Jo - Another Poster Design

Here is a more completed poster I played with as opposed to the ones I created spontaneously just to connect the main image and title together.

• I think it is vital to include the a Polaroid within a final poster design. I'd quite like to use the one of the boy with his back to us in the graveyard as it is suspicious. 

• Rather than just using the image I think it is vital to use the significant white frame to justify a Polaroid as the main subject in our film. I have taken the white frame for granted by placing   companies logo's on top as it is a nice contrast. 
• I have reduced the opacity of the background image to enhance the Polaroid images and also because the original image lacked lighting and was quite shaded
• An effect I would really like to use in our final outcome is to place the letter 'o' from 'Polaroid' as part of our title sequence within the camera lens to intensify the camera and the title's connection

Interview with actress Lola and Tiger

Whilst filming I decided to conduct a quick interview with our actress to see her opinion on our short film, how she became our lead actress and a few random facts about her along the way.

-Tigerlilly 

Tigerlilly: Individual & Initial draft design idea's for Film poster

 

IDEA 1: sketch

I like the idea of using polaroids font/logo on the camera in our poster and then having 'boy' written in a different font. I think it looks really eyecatching and I am incorporating a lot of the film into our poster. I also want the 'polarid boy' to be reflected in the lens of  the camera. This way we get an idea of the story without reading anything.
I also like how we don't see the whole of our actresses face and how its concealed. It creates a mystery about who the girl is and the boy in the camera.
I think this poster is eyecatching due to the close up. This is how I imaginged the poster in the first place. 

 

Tiger: existing film poster analysis

THE BOURNE IDENTITY
Understanding that the Bourne identity is not an independent short film I decided to analyse its poster as I feel I should get an understanding of movie posters in general and this poster really caught my eye. I don’t feel just because our film is a short independent film that the poster should be anything but as impressive as the hollywood blockbuster movies. If the poster is good, people will want to watch our movie.

 

THIS IS ENGLAND

I think it is very important to look at british films as obviously our short film is british. I was really engaged by the this is england poster mainly for the font as it is in style of the british flag. I think a key design like the font in this poster is an essential to making your film poster eyecatching and engaging.

 

Tiger: Screen shots of possible poster images

Here are a few screenshots of our movie that could possibly become an image for our poster. Im thinking of layering and fading a few of these pictures to create a 2 image fade. 

I like this shot however Im not sure if I want to incorporate the grave into the poster as I feel it gives the story away. 

This photo is similar to the poster I drew so this photo along with the one above it could possibly be our image for our final poster.

As our film is called polaroid boy I think its very important to have an element of the polaroid in our poster. Possibly the photographs as we see in this photo or the camera itself. 

Sound Track

From the first stages of pre production planning our short film, we have always wanted to find a soundtrack most suitable to accompany our film. We are aware that Jamendo  and Incompetech are platforms for downloading copyright free music.
We looked through Jamendo for a sound track over Incompetech as there was a vast majority of pieces to choose from covering all genres.
After playing through the most popular tracks advertised on the homepage, we focused on searching for a more ambient sound. We received a great responce of chill out, easy listening and classical pieces of music that will accompany our slow paced footage.

These are a few responces we played alongside our film, but an album we came across of Forrest Richardson's featured songs that really suited our film. 

http://www.jamendo.com/en/search?qs=q=would%20winds%20select%20part%202
Overall we found 'After you' most suited our film and this is the non diegetic sound track we will use to accompany our short film.

Jo: Individual & Initial draft design idea's for Film poster

A quick sketch I produced just to focus on the composition of the image, to best represent the film, and our title in the chosen font also featured as a sequence in our short film.

At the moment I am producing designs revolving around this specific Polaroid used in our film. I feel we should feature one of the Polaroids we produced to reinforce the subject matter and key prop. I chose this particular image as the male character who acts as the ghost has his back to the camera so we cannot become familiar with his appearance which raises mystery of who he may be. Also the effect of the location in a graveyard signifies a death which sums up the character in the image.








Alongside my sketched design, I have also produced a few similar designs for the poster using Photoshop, which I am already familiar with from my Photography lessons. I wanted to experiment in different compositions, again only focussing on the arrangement of the main image and title.

I would also like to design some posters including an image of our main character, possibly through a close-up shot, maybe alongside the Polaroid featured above.

Jo: existing film poster analysis

The Lovely Bones

This is the main poster produced that is featured as the DVD cover. The film has produced a selection of posters to suit audience types.

In these two similar alternative versions, another character is introduced cropped slightly out of frame, 'He' I can identify from expected conventions has no light reflected onto him which suggests negativity and suspicion. Furthermore, the female character further back in shot has more light source reflected that suggests she is our main character, but in comparison with the films main poster, I cannot become very familiar with her due to being more in the distance. Also unlike the other version, it only concentrates on one image as the background. I think this version has not been made the main version to represent the film as it isn't very suitable for younger audiences in relation to the films plot.

 In these versions with only the sizing of the title different, I can't recognize any characters other than a vivid silhouette in the distance. Both also don't include a credit block or actors featured.

 Nowhere Boy

Another comment to add about the colour choices, I feel the target audience is identifiable as a young audience as they are fun, bright colours.

 This is the version featured on IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1266029/?ref_=sr_1
It is busier than the original, we are given more of a sense of place and the characters home town. It also portrays significant quotes of the characters fame later in life. Also by editing the character in black and white creates a retro response that is current throughout the film.  In comparison to the original poster, a different opinion has been created for the target audience due to the different colours used. They are more creative and dated rather than bold. I feel this version will interact more with teenagers. Judging by the characters costume, hair style and props we can tell he doesn't represent expected conventions of a 21st century teenager, and rather a boy from the 50's with a draped jacket, strongly-moulded greased-up hair with a quiff at the front and the side combed back, exposed of socks, and a guitar prior to the advent of the genre of rock and roll. If I were to alter this version I would change the colour of the credit block where it covers the white area to a darker shade.

I like how the record replaces the 'O' in the title sequence in this version, which immediately suggests to me it is music related, and more evidence added from the guitar. The subtle colour of the background image is nice how it flows into white at the bottom of the frame and the image dissapears. I can identify two images within the poster that have been cleverly edited to appear as one as if the image of the boy has just been saturated. But from the colours overall i feel it overall represents similar conventions to a gangster thriller which is far from what the film wants to persevere.

 Compared to the other posters i have reviewed, I feel this version is more amateur, reasons being the style of font for the title appears very plain. Also I feel the choice of colours for the text don't compliment each other and the red doesn't suit the film's mood. Apart from those downfalls, the Blackpool landmark is positioned perfectly between the title and the character, which also gives a sense of the characters home town.  

 This version is very different to the others as it doesn't view the rest of the character so we have no idea what era he is from. I really like the extra image of the cloud that is symmetrically in alignment with his nose and chin, along with the tagline. With the use of the cloud, it gives a subject of dreams and more close and personal with the character. The blue tone is current throughout which is nice and subtle rather than in your face.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy#Style This was a useful link to familiarize myself with expected conventions of the 50's to relate to Nowhere Boy's main character. 

Post Filming

Today I filmed the morning sequence to our film.
I went to Lolas house and filmed there.

 

Shooting went very smoothly and we encountered a few problems:

 

1. Lola couldnt find her hat for the scene where we wanted her to put her hat on in the mirror. Instead we changed this scene to her putting her coat on in the mirror instead.

 

2. As I got lolas about 2.30pm we only had about an hour and a half until lighting went so by the time I was shooting the last few scenes (which were the breakfast scene) we had to use artificial lighting.


3. By using my dslr  we encountered a few problems as its not 100% made for filming. The camera kept cutting out like it did previously when we filmed. I had to shoot a lot of scenes over 10 times and thats why it took us so long to film and why we lost light.

 

Overall we got all the footage we needed to film and hopefully it will cover 5 minutes in our film.

 

 

Tigerlilly Winfield

Extra footage needed

We have approached a slight problem, we don't have enough footage to make a 5 minute short film. With all of our footage we have only made just under 3 minutes of film time. But we have realised we need to film in another location to become more familiar with our female character, possibly in her home or traveling to the grave yard scene.We also want to feature a photo of her and the boy seen in the polaroids in her house to raise questions for the audience as to who the people are in the photo. We also want to view a calender that illustrates the current date of an anniversary.

We can easily do this to meet our deadline as it will just be featured before our original footage. So we are filming Wednesday 16th of January in our actress' house.
We will make sure she remembers to wear the same costume she did in our previous footage such as her black cape, leggings, Russian faux fur hat and cherry red Doc Martens. We also need the Polaroid camera and a used calender. The rest of the props such as possibly breakfast instruments and an alarm clock we have hold of at the actresses house.

Here is a rough story board of what shots we want to capture.

Fonts for our Title sequence

After deciding on a title most suitable for our short film, we searched the web for a quirky, retro font that relates to the unique brand platform of the Polaroid whilst also considering the ghostly subject of the film.

To receive a more direct response, we searched 'vintage fonts' for the Polaroid effect and were happy with the first option of http://www.fontspace.com/category/vintage

We initially wanted to avoid serif's in the fonts as I feel it indicates traditional values of whatever it is advertising, and by focusing on fonts with San Serifs give the title a younger quality that relates to our actors.







These are the best fonts we encountered on the website. A few do include serif's but are subtle and actually I think they are the best fonts we have received for a final title. 

 

We now feel the top two results aren't very suitable for representing our film as i personally feel they are quite feminine by exaggerating the curls. Furthermore, the 3 dimensionally effected fonts seem quite childish and look as if they would be featured in a cartoon or sketch. 

Overall, we have decided we really like the last font that we made examples of using a mixture of upper and lower cases. We feel it portrays the ghostly subject of our film by parts of the letters disappearing, alongside a nice typewriter style.

The colour pallet featured in the Polaroid's logo is iconic and would have potential if we were to use one of the colours for our title, but after experimenting we don't feel any of the 9 colours compliment the films emotion. So we have decided we want to re-create our chosen font title in white with a black background that will flow nicely from a scene of the cameras flash that goes to a black screen.

sound effects

Due to our main prop of the Polaroid camera not working on set, we will have to download a polaroid sound clip from the web to make the camera scenes throughout our film more effective.

It was really easy to find this particular sound clip from the web and could easily download it and convert it into a video for editing purposes. 

Other than the Polaroid sound effect, we have no intention to intensify other diegetic sounds throughout our film. Although we do plan on finding a non-diegetic soundtrack most suitable for our shot film that will compliment the slow pace of the piece.

Choosing our Title

Here is a brainstorm of some idea of words that relate to our film. We decided on 'Polaroid Boy' as it represents the retro main prop that is present throughout the text, alongside the character we don't discover until the end of the text. It gives an idea of the boy being in the camera, as he is never featured in the real world.
The reason for not choosing 'Ghost Boy' as our title is because we feel it gives away to much information for the films purpose by acknowledging death is present throughout.