Interchange Poster

Interchange Radio Trailer

Comparing our films

When viewing one copy of our film, I personally wondered whether the storyline was too hard to follow. Therefore myself and Jasmine created another version of our film, with clips in different orders, in order to try and help the audience understand our films storyline. However, when showing both copies of the film, the original and the new version, we found the audience generally preferred the original, for example comments were made such as : "The first one is easier to get" "The second version makes sense but is not as detailed as version one" "The first film was better with its use of angles to illustrate the story" "The shots in the first seem a bit too long at times compared with the second, but the first is better" "The first movie we were shown seemed to have a more interesting narrative, whereas the second one was still interesting, but seemed to lack something" "Both were good but I prefer the first one" After looking at comments, we decided to keep the original version of the film. However the excercise did ease my own worries and helped us choose between the final copy we would use, and also we took aspects of the second film such as shortened shots in the robbery scene, and put them in our original copy, improving our film greatly.

Audience Research

What was good about our film? What would you say our film could have done better? Was our title sequence realistic? Was the storyline easy or hard to follow? What genre would you say our film is? What certificate would you give our film and why? Did the title of our film relate to the story? Would you go to the cinema to see our film, wait for a DVD release or download our film from itunes? Would you buy an application from Itunes or the android market for our film? Any further comments?

Editing Equipment

Final Cut Express

Garageband

In order to edit our film and radio trailer correctly, we had to use certain programmes available to us through our college.

To edit our film, we used the programme 'Final Cut Express', available on the Apple Macs we have at college. The programme was familiar to us, seen as we had used the software in our As year, therefore we already knew the basics of the programme. However, this year, we had to learn new skills, such as how to put different texts on our film for our title sequence. We did this is order to make the text appear in different sizes and colour, and also to appear and disappear in a particular effect, such as wipe and fade.

Moreover, we also had to learn how to put voice recordings over our film in order to fit with a voiceover. We had done this in our As year with a radio trailer which went over our film, however this year was slightly different, as the recordings weren't all at once, they were spaced out over our film, therefore learning where to put them in the right place was vital.

We also had to put effects on our film, e.g the flashbacks in our film were placed in black and white in order to give the effect of a flashback. Therefore we had to experiment with the different effects we could use.

Because we are in our second year, the quality of the editing has to be better, namely crisper and smoother. Therefore the editing done by our group had to be precise and accurate, and as our film was longer, this proved time consuming. However, we found the programme 'Final Cut Express' to be sufficient for our film.

To edit our films sound and radio trailer, we had to use the programme 'Garageband'. We had never used the programme before, therefore we had to learn how to use the programme correctly from our tutors, before using it to edit our sound. This involved using the volume tool to increase or decrease any recorded sound, as well as pitch control and adding extra sound over our recorded sound, for our radio trailer.

Poster Analysis

The poster here is from the film 'The Fighter' (2010). Although the narrative of the film is very much different to the production we have made, the genre of drama is the same. The film mainly focuses around its narrative, also similar to our film, therefore the poster is ideal to analyse.

What is clear about the poster, is that the image of the two main characters is displayed centrally, and the image is the largest item on the poster. This indicates that the film is focused around the two characters pictured here, and thier story. The characters quite clearly stand out, they are not posing in any way, they appear in their natural environment looking natural also, it is a sort of action shot of the pair. This suggests that the characters are not involved in anything too dramatic, nothing which can be related to fantasy or fiction, that the film is about their lives and is based on a true story (as said at the top of the poster) The image is clear, it is made to standout on a black background, clearly emphasising that the film revolves around these two characters.

The title of the film is placed top right of the poster, which is not a usual convention for a film. Usually, we would expect that the film name is displayed clearly, centrally and is quite bold and standout. This is not the case here. I believe this is due to the fact that the film is based on the character's lives, it is not too dramatic, it does not contain anything that is too realistic, infact being based on a true story, the film contains real life events. Therefore, the title of the film is less important, and being smaller and less standout, this sort of adds to the effect of the film. It breaks the conventions of a film poster by not being placed centrally and standout. The colour of white also promotes innocence, maybe even surrender is usual cases. However, the film is based on the life of a boxer, therefore in this set of circumstances, the colour white doesnt indicate surrender or innocence, more of a unknown feeling, that the story cannot be defined by colour.

This is the same as the actor names displayed top left of the poster, they are not as standout, maybe showing less importance than the narrative of the film. The actors are famous, the actors are well known and known to be brilliant actors, but this doesnt take centre stage as is usually the case with film posters. The actors are not as relevent as the film, the actors are not as big as the film, the film is bigger than the actors, by which I mean that the film wants to be remembered, known and recognised by the storyline, not by the actors in it, which I believe suggests a brilliant film.

The colours of the poster are extremely basic. They are black, white and gold. These colours can be associated with boxing, as these colours are popular for boxers, but also, the colours show that the film doesnt need to have allsorts of different colours on the poster to make it interesting, the basic colours work.

The details of the film are placed in an unusual place for a film poster. They are above the central image, again showing these details are less important than the image. Infact, the more important details of the poster are shown in a goldy colour, 'Based on a True Story' and 'December' are the only words on the poster that appear in gold. This suggests that these are the only details the public needs to know about the film, giving an air of mystery, yet not giving the plot away at all, this intices people to want to go see the film.

In summary, I believe this film poster to be extremely effective in promoting people to see the film. It prompts people to go and see it by not giving too much away, but also doesnt over emphasise less important details. The film says to the public 'our film is all about the story, nothing else' and we see this from the large image of the two central characters. The actor names, the title of the film and all other details can be seen, but they do not overpower the image, suggesting the narrative of the film is what makes the film brilliant, not the actors or any other details. By breaking conventions of a film poster, the poster prompts the public to see the film more so than a traditional poster in my opinion, as the mystery it creates and the straight forward basic look of the poster gives the impression of a impressive storyline with no over exaggerations needed.

Poster Reseach

In order to develop our own poster firstly it was vital to look into other film posters and the important aspects of a great poster. I believe The Kings Speech poster is a quality example.The first aspect of a great poster is the photography, using a photograph that gives you some idea of the film genre and also a viewing of the main character or characters. For example this poster shows your two main characters in costume and both been famous faces helps towards the viewing of the poster plus the overall success of the film.

The second important part to a poster is the way the text is displayed and the amount of text on display. To much text can overwhelm the viewer and distract the viewers attention from the actual film. The most successful film posters are usually full of text. This is a great example as the import names and the title are really the only interest to the viewers that's why the over information is in such a small font.

Finally its great to put quotations and ratings from well known organizations to advertise your film. Only good comments and rating though no one wants to see a film that has a rating of two stars so four and five stars are only acceptable on film posters. One other major floor is not having ratings and quotations from magazines and newspapers that are not well known as the idea of a rating is that someone well known rates the film. This film poster is a fantastic example of a film poster and is one of the main assets of why this film was so successful.

Radio Trailers Research

We looked at existing radio trailers, to get a better idea of what features to include in our own. The most common features we found were film quotes, dates and times of release.

Dr Who



This radio trailer starts with the date and channel which allows you to know whats been advertised. Then there are various quotations from the program to introduce the theme of the program.All the way through there is music with dialog playing over it to create the tension and encourage listeners to watch the program.Then ending has a voice over to inform you again of the showing time of the program and a reminder of the channel.


Radio

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/radio/trailers/

This radio trailer is for the film ''Radio''.


Commercials

http://voiceovercanada.com/images/JohnDcomm07-2.mp3

Final Poster

Email 1 - This is the first email that we sent to Northern Rail to ask permission to film on the station.

Email 2 - This is the email that we received back from Northern Rail, requesting us to fill out a official filming request form.

Email 3 - This is the form that we filled in then sent back to Northern Rail with details of our filming schedule.

Email 4 - This is the email that we received back, asking us which train we wanted to use for filming.

Email 5 - We then replied to the previous email with the exact train that we wanted to use for filming.

Email 6 - Our request was accepted, given that we follow the rules and regulations on the sheets attached. We also had to sign an agreement sheet with Northern Rail.