Initial Ancillary Text Sketches

Storyboards

Pre-Production Paperwork

Magazine Cover Analysis 2

Empire is a highly respected movie magazine, concerning itself with reviews and features dedicated to recent and upcoming films of all genres. Issue #275 from May 2012 sported Prometheus as its cover feature. Prometheus would come to be given a 74% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and be generally well-received by critics, and this cover does certainly sell the film well. Unlike some other magazine covers, this one actually reveals quite a lot about the film when looked at a little bit closer.

As far as I can tell, there are four fonts used (including the masthead), but some of them are quite similar, so effectively there are only two. The fonts used for the cover lines and the main cover line are very similar to the font used for the title of the film, so this creates a sense of the magazine being very closely related to the film and gives a sense of uniformity. This font also fits well with the futuristic/science fiction genre, helping to establish the tone of the film.

The font used for all of the cover lines is the same – only it’s been spaced out more or italicised as appropriate. This font is very similar to the font used for the film’s title on the cover – the main cover line.

The font used for the banner… …Is similar to the font of the magazine’s masthead.

The main image of the character Elizabeth Shaw has an angelic glow to it, which seems to be coming from the doorway-like structure behind Shaw. This centralises the fact that she is an important character in the film, and the dark background could suggest that she brings a ray of hope to a world of darkness.

The background image is of quite an important location in the film. There is just enough dead space to be able to see the background clearly. This makes a potential buyer of the magazine come to the conclusion that it holds some significance, and helps them to establish the kind of film that Prometheus is, and possibly part of the story as well.

Several key plot points can be hypothesised from the image:
The fact that Shaw is alone suggests she is the single heroine of the film, and that in the end none of the other characters matter.
The glow highlights this fact: that she is the most important character and that she is possibly the one to allow the film to come to its conclusion.
Shaw’s costume, the strange structure in the background, and the fonts and colours of the cover lines (particularly the electric blue colour and the computer-like font of the main cover line) help to establish that the film is of the futuristic science fiction genre.

The dominance of dark colours around the sides and on Shaw’s costume could also suggest that death or mourning - or a kind of dark and evil entity - is present as well.

Another detail on the cover which reveals something about the story (and that actually spoils the ending) is the banner. The words “The new Alien” imply that this film has something to do with Alien, which is actually something that is only revealed right at the end of Prometheus.

The only image on the cover that does not relate to Prometheus is one promoting a Lethal Weapon feature. This shows the clear dominance that Prometheus is having in this issue, and that it’s clearly the most important film of the month. In fact, the central cover line proposes that Prometheus is “the movie event of the year”.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

When producing an advertising campaign, audience feedback is extremely important because without an audience, a film cannot be successful. The audience are the people who pay to go and see the film. Without people willing to pay to see your film; your film will not make money.
The Woman in Black is an example of a film which had a very large advertisement campaign in order to attract as wide an audience as possible. Adverts were spread everywhere, Daniel Radcliffe partook in numerous interviews and the film had an active online presence during production. These all contributed to the film’s success.

Audience feedback online would be generated by how many people share the videos/pictures/files. On YouTube or Facebook, it would be generated by how many likes and/or dislikes the content gets. The more likes and shares, and a bigger response your content gets, the more popular your film will likely be. If a film is released and it doesn’t have a large following, chances are it won’t succeed in the box-office, as no one will know about the film when it comes out.

We received feedback from fellow class members at set-up screenings in class. We watched each other’s trailers and gave appraisal. The feedback for the first draft of our trailer can be seen in the video. Beyond this, I shown my trailer to my friends and family, and they also told me where I could improve. On a closer level, whenever one of our group made a change to a part of the trailer, the other members of the group would offer constructive criticism.

This method is very similar to how we received feedback for our individual posters and magazine covers. We would each give comments, and I asked my friends and family for their opinions, and I worked everyone’s suggestions into each product.

For the trailer, before we even started filming, our group sent out questionnaires asking people about what they like to see in horror films, and whether or not trailers sway their opinion on whether they should watch a film or not.

I also received feedback after the completion of the ancillary texts through the form of questionnaires. This helped to establish whether or not my products would be effective, had the film been real.

The feedback that our group received in-class was by far the most helpful. Probably the most concerning criticism we had for our first draft was that people were left confused as to what happened. They said that there was no story or progression. When another person pointed out that there was a lack of inter-titles, we knew then that including them would help make the whole trailer make more sense.
Another big criticism was related to the entire first portion of the trailer, where Simon – my character – and Alex are talking happily in a car, going out for a drive. We decided not to include audio on this part because the music would be more powerful. However, according to some people, it was a bit disorientating to have what is essentially silence right at the beginning of the trailer, in shots where there should clearly be people talking. It didn’t help establish an initial tone, and this is something we took quite seriously.

The music was a kind of 50:50 split. About half of our class members liked the music, and the other half disagreed saying it would fit better with a different genre, such as action. Genre confusion came up quite a lot in this feedback session. One shot at the end where I am standing perfectly still not answering a question, according to one student, actually gave the impression of a comedy rather than a horror.

Other criticisms we received were related to the brightness of the shots: they were too brightly lit and didn’t feel very scary. Someone else pointed out that it took quite a long time for the trailer to pick up the pace and become more horror-like. The only other major constructive criticism we received was related to the balance between the talking and the music (in certain shots the music over-powers the speech) and also the visual quality of some shots (one in particular of Alex’s eye which lingered for quite a bit longer than it should have).

The positive feedback we received in the same session was also very helpful. A lot of people liked the choice of music, despite some being confused by it. It was pointed out that some of the shots had angles which were a little bit more unusual than some of the others (such as the previously mentioned shot of Alex’s eye), and these were fairly well received. Our peers also liked the shots where I had changed the speed to slow down or speed up half way through. Generally, the editing and camera work were among the best features of our trailer, according to the feedback.

I used pretty much all of this feedback when finalising the trailer, magazine cover and poster.
In order to sort out the issues with the trailer’s story, our group decided to add inter-titles. These would loosely explain what’s happening in the shots, but not reveal too much about the film’s plot, in order to avoid spoilers.

The music, we decided to keep the same, but I actually slightly changed it towards the end to fit better with the progression of the shots.

Because one of the major issues was the beginning of the trailer, we inevitably almost completely changed it. We added more sound effects in order to make it clearer that we have a car crash, and my character is killed. We completely removed the shots of Simon and Alex talking in order to completely eliminate any confusion risen with our characters.

Because certain shots looked a bit amateurish, I added more visual effects. And on the one particular shot of Alex’s eye, I cut it short so that it no longer lingers.

Carrie (2013) Conventions

• Tense, bassy music.
• Trailer begins fairly calm with tension raising as the trailer goes on.
• Religious references.
• A sense on innocence - The use of a prom, the song that is sung at the beginning.
• Inter-titles at the end with the name and release date of the film.

Magazine Cover Analysis 1

Fangoria (October 2013)

Fangoria is one of the most well known (if not THE most well known) magazines, and also the very first magazine to solely focus on horror films. This issue concerns itself with two modern takes on two very iconic franchises: Child's Play and Carrie.

In order to bring in fans of both series, the cover gives each film equal space and focus on the cover. Each has an image depicting the main character; each has the title; and each has a four word tag line for the respective film. Both Chucky and Carrie in the images look menacing, almost making the cover look like a battle ground: both franchises competing for the rightful place on the cover, the rip down the centre being a result of the clashing titles.

The is somewhat further extended in the cover line at the bottom which reads "Also Playing". This makes it seem like Chucky and Carrie are competing against each other in some sort game. And the fact that the only cover line which mentions anything apart from the main two films shoved to the bottom further extends how important Carrie and Curse of Chucky are to this particular issue.

The banner at the top really wants the reader to know that in this one issue, they get to read about not one but two 'great' new films. The publishers could have printed a separate cover for each film, but instead the reader gets two-in-one; twice that of what is the norm. This is to attract the attention of the readers, and to make them think that somehow the magazine contains more content than it usually would. It lulls the consumer into a false sense of affluence: the buyer ultimately thinks they are getting more for their money, when quite clearly they are not.

Usually there is a lot more yellow on a Fangoria cover in the cover lines, but because the designer here has gone with a white background - to highlight the rip down the middle - yellow would be quite hard to read. The white also helps to separate the images more, so that readers won't be confused into thinking that they appear together in some sort of cross-over film.

Despite the fact that the images take up so much room on the cover, all of the main features are still there: The masthead, the bar code, the date line etc. And unlike the cover lines, they have't been made any smaller or have less of a presence as hey would normally.