Web Page

My web page developed morefrom the images I had at hand than anything else.

I knew that I wanted to hint at the dark subject matterof the film but for thetre to remain an ambiguity. The enigma of the trailer is that the plotof the film is only hinted around. I liked to follow that on my webpage. At once subverting the convention of advertising but creating an effective viral page, reinforcing the the enigma of the overall campaign.

The websites that I looked atfor research,including “the box” use a desaturated aesthetic. It creates the distressed look that I wanted to go for.

I think that the effect works really well, the absence of colour suggests darkness and the absence of light. Dark is perpetually scary carrying connotationsof threat and unknown danger. To desaturation removes the colour without losing any of the quality of the imagery.

I used stock photos to create a composite for what is essentially a landscape. This composite combined with the use of Photoshops path tool(when desaturated and coloured dark grey) created the sillhouette of the castle on the clifftop against the grey sky and sea.

The dark colour pallet catrries the connotation of a storm and the dangers there in. I decided then to add some distressed texture to the image. I feel that this gives the impression of an old photograph. Found tucked away in some secret hiding place years after the event.

A subtle change but it does make the difference.

For the typography I used a simple impact font which I then distressed in Photoshop to help its seem settled onto its backdrop and become more a part of the whole piece.

I also added a tag line... You'll Never Leave.

A sinister line that reinforce the thrillier context.


The final steps were to add a feathered image of lloyds eyes, hovering over the type. And to aid in the viral campaign... the links to two web 2.o stalwarts. Facebook and twitter.

Magazine cover

I Decided early on to design my cover for an issue of Empire magazine. It’s a magazine that I personnally subscribe to and enjoy, and therefore I have an understanding of the visual language of the magazine.

Empire issues have a modern, “edgy” look to them. More akin to lifestyle magazines like GQ or FHM than the “stuffier” industry magazines such as sight and sound. Infact Empire quite often share cover stars with FHM which strongly presents it as a masculine magazine.

Unfortunatly when it came to putting my cover together I found that the on set photos we had taken, and that I had intended to use werent going to be suitable. Due to the fact that our actors head was missing the top. This meant that I had to re-shoot with Lloyd in a make shift studio (a toilet cubicle in the college).

Luckily these photos gave me more scope to edit and I could direct him into poses suitable for an empire cover.

I recreated the magazines famous typography using Adobe illustrator’s pen tool and then transported it into my photoshop file.

I decided to make a caution tape effect, again using the pen tool but this time in Photoshop, and to add some distressed texture to the back drop in order to reinforce the content of the film.

Castle cove is intended to be a crime thriller with gritty british social-realism adding simple semiotic devices such as these helps to connote the tone of the film to the magazines audience. This is then anchored by the tag line “..indy thriller cinema.”

Over all I am happy with my cover. The quality of the photograph has hindered the edit quality but, content wise the signifiers are all there. And the photos that I took would help with my web page.

SHOOT DAY!

Today is the day of filming for the trailer...

Due to absences within the group we havent had many days where all memebrs are present. through the last week Becca and myself have written and re written drafts of the dual collumn script. With the deadline looming we diciced to streamline the process and simplify our script.

Now our trailer is predominantly going to be a single shot of our protagonists face being interviewed. In the edit I would like this shot to resemble a handy-cam shot, like an amateur interview for documentary. Having this feel to the trailer will add to the viral nature of the campaign.

word du jour!!!

SYNERGY..... say it again..... Synergy.

Magazine workshop

Red Magazine Website

This week in lesson time we had a chance to practise creating a magazine cover for a lifestyle magazine. All lifestyle magazines deal with what Foucault developed as the idea of “technologies of the self,” the tools that supposedly make you a better rounded person and working towards self actualisation, as expressed in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

I had a go at recreating a cover for “red” magazine.
“Red” is a lifestyle magazine aimed primarily at women in their thirties. Accordingly the magazines contents reflect the issues that are expected of women of that demographic. On the cover I used as a reference, from June 2005, there was a guide to a summer body. The picture that accompanied the headline was of a young woman in a bikini leaping in the air. This implies that if you follow the magazines 14-day guide you will have this models figure and confidence. I set my issue as the January issue, thus giving me the potential to use the self consciousness of my target audience in the post Christmas/ New Year resolutions season. At this time of year most people are aware that they have spent a fortnight over eating and drinking. It’s no coincidence that adverts for diets, gyms and exercise regimes are at an all time high in January, close second being may and June for the pre summer regimes.

It’s this vanity that magazines like red exploit and reinforce effectively to sell their issues. They make it seem that they have all the answers to the reader’s questions that can help on the road to self actualisation.

For my cover I played on the insecurities that women are told to have in relationships. My stories on my cover include “Get Him: How to get your ideal man” and “Keep Him: How to stop him leaving,” though more blatant perhaps than the average header the content will have been repeated in countless issues. Women’s lifestyle magazines such as “cosmopolitan” and “Women at Home” fill their issues with quizzes on how to be a better partner, how to please their men sexually and gastronomically. Despite allegedly supporting the independent woman, these magazines portray a reliance upon having a man in their lives and being a part of a “healthy,” “normal” relationship.

My cover star is a young woman in her mid twenties. Magazines regularly use models younger than their demographic in order to increase the readers’ insecurities and sell more issues. Particularly effective when selling anti-ageing products or articles. I expressed this in my cover. “167 anti-age must haves.” 167 may seem like a random number but it lends itself to making the reader believe that the article is all encompassing. If it was 150, or 200, the reader may think that the writers reached that number and stopped. However 167 means that the writers must have really tried to write as many options as possible, they reached 150 then had a few more to include. It makes the reader feel that the magazines producers are trying their hardest to help.
Rule one is that media is a business, as a media producer Red magazine has to sell units. Its best way to do so is, through interpellation, connecting with its audience directly. To become its readers friend. Including stories that play on women’s insecurities and promising quick fixes (14-day exercise regimes) and answers (“how to keep your man?”) means that “Red” becomes the readers oracle, the magazine becomes the person who the reader turns to in times of crisis and can find comfort in reading other people’s problems.

To me these life style magazines are all about Maslow’s hierarchy. In men’s magazines you can read “how to pick up women” or “mix the perfect cocktail” in women’s magazines it’s “meet a good man” and “how to cook the perfect roast dinner.” Magazines reinforce the expected modes of speech, dress codes and behaviours that have been in place for generations. If you can perfect your cocktail stirring, fashion sense, chat up lines or culinary techniques you are that much closer to self actualisation and living nirvana.

Further development of my creativity?

Since writing the content of my last blog my development using digital technologies has continued. The first thing i have done is, well this, the very words you are reading. I have posted my first ever blogs and now feel comfortable in the format. Using the technology at hand i can now post my coursework notes here on blogger for global consumption. Effectivly blogger becomes my coursework timeline, constantly updating as decisions are made and notes are taken will ensure that we do not forget anything.

Also, during time in our media lesson, we had a Adobe Photoshop workshop of the basics. Although i have a lot of experience using the program I am, for the most part, self taught. Being told a different ways of performing tasks as simple as using the marquee tool effectively can only broaden my skills. I found the workshop very helpful and the basic skills i was shown will be used in my coursework.

How has my creativity developed through using digital technology to complete my coursework productions?

During the AS coursework it was necessary to expand and develop my working practises. Creativity is obviously a great help at the planning stages, be that writing a script or even just exchanging ideas within our group but also the ability to be creative in every facet of production results in a more fluid production.

The first digital technology we used was to research film openings within our chosen genre. Using YouTube we were able to search for specific scenes from films that we thought was useful, this process soon steamrolled and we had watched dozens of scenes, both on YouTube and on other video hosting sites that inspired us to write our own sequence. Using the digital technologies at the point of research helped us to be creative in our planning stages and to know how far we can take the expected representations of the genre within the sequence without it becoming a pastiche. We could view other directors and writers approach to the opening sequence. Who uses subtlety to subvert the tension within the scene? Who grabs their audience by the throat and shakes them to show the threat? And who simply sets up an enigma in a traditional sense? E.g. man with a briefcase sits down, another man joins him, exchanges the briefcase for an envelope, and they go their separate ways. What’s in the briefcase? What’s in the envelope? Who are they? Researching the huge range of differences within our chosen genre as well as others helps us to understand the language of film used in setting up the enigma.

During production the obvious use of digital technology is the camera itself. In planning the sequence we created story boards and planned the shots, but when it came to shooting it was obvious that some of the shots would not be possible to create. Instead we thought on our feet and created alternatives for ourselves. A prime example of my own creativity with the camera was when shooting an over the shoulder of our leading man, Lloyd, cleaning a car windscreen we had terrible solar glare in the lens. To solve this I flipped the shot from over the shoulder to a standard mid shot from the opposite side of the car eliminating the glare. Choices like that are where my own creativity and problem solving came into the forefront. Shooting multiple takes would enable us to be more creative and decisive at the point of edit. This also gave us leeway to shoot the take from a slightly altered angle or change the action slightly and be more creative during the editing process as a whole.

As a result of the choices made during filming my most creative exercise utilising digital technology was in the edit, be that a positive thing or not. As the sole person responsible for the edit it was up to me not just top to put the pieces together but to cover the cracks in our filming. In between glare, focusing issues shaky camera and wonky camera angles I had to find enough to work with. Luckily we had enough takes to choose from and for me to try and piece together a clear narrative and smooth edit. Smooth it wasn’t but I could be creative then with the media software to import typography. The use of text on screen helped to cover some of the jump cuts and lead them into one another helping them flow more smoothly. Unfortunately the choice of fonts on Windows Movie Maker isn’t massive and the effects are basic but I made the best of it and I think it worked. I used a font that had connotations for me of suspense; it looks pieced together from other print as is used commonly in films and TV for ransom notes thus evoking that response of tension and subverting the seemingly positive, suburban setting into something “not quite right.”

Considering myself, now, as a media producer I should always be expanding my skills and developing my creativity. Moving into the A2 I intend to further those techniques already used as well as attempting more. Be they practical or creative. Learning new techniques and using new technologies encourages creativity and versatility in production.