. The clothing of both characters conforms to the conventions of the romantic comedy’s, for example ‘The Ugly Truth’ poster has both characters dressed smart. It has the main attractive female in a sexy colour like red similar to my poster with Lara in an eye-catching dress.

I show the mental strength in both characters and how different there are from on another. In the rain Bobby is standing in frustration and looks agitated. Meanwhile Lara is standing with her watch out and smiling. I also create separation as both characters have no physically contact nor do they have any contact through there eyes. An enigma is also created as to why is the male character angry while the female character is smiling in the rain. Even though the film revolves around Bobby, I still felt as if its important to keep Lara in the poster. This is because I wanted to show she is the femme fatale in this narrative and she is why Bobby goes through so much trouble.

How did my poster meet the romantic-comedy genre?

I made the vignette effect on my poster so I can make it continuous as it moves down to the credit. I done this by using the gradient tool and applying it to the edges of poster. This will also make the white font text stand out and also draw attention to what's happening in the middle of the poster as that’s the brightest point in the poster.The vignette also helps with the idea of bad luck as we see both character almost trapped around darkness, this challenges the conventions of romantic comedy posters as they normally have bright posters.

The facial expression of both characters foreshadows the narrative. Bobby is far more exasperated while Lara is content while posing with a simple smile. Bobby’s body language also expresses his frustration with both hands held tightly against his head and a dying rose in between his teeth. We normally see the male much more irritated than the female in the romantic comedy theme for example, ‘A Guy In 10 Days’, exploits this theme similar to mine.The male looks weaker than the female which is also another convention used in romantic comedy posters, which is also shown on, ‘She's out my league' poster where the female looks more dominate.

I used the plastic wrap effect to give both characters a comical shiny look as if they both wet but in actual fact both characters where dry. I done this so it looks as if there literally placed in between the raining clouds.

Fonts for my poster

I used BlairMdITCTTMedium fonts which I also used for my film title font. For the credits I changed size and how bold each letter is. To make every letter stand out every text has shadow dropped in the background. The text layers where also placed above the image layers of my background just so the text does not blend in too much with the background. This is also a convention of romantic comedy having eye catching clear text and also used the colours; red, black and white for font.

I implemented using the conventions of romantic comedy font colours for the star ratings on the poster making them red and also eye catching. In order to attract more people to watch this film as it has a 5 star rating from a newspaper critic.

I also added the heading of the main actors on top of the poster to attract people to the film. This convention is also used by the ‘Ugly Truth’ who have both leading actors names placed above to draw the fans into watching the film.

Fonts used for my film Review

Similar to the text font of my poster I used a simple font which is clear to read. I felt as if its important to have a neat and clean font as it will help with the overall presentation of the film review. I also used black coloured font following the conventions of other film reviews such as the Empire magazine.

I created a tagline for my film review, I kept the font the same but changed the angle to italic just so it looks different from any other text font on the film review.

For the Title I used a simple font, however I made it bold to stand out. To emphasis how much I want the title to stand out I place it upon a black box. Most of the font colour on the film review is black so I changed the title’s colour to white so it looks more striking with a black box around it. The conventions of a film review are always to make the title text more eye catching than the rest which I have implemented here on my film review.

Images use for my Film Review

Similar to the concept of my film poster I wanted a film review image which relates to the idea of ‘difference’ between both characters. I also used an image which uses the colours red, black and white as these colours have been dominate both in my film review and my poster. The image also reflects the narrative as Bobby is excited holding Lara’s hand she has little interest in anything but more feels disgusted by the physical contact which is shown through Lara’s facial expression. I also decided on using an image taken from a professional camera instead of taking it out of a segment of the film which will look more pixelated. The Image above is the original image I decided using which has been colour corrected and contrast making the dark parts darker and the light parts lighter. However I felt as if the image was too plain and boring even though my aim was to go for a nice clean film review I decided upon playing with a few effects on Photoshop to come up with a new image that will be implemented in my film review. This effect gave my image a more comical poster effect which I believe worked better.

OLD

NEW

Images use for my Poster

I wanted the male actor to look desperate and frustrated, the use of having both hands held on your head indicates frustration almost childlike behaviour showing his immature even though his a young adult, a stereotypical view every young male is looked from being immature. I also want his desperation to be shown with a rose in his mouth which connotes love and romance.

The reason for me having both actors in my final poster is because I felt it will look more comical through there body position and facial expression. It will also create an enigma, why is the female smiling in the rain and the male fuming in the rain with a rose in his mouth?. Although there Is no physical contact or eye contact I wanted to create some form of connection between both actors. I done this through the desaturation of all colours but red in the dress Lara is wearing and the dying rose in Bobby’s mouth. The rose connotes a love connection meanwhile a dress connotes a physical attraction.

The importance of time is shown again not only in the tagline but the body position of Lara.

How did my film review explore the final product?

We wanted our film to be simple and tranquil to follow. I used the same concept for the film and implemented it in my film review something organised and easy to read. I neatly bordered the image and created a layout which precisely surrounds the text making the overall presentation organised.

The tagline I used foreshadows the narrative, ‘When things start to go wrong, they only get worse,,’ this tagline puts much emphasises on what the main protagonist's outcome in this film will be and once one problem occurs it will be a series of unfortunate events only getting worse and worse. This will also attract the audience to watch the film as they would want to know how did his bad luck spark and does he come out successfully achieve the woman of his dream.I also followed the conventions of a film review by adding a ‘Verdict’ box concluding the film review in a few sentences. I also made it stand out more than the rest of the text to draw people to read the verdict box , if there not interested to read a few paragraphs they can read the concluded verdict The five star rating are also implemented in my film review following the conventions of film reviews like the Empire Magazine who rate the film and attract there audience to view the actual film.

Logo And Website

While I search for inspiration for designing a film poster I noticed I had to follow the conventions of a film poster and that was to have a logo of the production company and the website. It could be place above or below on the poster however every poster I view included it. They also included networking sites like Facebook which is why I implemented it into my own film poster. People use the internet more these days as the world wide web services improve, so included things such as the website for the film are vital and also creating groups on major networking sites will attract to a mass audiences.

To Conclude

I believe that both my film review and film poster work well as both have there similarities and associates with one another. Most important both poster and review link with my final product, through the colour schemes and images that relate to the concept of the film.