Film Poster Research - Megan

When researching film posters, I found it extremely difficult to find short films which focused on issues similar to our film. I then went on to search for social realist film posters, as I feel that our film is covered somewhat by this genre. The two most obvious films for this genre were Fish Tank and This is England, both of which are also British films.


Fish Tank
(2009)
"Everything changes for 15-year-old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend."

There are multiple posters for Fish Tank, all of which seem to portray different things to the viewer. This would suggest that these posters exist to attract a different target audience with each one. These two in particular show the difference in the audience that the film is trying to reach.

Narrative

• The main image is of the girl, who we assume is the main character. The background is quite plain, but looks as though there is wallpaper coming away from the wall, perhaps indicating a working class background for the girl.

Representation

• The certification for the film is 15, suggesting use of strong language, possible violence and perhaps sexual scenes. This suggests to the audience that the film will probably be quite realistic and focus on issues found in modern society. 
• The 3 main actors names are positioned right above the title, and right below the ratings. This positioning allows the audience to remember the names, and these particular three are obviously going to be key in the film, allowing the reader to see any that they may know. The director's name appears opposite the key actors and still above the title, though in a slightly smaller font to the one the main actors were written in, implying that they are more important/more well-known.

Genre

• Social realism - categorized as drama on IMDB
• Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, and economic hardship through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working-class activities as heroic. - Wikipedia
• I feel the poster conveys this as the girl looks quite stereotypically working class from her costume, as well as the look of the setting.

Audience

• Audience for the poster - shown through ratings, as it seems to be targeting an educated, middle class audience, though a female audience is also targetted here - particularly with the mention of Elle
• This is reinforced by the colours used on the poster, as pink is stereotypically associated with girls, and the pale blue compliments it here.
• An educated, middle class audience is suggested through the review from the Guardian as this would appeal to that audience.
• The font is quite simple, though the use of different sizes of text makes it seem much more interesting. The larger words are things like "powerful" and "outstanding", which highlight to the audience how good the film is. The fact that the film is British is also relevant here, as it shows that the desired audience for the film will appreciate the fact that it is British.
• The poster also features awards that the film has won, which supports the high ratings given on the left. This is more appealing to the audience as they will be more likely to go and see a film that has recieved a lot of good ratings from accredited sources.

Film Language

• This poster seems to focus mainly on text, with over half the poster being taken up by the title and ratings.
• The title font is very plain and simple, but capitalized like the rest of the text. The letters are very close together, which seems to be a common theme through the other text on the poster as well. 
• Ratings come from newspapers such as the Guardian, Independent, Times and Telegraph, as well as from woman's magazine Elle
• Tagline - "Live, love and give as good as you get." - positioned directly under the title. Appears quite ambiguous, there is no real indication on the poster as to what this means for the film.
• The positioning of the credit block is quite unusual in this poster as it is in the middle rather than being at the bottom which is much more common. BBC films, UK film council and Limelight are all credited, with the UK film council and Limelight appearing to have funded the film, and BBC films having produced it.

This poster features most of the information from the previous poster; the festivals are still listed, as well as the three main actors, though there is less focus on reviews and instead there is only one quote. The colours in this are much more masculine than before, suggesting that this poster is perhaps trying to attract a male audience. The setting is also a much more important part of this poster, as you can see the city in the background.

The idea of using two posters to attract different audiences works well in this case, and may also work with our own film poster. We could also use multiple posters to focus on different aspects of our short film. For example we could have a poster that features Sam looking vulnerable, and a separate poster showing Amy looking dominant. This way we could still keep the audience guessing about the violence, as we do not want to give this away in the beginning of the film.

This is England

(2006)
"A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He comes across a few skinheads on his way home from school, after a fight. They become his new best friends even like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows."

Narrative

• The main image is of the main characters in a city setting that we presume will be the setting for the film. This allows us to be introduced to the characters and the sort of people they are going to be.
• We understand that there are going to be many characters in the film for us to be introduced to, though it isn't hugely clear from the poster what the plot of the film will be.

Representation

• The setting is also important in this poster, as well as the characters for showing representations of social class/status as well as region
• Shane Meadows is the only name that we see on the poster. This could suggest that the actors in the film are not very well known so therefore we do not need to see their names on the poster, or that Shane Meadows is an influental director and that the film is trying to target people who would be aware of previous films he has directed.
• The representation of gender is interesting to look at in this poster. There are 6 male characters on the poster and 5 female characters, but there does not seem to be a status difference between them. In the 1980s, women were still somewhat seen as inferior to men, though this was changing. This poster seems to demonstrate how women had achieved equality as they seem to be "one of the guys".

Genre

• Social Realism - categorized as crime/drama on IMDB
• Definition of social realism can be found above - tagline suggests that some sort of social injustice/prejudices will be relevant in the film

Audience

• Awards that the film has won are shown accross the top, with reviews underneath from Total Film, Empire and The Observer. The first two are film magazines, suggesting that the audience for this film most likely already has an interest in film. Adjectives such as "impressive", "stunning" and "brilliant" make the film much more appealing to the audience.

Film Language

• The title is the largest text, and is in the colours of the Union Jack, either representing the fact that it is a British film, or highlighting the fact that the film is set in Britain. It is textured as if to suggest that it has been written on the wall behind the characters, though the font is too structured for this to actually be the case. Though the title is larger than the rest of the text, the main image is larger in comparison, meaning that it does not actually stand out too much.
• "A film by Shane Meadows" is written in a graffiti style font, which adds to the urban feel of the poster already given by the setting.
• Tagline - "Summer 1983. A time to stand out from the crowd." - positioned directly above the title. Positioned here it allows the viewer to see this alongside the characters, implying that they are the ones standing out from the crowd and therefore giving the audience an idea of what they will find in the film.
• Credit block appears at the bottom - so small you can barely see it.
• http://www.thisisenglandmovie.co.uk/ is linked underneath the credit block. The website itself contains information about the cast, awards the film has won as well as some contextual information about the time in which the film is set.

Poster Idea - Megan

 

This is my poster idea for our film. The image I have used is not the one that I would actually be hoping to use, but is the closest I could find in the film to what I wanted. The idea would be to have a shot of Mark, similarly positioned to this, looking vulnerable and weak. I feel like this doesn't give too much away about the film, but equally allows the audience to get a feel for the character. I would also get actual ratings and quotes to put at the top, as well as quoting where they came from. I also need to add the credit block to the bottom of the poster.

Poster Vlog

Further Poster Research by James

After researching two initial films and creating a mock poster I have additionally researched two films where the plot revolves around domestic violence. The Burning Bed and A Cry For Help have narrative in which women are domestically abused. I have explored how the posters consist of elements which relate to audience, narrative, genre and audience.

Poster Idea - Mark

Below are two draft designs I have made for our poster. I have made two because the second one isn't the best example because I haven't been able to find photos to produce a draft with; I explain further down how I would intend to produce the final poster using that design. 

This poster is a photo from the hospital scene, it shows Sam in the hospital bed with Amy just above it. It shows Sam is trapped as he is in the bars in the bed and cannot move. It also shows that he is trapped by Amy as the shot is from a low angle which shows she has power and authority. 
The problem with using this poster though, is that the titling is different to what we have in our actual film so it won't coincide with each other and might not make sense to the audience; although I have used the same font as what the iPhone uses, it is still dissimilar to our films titling. 

This poster has titling which is similar to our actual film, by using the phone. It has the two main characters, Sam and Amy staring at the phone as the phone also plays an important part in the film as Amy keeps ringing and texting Sam. This draft isn't brilliant though as I had trouble finding suitable images that I could use for the poster so this is a very rough design. The two characters would be staring at the phone, with Trapped being displayed on the phone but it will be much larger than in the current draft above. Another good thing about the poster, is that it doesn't give too much away to the audience, all they can see is two characters and a phone displaying trapped, but it is enough to coincide with the actual film itself, and the audience will realise that once they've watched it. 

Magazine research - Laura

A common convetion to include in film posters are reviews. These will always be good reviews so it promotes the film, as well as perhaps hinting at the plot or genre. For example one of the film posters I looked at was 'Sleeping with the enemy', and a review for this was 'A classic thriller', therefore it clearly protrayed its genre. Yet, the companies that write these reviews are also indicative of the audience the film is targeting. For example, if it is a review for 'Empire' magazine, it will be for an audience who are very interested in films as all of the content is film-based, similarly to 'Little White Lies' which is a magazine we looked at for a case study.
In our film we are representing the social group of teenagers, so we decided that we needed to use a magazine which had the same audience of teenagers. Looking up magazines that have specific film content, I found one called 'Tribute', which was interesting as it has three different magazines for three different audiences: children, teens and adults. Looking through the archive, the teen magazines featured films such as: The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight. Though our film is based upon more serious issues, we can still use this magazine for a review as these films have similar audiences.
Another magazine we can use for our review is 'Empire'. Below is a profile of the magazines readership.

Poster Idea By James

After researching film posters and their conventions I have created a mock up design for a poster for our film "Trapped".

The elements that make the image and my choices to produce things the way I have can be found in the interactive image map below. 

So after creating a mock up poster I feel I can take some positives and negatives from it:

Positive:

• I feel that the conforms to themes of our film. The graphology relating to the message symbols as well as the iPhone reflect the relationship between Amy and Sam. She is constantly in contact with Sam through phone calls and text. 
• The title of the film stands out, the colours and capitalisation allow the poster to stand out, it engages the audience in my eyes and appears bold - much like the content of our film. It's a shocking glimpse at a very real issue.

Negative

• Although the poster features the two main characters in some ways I feel as if the poster shows a little too much information, do the viewers really need to see Sam lying in a hospital bed. The eagle could also notice the heart monitor has no heart rate on which means that Sam is dead. I feel that if my group was to decide
• The colour choice for the brief synopsis line needs to be changed. The sections in green need to be white, the white needs to be changed to green. "Domestic Abuse" should stand out, white doesn't really make it stand out.

I have also collected some audience feedback for my poster to gauge reaction from some of the audience that have watched our short film.

I think Laura's feedback in particular reflect my thoughts in that the picture gives too much away. However all of them overall were satisfied with this mock up of the poster. I will put my ideas with the posters that the rest of the group have produced to gauge their thoughts and opinions and offer my thoughts on their design.s

RELATED POSTS
I research film posters.
Laura's research on film posters.
Mark looks at some film posters.

Film Poster Idea - Laura

Sam looking in the mirror is a key shot during our film as it shows a moment of self-reflection, and we start to see signs of his repressed anger when he throws the concealer down (furthered with the way we have jsut seen him stabbing the microwave meal). Also, the way we only see his reflection, and not himself shows the way he is 'trapped'. and perhaps isolated as a result of his situation. So an initial idea was to use a similar shot for our film poster.
Originally we had the idea that we could see Sam in the mirror, then Amy can be standing behind him, physically showing that she is the one trapping him. However, we felt this followed too similarly to the conventions of a horror genre as use of the mriror is often used in this genre for a sinister effect. Furthermore, the audience do not know straight away that it is about domestic violence, and they are supposed to be unsuspecting of Amy in the beginning, so if she looks sinister in the poster it will give too much away.

However, we did think of ideas where we only have Sam in the shot. I have taken print screens from the film to show the various different shots we could use with Sam - though of course for the final psoter we would retakes these shots. There is the close-up where Sam is looking in the mirror. This will be the shot I will use for the final design, as it shows Sam is reflecting on himself and his life; portraying the 'realism' genre that our film conforms to. The other two shots are where Sam gets the concealer out of the cupboard, and the other shot is where Sam is opening the cupboard. I will use the first shot as it goes with out theme better than the other action shots.
In my mock design, we thought of writing the film title 'Trapped', onto the mirror because this then reminds him that he is 'trapped', even in the comfort of his own home - which is shown at the end of the film when Amy comes in without Sam knowing and asks for the phone.

  

However, when looking at the conventions of a film poster, we found that the title of the film on the poster, has to match the font of the title in the film. We used an iphone to show these titles, so I did some research to find out which font the iphone uses. "The original iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GSsystem interface uses Helvetica." Typing this into Microsoft word, I found one that looked very similar...

Trapped

 

I tried putting a print screen of the title from the film on the phone onto the mock poster, as well as trying using this font. However, neither of them looked right against the bathroom background as they look to mechanised, so we will keep thinking of new poster ideas.

 

 

Trapped - The Final Film

So after weeks of editing, it is finally complete. Below is the final film, Trapped.

Film Posters - Laura

When researching film posters, I looked at one for a short film ('Broken'), and the others were for films that involved domestic abuse, as this is the theme for our film. I wanted to see how they portrayed the violent, sinister elements. Whether they were subtle, or overt. 'Sleeping with the enemy' is a thriller, and so they showed the eerie, sinister element quite explicitly as they need to make the genre clear to the audience. However, 'Dogtooth' is much more subtle, the use of the blood and her facial expression shows there is clearly something wrong, and that there are dangerous elements in this film, however the focus pull does not show us the background, and so does not give too much away. For example, in 'Dangerous Intentions', we see the man is standing behind her. She looks nervous whereas he looks quite intimidating, so we immediately relate the violence to him. In our film, the audience does not suggest domestic violence straight away, so in our film poster we will need to make the abuse subtle.

Dogtooth

Ÿ  The focus pull in this shot means we focus on the face of the girl, drawing our attention to her expression. This is furthered with the way it is a big close up.  Also, the way it is blurred makes the character seem isolated, as we cannot see the background.

Ÿ  The make-up of the blood on her face is very dramatic, and as it is the centre of the frame and our focus is already drawn to her face, it stands out to us. It is enigmatic, as the red connotes danger, furthered with the way it is blood, making it enigmatic for the audience as they are already asking questions.

Ÿ  The other text apart from the title is very subtle, this is good as it does not subtract from the errie feeling of the poster. 

• Narrative: this poster does not give too much away in terms of narrative, as key elements of mis-en-scene have been left out, such as costume and lighting. This means we rely on her facial expression, which does not look happy; suggesting there is something more to the story. Furthermore, her eyes are closed. This is enigmatic to the audience as we wonder what secret she is hiding, but it is also suggestive of the narrative, and that perhaps something dark and sinister will be revealed in the film.
• Representation: the focus pull means we do not see the costume, which makes it harder for us to see which social group she is representing. However, we can still see white through the blur, which suggests youth. Furthermore, the actress that is playing the character is young, suggesting that teenagers are being represented. The use of the colour white makes it seem like a positive representation, also the way it is a frilly top makes it seem quite childish, thus having vulnerable connotations. Furthermore, the way she is a teenager, she is shown to be hurt through the use of blood, and the way she is the only character in the shot suggests that she is the protagonist. All of these elements come together in the poster to make it appear to the audience that we will be empathising, or perhaps even sympathising with her throughout the film.
• Genre: the use of blood in the actual image, and the use of the red in the credits suggesting this makes it seem gory. Yet, the way her eyes are closed, concealing her identity, suggests that there may be a sinister underlying narrative.  
• Audience: the image of the actress features heavily in the poster. The actress looks quite young, perhaps suggesting that they are tarageting a older teenager audience, though the sinister use of blood also shows that it may be quite horrific, so it also targets adults.

Sleeping with the enemy

Ÿ  The use of the tagline: “She is a stranger in a small town. She changed her name. Her looks. Her life. All to escape the most dangerous man she has ever met. Her husband.” The use of declaratives in this creates a harsh tone, portraying the serious theme of the film as it is about abuse in relationships. Furthermore, by using the pronouns “her” and “she”, the character is not given an identity. This suggests that her “husband” has taken this away somehow.

Ÿ  There is a masculine silhouette. The way it is a silhouette makes it very sinister, as it is dark and he has no features, therefore no identity. We assume he is the “husband” who is “dangerous”, and the way that the picture of the woman is confined in his silhouette could perhaps show that she is trapped by him.

Ÿ  Similarly to the ’Dogtooth’ poster, the colour red is used for the title. However, only for the word “enemy”. The different colour makes it stand out, and as it is next to the silhouette it makes us think of the husband. Red connotes danger so we then relate the “enemy” to her “dangerous…husband”.

Ÿ  Poster 2:

Ÿ  A silhouette is used again, this time with a spotlight on the door, creating an eerire tone, suggesting the genre of the film is perhaps a thriller

•  In both posters, the actress' name - Julia Roberts - is at the top. She is quite a highly respected Hollywood actress, so they have used a big font to make it clear to the audience that she is in it. Furthermore, this also targets a different audience to the actual film: fans of Julia Roberts.
• Narrative: she is in the bath, suggesting that there is an intimacy between the person in the doorway, therefore assuming it is her "husband".
• Genre: the low key lighting gives the poster a creepy and sinister air suggesting conventions of a thriller.
• Audience: in both posters there is an adult actress that is the predominant image, suggesting this is the age for the audience.
• Representation: she is in the bath, which shows vulnerability, suggesting that she may conform to the stereotpye that women are weak  

 

Dangerous Intentions

Ÿ  The woman’s body language in this helps to portray the theme of domestic abuse. She is biting her nails, which is seen as a nervous gesture. Her eyes are looking towards the side, and the man is behind her, suggesting that he is the one who makes her nervous.

Ÿ  The lighting has a yellow tinge to it, emphasising the dark strip that cuts across the woman’s face. This heightens the different appearances in her face, as one the dark side of it we see she has bruises. This suggests violence, then with the mans frightening expression behind we relate it to him.

Ÿ  The woman is placed below the man in the frame, which suggests vulnerability as the height gives him power. A power which her perhaps exudes through violence.

Ÿ  Alternatively, the way she has two appearances could suggest that she tries to hide this violence from the people around her

Broken

• Narrative: This is a short film. When creating designs for our film, we did some mock designs using the image of the hospital. However, we said (and our audience feedback page supported this) that this gives too much away. In terms of narrative, the poster needs to hint at what the film is about, however as the films are 'short' they cannot give too much away about the chronology or the events.

Ÿ  The focus pull that blurs the shot and makes her only relatively clear in the background confuses the audience, making them ask questions about the plot

Ÿ  The ellipsis in the tagline “what if your truth…were a lie?” creates tension, suggesting that it is a dramatic genre. Furthermore, the way it is a question makes the audience active, as they cannot answer it, and so they want to watch the film to answer the question

Ÿ  The format is standard, the picture-text ratio is much bigger as this reveals the most about the film, for example from the blurred screen we cannot see what the character is doing, making the audience already start to ask questions. The title is then the second most important, for practical reasons as well as it having implications of what the film is about, and so needs to be the second biggest. Then the other information is often not important for the viewer, so therefore it is in a smaller print.

•  Representation: they are representing a woman in this. She is tied to a chair, which could
  be conforming to the stereotpyical woman who is weak. Furthermore, her expression looks passive.

Poster Research - Mark

I have conducted some research for our poster design below. The two posters I have selected are both short films so they both coincide with ours.

The above poster is for a film called Fear.

• The poster is very dark, with the only light is through the middle of the road the character is running through, this helps add to the context of the film which is about fear.
• The character in the middle is also very small compared to the buildings to the left and right of him, this also produces the sense of fear.
• The character also appears to be running away from something as well as if he is scared and is in fear of something.
• The poster includes some awards the film has been nominated for and also some awards that the film has won. Also included are some of the stars of the film towards the bottom of the poster.

This poster is for a film called Connected.

• The poster shows two characters that have wires leading from one to another which both attached to each other and therefore having the two of them connected, hence the name of the film. 
• There isn't much else in the background, it appears to be a desert as the image is yellow and it looks like sand; this would show that the two characters are there alone, and can only be connected to each other and no one else as there is no one else to be connected to.
• The characters also appear to have the wires leading to their mouth, which could mean they are breathing off each other as the air around them isn't breathable, so it could mean that they are on a different planet to Earth this is also shown as all their body parts are covered up by their clothes.
• The poster also includes a list of some of the stars in the film and also directors.

Audience Feedback Overall - Laura

After putting the 4^th flashback up onto Facebook, we got a text from one of our viewers saying that they thought they had spotted a continuity error, where the frying pan had changed colour from when Sam had got it down to when Amy picks it up. However, this is just because the frying pan is black on top, and silver on the bottom, so here are some pictures to prove it is not a continuity error!

Rather then just posting sections of our clip onto Facebook then having people post about it, we also got verbal feedback. Yesterday while I was editing, one of my peers, Toby Thomas came and sat with me so that he could comment on the nearly-finished film.

I asked him to watch it through once first to get his initial criticisms.

- He said that our foley audio at the end where Sam is crying, we had a foley of Mark crying overtop, Toby said that this was not needed as the tension is already heightened through the other elements of representation, such as the way it switches to low key lighting when Sam is sitting in the living room

- He also originally did not understand the bathroom scene where Sam is looking in the mirror, as he could not see what the item that Sam gets out of the cupboard. Unfortunately, we did not have a close up shot revealing it is concealer, however after we had put the college scene into the sequence, we showed Toby again and he said it was much clearer

- Finally, he also said the idea for the film was unrealistic, saying that there are “no cases of domestic where the man is the victim”. This was one criticism that we were not going to consider, however, and after showing Toby the blog posts of our domestic abuse research, he in the end had to agree.

- He liked the film overall though, and he especially liked the credits sequence. Saying it was a simple idea that worked really well, as it did not detract from the film.

Then I made changes to certain parts of the film to see which one he preferred. These were mainly changes with the audio as this is one of the parts we were having most difficulty with.

-         Originally we stopped the soundtrack when Sam gets into the car as we were going to have the radio come on at the point of the news headlines. We were going to have a report about domestic abuse, where there is a female victim. However, we decided not to use this in the end as no violence had been introduced by this point so we thought it would make it too obvious for the audience, rather than them gradually working it out through the flashbacks. As we decided to not include a report, we decided to extend the soundtrack to the shot of the tyre when Sam is driving off. Toby agreed that this was a good place to stop, as the lyrics in the song had started by then, so we did not want it to detract from the diegetic dialogue when Sam talks in the car.

-         The parts between the flashbacks have no dialogue, and so we decided to put the soundtrack over these. However, we used Toby as an audience to tell us how loud he thought they should be. Eventually we thought -19 was a good level, so that the audience is not distracted by the lyrics.

We finished the entire film today (22nd January 2013), so I decided to get some post-production feedback from one of my peers, Gavin Wallace. Things that I noticed while he was watching it...
- He liked, similarly to Toby, the opening shot where we see the credits on the phone
- He said that the action where Sam stabs the microwave meal shows his "rage", making the reader question what it is from; later finding out it is suppressed anger from being domestically abused.
- He noticed from the big close up of the phone when Sam gets in the car that there were already "9 missed calls from Amy", and that she was already appearing "clingy", furthered with way she continually calls Sam throughout the day.

Further Audience Feedback

James
After our three endings were posted on our Facebook page I compiled a video that summarised the findings. In addition to this I received some text messages from some people that have been looking through our blog over the post few weeks. Three of my peers, Emily Ager, Ieaun Murrant and Jason Brooks all sent feedback with regards to our media production.

The feedback from the text messages that I received on the whole were positive, changes can be made to the point about the phone sound in editing. The comment about the bruise, which we have received throughout is too late to rectify. It is worth noting that when we originally received criticism Megan and Laura worked hard to make the bruise seem more realistic. What we can take from this is that people are noticing the bruising which means that through camera shots and editing we have been able to draw the audiences attention to the domestic violence endured by Sam. 

Mark
Below is a video I have compiled of some audience feedback I have received about choosing the final ending for our film. 

Bathroom Scene - Laura

When filming the bathroom scene, we had an idea for a shot where I stand in the shower and film whilst Mark walks in. There were streaks on the glass from the water, so by filming from the other side of this, it shows Sam is isolated, reiterating the theme of him being 'trapped'.  However, there was a continuity error. In the second print screen, you can see that the right-hand door of the cabinet is open, yet when Mark goes to open it it is closed. However, even before this we were not sure if we should use this shot, so this error decided this for us. 

As Sam walked in we found another distortion shot, which we could achieve through a frost glass panel in the living room that looks into the hall. However, we decided we would not use this as it was too distorting, and would result in disorientating the viewers. 

Finally, we also used a shot where Sam was walking up the stairs, and the camera was viewing him through barriers. These signify isolation, as bars are seen as something that is physically trapping. However, again, we did not use this one as we wanted to keep it simple.
Another shot where we wanted to implement these theme of isolation was during the college scene. When we were looking for different locations where there was minimal background noise and good lighting we found a spot where there was a handrail that acted as a balcony to some stairs. We were going to use this as we thought if Ryan and James (Sam's friends), were one side of the handrail then Sam could stand on the other side. This physical barrier between them could then represent the metaphorical barrier that Sam feels with his friends, as he does not feel he can talk to them openly when he feels so trapped in his relationship. However, as we needed to use shot/ reverse shot for this scene to easily show the two sides to the conversation, as well as using lots of close ups of Sam's face to show his expression, we could not do this without breaking the 180 degree rule. As where we would have had to stand to get these close ups and mid shots, there were stairs that were really low down so we had nowhere to put the camera.

College Scene - Meg and Laura

When we filmed the college scene for the first time, we filmed in the common room in a place that we thought looked good. Although we had some good shots in this sequence, the background noise was really prominent and distracted too much from the scene overall. In some shots you can barely hear the dialogue between the characters, which is obviously the main focus in the scene as they are having a discussion in which we first see Sam's friends talking about the bruise.  The second time we filmed the college scene, we filmed it in the common room again at a different, quieter time. We also moved to the corner of the room, because we thought the background noise may reflect as much, therefore not be as apparent. However, we found when it came to editing that the diegetic background noise made the diegetic dialogue inaudible. There were some shots that we liked, for example the close up of Sam where his friend Ryan is in the side of the frame. We hoped to emulate some of these shots in the final college scene, however when we looked for a new location we could not find one where they could sit down, meaning they had to stand further apart. 
With the final college scene we had some problems when looking for a location. Overall we tried and set up in three locations, but there were some issues with the lighting and noise still, as we have talked about in our vlog. 

Researching film posters by James

As we have nearly finished our short film we are now looking into ideas about or film poster. 

The film posters above all have similar features: 

• They all consist of the main characters. In our short film it is vital that we show Sam and Amy in the poster.
• They feature elements of the films plot. iRobot poster has Will Smith positioned in front of the robots, the films narrative center's around Will Smith trying to defeat the robot. 
• The font reflect the films narrative, "The Last Song" suggests love, "iRobot's" type face reflects technology. 
• They have post effects added on to the shots, both posture feature various colour fades and gradients. It adds depth to the poster and engages the audience. in our we could use fading to represent Amy as a dark character.
• Both have small snippets of text to add more information about the film. "iRobot" uses a strapline. 
• Both use text at the bottom to outline the starts, the directors, the production company. We would need to do this in ours.
• Overall both film posters engage audiences, they make you ask questions about the film, producers want it's audience to seek more information about the film and also wants to make them want to see their films. 

Shot possibilities:

This shot creates an eerie feel, it features both of the main characters but it may give too much away to the audience.

We could retake a shot with Amy in the background. This would again be eerie, it would also draw attention to the bruise on Marks face.

Continuity issues in Match on Action - Megan

In this scene, originally the match on action had Sam taking the sleeve off the ready meal in a mid shot, and then stabbing the film in a close up. We filmed the close up before the mid shot because we thought that you would be able to see any holes we had made more clearly in a close up, and they would not be as obvious when we then filmed in the mid shot. However, when we edited the clips together you could clearly see a hole in the ready meal before we have seen Sam stab through the film. 

To get around this issue, I cut the mid shot slightly earlier, so that you do not see Sam completely remove the packaging from the ready meal.

This means that the close up has to begin slightly earlier, but makes a smoother match on action transition between these two shots, and removes the minor continuity error that we had encountered.