Evaluation 1

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

My finished media product is very similar to other films of the same genre, notably the British films “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch”, and “Layer Cake”. Playing with Fire, the fake film for which we made the trailer, borrows ideas from a variety of different films, building on some whilst mirroring or dismissing others. It also shares more than a passing resemblance to films such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, essentially American versions of the films previously mentioned.

The crime setting is a core theme, with illegal card games, bank heists, murder, drugs, and mugging playing crucial roles in the story and the trailer. Ideas such as the illegal poker game stems from the film “Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” as a way of introducing the main character to the world of crime and also trapping the main character, forcing him to raise funds in increasingly dangerous and illegal ways in order to pay off his debt with his criminal contact.

The film does challenge the typical conventions of some crime films, however – often, there will be one crime boss in control of the whole criminal underworld, or at least the crimes going on in a certain city or country. This is challenged when a whole group of crime bosses from across the city converge in one room to play an illegal poker game. The main character is right in the middle, and loses it all. The crime bosses themselves are dressed in expensive suits, and more closely resemble businessmen than criminals. Whether or not the main character loses due to luck or due to one of the crime bosses cheating is unclear – what is important is that he loses, and is basically screwed from that point on.

In Pulp Fiction, Bret and Butch are the two different characters that screw over the main crime boss in the film (Marsellus Wallace). Of the two characters, Bret is murdered, and Butch is forced to flee the city and to never return – and that’s his reward for saving the crime boss from a horrible fate. The general idea behind all crime films is that if you mess with a criminal, you’ll probably get yourself killed unless you either make it up to them in some way, or kill them. This convention is displayed in Playing with Fire, where the main character owes one of the crime bosses a considerable amount of money, and is forced to commit crimes of varying degrees in order to pay back the debt they owe. The trailer shows off what could possibly be the character failing to pay back this debt, as they are confronted by the crime boss, tied to a chair, and held at gunpoint.

In terms of the form – a film trailer – it borrows from many different examples, mostly from action films where there are a few short scenes where the characters talk in order to inform the audience of what the plot is, followed by short, quick-cut shots of the action sections in order to pique the interest of potential viewers and excite those who are into action / crime films. Interlaced with these quick shots are titles and names of those involved, including the names of the actors and the director. Commentary over the top explains more of the plot as the action continues, and the title is left until the end. Establishing shots of urban environments are used in order to give some sense of location for the trailer, so the audience knows where the action is set. Basic shot transitions and few visual effects are also used; something small-time action films and crime-based movies are notorious for.


However, the trailer does challenge a few conventions of famous theorists - Vladimir Propp's Character theory, for example, is not followed in the trailer. While there is a hero, the hero is not aided by any kind of donor or helper. The only person who could be considered a donor or a helper changes to fit the role of the villain halfway through the trailer, being the main antagonist the main character has to defeat. There is no "princess" to be "saved". This subversion of conventions makes the characters more streamlined towards specific roles, taking on more than one role in the story. 

In conclusion, the film trailer borrows several different ideas from similar films, using conventions in order to give meaning to the events and allow the audience to understand the events occurring without giving an unusual amount of detain through commentary, dialogue or text. Some aspects of these conventions are challenged, mostly in the narrative and the plot of the trailer, but most of the trailer is relatively standard stuff.

Final Edited Trailer

I kind of forgot to post the final version of the trailer. It's been edited down, taking into account advice from viewers and criticisms we ourselves had about our work. You can find it here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOhMPjeYd1Q&feature=plcp

It was edited down a little to fit within the time constraints, and in such a way that it didn't feel like it was dragging on or too much like a short film rather than a trailer. It was also edited by someone else this time, not me, so the general tone and feel of the trailer was different to the original.

Finished film magazine cover thing

For the second part of the task, we were required to create the front cover for a magazine featuring our film. Since I'd spent so much time on the film poster, I decided to simply use a variant on the music magazine that I'd created last year. If anything this meant that a) a great deal of research and design was skipped, as I'd already done all the work, and b) my A2 work linked back to my AS work, meaning that the two portfolios, instead of being completely separate, were now linked through one piece of work.

Anyway, here's the magazine cover;

As you can see by heading over to my AS level blog ( http://www.evlbzltyr.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/basically-finished.html )  the magazine cover shares a variety of similarities with the original music magazine. The general aesthetics are very similar, the fonts, the colours, and the style are all essentially the same. Even the titles are relatively similar - whereas the music magazine was called "Amplifier", I decided to call the film-centric edition "Amplifilm". This magazine, although from the same publishing company, was centred on films rather than music. It also meant that I was able to choose a relatively original sounding name for my magazine, something that couldn't have been done if I'd tried to come up with a new style.

The only real changes to the aesthetic style are to do with the film it's supposed to be featuring within its imaginary pages. The photo I chose to use for the front cover was originally going to be in the centre, but a combination of the text being hard to read when over the character's suit and the character looking to the left of the magazine meant that it looked better to move the photo over to the right. The text was a little hard to read at the bottom, so I used a "drop shadow" effect to add some 3d elements to the text and make it easier to read, essentially giving it a dark outline. There's a little bit of blank space at the top, but that can't be avoided. I tried making the gradient in the background darker to make it seem like there was more to the cover than there really was, but this didn't do much.

The text at the very bottom of the cover (the "playing with fire" text) I decided to type in the same font style as that of the film poster, to link the two pieces together and imply that the font used (Rockwell bold, or something like that. Don't worry Future Tim, I've got your back) was the one that the film was going to use throughout the entire marketing campaign, probably in the opening or closing credits for the film itself, and possibly eventually on the DVD case after it came out on DVD. The reason for the change in the colour scheme, however, was simple - wheras on the poster, the text for the film title was yellow, to match the warm reds and other colours on the poster, as well as fitting in with the Pulp Fiction conventions, the text on the magazine cover had to fit in with the rest of the aesthetics, and making the text yellow would have simply ruined the aesthetic look of the magazine.

While not as technically advanced as some of my peers, I was hoping to go for a more aesthetically pleasing design, rather than a technically brilliant yet ugly mess, which I knew would be the outcome if I tried some of the more advanced editing techniques I had previously planned. In order to keep the simplistic look and ensure that the text wasn't too hard to read or see against a cluttered background, I had to sacrifice a perhaps more technically advanced look and instead focus on making sure the basics were there and looked good, resultng in a simple, yet striking and original look.

If I had more time, I probably would've gone and done some further research on film magazines, but the fact is that I was running out of time and had to make some sacrifices in order to meet the deadline. At least it looks remarkably different to the film poster, giving two completely different designs based around the same subject.

The Finished Movie Poster

Okay, well, I've done the movie poster. I think it turned out pretty good.

The poster was heavily influenced by the "Pulp Fiction" poster;

It's easy to see the similarities between the two, from the lettering, colours, and general feel of the posters. However, there are a few differences. Even the titles are vaguely similar, although this was genuinely a coincidence rather than a conscious decision. The colours in my poster, for instance, are far brighter than those in the Pulp Fiction poster, which have been faded slightly in order to give the impression of a front cover of a magazine (amplified by the inclusion of the "10c" below the title to the right of the poster). The Pulp Fiction poster also goes further with the idea of a worn piece of paper on the right, with creases and tears far more obvious than on mine - the only reason I used the "ripped paper" look was to give a clear division between the main picture and the title of the film. I do think, however, that I may have made it a little too transparent, making it difficult to see. If I did the poster again, pretty much the only thing I'd do is make this effect easier to see.

The title of the film is also below the characters, rather than at the top. I did this so that the human eye is drawn to the top of the poster and then looks down, hopefully seeing the title of the film last. I did this so that the tagline - "When you play with fire, you get burned" - is the first thing seen on the poster. The fact that one of the characters is then placed slightly in front of the tagline makes the viewer then look down, drawing them to the characters in the poster. The names of the actors involved in the production are on top of the main character, meaning that the viewer will see them straight after seeing the main character, before being led downwards further, seeing the "winner of over 30 awards", and finally the title "Playing with Fire". The inclusion of the Director's name to the bottom on the far right is so that it is the last thing the person sees - it's the least important thing, but is still necessary to include on the poster, perhaps attracting fans of the director's previous works, but not alienating members of the public who aren't familiar with them.

The reason I laid the poster out this way was so that the experience of seeing the poster was akin to watching another trailer - the information the viewer needs to know is spread out around the poster, with the image of the main characters and the setting making up the majority of the space available, and the tagline acting as the dialogue. It is also an unconventional poster, with clear divisions, contrasting colour pallettes and two main characters rather than one central character being put on show.

The main image is actually made up of four different images - one of Farai, one of Josh, one of the London skyline, and another of a body of water the same colour as the water in the London skyline picture. The two characters were slightly tilted towards each other to give the impression that they're both converging on the camera, rather than standing still. I chose an image of Farai that had a little more movement than the other photos, and one of Josh with no real movement at all, to make the two characters seem more individual, rather than having them both in similar positions and therefore seeming like a team, or friends - something that isn't in the film. However, the inclusion of both of them means that the viewer has to ask themselves whether or not they're friends, enemies, or simply don't know one another. This intrigue, I hope, would cause them to perhaps seek further information, by either watching the trailer, or simply going to watch the film.

If this doesn't work, the fact that they're both holding guns will give the average viewer an idea of what the film is about. Other than the clear connections to Pulp Fiction, the guns, the suits, and the London skyline all indicate a crime / action film set in the UK.

Speaking of which - the London skyline, with the houses of parliament clearly seen in the background, means that any casual observer instantly knows where the film is set. The reason I used two images for the background was simple - the London skyline that I liked was too small, and I needed another one behind them to complete the illusion that they were standing in front of the Thames - here's what the backgrounds looked like without the characters and title in front of them;

The blue stripe was necessary due to a few pixels of difference between the two images - rather than move the other components around to compromise, I instead decided to just colour it blue and leave it as it was. Hopefully, due to the characters and the text overlays, the fact that I use two different images will be overlooked completely by any casual observers.

The colours in the background image are in complete contrast to the text overlays, and the colours of the other components of the image. This creates a striking look, completely different to the usual colours used by contemporary film posters, and therefore hopefully eye-catching and intriguing.

Thinking of how the trailer challenges social norms, the fact that the two characters are clearly British-based teenagers or young adults holding guns seems to indicate that they're obviously hardened London criminals, but the fact that they're dressed in suits and seem to have a bit more class than your average shoplifter also gives the poster an air of mystery about it. Harkening back to Pulp Fiction, the resemblance to the characters of Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are very clear - both duos consist of both a black man and a white man, both wearing similar suits, both being criminals, and both wielding guns. Whilst there are a few differences, the resemblance to the two most well-known and well-liked characters in the film would also serve to attract the desired audience, as well as anyone who have heard or know anything about the two characters, even without having seen the film. Whilst not so much the main characters in Pulp Fiction itself, they are still integral to the plot, and are widely regarded as the best characters in the film, mainly due to the comic relief they provide throughout an otherwise violent, serious film, involving drug overdoses, robbery, rape, and murder.



Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega

Magazine Cover

Okay, now that the movie poster's done, I just have to do my magazine cover, a bit of evaluation, and I'm basically done.

I'm basically going to design the front cover of a magazine that will have a feature about our film, but to make it quicker my basic design has already been covered by a past version of myself - considering that music magazines often have features about films and things, I figure that if I just make another cover for my fictional magazine I made last year, "Amplified", I can effectively cut down the amount of time spent designing the look of the magazine, and just make a slightly updated version of the cover I made last year. Bit of a cop out, I agree, but considering that time is definitely not on my side concerning this project, the fact that I have something to fall back on is a great timesaver, and one of which I intend to take full advantage of.

Because I didn't go into enough detail in last year's blog, I had to do a bit of guesswork in order to locate the right font I'd used for the magazine last year. However, I eventually found it, and I've set to work on replicating the style I'd come up with last year, but updating it slightly in order to make it feel like the magazine's gone through a number of changes since the one I made in 2011, as well as to indicate that I've gotten a bit better at Photoshop since then. Hopefully.

The font style is "Gill Sans MT", in case there's a future version of me trawling through my old blogs desperately trying to locate the type of font I used in these two magazines. I've learnt from my mistakes.

I also decided to change the title to "AmpliFILM", in order to give the impression that it's still related to the old music magazine, but is focussed on films rather than music, and is made by the same people who made Amplifier. It's not the greatest idea in the world, but it means it looks more like a film magazine than one for music that was paid to advertise a film they didn't particularly like or whatever.

The Final Poster Ideas Thing Blog Post Yeah

I decided against going with the idea of a poker-themed poster. My basis for this is that chances are, if the poster looks too poker-orientated, then people going to see the film would be expecting a kind of “21” style film, with poker being the main theme behind the film, when in reality, the idea is of gangsters, guns, violence and crime. Poker takes up a relatively small part of the storyline and is only actually played once, instead of something like, say, Casino Royale, where poker is played at several points in the film, despite it being primarily a spy film, and thus the poker theme is warranted (the film is named after the casino the poker games take place at, for instance).

Instead, I decided to hark back to the original basis for the film, and attempted to imitate an old-style, Pulp Fiction-like poster, heavily influenced by the bright colours on a dark background style of the original Pulp Fiction poster, with similar fonts and words adorning the poster. The poster also looks very aged, as if it is from a magazine or something similar, perhaps the front of a magazine actually entitled “Pulp Fiction”, with details such as a small circle advertising the fact that the “magazine” is actually 10 cents. Another effect is that the poster seems to be ripped slightly, which is an idea I tried incorporating into my own poster.

The photos used are vastly different, using photos of the two main characters for my poster rather than in the Pulp Fiction poster, where most of the advertising is of Uma Thurman, despite the fact that she isn’t present for the entire movie and in fact spends most of it either being waited on by one of the more interesting characters or almost dying after overdosing on heroin.

Instead, I took inspiration from a Reservoir Dogs film poster, with the image of the main characters, the gangsters, standing at angles above the title of the film. This was as far as the references went, as I thought I’d found “inspiration” enough from the Pulp Fiction poster, and if I ripped off the Reservoir Dogs poster as well I might as well just copy and paste one of the posters over.

That’s not to say I don’t like the films. I do, quite a lot, hence why I pressed so hard in the planning stages for it to be similar to Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, as well as the British equivalents such as Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake.

But yeah, the poster, when finished, will more than resemble the Pulp Fiction poster, as it will not only appeal to fans of the film, but will also hopefully attract a wider audience than those who simply like films about poker, instead attracting fans of the crime and action genres as well.

My decision to use a picture of a cityscape in the background that is quite obviously from London was also in mind of attracting an audience, driving the point home that this is a film that takes place in the UK rather than somewhere in the US, which would hopefully attract fans of films such as Lock Stock and other UK gangster films mentioned previously.

Altogether, hopefully the finished poster will be eyecatching and will attract fans of films such as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, as well as fans of British gangster films as well.

Ideas for the poster – aka, “Poster Ideas”

For the task following our film trailer, we have to design a film poster, and either a web page or a front cover for a film magazine featuring our film. Most of us have elected to do a front cover, since that’s a part of what we did last year, and will therefore be easier to do than a web page (of which many of us have little to no experience in doing). But first, the poster.

At the same time as I’m doing the poster design and ideas and whatnot, I’m also writing up an evaluation of the finished film trailer. However, since the film trailer is not entirely finished (the first draft of it is done, but we’re currently re-cutting it and adding other details in order to make it fit the time constraints and certain other conventions including the name of the studio behind the film), and until then I won’t be able to provide a proper evaluation. So until then, I’m working on getting the other tasks out of the way.

The first stage of doing this is obviously the planning. Instead of doing sketches with a pencil and pen, I instead spent a little while just messing around in MS Paint to come up with some basic ideas. They all had a similar theme – based around the image of playing cards, with a white background and colours mostly limited to either red or black, with a few of the main characters in the foreground, and the name of the film also visible in an eye-catching area of the poster, differing from poster to poster depending on the imagery in them.

The playing card symbols (spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts) are also important, as they are easily recognisable symbols and have obvious connotations with the act of gambling, and also mean that the actual image of a playing card is not needed in order to draw attention of the intended audience towards the central theme of gambling.

The fact of the matter is, however, that the ideas I’ve got so far are just that – ideas – and I still don’t know exactly what the final poster will look like. This is kind of a big deal, considering I don’t really have a lot of time to get it done. Well, I don’t have a lot of time to a) come up with an idea, b) relearn how to use Photoshop, c) get the photos I need, and then d) actually make a poster and magazine cover advertising a film that doesn’t exist.