A2 Media Evaluation

Movie Trailer Text

Above are the text screens that I have used in our trailer. I had created these on Photoshop as this offered a wider range of effects and fonts than iMovie. I needed to think of a good sentence to go in the trailer that would tell the story in an attempt to intrigue viewers and entice them to see the film. I came up with the rhetorical question of 'What would you do if your home became your worst nightmare?' as this involves viewers by asking them a question. Once I had inserted the text, I wanted it to look even more effective so used the eraser tool to add sharp cuts to it to give it a 'slasher' look linking to our horror genre. 

Title Colour

When creating the title for my film, I wanted to use a colour for the typography that would make it look as effective as possible. With my film being in the horror genre, the most obvious and common colour to use was red, however the problem was finding how light or dark to have it. Because the colour red connotes blood and danger, I thought this would be the most appropriate colour to use. I also wanted it to match the colour of the blood splatter behind it which was red so needed the text to stand out and be easily read.

As you can see from these two variations of my title, the colour is very bright and looks appealing meaning it can be easily digested by viewers. However, it is argued that these versions of red are too bright to represent blood, and that the normal colour for blood would be darker.

I wanted to experiment with my title until I could find the perfect colour for it. I changed the colour of red numerous times and had already seen what a bright version looked like. As you can see from the two versions above, I have made them slightly darker to see if it looked any better. Although they still look effective, I believe they are too dark to represent a colour of fresh, oxygenated blood.

This is the final version of my title and I am happy with the outcome as I believe it is not too dark or too light. I think it looks very effective as it is easy on the eye and viewers will clearly be able it identify that I have gone for the colour of blood.

Intrepid Pictures

Along with our own production company ident, we also wanted to include a well known companies in order to show that our film has the potential to be a success. We took time to research other production companies and look at their idents in order to find a suitable choice. When we came across the Intrepid Pictures ident, we thought this was really effective and would look great at the start of our trailer. After researching the company, we found that they specialise in producing and co-financing a number of genres of film - most importantly horror. They are responsible for producing films such as The Strangers and The Hitcher which can both relate to our film in the way that they involve a crazed killer. The word intrepid generally means fearless and this relates to the company's name effectively as it suggests they are not scared of anything - not even a horror film.

When people see this ident at the start of the trailer, they will assume our film we be of a similar quality to their previous works, and if they enjoyed this, then they will most likely enjoy our film too. The ident features a fade into a dark red background where we can see a stormy sky with lightning strikes taking place. There is a black silhouette of a man slowly raising his arms as if he is embracing the stormy weather. Gradually, the storm gets more and more violent with lightning strikes happening close to the man and the words 'Intrepid Pictures' appear. Loud sound effects of the lightning are used in order to make the ident more dramatic and threatening and it has an overall ominous feel to it. I believe it is one of the best and most creative idents I have seen and believe we have used it appropriately as the use of the colour red connotes danger and blood suggesting that they have produced a horror film.

Creating our billing block

From gathering research on products such as film posters and film trailers, I have found out that one of the main codes and conventions that is used is a billing block. A billing block ensures the continuity between products and basically gives the main people who have been apart of the film credit/recognition.

I have researched billing blocks on a number of different posters and found out that they contain the same information. The image below is the billing block from the poster for The Strangers. This is of the same genre and story-line to our film and so it would therefore be relevant to use the same information as this.

This information includes the production companies involved, as well as producers, writers and directors. Because there were only four people in our group who were involved with the creation of the film, our four names are the only ones that appear - Myself, John, Shaun and Georgia. We also found that the font used for a billing block is very tall and thin and have so incorporated this into our own. The billing block that we have created will appear at the bottom of my movie poster as well as at the end of our trailer.

Creating our ident - Loftlight Productions

Above are screenshots that show the production company ident that we have created to include in our film trailer. As you can see, it starts off in darkness before a hand appears and lights a match. With the match being the only source of light in the shot, it reveals a box in a loft with the words 'Loftlight Productions' written on it. The match moves across from left to right before having a sharp movement to make the flame die out. I thought of this idea myself as it was very simple, unique and effective to create. The ident links in to our production companies name as there is a light in a loft and this will be displayed at the start of our trailer to show viewers who have produced it. 

Final Magazine Front Cover

Above is the final version of my movie magazine front cover. I had to make a few adjustments in the process in order to make it look more effective. Overall, I am happy with the final outcome and believe it would make a successful movie magazine.