Film Review Analysis- 'Tron Legacy'

This article from Empire magazine, reviewing the movie 'Tron Legacy' is very text intensive, and includes a large image from the film itself, a small box featuring important information about the film such as certificate, cast etc. as well as a brief synopsis of the film. A quote box is included at the centre right of the page that highlights a phrase from the review. 

In my opinion, the large volume of text in the article makes it harder to read, and as such may detract readers from this review.

Film Review Analysis- 'Suspect'

This is another student-created piece.  Again like the 'Survival' review, the text font used is quite generic (at a guess, I would say either Ariel or Times New Roman), and this adds a professional and formal aspect to the review. However, I do think that the large pictures means that the text is 'crammed' to the edge of the page.

The review begins with a introduction to the main cast members as well as a brief synopsis of the film. It then goes on to talk about the actors and the roles that they play, as well as a brief 'quote' from one of the actors regarding the production process. This adds a personal aspect to the review not usually seen.Finally, the review includes 'promotional' material for the film and it's actors. This attempts to persuade readers to watch the film.

Overall, in my opinion, this isw a good review and is well laid out. However, I think that it would benefit from a greater depth of analysis into the technical elements of the film.

Magazine Article Analysis- 'Survival'

This is a poster created by a former student of media studies at De Aston.

 

The article itself is in the same style as my first idea, with a quote in the centre. This poster also bears some similarity to my second idea in terms of layout (i.e. large image at the top with the text in the lower half of the page.) The font used is generic, perhaps Times New Roman or Arial. This adds professionalism to the review and also ensures that the review is easy to read. In terms of the layout itself , the review begins with a brief synopsis of the film, to give readers an idea of what the film is about, and then progresses to talk about technical elements (e.g. shot types) and the quality of the acting, finally summarising the review and giving it an appropriate score.

 

In my opinion, breaking the review into these sections is particulary effective as it makes the article easy and clear to read.   

General Conventions of Magazine Reviews

Introduction to Magazine Articles

Magazine reviews are designed to critically analyse films so as toinform the reader of what they are going to see. This involves explaining the strong points of the film, as well as its shortfalls.

Magazine reviews are extremely important to the film industry, as they not only promote the film to the target audience, but also, the feedback from these reviews can give production companies ideas on what  needs to be improved in any possible sequels.

Poster

This is an initial design for a film poster based upon my first idea. Upon analysis, I think that the fade used is a little too 'crude' for what I want to achieve. As such I decided to create a poster using a combination of the ideas from drafts 1 and 2 as I thought that the vengeful eyes of my main character would look better. I also thought that the colours used in the title were not appropriate for the genre of the film, and as such I decided to change them to black and white.

Here is the finished poster.

Creating My Film Poster

Throughout the production of my film poster, I have used a variety of technologies, such as the design software Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

In this software, I am using the Adobe Illustrator software to adjust my image to the correct size so that it will fit on an A4 size sheet. This image was first edited using Adobe Photoshop, and will feature the villain portraying a sinister smile, thus creating an enigma with the audience as to how this character will be involved in the film. This enigma is enhanced by the fact that a large majority of his face is hidden.

In this image, I am selecting an appropriate font for the films main title. This is important,, as I had to choose an effect that would not only give the desired 'calling card' effect (i.e. letters cut from newspapers etc.), but also would be clearly visible from a distance, thus gaining maximum impact upon the audience.

I used the Adobe Photoshop software to enhance my images so as to increase their potential impact upon the audience when applied to the poster itself. The techniques I used included adjusting the curves on the image, increasing the image size/resolution, and applying a blur effect to the image.

Conventions of Film Noir Posters With Poster Analysis

Conventions of film noir posters on Prezi

Ancillary Drafts - Poster

POSTER

Idea 1

My first idea is a black and white, landscape poster, split using the 'rule of thirds'. The top 1/3 would contain an extreme close up showing a sinister smile (from the villain). The middle section would comprise of an image of the church (used as a location for the final part of my short film), and the bottom third would contain the film logo, in the same style as the 'calling card' used throughout the film.

This idea is quite simple to create, however I worry that the combination of the two images may mean that there is too much going on in the image.

Idea 2


My second idea is a black and white, portrait poster consisting of a simple extreme close up of the main characters eyes (as at the end of my film), which would fill most of the page, with the RIP logo at the bottom (again in the 'calling card' style.)
In my opinion, this idea's simplicity is it's strong point, as the single image not only increases tension and enigma among audience members, as the foreboding, vengeful eyes are 'staring at them', also acting as a form of direct address towards the viewer. However, I do worry that  the lack of content would make this poster less effective in attracting audience members, as it gives away very little information about the film itself. I also worry that the one picture would not be enough to fill the page, as it would become stretched and distorted through the scaling process.   

                                      







Idea 3

My final idea for a film poster follows the idea that a poster should outline some of the films key points. It  is a landscape poster in which the background will be a colour image of the church floor (see below), the page will be filled by an image of the main character's dead wife, with the RIP logo (in the 'calling card' style) at the bottom.

This sort of technique is quite risky as although outlining some of the key points of the film in a poster can often heavily influence whether a person will actually go and watch the film or not, If I did choose to use this technique, I would have to ensure that the poster didn't reveal too much information, as this would mean that the viewer had no need to watch the film as they already knew what the film was about.  

Although the  simplicity of this idea makes it easy to create, if my poster becomes too simple, then it will not achieve maximum impact upon the desired target audience for my short film.



What is a poster?

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. These are usually used for the promotion and advertising of products and services.

Ancillary Task Brief

 The brief for the ancillary task is to select and create two of the following based on my 5-minute short film:

• A poster advertising my film.

• A radio trailer for my film

• A magazine review featuring my film

I will be creating a poster and a magazine article for my ancillary task.