Little White Lies research

“Little white Lies is a bi-monthly independent movie magazine that features cutting edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of magazine” this is how Little White Lies describe themselves on their online website. The first issue of the magazine was published in 2005. It reviews all types of films from independent films to big Hollywood blockbusters.

-One off the first things I noticed about the style of little white lies film review pages is that there is always two and a half colums of writing. this precise amount of words makes an effective structure for the rest of the page.

-There is always a screen grab from the film itself instead of a set up image that is shown in most other magazines situated  at the top of the page.

-The written reviews are also all aligned perfectly with the image above them, creating a clean and simple style.

-The backgorund of little white lies reviews are always either black or white, allowing the image to be the main focus and the simple style of the layout to be complimented.

-The title of the film is the biggest text on the page to make sure the reader knows what the article is about but also to advertise the films title as many of the little whit lies issues are published before the films they write about are released.

-There are ratings at the bottom of the page which are very effective when advertising the film, they also allow the readers to decide weather or not they would enjoy the film.

Alex - Poster analysis and first drafts

For This poster analysis i have chosen two films based on social realism and comedy as these are two mains parts of our short film. picking a film with no relation to our own film would not be a good example as there would be different themes, characteristics and layout for the poster.

The Inbetweeners Movie 

Narrative

The background tells us the type of location but doesn't give it away. The blurred background could represent the drunken state which occurs through out the film  The main image shows who the main characters of the film are which is key to promote the film.

Representation

This film represents teenagers, more specifically teenagers who are celebrating the end of their A levels. 

Genre

The obvious genre is Comedy. This film follows the codes and convention of a teen comedy as it school/educational settings and involving adolescent sexual adventure and conflicts.

Audience

Comedys can be aimed at each and every audience group. But specifically Middle class and teens and young adults are the major target audience. 

Superbad

Narative

We are made aware who the three main characters are in the film by only putting them on the poster. The characters are shown to be in high school which means they'd be teenagers. 

Representation

This film represents a teenagers in high school. but doesn't portray them as stereotypical jocks etc. They represent the normal american but could also represent the un popular kids.

Genre

This movie is again a comedy, more specifically a teen comedy. The film follows the three main characters quest on getting alcohol, this is a typical theme in some teenage films. 

Audience

The target audience for this film would be middle class teenagers and young adults. 

My Poster Draft

Emma - poster analysis and first drafts

I have chosen two low budget films to analyse because they are more likely to be similar to our short film, I also made sure they were comedy or social realist films instead of horror or something completely different to our films genre.

Cold souls

1-Narrative
The narrative is suggested through the title, 'Cold Souls' reveals the 'freezing' of the characters soul. this title does not make the film sound like a typical comedy and instead plays on the story content. The main image tells the viewer who the main character is, and therefore who to look out for. The clinical colours of the background suggest the theme of clinics and hospitals during the film. The main image shows multiple images of the main characters face suggesting that he is unstable or confused about himself.

2-Representation

The film represents the middle classes, the theme of future science and the U.S.A  

3-Genre
The genre of this film is ‘comedy-drama’ with codes and conventions of a black comedy, when the viewer is entertained by some serious themes or topics. During this film the main character is unhappy and goes under a procedure to remove his soul, this is unconventionally funny.

4-Audience
The target audience for this film is suggested through the type of newspapers mentioned in the ratings and comments, upmarket american broadsheets are used suggesting that the audience are educated, middle class adults.

Angus, thongs and perfect snogging

 

 1- Narrative

The title of the film is 'Angus, thongs and perfct snogging' this gives some clues into what the film will invole and also reveals some of the narrative. the title also suggests that the characters are teenagers exploring the. Aspects of the story are communicated by the poster by the images and tag line, we are made aware that the character is called ‘Georgia Nicolson’ and that she is a teenager. Also we can see that her life is unorganised and chaotic.

2- Representation
The film represents the British middle classes and teenagers.  

3- Genre

The genre for this film is comedy or teen movie. During the film we follow the main character on her quest to find a boyfriend this is a commonly repeated convention for a teen movie. The film also includes fancy dress and embarrassment for the main character which is a common convention in comedy films.

 

4- Audience
The target audience for this film would be young people aged 11-17 from middle / working class families.

My Poster Drafts

First draft-
For this first draft I chose a horizontal format, this allowed me to have as much space as possible for text and the image. I made sure the title of the film was the biggest text on the poster and placed it in the middle of the image. The font is the same as the titling font from the original Mario games; I chose to use this font as it links our theme of Mario to our overall film. The colours are bright and bold and are similar to the background and our characters costume.

The main image in this draft is of Mario as he is leaving the game and climbing out of the television. This image is fun and playful, which lets the viewer’s know that this is a comedy film, not to be taken seriously. The background relates to the main image because it is a still from real game play, a setting that Mario the gaming character fits right into. 

I have chosen to include our actors name and positioned it next to him in the image.

I have not included a website address but I have added our production logo at the bottom of the image.   
 

Second draft-

With this draft I decided to conceal part of our characters identity by using an image of him from behind as if he were playing the Mario Game.
 

Again, I used the same font from the game series; I used bright colours that let the viewer know that the film is fun and light hearted …seen on the front cover of this game:

I don’t think this poster is not as effective than my first; I chose to experiment by using a landscape format for this one but had difficulty when trying to fit all of the text in and around the image.

For both posters I chose to use review summaries from ‘Empire’ as it is a modern film magazine that looks at all types of films including independent films such as ours. This also allows the viewer of the poster decided whether they would enjoy watching the film by deciding if they are a fan of the source, in this case they would be more likely to want to see the film if they were an Empire reader.
 

Production campany logo

Audience feedback

 

We posted this status on to Face book to see what our friends thought the best title would be for our film. 

the results were :

'Get me out of here' Received 0 votes

'Mushroom Mayhem' Received 4 votes

'Game Over' Received  7 votes

We have decided to go with the majority vote and name our film 

'GAME OVER' 

Lighting techniques

While filming we made sure it looked like our gamer was actually watching and playing the Television, we did this by flickering two lights in front of the character which gave us this effect :

Editing our film together

We have started to put our clips together using Final Cut Pro-

By naming all of our files we were ale to save time when editing because we didn't have to go through each clip before putting it into our final product.                                         

during our quick cut shots we were able to use final cut pro to blur the images as they zoom in, this makes the shots more interesting instead of a simple zoom. we were inspired by a clip from Shaun of the Dead seen in one of our previous blog posts.... 

http://advancedportfolio201277.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/5-key-concepts-for-our-short-film.html

These are our original take of the 'key quick cut scene' without the zoom and motion blur: