Final poster design + Audience feedback

we chose this poter design after getting positive audience feedback for it on Twitter.

 

 

Review draft 1

Game Over

Directors- Sam, Emma, Jonah, Alex
Production Company - Venatus
Starring- Joe Horsfall
Released- 14^th Feb 2013

This February sees an icon of the video gaming age being bought to life in an amusing short film created by Venatus, the creators of other short films such as Paranoia and Pay Day. With this new release Venatus introduce us to a completely different range of their work; they have moved on considerably from films using the thriller genre and are now successfully building up a strong reputation in the comedy genre.  

With impressive special effects the viewer watches as the character of Mario climbs out of a Television set, similar to the classic horror scene in The Ring by Gore Verbinskiwhich in 2002, this reflects Director, Sam Gregory’s love and lifelong interest in horror films. Game Over is a film that successfully challenges fiction and reality. The inspiration for Game Over stems from the original Nintendo games Super Mario Bros this is clear simply from the costume design and characters accents.                  

The costume designer for the film but be congratulated,  they have successfully created a replica of the classic brightly coloured costume for Mario that is seen in the original video games but they have also been able to keep with realism and dress the character of Jonah in a costume that represents young, middle class men accurately.  Joe Horsfall, seen in many other independent films and productions, plays Mario effortlessly and gives the character a new and inventive comedic lease of life. Unfortunately, the act is let down by a cheesy Italian accent but what more could be expected from a brightly coloured animated character?

Game Over follows Mario as he escapes the gaming world in search of a new adventure outside of his mundane life in Mushroom Kingdom. On the way he meets Jonah, the young man playing the game, unaware of the consciences of leaving the room to answer the phone. Mario explores and questions this strange new world he has arrived in but is soon forced to go back to his old life in Mushroom Kingdom as Princess Peach needs rescuing once again. A strong bond between the characters can be seen being formed and with emotional acting from Jonah Atkins (the gamer) the audience is aware of the impact Mario’s visit has made on him.  

The short film genre is a difficult format to work with but Venatus have done well keeping within a reasonable time period making sure the viewer wouldn’t feel as though it was dragging on. The film also includes a varying use of conventions from the comedy genre such as exaggerating situations and slapstick style humour.  Luckily though, these conventions are subtle and not repeated again and again through the film. A scene that stuck out for me was the game play towards the end; it is a long scene but clever editing and lighting shows time change and successfully keeps the audience’s attention.

The film relies on special effects to excite its audience leaving the other scenes second place and feeling somewhat like fillers with basic scripting. Furthermore, Game over is true to its word and gives an amusing new way of seeing the well-known video game character and shows the variety of the Directors work and interests.

Anticipation- 3 Classic characters, fun narrative, what more could you want?
Enjoyment-4 shows off talent brilliantly
in retrospect- 4 an amusing way to view a well-known character

 

InDesign - Game Over review - Jonah

In Design Practice - Alex

In Design practice for review layout Emma

Poster Research - Sam Gregory

I have chosen two films  to analyse our poster and what similarities and differences between them  I also made sure they were comedy or social realist films instead of action or horror as this would be indifferent


Toy Story




1-Narrative
The narrative is suggested through the title, 'Toy Story' reveals that there would be a reference of toys somewhere within the narrative which we can see from the poster being a variety of characters being shown. The title of the film on the poster matches the colour scheme of the background and also the decoré of the poster as the costumes of the characters like for example Woody shown the same colours as in the title. The main image of the poster are the renders of the characters which this  tells the viewer who the main character is, and therefore who to look out for. The vibrant baby blues and reds of the background suggest the theme of animated and a childs toy box during the film. The main image shows multiple images of the main characters face suggesting that they are happy and full of joy.
2-Representation
The film represents the young middle class kid and his relationship between his toys and their secret behavoiur when he is not around.
3-Genre
The genre of this film is ‘comedy/pixar' with codes and conventions of a 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 himself of the new enviroment Andy's toys are moving into a play school as Andy is moving to college.
4-Audience
The target audience for this film is suggested through the colour scheme and pixar animated look by it as we can see the demographic will be of a young middle class audience.

Shrek.



1- Narrative
The title of the film is 'Skrek' shown by the font of the title shows that there is some form of monster or creature being created as it gives reference to the character on screen. This gives some clues into what the film will involve and also reveals some of the narrative.For example we are shown from the décore and the background where there is an explosion of fire and a castle in the background that they are escaping and also due to the dragon being on shown shows that there is probably some form of quest along side with the princess.
2- Representation
The film represents around about the middle age period of a fictional universe around a princess inneed of her knight in shining amour.
3- Genre
The genre for this film is comedy/animated as during the film we follow the main character on his quest to find a a princess stuck in a castle guarded by a dragon.  This is a commonly repeated convention for a pixar movie.
4- Audience
The target audience for this film would be young people aged 3-15 from middle / working class families.

Our Intial Poster Drafts 

My Poster Drafts
First draft-
For this first draft I chose a Portrait format, this allowed me to have as much space as possible for the title and a image leaving plenty of space at the bottom for a billing block and quotes from various medias. 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 in this case i changed it to a solid black as it would fit the decor and background; I chose to use this font as it links our theme of Mario to our overall film. The colours are dull and bold and are similar to the background.

The main image in this draft is of Mario and various other screen grabs from the film including our gamer character. This shows a slight insight into the narrative without giving any key spot spoilers.



I don’t think this poster is not as effective as the others in my group as the colour scheme doesn't suit our target demo graphic being a young middle class audience.  

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.