Target Audience Feedback

Here are some of the comments that I have recieved from people that I have shown my trailer to, aswell as the comments I have recieved through the comments people have left on the link on my facebook. I have a variety of different opinions on the trailer, many were positive stating that they found it suspensive and that it was an obvious Thriller movie.

Livio (18) : Oh my God thats very intriging, well done! You should make a movie of it, i'd actually pay to see it!

Samantha (18) : This is amazing, its good to have people talking in it.

Sengul (19): The trailer consisted of the many different shots all conveying apart of the story, which helped me understand what the storyline was, the music was very well blended in and very theatrical, relating well with its genre.

Stacey (17): Honestly its really good, it really created suspense and tension.

Elif (26): I love the flashing effect at the end along with the breathing noises, it made it very dramatic and intense reflecting the normal expectations of the Thriller genre.

The majority of comments I recieved was very pleasing many quoted that they noticed the change from the original trailer stating that they prefered this version, as it was move drastic, reflects the genre well, the music links to the storyline perfectly. We have definately taken into consideration the critisism we recieved with our first trailer and have adapted to our work accordingly. I definately believe this has helped us produce a more professional looking trailer, that is appealing to our audience.

Final Movie Trailer

Alterations to Final Movie Trailer

We have made an immense change in our trailer, in order to make it more realistic aswell as appealing. With the consideration of our audience feedback on our orginial trailer, we have made alterations concerning these.

Addition:

Dialogue was a major downfall with our trailer as there wasnt enough of it before. We have added new scenes of a conversation between Mia and her friend at work, containing dialogue relevant to the concept of the plot, it helps move the trailer along, as it introduces the plot and our villian. We have also added in the green screen with the age certificate on, aswell as the production company logo, we wanted to add these features in our first submission, however we were unable to, due to the time limit we had, we have now added these in, in order to make our trailer look proficient.


Subtraction:

Many of our feedbacks stated that the storyline was intricate to understand, due to the repetition of shots, of Mia running in London and Brett being tortured, many didnt seem to understand the concept of breaking the conventions as it wasnt reflected clearly in the trailer, so in order to make our piece understand able we had decided to take out some of these shots and add new ones in which contained dialogue between Mia and her friend.


Dialogue & Sound :

As dialogue was a major issue in our orginial piece, and we had realised that it was cruicial in making the storyline regconisable, therefore we found it nessicary to add new dialogue in that will relate to what our trailer is trying to convey. We added a new scene of Mia having a discussion with her work mate explaining her worrys for Brett:


Elena: Mia.... Whats wrong?
Mia: I havent heard from him in two days and its not like him.

This was a quick scene but reflects the conventions of a thriller movie, the start of the storys disequilibirum, aswell as the stereotypical characters, which eventually changes within her conversation with the villian.

Mia: Mia SLT Ldt
Dean: We have him!
Mia: Where is he?
Dean:....
Mia: I dunno who you are but please dont hurt him.
Dean:You have 24hours until his time runs out!

Through this next scene we see the progress of Mia's confidence which is depicted in her speech, she subtly makes it obvious to us that she will be the herorine in the movie, and Dean very clearly makes us regconise that he is the villian. The shots that dont contain dialogue in the movie is moved along through the music. We had added in another non-diegetic music, which even though was very simplictic, still and composed, created suspense and tention, making it somewhat threathening and disturbing. It also combined well against the shots used, showing her struggle in finding him. However as the trailer progressed we intertwined it very subtly with a faster pace of music, emphasising the sense lost, struggle, distress and tention as the disequilibirum unfolds towards the end causing the audience to feel anxiety.

Music: The Dragster Wave and Code Breakers

Improving our Final Coursework Grade

In March after recieving our final coursework grades me aswell as Shanyse Johnson, Hollie Gilbert and Nick Riley had subsquently decided to resubmit our work, as we aspire to improve our grades, we intend to do this through alterations to different areas of our work, such as the movie trailer itself, extended information on our blogs, aswell as endavouring to make our evaluation better, we hope that this will help us achieve better marks.

The critical commentry we have recieved has enabled us to acknowledge how and what we need to improve on. We will be substituting aswell as adding to our trailer, as our audience had brought to our attention that there was alot of repetition throughout the trailer aswell as an unclear story line thus leading the audience to confusion, in order to amend this we will be adding more dialog, however this dialog will be short and simple, yet the words used will be effective as well as suspensive, in order to heighten our audiences mood. We will also be reducing the amount of unnecessary, prominent shots, such as the shots of the protagonist running around in London.

Evaluation

Our intend as a group was to produce a Thriller genre based teaser trailer, as well as a magazine front cover and poster which will all have a synergistic link between all 3 of the products. Many different types of research were taken into consideration, this was the foundation of our work, and it enabled us to come up with many ideas. We endeavoured to make our work look professional and appealing to our target audience, by taking in to consideration the conventions in all three products. During the process of research we analysed film trailers, that had relevance to our genre, this was so that we had a solid background on how to make our own film trailer reflect the same conventions, whilst analysing I considered looking at music, effects, transitions, text fonts and colours, as well as the plot line, these all helped us in imaging what we intended our trailer to look like. During lessons we started to build up what we wanted our trailer to convey, how we would like our plotline to be put across, and from there on we kept on elaborating on the storyline. This then allowed us to investigate into what locations we could possibly use. We decided on our locations according to conventions relating to our film genre. Throughout our media lessons we have also looked at many different media theorist, and had decided to apply the Tzvtan Todorovs theory of disrupted equilibrium, which linked very well with our plotline. We according to our genre conventions decided on our target audience of both male and female aged 15 to 30, we decided that we would take into consideration there opinions and suggestions in order to improve, and achieve a professional looking trailer, that will garentuee to be indiviual and interesting trailer for our target audience. Our research was a key element in helping us develop our work.

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

In order to understand the conventions that were consisted in our genre we researched into existing media products, whilst doing this we were able to gain knowledge of what the genre denoted, what it initiated, and the traditional expectations that is made oblivious to the audience. To establish this knowledge we used websites like youtube, to analyse existing Thriller movie trailers, and note what similarities they all had in common, making these 'commons' the genres conventions, I also used the website google to find information on the actual movie, aswell as watching a few of them on dvd to access full understanding. Additionally i used google in finding images of thriller movie posters, dvd covers, and in also finding magazine front covers to find out more information on conventions. Conventions are significant in movies, as they help reflect the genre of the movie and allows the audience to become familiar with the genre. Through research we were able to understand the conventions that applied to the different genres, therefore allowing me to know which techniques to use to differenciate our product from the rest. One technique we considered was, breaking the conventions of the Thriller genre. Breaking a convention contrast against the expectations we have of the genre, thus making us become more interested in it as it creates a distintion with what we catagorise that genre to be. However its best to not break too many conventions in one piece, as this may confuse the viewer, and make it more complex. We decided to challenge the stereotypes of male and female, so we could decieve the audience of who they would expect to be the herorine and damsel in distress, we aquaint them with this idea that the girl is the stronger and more in control character, whereas her boyfriend is the the one who needs rescuing, it distinguishes this idea of breaking conventions and creating something unique.

During our research we were aquainted with different media theorist and conventions tthat relate to our film genre of thriller. Many of the ideas these theorist had applied well with our storyline and we spent time during pre-production deciding which ones would help reflect the thriller genre, and how we could use these theories and conventions to create a USP.
We decided to use Propps theory as a foundation to our characters and there roles, we challenged some of his characters in order to create our USP.

Herorine:Mia
Damsel in Distress:Brett
Villian:Dean
Helper:Elena

These are typical characters in any genre, however we noted that we could challenge the stereotypes of gender in the characters. Traditional expectations of women are to be the 'damsel in distress' seeking help from a male figure, we decided that if we did role reversal, making the make the 'damsel in distress' it will be breaking conventions and peoples expectations therefore making it a USP, due to its innovation and difference. Although we had a role change on the tradition of the male being the hero and protagonist, we kept some stereotypes in the form of the villian, this was due to us not wanting to break to many conventions, as this could lead to difficulty within the audiences understanding.

Our trailer also follows the theory of Tzevten Todorov, which is a common theory used within Thriller movies:

The 5 stage structure of the plot:

1) State of Equilibirum at the outset: The idealistic love between Brett and Mia as he proposes to Mia at the resturant.

2)Distruption of the Equilibirum by some action: Mia in suspence and worry that Brett has been missing for a few days, naive to the fact that he has been kidnapped.

3) Recognition that there has been a disruption: Later Mia is informed by a mysterious phone call that Brett has been kidnapped

4) Attempt to repair the disruption: Due to the immense love she feels towards Brett, she is obliged to go in search of him, to do this she goes through different clues

5) Reinstatement of the Equilibirum: Happens in the form of Brett being saved.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

All three of our products correspond to one another, the elements of our combination is prominant, relating all three products together, and subtly making them recognisable. This is due to the synergistic campaign that we have decided to use, in order to allow our audience to make an immediate link in identifying the movie Reprisal, we done this by using our main actors in the trailer, promotional poster, and magazine, we have also used the same font for the movie name, on all techniques of promotion. Alongside our Synergistic campaign, we will use word of mouth to help promote our movie, as word of mouth is one of the most credible types of advertising as it spreads news immediately, this will create a stronger impact on our market sales, and peoples opinion of our trailer as they will atain a rough idea on the film. In the preparation of distributing our movie we will consider showing our trailer during commerical breaks in the evening, due to the fact that our target audience is that of 15-30 year olds, and this is the typical time that they would be watching TV, aswell as advertising it in the cinema, in a movie with a similar genre. We would also consider advertising our promotional poster on billboards, inside of magazines, and in cinemas, as this will be an emphasis on the film and our sells rate. If our products are advertisted in a respectable manner, it will create a better impact on our audience and inspire them to watch it. I personally believe that the elements that we have combined together in our promotional poster and ancillary texts, compliment each other in the sense that they all relate to one another, through the portrayal of images and texts, allowing the viewer to understand and recognise the film, aswell as its genre. We all constantly stated our opinions and took note of them, as we saw everyones opinions and contributions as significant. We made sure everything illustrated near enough the same concept, as can be seen through the image of our main protagonist Mia (Stephanie) as in the magazine front cover and the promotional poster she expresses a sad mood in both products, many of these elements helped create a successful synergistic campaign.


3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Through research we had found out the most common age rating for a thriller movie is 15, and according to this information, we decided that our target audience would be that of 15 and over,
I think this is the perfect age rating as the moral of our film is suspensive, intensive, disturbing and mysterious. Audience of a younger group would not understand this concept, whereas the function of a 15 year old would be able to compherend this idea. In order to include our target audiences idea's and opinions in our work, we produced questionaires on our blogs, as their thoughts were vital because it would have a massive impact on how they percieve the final outcome of our trailer as they would be able to relate to it, additionally the questionnaire helped us to create something that we are garentueed our audience will like. Everyone in the group made a poll, based on information, either about the trailer itself, the magazine front cover, or the promotional poster.

Our target audiences feedback would create an impact on our product, therefore making it an essential part in the promotion, so after all our media products were finished I asked a few people for their opinions, a majority of the comments I recieved was delightful, as many people stated that the trailer was a great replica of a thriller based movie, as it created tention and excitment. Many said that the trailer its self created suspense and drama urging them to want to watch it, some said the music was a definate emphasisim on the mood and reflected the genre well, as it sounded very theatrical and dramatic, especially in the parts of Eugene (Bretts) torture as it heightened the mood and made it more intense. Some had stated that the acting was good and that the actors looked very stereotypical and nothing over exaggrated, many stated that Nick (Dean) in particular portrayed his character superbly as he has a sort of 'gangster' look. This means that our trailer has been successful in attracting people into wanting to watch it, as it has gripped there interest which therefore means that they will want to watch it. Although we did recieve one or two critisism on the trailer and how we could improve it, said that the acting could have been improved a little better, to make it more realistic, as some areas were either very melodramatic or unrealistic although I have to distress how difficult it was in finding the perfect actors to deliver the emotions and characteristics being depicted in this movie. These critical feedbacks have been helpful, as we will take into consideration these points being stated for future referances.


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

Our coursework was displayed in the form of Blogspot, Blogspot allowed us to display our recordings from information that we have gathered throughtout our research, aswell as presenting the production stages of our work. Blogspot was an easy website to work with, due to the simplistic format of the website, illustrating our work effortlessly, as we were able to upload images and trailers as apart of our research, aswell as intact our own opinion in a post. This concept enabled our work to look competent, organised and proffessional.

Through the construction stages we used a selection of media technologies, to make our work look professional and realistic, as our intend was to make movie trailer with a synergetic based promotion. If we consider that in the media there is always a form of competition, we needed to make sure our product was eye catching and unique, as there will be many other films being advertised alongside our one, we had to ensure that our work contrasted against other films, which meant we had to differenciate our one, and we done this through challenging traditional expectations of our genre film and conventions in media products. Our research helped us to decided on our USP within all three of our products, if we look into the research we have done of magazine front covers, we can note that the picture depicts its orginal, realistic self, whereas our magazine front cover is blue, this including the main image of Stephanie (Mia), this sets the mood of what the film is about, aswell as the fact that it reflects Stephanies role in the movie, this sets interest in the reader as this is not a common technique used in magazines, thus allowing our product to be more eye catching and invites the reader in.

However our promotion poster consists of many conventions, as many of the information is set in a typical format, this is so that the viewer can easily understand the significant information, although I believe that the image itself is not typical and is very much unique, as the concept of it is unusal, yet explains a story.

Our trailer itself reflects many conventions as we have used a variety of effects, such as the shaky effect at the end, this effect can be compared to many other thriller trailers, as this effect helps create excitment, suspention and heighten action, which is the aim of this genre. Additionally the pace of our editing is another form of convention as it stimulates the mood, and arouses question as to what will happen next. The fast pace editing immediately takes place in our first glimpse at Eugenes (Bretts) torture continuing throughout the rest of the trailer.

In order to create and illustrate these products and conventions we worked with various different softwares and equitment in order to produce something that conveyed its self as professional, we used a program called Adobe Premier CS4, on the apple Mac’s available to us at school. This was an ideal software to use during the process of producing our trailer due to its good editing tools, allowing us to make our film trailer look professional. However it was a very time consuming software and at times could be very difficult to use, this was due to its complex structure, which when compared to the software we used before, iMovie, was much harder to use and get used to, but this also meant that our final outcome looked very intrigening and eye catching as it looked alot more professional hence the use of the better software. Whilst producing the Magazine front cover and Promotional poster we used a familiar software called Adobe Photoshop Element, which we felt more comfortable using considering that we had used it the previous year during our AS project.

Youtube was an essential website that we were constantly using, as this was a huge part of our research as we analysed trailers that refered to our film genre, this helped us understand the conventions of our genre. The trailers I thought best related to our genre and conveyed its conventions with justice I presented in my blog, so that I could refer to later during production stages.
As Youtube is a site in which people are able to upload and share videos, we decided that we would upload our video, as this allowed others to view our trailer and comment there thought on it. Facebook was also cruical website in gaining feedback. I uploaded our trailer onto my facebook which enabled me to gain opinions on our trailer quickly, also it meant that we gathered feedback from the required target audience of 15-30.

Importance of Camera Angles

Camera angles are important, for many reasons, different shots denote different matters of subject, it can deliever important information, create impact, facilitate editing, it can emphasize and determine a point, camera angles are a subtle yet vital devise in film making. In my opinion Camera angles are a huge impact in Film Trailers, we may not notice it, but our eyes pick up alot of information through the camera angles alongside the editing used to emphasize and elaborate it. There is a variety of different Camera angles, many of which are oblivious to us, such as...
Extreme close up
Medium close up's
Mid shotlong shot
Low angle
High angle
Ariel shot
Over the shoulder
Establishing Shot
We have tried to use many of these types of shots in our trailer, there is many close up shots in order to show the emotions of our characters, depict some sort of characteristic, and questions the viewer with whether they should show empathy or sympathy with the characters, additionally we have used many establishing shots of landmarks aswell as movement such as Stephanie running, this is a way of showing her struggle in finding Brett, and emphasises on her role. Establishing shots are very conventional in Thriller movies, especially establishing shots of landmarks, as depicted through 'Taken'. There was many establishing shots of landmarks of Paris in 'Taken', so emphasize where the action is taken place, we have tried to reflect this idea in our trailer, which is conveyed through shots of 'Big Ben' and 'London eye'.

Feedback from Target Audience

In order to gain a strong response from our target audience we decided to distribute our products on social networking sites such as Youtube & Facebook, this was in order to get a wide variety of opinions, also these websites associate with a number of people within the age range we intend to sale our product to, thus making these opinions significant. The majority of the comments I recieved was exccentric, many had denoted that our trailer reflected the genre with justice, as it contained many thriller conventions due to its many intensive scenes creating tension and thrill within the person. Many had stated that the composition and concept of the trailer created suspense urging them to want to watch it, and alot had said that the music was a definate emphasism on the mood and reflected the genre well. However we did recieve critism aswell, many had made reference to the continous repetition with the trailer, especially of the torture scene and the main protagonist frequent running scenes in London, thus making the trailer somewhat confusing and unprofessional. Others had commented that the acting was not so great and needed improving on, I personally believe that if there was more dialog intertwined in various parts of the trailer it would have been easier to state the roles of each character clearly, we had definately recieved this as a major critisim, they believed that more dialog was essiential in exemplyfing each characters role, initally we had intended to add more dialog in the trailer, however we had complications with doing this on the Mac's,as the dialog did not show up clearly or direct. Some stated that the portrayal of the storyline was to complex, thus making it more complicated to understand the plot. These crisism are important as we can consider them next time.

Final Movie Trailer

Here is the final film trailer that me and my group has produced.

It is a Thriller based trailer named Reprisal.

In my personal opinion the trailer was not what I expected it to be, I imagined it to be different but this was due to the vastness of my imagination however I do believe it is a successful piece considering the time limit we had aswell as the actors and equitment we were provided with. I enjoyed the productive and creative side in filming and making the products, it allowed me to gain knowledge in being able to interact with complex equitment, aswell as being able to allow my imagination to take over.

As a group I believe we communicated well, and respected one anothers ideas, we took note of what each one of us wanted out of this trailer, working accordingly, we at times had disagreements but this was useful as these disagreements helped us become a stronger group. Everyones idea was significant in the making of 'Reprisal', and within this trailer is a piece of everyones opinion and imagination.

Final Magazine Front Cover

Here is our finished magazine font cover.

Development of Magazine

Here are the different stages of the making process for the magazine front cover, which was produced by me and Nick. Considering that our last year project was to make a magazine front cover we as we had already known how to use photoshop, thus allowing us to recogonise the tools we needed to create the magazine. We had researched into other magazines, aswell as the skills and knowledge we had gained from the previous year, to ensure our magazine looked professional, and carried the characteristics of other magazines. However we wanted to give our magazine a USP, and due to Nick taking the photos, he had taken some of Stephanie in an eerie blue lighting effect, which worked well as a USP.

Final Poster.

Here is our final poster, we have added a lot more functions to it such as the release date, which is in the colour red, it can be noted that it is the only colour red used on the poster as it symbolises its significance, due to the fact that it notifies the audience when to look out for the movie. We have also changed the font of the magazine poster to make it look more striking and unique, which i believe it conveys well. The font also relates well to our genre of Thriller as it has an edgy look. Me and Nick have also edited in a review score from FilmFlex magazine, which has some relevances to our synergistic link, as it helps make it appealing to our audience. We rated it with 4 stars, as it makes it look realistic. Through all our experimentation and creativity, we decided that this was the poster that interpetted the mood and genre well enough to attract our target audiences attention.

Editing Process

In this first shot we are aqauinted with the main two characters Mia (Stephanie) and Brett (Eugene), we decided to have a medium shot of Brett purposing to Mia, this was to show the viewer that they are in a relationship. As it is convential for a Thriller trailer in a subtle happy mood, showing their normal life, we decided to

We decided to insert a caption in white contrasting against a black background, this makes it stand out and look significant, the font itself is very simple however it is effective, the captions reads a question, 'What would you do if...' the 'if' creates suspense, tension and questions the reader involving them in the trailer.

After the suspensive question, we have a shot of our villian Dean (Nick), the viewer can immediately regconise him as being the villian, his facial expression and body language emphasize on this, as he depicts a look of authority and control, his grey hoody and the seriousness portrayed in his face makes him a stereotypical badboy gangster. Additionally the lighting is very dark and blunt, which helps create pathetic falacy, as the background and lighting helps reflect the mood of this character aswell as his dark character.

Development on Final Poster During Lesson.

Although we had all liked the final poster below, Alex had suggested that we change the film title font, as it is not unique nor different from any other New Times Roman font, as it has similar characteristics, thus disrubting the rest of the posters qualities, making it had to stand out amoung the rest of our competitions. We honestly did like the font and believed it did compliment the rest of the poster to some extent, howeve it was not unique, therefore we endavoured to find a font that was different and reflected more of a thriller genre. Alex had recommended a website called dafont.com which contained a variety of individual fonts that would assist to anyones creative needs. Considering that there was a selection to choose from, there was many that caught our attention, Nick and Alex had liked a font, so I said lets test it on our poster and see whether it fits in, I did like it but nt much, however myself and Shanyse had arouse the point that it reflected a more horror look, it reminded me of the font used in 'Blade' therefore we decided on not using it. At this point Hollie had also stated that she preferred the font we had used at the start, yet the rest of our group was determined to find a different font, which led us to start our search again. Through much research Alex had finally found a very interesting font that related to our genre very much. So we decided to try it, after he had put it on our poster, we had all agreed that it we liked it, we all got up and decided to stand from afar
to see what kind f a image it conveyed, it was very eye catching and was easily recognisable.

Final Poster

After much elaboration, we concluded with this layout, and details as a final poster. Much adaptation had been made, many different experimentations had been taken into consideration, as shown below, however this was our final outcome. We all agreed that it reflects our film genre in many ways, and is conventional. Every detail was carefully thought about, and had all our opinions considered. As a group we all believe it it is a successful piece, and will attract our initial target audience, and might appeal to others as well.

Development of Poster

These are the different stages of making the poster. There was alot of elaboration and changes made within the time of making and experimenting with it, thoughout the time that Shanyse was making it i was always beside her giving my opinions on colours, text font, layout and imagery. Here is the different out takes of it, following through to the final outcome.

First stage.. this was a blank page on photoshop, which was the starting point to our imagination running wild with excitment to start creating...

This was the image that we all decided to use as the background, as well as Stephanie as the foreground. The movie name 'reprisal' added in.. I chose this font and believe it illustrates a thriller genre.

After the image of Nick had been added in... We used a ghost technique to merge him with the background, however he was in front of the main protagonist, therefore making him look like he's more significnt.

So with a little bit of moving the layers around we got Nick behind Stephanie, which was our initial intention. We then added our cast names at the top of the page to make it look conventional, and we decided that the colour red made the text stand out, making the cast names look sufficent and important.

We now added a minor detail such as the website.. which is in white, in a small font and in the middle of the bottom part of the page. We now added the 20 Century Fox mark at the bottom right hand corner.

We now added the slogan 'How far would you go?' We had many difficulties deciding on a slogan, due to the fact that the heroin and the villian is on the poster and not the person being kinapped, therefore we had to pick a slogan that wouldnt confuse the viewer with who each character is, our first attempt at the slogan was 'A girls fight fr true love' due to the fact that Nick is in the background of the poster, this could give people the impression that Nick is the one she is fighting for. So through much debate, we conclusively ended up with 'How fa would you go?' it is simple yet effective, as it also questions the reader. The text is in the colour red to make it look important and draw the viewer in.

This was Nicks interpetation of the poster, although it looks unique as it breaks certain conventions, i didnt find it to be a striking poster. I didnt like the layout much as well as the font of the texts.

We decided to change the positioning of the credits because me and Shanyse didnt think it looked very attractive, however Nick preferred it at the top and said it looked unique. It looks much more professional at the bottom, and conventional, we placed it on the left hand bottom corn just over stephanies coat, so that it culd be read.

We decided to test placing Eugene somewhere on the poster, as a little bit of experimenting, aswell as the fact that he is also a main character so we wanted him to be n the poster, but the image we used did not fit our theme or was not professional, therefore it did not very appealing.

So we removed the photo of Eugene, Alex then recommended that we place the credits in the middle of the poster, which i agreed on, as i had pointed it out before, this was due to the research we had done on film posters, as a majority of them had the credits an the bottom, in the middle, this made it look professinal and conventional.

Although everyone liked my idea of a film poster, we were short of time as well as the fact that some of my group members wanted to use Nicks images and had already started producing a poster. I do really like the image being used as the location and background is interesting and to some extent creates prefetic fallacy corresponding the main image. Stephanie's face is full of emotion and expresses her loss, however i do not think that this is relevant to the genre of Thriller, it does not fit the conventions and does not portray her determination to find her kidnapped boyfriend. Nor my idea or the favorite of Shanyses ideas were used in our poster, however i has suggested that if we were going to keep the image as Stephanie we needed to somehow intertwine Eugene and Nick to show that they are the main characters as well, and that by adding them in, depending on how we include them in the poster, we might be able to get a Thriller convention. Due to the fact that Shanyse is producing most of the poster she had also decided to include Nick in the poster. In a lesson where i had attended a little late shanyse had found out that Nick had a free lesson the same time as our lesson, so she took the liberty to take a camera and take pictures of Nick to put into our poster. I think her photo's were statisfying and worked well. We are very priverlledged to have a cast that understands their role clearly and are able to act upon it. Nick was able to create a threatening and intensifying facial expression, his body language exploits the same concept, he understood exactly the image we wanted and acted accordingly. I really liked the final image of him that we are using (Image Below). As a group we thought it would be a good idea to blur Nick into the background.

Draft of Magazine Front Cover

Hollie had also created a draft version of the magazine front cover, i had helped her with some of the designs, and presented my ideas on the presentation of the magazine. Due to the fact that this draft was created before any photos had been taken only the layout of the texts that would have been included are present. Me and Alex helped Hollie decided on a magazine name we eventually concluded with 'Fr Extreme', the FR standing for Film review, however we later decided to call it Extreme due to the fact that FR's definition was not obvious to the audience, but through Hollies experimentation she realized that she was able to fit 'Film Review' at the top in between the middle of 'Extreme''. I really liked the magazines name it sounded and looked professional and really did attract my attention as it did others. Most of the magazine portrayed the conventions of a magazine such as the masthead at the top and the barcode at the bottom, she included different phrases, information and quotations that we could use in our magazine. Some of our group members did not like the fact that some of the headlines contained a more detailed information on what they were based on, however i have seen many a magazine contain alot of information on there front covers, therefore i didn't see this as a major issue, although i do to some extent agree with the idea that a headline should not contain huge amounts of detail so that it attracts the readers attention and leaves them in anticipation. Considering that we did not have an image for the background Hollie was unable to change the colour of the fonts and had to use black as a temporary colour. I really liked the contents on this magazine and the minor details she has concentrated on.

Initial Ideas for Magazine Front Covers

Nick had produced four different initial ideas for our magazine front cover, they all conveyed the conventions of a magazine cover, and although they all share the same functions they are all individual.

Draft of Poster

Holly had made this poster as a draft poster to help us get started, she made it using photoshop which allowed her to elaborate her photoshop skill as well as help us to get different ideas. The photo she had used was one that Nick had taken, and i believe this is a beautiful picture as it is very emotional, very realistic, yet subtle and simplistic. She cut the image into a lighting bolt shape which compliments our theme of thriller, and reflects the anger in relevance to the definition of our film name. She included Stephanie's eyes, which is undeniably very sharp and eye catching, it is significant as it shows her helplessness, struggle and desperation. through our research we were aquatinted with the idea that the background of thriller posters are conventionally black, simple, blunt or with a fade. Holly has made the background plain black to follow conventions, which worked well as we are more focused on the main image, making it very eye catching. The text is simple yet effective, and i believe the font style helps convey that this is a thriller movie. Capital letters in bold have been used to make it stand out and noticeable, it is also very conventional, the movie name placed at the top in a larger size yet the same font instantly provides the viewer with the knowledge that this is a mysterious, serious and suspensive movie, and i believe the font helps emphasize this. I really like this poster as it is conventional, appealing and ambiguous. Although it is very simple it still looks professional and unique, we have decided to use this as a secondary poster on our magazine front cover.