side quests...

Ok, now I have to be very clever in a very short amount of time. Therefore the majority of this post shall remain the same but in order for me to be the best I can be (or get the best marks I can) there’s stuff I need to add. Firstly, the stuff that I have done:

For the poster side project:

The codes and conventions I’ve developed from my analyst of posters are as follows:

1. Use a strong central image, either of a character or recognisable story event.
2. Place the title in a standard recognisable place.
3. Use an assortment of eye catching colours and specific lighting effects
4. Include titles that are eye catching and memorable

Both use the same image, a prominent screen capture of the lead immortal from the teaser. For the poster I increased the contrast between the immortal and the grass while darkening the surrounding edges of the poster which conforms to what I know about movie posters in general. I then used the same font type of the teaser to do all the writing of the poster in order to closer tie it into the teaser, also using the same tag line from the teaser. Lastly I added the usual credit stuff at the bottom of the poster to make it look official, than I increased the light on the centre to finish it off. I designed my poster with those you see in a cinema in mind. I wanted it to be like the ones that are placed next to the popcorn stand or sweet shop that everyone passes while entering or exiting the cinema. These are often done in portrait so that’s what I did mine in.

For the magazine front cover side project:

For this I had to go back and analyse some actual magazine covers, in order to establish a set of codes and conventions so that I can better create my own cover. The covers I looked at can be seen below. Something immediately noticed by all three was they all shared the use of prominent picture of a film star that almost leaped of the page. The all placed the title at the top of the page and kept the magazine’s tag line and price close by to this. They kept their price tags/bar codes either at the bottom right or right hand side. All three used big bold font with catchy headlines that linked to the main picture. Many of them advertised free gifts of posters and what not. The colour pallets were very restricted and based around those of the main picture. Lastly, and most importantly, is the way these attributes link together on the page. Put simply, each is designed to blend with the others and improve the flow of the page, working towards the goal of making it more attractive to its target audience, which in turn influences what is on the page in the first place. And so from this I have developed the following codes and conventions for use when constructing my own magazine cover:

1. Use a strong central image that grabs the reader’s attention
2. Separate text into convenient fragments
3. Place title, cost and tagline at top
4. Have more the one story with extra pictures
5. Have some sort of free gift

With my codes and conventions in hand, I used an already established and well known film magazine as a base so I had many online examples to source from whilst also making it look more official and real. I kept the basic layout of that magazine and simply just added my own stuff, like the picture and titles. I chose a mixed colour background rather than a solid colour because it breaks it up more and catches the eye better. I took examples of text already used by the magazine to come up with my titles. Lastly I added a small shadow around my character in order to make him stand out more and in continuation of one of the main themes of my film it makes him look my mystical, as does the shadow around the character in my poster. And that’s pretty much everything I can think of about my side projects, which will be uploaded at a later date.