Survey Monkey questionnaire

For part of my research , I designed a questionnaire on Survey monkey in an attempt to find out what my audience knew wanted from a short film. When I completed this online , I uploaded the survey on Facebook so I could get some results.These results will be uploaded shortly.

The questions I asked-
Do you enjoy watching short films?
Have you ever seen a short film?
Can you remember any short films you have enjoyed?
What do you think makes a successful short film?
What genre are you interested in?
How do you usually watch films?

Why did I choose these questions?
I chose these questions because I thought they would be helpful in understanding what is interesting about a short film and what creates audience interest.I wanted to know what the most popular short films were so I could take inspiration for my own.It was proved that Disney shorts , including Tangled ever after and Toy story, were favorites. I think this is maybe to do with the fact that Disney screens these shorts before the feature at a multiplex.I also found out that audiences generally felt that music was key in making a short successful.I think that this is because it can create emotion , from sadness to happiness.I decided to spend a longer period of time focusing on my score in order to please this large audience. During my research , I saw that television was popular way of viewing films.I think this is because it is easier to access and mostly cheaper than going to the cinemas. Overall , the general opinion I got was that many had seen shorts , but not a diverse range.

Film Magazine review page flat plan

Below I have created another flat plan for my second ancillary task and some examples of review pages from the like of Empire and Total Film. This relates to my product as it presents the first stage of the review pages development.

This review page has a main image and a strikingly bold title

This page has two slightly smaller reviews and additional information such as the running time for the audience

I like the style of this page because it is simple to navigate and easy to understand

Rationale 

I have planned to use light colors that are not to bright or distracting to use on my double page spread. The main reason for this is that the central focus should be on the main image in the foreground.The main image will feature a still of the closing shot , an eye overlooking the city.This eye was meant to be  a metaphor for the totalitarian government, who have full control over the residents within this world I have created. I have decided to write an article for the double page spread that includes lots of puns and humor. One issue with my previous work was that I did not re read my work and as a result it was lacking in good grammar and punctuation.I intend to check my work regularly to ensure that this does not repeat itself.Also , This year I will take care with positioning text and columns as I want it to be as ordered and easy to understand as possible. I will follow the conventions of Empire and Total Film without mimicking them as I want this to be an original product. I think at AS level, the main flaw of my double page spread was that it looked to plain and had a lack of originality in its design, so I intend to improve on that here. I also intend to add an additional information section on the page giving a glimpse of the actors, genre and synopsis , similarly to some of Empire or Total films works.

Film poster flat plan

Before I started the making process of my poster , I decided to complete a flat plan.This gave me some guidance when I was finding it difficult to make. Also, I had this to refer to if I was unsure what to include in the poster. It allowed me to structure my ancillary task.

Rationale 

For my poster I wanted a striking main image that was unusual.The majority of the poster will be mysterious , keeping in with the thriller genre. I took inspiration for this from the works of Salvador Dali and the early art deco pieces. I drew upon the Art Deco style often as the film is a throwback to earlier films and i wanted to deliver the past styles into the future with my ancillary taskIn the end I decided that the title should also be of a larger proportion as it has to be clear to the audience what the film is called. The masthead and title is Illusion , a title that is ambitious but also intriguing. I decided on a yellow , blue and red color scheme as they contrasted well with each other and were not too overpowering. I also decided to have poster conventions such as critics review , a tagline and actors names to make it look as professional as possible. For my BBFC rating ,  I decided upon making the film a 12A as it has similarities with The Hunger Games franchise-it has some disturbing material , but does not have the bad language or violence to warrant making it a 15.

Prezi about the thriller genre

As part of my research and planning , I created a Prezi in order to explore the genre conventions and get more ideas for my own short film:

Follow this link below to watch a Prezi on the thriller genre

http://prezi.com/m-9hcle_nuom/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

My actors

Here are my actors  , Jack and Richard. I chose these actors because I thought that they would be good in the roles. I am glad that I chose these actors as they gave good performances and it shows in the final product. Before I shot the film with the actors I made sure that they were confident and knew what they had to do. They play friends Phillip and Paul , who are trapped in a totalitarian society with no way to escape.

Poster reconstruction

For my poster reconstruction I decided to choose 127 hours as I thought that it was a good example of the genre and was not difficult to complete in photoshop. I tried to make the reconstruction as close as possible to the original but this did prove difficult as the rock climber shadow was hard to to get correct.It was also hard to find a photograph of the cliff edges as every one is unique and different. One of the other major problems I had to overcome was making the text similar to that of the original poster because there are so many sizes and fonts to choose from.I decided to complete this reconstruction as I needed to practice on photoshop because I would soon be making my own poster. I found it a challenging task as the technology had a tendency to glitch. I had to work around this and ensure that it did not detract from the quality of the reconstruction.

                                           Here is the trailer for the poster I constructed:

Font choosing

      Before I choose my main font for my films title I did some research int some different styles-

I like this font because it stands out and suits the thriller genre

I definitely think this font is poor because my film is not a romance

This font has an rough , rigid style.My film is gritty , so I think this could be applied to my poster

In the end , I chose to pick this font because it is uneven and unuaul , exactly what my film is aiming to be.The red and blue work well together as a color scheme.I decided to have it in capitals to leave an impression on the audience.I found it difficult to choose the font , but I am happy with this example as i think it suits my product perfectly.