Film Poster Research - 'The Wing Man'

Media language 

• The title 'The Wing Man' is all in upper case which lets the audience know the name of the film.
• It is positioned towards the top half of the poster, not exactly in the centre.
• The background image is blurred which suggests perhaps drink is involved in this film.
• The image is of a restaurant/cafe which could be the main setting for this film.
• The line 'Friends don't let friends fly solo' is an interesting phrase. I believe this tells us that friends are a critical part of this short film and that sticking together is important.
• The title itself refers to having a friend close by to support you when trying to get in a relationship. Therefore, romance is a key theme in this short film.

Representation 

• A night setting is being represented here. The title in particular tells us one or some people are trying to get into a relationship. We don't know if a man or a woman is seeking romance.
• A bar is situated in this image and there are a few people around tables chatting. The setting could therefore be a nightclub or sports club.
• The people in this restaurant could all be local and may make finding romance easier.
• The region/nation is impossible to tell. The class is likely to be middle and the gender is both male and female.

  Audience

• Based on the poster I would give an audience of 15-24 years for this film. However, after watching the film there may be an even wider demographic. I feel mostly young people would watch this film considering its about finding love.
• The genre is also a key factor in finding a target audience. Some demographics may prefer different genres to others.

Narrative

• I would say seeking romance is a key theme in this poster. The title and the way the setting is portrayed (being quite blurred) tell us a lot about the time of day and what is involved in this short film.
• Some people are present in this poster but we do not know whether they are an influential part of this film.

Genre

• The genre which stands out is romance. However, there is room for a hybrid genre and so therefore a romantic comedy could be more appropriate.
• The genre could also be a comedy or a comedy drama.

Film Poster Research - 'This Way Up'

Media language

• The title of this short film 'This Way Up' is towards the bottom of the poster. The reason for this is to signify the way you should go to find the portal, which will lead to a new life.
• The main image is positioned in the centre of the poster to indicate that this is the most important part of the film. The image is fairly small but we can clearly see it as there isn't too many images near it.
• The tag line at the top is very important. It reads 'A Secret Life Hidden Below'. It refers to the fact that there is a new life below the ground, but we are unsure of what this life is.
• All the text on the poster is justified centrally, this includes the title, the words above the buildings and the credit and billing block at the bottom. 
• There is a backdrop of some buildings, however, the main setting is of a derelict, isolated area. The time of year is perhaps summer as the ground looks very dry and we can see shadows on the buildings.
• The font colour is white throughout this poster, as this makes the text stand out from the background. The font is all in upper case, including the Production Block at the bottom.
• The Production Block gives us details of crew members, directors, actors, producers and other companies.
• The camera is using a long shot to take this image so the audience can try and figure out what the film is about.

Representation

• The region/nation of this film looks perhaps like Australia or a country with a warm climate.
• It is very hard to tell what class and gender is being represented in this poster. Perhaps middle class characters, either male or female.
• The theme being stated in this poster is perhaps of mystery. The film looks as if there is some kind of an unexpected situation for the character/s of this movie about to happen.

Audience

• Having studied the Pearl and Dean website I feel the target audience for this film could range anywhere from male or female 15-55 year olds. I cannot define a specific market segment as I feel a wide age bracket could watch this film.
• Also from studying the poster I believe this film could be science fiction. The derelict setting looks as if something extraordinary is about to or could happen. Therefore, the audience could be males aged 15-24.

Narrative

• One of the themes communicated in this poster is not knowing what is going to happen. I would say it is a mystery as we have no clue what events will take place throughout this film without seeing it.
• We could make assumptions as to believing there are two different worlds in this film.
• No characters are in this poster which suggests they are not as significant as the setting itself.

Genre

• I would say the genre for this poster is mystery. I can tell this from the remote setting, the lack of characters present in the poster and the top line indicating a new life below the ground.
• There is a case for perhaps a hybrid genre. Either action/adventure drama or virtual reality.

Arranging to Film

Editing Decisions - Foleys

As a group we have made many decisions with regards to editing such as; the music we will use, the length of each shot and soon to be the titling. I have found several pieces of music which we plan to use (see previous post on Sound Design). I have also recorded a foley which will be a background noise of football on the TV. I recorded a short clip from 'Goals on Sunday' last weekend to be used as part of one of our pranks.

Jack walks in to watch TV in the living room. This sound will play from turning the TV on to being pranked by younger sister Hannah by party poppers (see previous post on how we created this). We could have found just a basic football sound effect from Incompetech, but however we decided it would be more authentic if we recorded something from a real TV programme. I took two recordings as I found the first one to be of poor sound quality.

Below is the foley which I recorded

Evidence of Editing

Evidence of Filming

 

Experimenting with Party Poppers for First Prank

For one of our pranks in our short film, we have planned to use a bunch of party poppers to scare one of our characters whilst the other pulls the strings to make them go off.

We bought a pack of 20 party poppers, which we decided was plenty, as we wanted extra to make sure that we could practise how we would make them all go off as well as extras so we were able to film that shot more than once.

Before filming the shot, we had to practise how Gemma was going to hold a bunch of the party poppers together and then also be able to pull all of the strings.
We practised this a couple times before hand; here is how it looked when experimenting: