Evaluation - Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

Here is a video of a prezi with audio answering question 4 of the evaluation stage. 

Evaluation - Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We asked people to view our trailer and then took them outside individually to ask them what they honestly thought of the trailer. They each talked for about 30 seconds and gave their feedback, some positive and some constructive. I have inserted each of the clips below with the name, age, gender and ethnicity of each of the people we interviewed. We chose to do our interview in the form of a video as this allowed them to express what they personally thought of the trailer instead of purely ticking boxes of generalised answers. I did this to see if my understanding of audience’s had been effective wen creating the video; especially in targeting the right demographic. The audience we have aimed our project at are females aged 16-21. We did our interview of 4 females and then 2 males of the same age so we could compare the results between male and female, and hopefully have an outcome where the females have a more positive reception to the trailer. But also that males would also enjoy the film. 

PERSON ONE
NAME: Fariha
AGE: 18
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: Asian

This participant of the interview said that they really liked the soundtrack we had chosen for our movie trailer. She also linked this to the idea that it helped make it clear what genre the film was that we were promoting in our trailer. The conventions of the a fantasy soundtrack include that it is fast paced which matches the face paced edits. This is something this audience member also picked up on, she said she really liked the quick jump cuts between lots of different points of the film. She said that she understood the underlining storyline, however, the trailer still contained an enigma which would make her want to watch the rest of the film. She also said to us later on that she really liked that we had used lots of different shot and angle types which kept the trailer interesting. The final thing she notes on in this clip is that she really liked the use of the horse. We asked her after the camera was off why this was and she said she first liked it as it was in the conventions of the genre and therefore made it more apparent that it was a fantasy film, she also said that it isn't something which you would expect in a A2 piece of work and therefore made it interesting aside from other trailers she had seen from our A2 class. 

PERSON TWO
NAME: Sarah

AGE: 18

GENDER: Female

ETHNICITY: White

The next person we interviewed said that the genre of the film shown in our trailer was very clear which would enable the audience to understand what to expect in the film due to the generic conventions. She said that we stuck very closely to the conventions and codes of the genre which is something which helped to make the genre very clear. This has showed me the sheer importance of using codes and conventions within our work in order to create a strong sense of genre which will therefore determine if an audience wishes to see the film or not depending on wether they like this specific genre. She commented on that the editing ran smoothly and that other parts of our editing such as adding in colour filters and playing around with the lighting made the genre very clear and were clear in the respect of trying to create a sense of mood within the trailer. She said that she felt like she understood that the trailer was supposed to show a good and also darker side to the character at different parts depending on the lighting. She said that our actors are believable, as only one of our actors had done any previous drama work, it took a lot of takes to get content we were satisfied with and therefore this is something we would look into if we were to redo our project to create a level of professionalism. This audience member, said that she would have liked to see us work on the production company logo's more. This could possibly be done through the use of creating slightly more original ideas and therefore more time spent brainstorming ideas. The final thing she commented on was our soundtrack. She said we could have spent more time on it, and initially we were planning on creating our own instead of getting one off the internet. This is something we would consider if we were to redo our trailer. 

PERSON THREE
NAME: Amy
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

This audience member started off by also saying that they really liked how the colour scheme of our video worked and that it therefore gave her a sense of what mood she was supposed to be feeling throughout the video. She commented on how they gave it a mystical effect, which was something we were aiming to create through our trailer. She also commented on the fact that she liked the fast paced editing, aside from it being a convention of trailers, fast paced editing is supposed to inform the audience that there is a lot of action going on as the fast paced editing. It also keeps the audience interested as it builds tension. This person also said that she really liked the end title and the title which appeared after that with the release information. She said it looked really professional. It was something I had spent a lot of time on creating and therefore this element of professionalism was something which I had discovered through a lot of research of other titles. She also said it matches the genre and therefore made sense within the trailer. The only thing she gave constructive criticism on was that a few of the scenes were slightly too dark. This is something we would have wanted to go back and re film is given the time to. We did try doing this on the editing software and succeeded for the most part but I believe we should have maybe spent a little more time on this. 

PERSON FOUR
NAME: Laura
AGE: 17
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: White

The next person we interviewed said that she managed to figure out the genre of the film straight away, just from the beginning of the trailer. This is really good as it proves to us that we have used the correct conventions to create the genre we aspired for. Furthermore she liked the way that we used the fade to blacks to split up the different scenes and that it made the trailer a lot clearer. Again this is a very strong generic convention of a trailer, so we are glad that she picked up on this. Furthermore Laura said that the fade to black built up tension throughout which again is positive as we aimed for our audience to feel tension. Lastly the sound effects that were used in our trailer didn't seem out of time and place. We have grown a lot stronger with being able to add our own sound in over the top which has paid off.

PERSON FIVE
NAME: Arif
AGE: 19
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: Asian

The next audience memeber believed that the colours on our trailer could have been slightly brighter, we’re not sure whether he meant we should have used a larger range of colours or that the contrast in the colour we had already used should have been brighter. However we couldn't have added in too many bright colours otherwise we would have challenged the conventions of our genre. Arif enjoyed the pace of our trailer, which was great as this tells us that our trailer keeps people occupied, therefore they won’t be getting bored easily. Furthermore shows our trailer contains good enigma. Additionally, Arif believed that there was good continuity flowing all the way through the trailer, again this backs up our last point of the trailer not boring any audience members. This is what we want from our trailer. Lastly He mentioned that our production logos appeared really realistically on the screen, proving that we have managed to present our trailer in a professional way and the logos have professionalism to them.

PERSON SIX
NAME: Matthew
AGE: 17
GENDER: Male
ETHNICITY: White

The final person we interviewed really enjoyed the soundtrack to the whole of our trailer; the whole way through the soundtrack built up with tension and got faster. The sound bridges that were used with the voice over again worked really well and were a great element to our trailer. There are lots of different scenes within our trailer but we still haven’t managed to give anything majorly to do with the story-line away which Matthew picked up on. He specifically mentioned that he didn't get bored which shows that our trailer was a very good duration length as well as containing capturing clips. Additionally Matthew spoke about the horse featured and how it was unique to any other A2 media studies coursework as it would be pretty difficult to film someone who knows someone who owns one. This captured his attention massively and enticed his emotions towards the trailer even more and builds up the fantasy genre as it could turn into a mystical creature.

Evaluation - Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Video

Here is the final cut of our video:

Cut 2

Poster Edit

We editing our poster onto a bus stop, as this would be where our poster would be advertised. We have done this because our niche target audience is teenagers, and this group of people mostly use public transport for travel. 

This is our poster that has been edited on to a poster board at a train station, this is a a conventional place for film posters to be advertised as there is always members of the public waiting for trains and when people don't have anything to do, the poster will attract their attention which means they would have knowledge that the film is being shown in cinemas soon. 

Lastly I have edited our film poster on to a billboard that is located on the side of the road. This allows drivers who are driving past to view the poster and make them aware of the film.It would be placed on one of the busiest roads as this would allow a larger audience to view the poster, furthermore on busier roads means that there could be more traffic jams, so if there is one then the people stuck in the traffic jam would almost be faced to look at it. 

Final Magazine Cover

After all of the constructive criticisms and self improvements, we created our new magazine cover. Here is the finished product: 

Analysis of own magazine cover

Final Poster

After receiving our feedback we finalized our poster adding some of the elements which our target audience though would improve it to create our final poster:

Analysis of my own poster

Stereotypes of characters

The protagonist character of our film is a white, teenage, female. Normally the protagonist is a young adult, white, male. This is challenging the stereotype of a protagonist character. Normally female characters fill the character roles of a heroine or romantic interest.  Female characters, especially young ones, are often associated with being innocent, vulnerable and naive to situations. They are normally the ones who get into danger and are incapable of saving themselves. Our character however, has a side to her which is incredibly strong both physically and mentally. This ensures that she is able to save herself from situations which occur instead of relying on the help of others. Although strong willed, she does have a vulnerable and weak side which is presented during parts of the trailer and I have written into the actual storyline that she is saved not once but twice by a male character. Originally I did this without thinking about it, it is written into my brain the idea of males being the ones that always end up saving the day, because it is such a strong stereotype of the character type. The fact that her character is mostly independent and has the power such as to fight and kill someone, makes her a good challenging character for fantasy film stereotypes. As the audience for my film will be mostly females, having a female protagonist attracts this audience in. 

Another stereotype is that white characters are normally the "good guys" within the film, although the protagonist fits this stereotype, the 'side kick' character is black and therefore challenges these stereotypes. He is also male, this also fits the stereotypes as normally in fantasy films the side kick character is male. An example of this is Sam in Lord of the Rings who is Frodo's (the protagonist) side kick. Sometimes, however, the side kick is female if they are placed there for a romantic interest purpose. Ours is in reverse with the side kick as a male and the protagonist as a female and there being a romantic interest between the two. 

cJai logo

To make our poster appear more realistic I decided to make a small logo for one of our production companies to place under the institutional information. I created this logo on SerifDraw. It is made of text and then I drew the shape of a cloud surrounding it. It has been placed in white so that it looks in place when placed next to the white institutional information.

Magazine Cover - Draft 1 FEEDBACK

We presented our findings to a group of teenage people ranged from 17 to 19. The people in this sample group were all female as we wish to aim our product at this demographic. Below is the notes we took when people were analysis our work for what they liked about it and what they felt needed improvement. 

Things that people liked about our magazine cover included the fact that it was quite simplistic, it was not overcrowded yet still contained all of the information which you would expect from a magazine cover. A lot of the audience really liked that we have a few graphic features on our magazine cover, such as the circle full of information and the small square saying "exclusive". They people viewing our magazine cover said they really liked how these graphic features matched up, they contained the same black colour theme with a small white line around then edge. These also go well with the titles, as they are also made up of lines. They did say that we should possibly move around some of the graphic features to make them fill up different parts of the page. 

The people viewing our magazine cover also liked the way the text and image overlapped, although they believed that we needed to move the title up as because of the layers within the image of pandora and the tree she is hiding behind, it looks a bit off as the title lays behind the character head and not the tree. By just moving the title up a little bit it won't look so off. 

Something else that the audience said we could improve was some of the text, apparently it was hard to read from the distance they were looking at it and so we my stretch the text out a bit so that it is easier to read.

Other than this, people said our magazine cover was very good and that they especially likes the editing we had added to the photograph which made the image very apparent of the genre as we editing in things like myst and shadows which are conventions of the genre. 

Poster - Draft 1 FEEDBACK

We presented our findings to a group of teenage people ranged from 17 to 19. The people in this sample group were all female as we wish to aim our product at this demographic. Below is the notes we took when people were analysis our work for what they liked about it and what they felt needed improvement. 

People really liked the image we chose for our poster. We were told that it made the genre of the film apparent and therefore there would be no confusion over the genre of the film. The image was also apparently very eye catching and would catch the attention of the audience against other images. The next thing people really liked was our use of image editing and the light coming out of the box which gave a mystical appearance which added to the idea of genre. The font was also pointed out as suiting the genre.

We received some pointers on how to improve our product. These included maybe changing some of the colours of the text to add more variation and make the text less boring and more eye catching. We were also advised to add actor names or logo's for the production companies to make the poster look more realistic and also to add more information to make it more interesting. 

Our audience also suggested that we could possibly add a glowing effect to the title to add to the idea of the genre of fantasy and it gives the writing a mystical effect. 

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1

Here is my first draft of the magazine cover:

Poster - DRAFT 1

Here is our first draft of the poster for our advertisement campaign:

Film Poster - Editing Process

Empire, The Hobbit Edition - Magazine Cover Analysis

The master head takes up a quarter of the page, this immediately makes it stand out and draws the audience in. Another element of the master head which could draw the audience in is the that the master head is in a shiny gold colour, which reflects and easily catches the audience attention. The gold text also fits in with the idea of the poster being a promotion of the Hobbit movie, the ring which is featured in the movie is gold and therefore the text may be a reflection of this. This helps tie image and text together, instead of them appearing segregated on the page. Even though the master head is slightly obscured by the feature character, we can still easily distinguish the brand as it is a very well known and publicised film magazine. The typography  that is featured around the mast head are play on words, and jokes which are associated with Lord of the Rings and any fan would recognise. Examples of these are words such as "Precious" which is one of the most well known words associated with the film. Another example could include "shires biggest movie magazine"  as the Shire is a setting within the movies. I believe that the magazine has done this to make it stand out from any other magazine doing coverage of this film, it also attracts and very specific audience of those who are fans of the Lord of the Ring films. The text above the master head, as well as containing a Lord of the Rings reference contains with word "exclusive" which is a buzzword. This makes the audience believe that there is something unique about the coverage of this film within this specific magazine, thus making it stand out from the competition.

Despite the fact that this magazine features only The Hobbit, image wise, on the front cover there is other typography displayed to the left which tells us that it features other insides in to films such as "Dredd" and "Taken 2". These are placed in a bold font which makes them standout, however, they are not placed large enough for it to detract from the overall magazine cover. The promotion of other films and other articles is very important for a magazine, although there is a main feature, there needs to be other films promoted. This is something I will take into account when creating my own magazine cover. This section is often title something like "Plus" or "Also inside". This reveals hardly any information about the other articles which are inside, making it a requirement to buy the magazine so that they can read the articles and find out what is written on these pages.

Above the master head, and the 'M' of 'Empire' is the price and website, this information is placed in a small font to make sure it does not distract from the overall magazine cover but is placed somewhere where it can be easily viewed. The use of a website being featured on the magazine cover tells the audience that there is also more content available online. Which also contributes to the fact that more people are interested in online articles. This is something we will have to take into account when creating our own magazine cover. 

Apart from the image and the mast head, the other thing which really stood out is a gold badge which reads: "The Dark Knight Rises: The Verdict". This is promotion for yet another film. By placing it in this circle shaped, gold and therefore stands out and highlights this information for the audience to read. 

The final piece of text is on the bottom which contains the name of the film being promoted and "The finest middle earth coverage continues inside". The latter reached out to a fandom, again anyone who likes Lord of the Rings will definitely want to read this magazine using genre specific language to have a positive effect. For example, the word 'Finest' so obviously, people will want to read the best quality stuff around and therefore pick this one if they are not interest in the Hobbit film. 

The image contains the main characters and another vital character within the film. It sets out conflict already for the film as we can clearly see that there is a good guy and a bad guy which is summing up the film up as a whole just using one image. We can tell that Bilbo is going to be a hero in the film as he is presented as the big feature, he is standing in the like holding a sword which suggests he is the hero as he looking like he is going to fight away evil. Swords also connote the idea of knights in shining armour which are a convention of heroes. He plays a positive role in the film as he is defending himself and the rest of the Lord of the Rings community. The next thing that the audience noticed in the image is Golum lurking in the shadows, in the cave. He is half in shadow and half in light, showing that he has the mixed personality that he does, the light side represents his "good side" and the shadow his "evil side". 

In terms of mise en scene and costume, Bilbo's red jacket connotes to the audience to the danger that he is having to face by going in to the carve there Gollum is discovered. The white scarf tired around his neck shows a sense of innocent as Bilbo came from a small cottage in the Shire, living in what was like a bubble of innocence. 

The background of this photograph is a stage scene, which is most likely a lot of photoshop, it is a cave which suggests that parts of the movie will subsequently set in caves. By seeing this image, we are instantly able to sum up the movie as a whole as it is set out for us.

Total Film, Alice in Wonderland Edition - Magazine Cover Analysis

This magazine cover is from the magazine 'Total Film' this is a well known film magazine. The first thing I notice about this magazine cover is the Master Head, this is the name of the magazine. The 'Total' part of the title is placed in purple, slightly smaller and positioned in the top of of the F of the word 'Film'. The word 'Film' is then placed in white bold across the top half of the magazine cover and takes up about a quarter of the page. This makes it extremely eye catching and makes it standout more against everything else on the cover. The magazine is already popular and well known and people already know the name, which allows the designer to place part of the photograph over the title. The white colour stands out against the dark-ish purple background. This makes it extremely eye catching. If people are regular readers of the magazine the masterhead will be a selling point for the magazine. The white is also a neutral colour, as this is a magazine aimed at both men and women instead of one gender. 

Above the masterhead is another piece of text saying "Free Giant Iron Man Poster!". This is also placed in bold, but in a yellowy gold text and is far smaller than the masterhead. The title contains the word "Free" - this is a buzzword which draws the audiences attention as they believe that by purchasing this magazine they are getting something free. Giving out free things is something which is commonly used within magazines in general, free posters/ discounted cinema tickets or cinema food vouchers are often included in film magazines as they give the audience more motivation to buy the magazine as they feel as if they are gaining something other than a magazine. 

Along the left side of the magazine is a lot more text, at the top of this section is black bold text in a gold square which says the words "WORLD EXCLUSIVE!" this again contains the buzzword "exclusive". This suggests to the audience that this magazine has information about the film which no other magazine would have. The fact that it is also a worldwide exclusive, makes it seem like by purchasing this magazine and readings its contents you are finding out something which is otherwise unknown and that you have extra information and knowledge that other people do not have. This makes it obvious that to make a successful magazine cover I will need to include a variety of buzz words to make it stand out for the audience and make it individual from competition magazines. 

The next piece of the text placed here says "Welcome to Wonderland! Johnny Depp heads up out" and then placed in a much larger text of the same font and white colour, but placed in capitals "MASSIVE 2010 PREVIEW". The word massive is exaggerated even more by the fact that the text is literally massive. Another element which makes this bit of text stand out is the use of the actors name "Johnny Depp". Johnny Depp is a very well known Hollywood actor, he himself has a very large following and therefore when he is leading something like a preview means that his fans will want to view this preview. People who have watched and enjoyed any of Johnny Depp's previous movies will therefore want to watch his new one.

Johnny Depp is also the main image on the magazine cover. Dressed as his character 'The Mad Hatter' from his latest film 'Alice in Wonderland'. This gives the viewer an insight into what the film is like. The fact that the image is separated from its background allows the text to overlap and integrate the image. This creates more of an aesthetically pleasing cover for the viewer. The image consists of a mid front facing shot of the character, looking directly at the camera. The direct eye contact of the actor and the audience looking at the image creates a relationship between the character and the audience, making them interested in the character and therefore want to watch this film. The use of a mid shot makes sure we see enough of his costume to understand part of his character but not a long enough shot to make the character appear distant. 

The mise en scene, of the costume is exactly that of his character within the film. His jacket is purple and so goes with the background of the magazine cover. This helps the image to look as if it is part of the magazine but doesn't make it completely blend in. The image has had its vibrancy increased, for example, the orange hair is very vibrant to make it stand out against the background and therefore make the image stand out more.

At the bottom of the magazine cover is another advertisment for something which is inside the magazine, it states "Plus Daniel Day-Lewis / Mel Gibson / Blu-Ray Special". This is in bold text and fairly large, this makes it stand out on the poster without detracting from the image.

Above the 'M' in the word 'Film' is information such as the date the magazine was released, the price and issue number. In this example it also contains the magazine's website. This information is placed in a viewable place but not in a large text so that it could detract from the image. 

The last noticeable thing on this magazine cover, is the use of a barcode being positioned on the front of the cover. Barcodes are almost always placed on the front of the cover because normally on the back of any type of magazine there is an advertisement. When creating our magazine cover we will make sure we place the barcode on the front cover, although it can often appear as if it is ruining the cover, if it is placed in a less noticeable place, such as on the bottom of the page or on the side it detracts less from the image.

Poster - Institutional Information

Based on what I have done while researching posters, it has been made clear that on the bottom part of my poster I need to have written some institutional information in a small font which tells the audience information about who is in the film and some of the people involved in the different stages of production, such as director, editor, costume designer and of course actors and actresses. 

Here is the institutional information I was able to create using the editing software 'Serif Draw'. It contains all the names and jobs of the people involved in all stages of production. In the center is also the date of release which is a larger font which makes it stand out and the website for the movie. This is a typical lay out which is a convention of most movie posters. I will placed this on the bottom of the poster which is typically where it is placed. 

Editing so far - Cut 1

Here is our editing process so far, excluding audio and the final day of the shoot. 

Magazine name survey

In order to get a name for our magazine which was popular with our target audience, I created a survey on surveymonkey to see which of all of the ideas we had had for out magazine title was the most popular. The first question on this survey was asking what the gender of the person taking the survey was. From the 5 people which we had answer the survey, two were male and three were female. This is fairly equal which shows that the results we have gathered are true of both a male and female gender. 

The next question is asking what the age of the participant of the survey. We had people ranged from 12 to 21 answer our survey, however the majority of the people answering the survey were ages 15-17. As our target audience is older teenagers, this means that we have our niche audience answering the survey and therefore the results will be more relevant. One thing we could have improved when creating our survey is people selecting their specific ages instead of an age bracket.

The final question is one about which magazine name they find the most appealing. Overall the most popular magazine title, with 3 out of 5 votes, is the title 'Outtake'. 

This survey could have been improved by us making the sample size bigger, asking more people to answer our survey for us. This makes sure that we have a definite representation of what this demographic finds appealing. However, due to time and finding people to answer our survey we only managed to get 5 people to answer it. 

Empire Magazine

General Survey Results - Analysis Video

General Survey Results - Evidence

Snow White and the Huntsman - Film Poster Analysis

The next poster I have chosen to analyse is one taken from the advisement for the movie 'Snow White and the Huntsman'. The first poster here is the main one used for advisement for this movie. The first thing which stands out is the title. It is placed on the bottom part of the image but in a large font to make it stand out and catch the audiences attention. It has been placed in a silver metallic looking font which fits into the theme of the poster with the silver and grey being main features in the colorisation of the images. As it is placed in large text it means it stands out and catches the audiences attention. It has also been placed so it doesn't overlap with the character's heads in the image, this is because they are also a focal point and if they were to overlap it could detract from one or the other. The title is possibly one of the most important things about a film poster as it tells the audience the name of the film and if they find the poster appealing they will hopefully remember the name and then want to watch the fill movie. 

Below the title of the film a small caption, which is put in bold so it stands out from the institutional information below it. The caption says "From the producer of 'Alice in Wonderland'". The advantage of adding in this information to the poster, is that the film 'Alice in Wonderland' is based on a very similar audience as the film is also a fantasy movie. This means that if people liked the film 'Alice in Wonderland' they will look at this new film and automatically be led to believe that this is of the same standard. It is also a film adaptation of a fairytale much like 'Alice in Wonderland' and therefore they audience thinks that it will be just as good as 'Alice in Wonderland' which was a very successful film. 

Above the title is three names, these are the names of the three main actors within the film. Much like mentioning the producer is the same producer as the 'Alice in Wonderland' movie, if the audience likes films which have perviously starred one of the people mentioned they will want to watch their latest piece of work as they believe it will be to the same standard. I believe the director has been very cleaver with his casting, for example Kristen Stewart, is most well known for starring as the main character in the 'Twilight Saga'. This movie was a fantasy dark romance, its target audience was primarily older teenage girls, as is the audience for 'Snow White and the Huntsman'. This means that any of the fans of her acting in that movie will want to watch this movie. 

The final bit of text which appears on the poster is the institutional information. This is placed in a very small font and contains all the information about the institution which has created this motion picture. It also contains the names of actors and people involved in both pre and post production. Below this institutional information is the words 'Coming Soon'. This is obviously one of the earlier released posters as it does not contain a specific date, as one has probably not yet been released. This shows how early in the process of creating a film, the advertising is done. 

The image which dominates the rest of the poster shows three characters, they are placed in order of the actor names beneath them, this helps to tie together the actors face and their name. The image shows the main three characters, the protagonist, the villain and the side kick/ romantic interest. Behind them is a background which consists of armies marching into battle, a castle and a sky full of crows. I believe the armies have been placed to show that this film contains a large element of action and huge (high budget) battle scenes between good and evil. I believe the crows have been placed for a variety of reasons, the first is, in the original story of snow white her hair is described as "black as a crow". Another interpretation would be that crows are an omen of death, and therefore connote the theme of death within this movie. The queen (the character in the centre) is wearing a hood made from what appear to be crow feathers; this connotes that she is dangerous and evil. 

The image consists of three separate mid-long shots of the characters which have been placed together. The centre image is of the evil queen. She is placed slightly above, and larger than the other two characters, this may connote her being extremely powerful and superior to the other characters. She is obviously the queen character as her costume contains a crown made of silver spikes. The silver goes nicely with the title, tying both the writing and image together. She is front facing and looking directly at the camera which makes eye contact with anyone looking at the poster, this is done to make the audience feel directly involved. Her costume is made up of a dark, scale like, material. This could denote a snake skin and therefore connote evil and poison. As the audience will know, in the story of 'Snow White' the Queen poisons an apple and gives it to snow white, her costume may be a reflection of foreshadowing this to happen within the movie. The last thing that really stands out about the Queen's character is the use of a prop, the is holding a dagger in her hands which is again silver, fitting in with the silver theme. The dagger connotes that there will be action and fighting within this film and she may possibly stab someone, this makes the audience want to know what actually happens in the film.

The next image is the one of the left, which is of the character of Snow White. It shows her in a ripped dress and apparently in movement walking towards the camera. She isn't looking directly at the camera and so her mode of address is indifferent to the audience's existence and instead she is looking at something off of the poster to the right, this makes the audience wonder what she is looking at. Her costume suggests she has been through a lot as it is dirty and ripped, this connotes the idea of action and he fight for survival. The final image is that of the Huntsman. He is also dressed in warn, muddy clothes, which suggests that he is in constant action. He is looking towards the left and appears to be in a fighting stance, this again makes the audience wonder what/ who he is preparing to fight. 

As well as this standard poster. The designers made a set of individual character posters. I have selected two of these, both of the character of Snow White to take a look at. The title of the film is still placed in a very clear place on the poster. One in the centre at the bottom, much like the standard poster, and the other it is placed on the left hand side. 

The first shows Snow White standing at a angle, facing towards the left hand side of the poster edge. She is not acknowledging the camera's existence which make it look more like a  candid action shot instead of a posed one. Behind her is a group of people, as there are seven of them and in the traditional story she meets seven dwarfs we are led to believe that these characters are the seven dwarfs. They are stood quite far behind Snow White's character to make it clear that she is the focal point of the image. The setting is full of snow and mountains which reveals some of the setting which the film will take place in. The snow is also associated with the spread of evil and may connote her battle against evil within the movie.

The mise en scene, in terms of costume and props, is very different to the first image, she is standing in a polished suit of armour holding a sword. This gives her a very powerful image. This also suggests the idea of battle and the fight between good and evil and that she will be directly involved. It also goes against one of the key conventions of a fantasy movie, which is that the main protagonist doing all the fighting is a male. I believe this has been done to attract a more female based audience, as females will aspire to be like her. It also makes the film interesting compared to other fantasy films which stick to the generic stereotypes. 

The final poster I will be looking at for the advertising campaign for 'Snow White and the Huntsman' is a close up character poster. This shows a close up of Snow White in the same costume and pose as the full length character poster only with some slight differences.

The title is placed in gold and is not placed in the centre bottom of the image, instead in the middle right. It still stands out and is therefore uninterrupted by the image of Snow White. The poster also contains a specific release date which is placed at the bottom of the poster in a slightly large font. This makes it stand out for the audience so that hopefully they will remember the date of release. 

Into the Woods - Film Poster Analysis

In recent years, the print material used for advertising a film often consists of more than one standard poster. Often a film has several posters which are used for promoting the film. Often these consist of individual ones of each of the star actors, if it is a Hollywood film with very famous actors and actresses in. I have decided to analyse the film posters for the movie 'Into the Woods' as it was a high budget film which contains many big names such as Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt and Anna Kendrick and subsequently there are many posters of individual characters. 

 This first posters is one which is the "main" poster used when promoting the film, this means it is the one which was used most in cinemas and on billboards to promote the film. I believe this has been chosen as it shows all of the main actors and characters on the poster as well as stating their names.

The first thing that stands out to me when looking at this poster is the title, it is placed in the center of the image and is fairly large, this means that is stands out and is the first thing to capture the audiences attention. It has also been placed in gold text which stands out against the dark colored images behind it. It has also been placed so that it does not overlap with any of the actors directly, this means that both the title and the actors are clearly visible for the audience and one does not detract from the other. Just above the title in a slightly smaller print is the production company of the film 'Disney'. It is placed in Disney's font instead of that of the title, but is also gold which makes it fit in with the other text on the poster. The production company title is a lot smaller than that of the main title but as it is still place in the center of the image it is still clearly visible and the audience will be able to notice it. They may have done this because Disney is an extremely well known media conglomerate and thus has a reputation for creating high quality, family friendly, movies. It not only attracts an audience who have watched other Disney movies and wish to watch this one but it also makes it clear who the target audience of the movie is, a family audience. The designers of the poster may have also done this because Disney is well known for working with some of the actors which appear within the movie, such as Johnny Depp, where he started in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise which is an extremely successful movie not only in terms of revenue but in popularity. People who enjoyed that movie will see the collaboration of company and actor and be led to believe that this movie will be just as good. 

The names of all of the main actors and actresses, who also appear on the poster, are placed in the same gold coloured text at the top of the page, however in a slightly different font to the title. The names are also placed in capitalized letters which makes them stand out slightly more. Typically when a person looks at an image their eyes well start at the center of the image and then look up and down, by placing the names at the top they are subsequently the second thing the audience sees after the name of the film, this has also been done because when film posters are exhibited, the names are just above eye level of the average adult which makes them more eye catching. Although the names are large they do not detract from the overall image as they, much like the title, do not overlap with any of the images of the actors. This is something we will have to take into deep consideration when creating out own film poster. 

The final bit of text which appears on the poster is the institutional information, placed in a white font, extremely small at the bottom of the page. This information is not meant to catch the audiences attention and is there for legal purposes and not to try to promote the film. The only bit of information which the creates of the poster want the audience to see is the release date which is placed in a slightly larger font at the bottom of this information. On our own poster I will probably make this text slightly larger than the information on this page because I feel like it could be easily missed as it is quite small on this specific poster. 

The genre of the film is similar to the genre of our film, a fantasy film which contains elements which are darker and scarier. However, this specific film will contain less of the dark element of the genre because it is a family audience targeted film. The images therefore reflect the genre. Our own movie will be a 12 and therefore it will be allowed to be slightly more scary instead of a dimmed down version of horror. 

Another poster from the advising campaign for this movie is on the right above, this one only shows one of the characters. Both of the posters I have looked at so far have the same background of a dark wood containing lots of twisted trees (which connote horror as they are scary looking and are often used in horror films). 

This poster contains all of the same titles as the first poster the only difference lays in the choice of images. There are different posters for each of the characters. A few of these are shown to the left. These images are combined in different ways to create the overall poster. These posters for individual characters do not contain all of the smaller writing or the names of the actors and actresses. These specific actor posters contain an enlarge picture of the character which dominates most of the image. They then contain a small version of the title of the film, not as big as the title on the poster containing all of the characters, but it is still eye catching as it is placed in the gold font which stands out against the dark gloomy background. The name of the actor which appears on the poster is placed above the title in a white font which again stands out against the gloomy background. Below the title is the time of release of the film, as this poster is one of the earlier ones it merely says "Christmas" instead of a specific date. Above the character is the name of the character for example the "Cinderella" poster contains the character name above her head. This makes it apparent which actor is playing which character. The font used is different from anything else used on any of the posters, it has a more handwriting effect. This may have been used to empathise that this is based on a written fairlytale. 

These two separate character posters also have animated versions which appear online. Disney has done this to create something new and interesting and make the film stand out online from other standard posters. The movement consists of a slight shift in lighting and a movement of the fog which appears within the poster. These animated posters are something which is very new to the movie advertising business and is used mostly to make ones poster stand out from the norm. 

Hansel and Gretel - Film Poster Analysis

The next poster I have chosen to analyse is the poster for the film 'Hansel and Gretel'. I have chosen to analyse this poster because it is slightly different in its format to other film posters. 'Hansel and Gretel' is a action-horror comedy film based on Grimm's fairy tale 'Hansel and Gretel'. The first thing which makes the genre of the film apparent is the title on the poster. It states the name of the film in a quite large red font which has a "blood splatter" effect. The combination of the font and the colour red gives the impression of blood and therefore links into the conventions of a horror type movie, which include blood and gore. The red text also stands out against the black costumes and white background of the images which makes it more eye-catching and is therefore more likely to grab the audiences attention. Slightly below the title is the sub title 'Witch Hunters' which offers more information about what this film is about. Next to this is the word '3D' which reveals to the audience that the film is will available in 3D, this shows to the audience that it is a large budget film, and these in general are better than lower budget films. Both of these are placed in the same font as the title, to make them stand out, however are smaller so that they do not detract from the title itself. 

What makes this poster different, is normally on posters the text is level with the horizontal of the page, on this poster however the text has been placed at a diagonal. Normally the text is placed at a horizontal in order to ensure it can be clearly read, it also make sure that it stands out as usually it fills the width of the poster. I do not believe that placing this text at an angle affects how clear it is on the poster as the text is so vibrant and stands out so much from the image. I do however, think that it offers something new a fresh, for example in cinema's when there is a line of posters this one will stand out as the text is placed in a different area which does not follow the usual conventions of a film poster. This means that the institutional information place beneath  the title of the film is also placed at an angle. Below the institutional information is also placed 'Coming to cinemas in March'. This is placed in a slightly bolder and bigger text, this makes it stand out a lot. This is an obvious convention of any type of movie poster, even if there is not a set day for the release of the film usually the film has a general date such as 'This Christmas' or 'This Summer'.

The image placed on the poster comprises of the two main characters, Hansel and Gretel. The background comprises of some white snowy mountains and a few trees. The white background makes the black of the characters costumes stand out even more. The mise en scene, in terms of costume, the person who has created the poster has placed them in black leather outfits, which give them an assassin and "badass" look. This is quite different from what we know about the original characters in Hansel and Gretel, who were innocent children from a very poor village. The connotation of black leather is to create a potentially intimidating appearance, this shows that the characters are to be feared and therefore are powerful. The use of the weapon props enhances this idea as the use of weapons makes them appear more threatening. It also reveals that there will be a great deal of action within the film as there will be fights scenes. They have deliberately been given weapons which are ranged like a gun and cross bow, these are often used and associated with hunting and therefore bring forward the idea of them as 'Witch Hunters'.

The mode of address of the characters is direct, both characters are looking directly at the camera, they are looking with a very serious expression, this shows that they are powerful and deadly characters. The direct mode of address may also have been used to make a link between the audience and the characters, this makes them look more appearing and as if they will actually feel part of the movie if they watch it. This, especially for fantasy movies, is a big part of the escapism and thus entertainment.

As well as the standard A4 portrait poster, a landscape one was created for perhaps buses or landscape billboards. It contains all of the same elements as the first, it just lacks the institutional information and the text is placed towards the left and the image to the right as there is no overlap.