Learning To Use New Technologies

q4

Effectiveness of our Main Product with our Ancillary Texts

The Poster

Our poster shows clear visual connections between itself and our film. The poster contains the same title and font as our film, and the topic of being 'gay' is addressed in the tagline.

The Review






We can also identify links between our review and the actual film. The first and most obvious connection is the still image on the top half of the review, so any member of the audience that has seen the documentary first will recognise this frame.
However, if the audience had not yet seen the film, they would be able to link the two texts through both their titles and the content.

Both Ancillary Texts

Both of these texts have very clear links and give a large amount of information about the film in combination. They are both entitled 'The Other Side of The Rainbow' and the poster gives clear connotations of this with an actual rainbow in the foreground. After reading the review and understanding the film's content, further links can be recognised between the two pieces as in the poster's background there are two male hands holding one another. This greyed image also reveals a lot about the text that the poster is linked to; the holding of hands between two men instantly suggests homosexuality, and the black & white effect suggests a dark under-tone.

The Poster's Audience

This poster is designed to capture the attention of a few particular audiences. The black & white effects would be used to connote a seriousness about the film, it could give away that it is a documentary but also lead to the interpretation of social realism which is also an ideal audience. The images used to suggests connotations of homosexuality such as the rainbow and two men holding hands would attract people interested in current real-life issues and/or those already looking into the subject of homophobia. The film's subject is also clearly set out within the tagline 'Why should being gay be so hard?' and does not set up any false expectations of our film.

The Review's Audience

Our review has been designed to target two main audiences with a crossover. The first audience we decided to target was one of the serious 'Empire' category, and we felt we could do this by focusing our review's general to be similar to that of Empire's magazine style. We felt that if we did this, we would also be able to capture a serious audience with a clear and concise layout that wasn't too 'in-your-face' and complicated to look at. It also seem possible to reach a rather limited serious audience through this mature layout and by using an image of someone from our film that would be most identifiable with.

Presentation on Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback

Commentary on the Final Cut of our Film

My Film Poster Mock-Up

This is the mock-up poster I created after looking at other documentary posters and homophobic bullying adverts. I chose to use a light/baby blue to give the poster a light feeling, and then kept the title, tagline and symbol in a darker blue/purple that suits the background and still allows them to stand out. My final idea for this poster mock-up was to break away from the conventional 'one big image' layout and instead, use a mix of images taken from the documentary in 'polaroid' form. This layout should collect more attention as it isn't as conventional, and the collage of images gives further insight into the film.

Poster Research

Common Conventions of a Film Poster
In order to create a quality poster for our documentary, we felt that doing some research on existing ones would help us to do just that. We found that in order to make just as good we would have to follow some common techniques that were noticed when looking at examples of other documentary posters. These were:

• A picture from/to do with the film that takes up most or all of the poster as a background. This becomes a main focal point, so it must be eye-catching.
• A large title that is easily visible, with both it's style and position relative in some way to the film's genre.
• A tag-line that gives some insight into what the film is about is usually found near the title or at the top of the poster.
• An age certification.
• Release date for the film.
• Reviews are usually found somewhere on the poster.
• Other information such as a website, legal information and production companies can also be found.

I have chosen to analyse a poster for a documentary called 'Touching The Void'. Although this documentary has nothing to do with sexuality like our short film, by analysing it, it can still help us to create a good poster of our own.

Touching The Void - Poster Analysis

This poster is perfect for what it is supposed to do as it grabs the audience's attention/interest and gives insight into the film. The background picture is quite big and dramatic which catches the audience's attention. The picture has also been edited so that the person is blue and has icy cracks over him. This, along with the white background colour; gives the poster a very cold, icy and isolated effect. The picture also gives insight for a dramatic storyline as the character is falling from a rope.

The poster's title is eye-catching as it is large and red, contrasting the background and pictures. This title is also further interesting as the 'V' of 'Void' provides extensive insight as it is shaped to represent a void-like shape and can then be linked with the picture of the person falling.

This poster does not happen to have a tag-line, but however, the review and "based on" credits are very clear at the top of the poster.

Looking back...

If I had another chance to go back and do anything differently, I would definitely do the three following things:

• I'd write a more in-depth review of a short film to show my further understanding of short films itself
• I'd contribute further into extensive background research on documentaries and their conventions
• I'd contribute more towards the making of our group presentation