Film Poster Analysis

I will be analysing two film posters to get a grasp of what im going to be creating. The first film poster i will be looking at is the one of the film "Employee of the month".

The film closeley relates to what i am doing for my trailer and it is a comedy film itself, so it makes a good choice to be one that i can review by pointing out all the key features of a comedy poster. Looking at the poster initally we can see that there is no visible background image of sorts, with films with a specific purpose, such as an action poster, it would usually feature a background image involving something central to the plot, however because most comedy films do not have an intricate plot to entangle the viewer with, it can be kept simple and easy.

We can also notice the inclusion of the main cast on the poster, unlike some films who litter their posters with all the actors and characters they will have in the film (especially if the film uses big name actors and acresses) this film focuses primarily on the main cast and does not break focus from that. This could also be because it has no prequels as such it does not need to give the audience any information about it as they believe it is as revealing as it needs to be by just showing the playful image of the cast on a shopping cart, setting the tone, context and giving away some plot details coupled with the title.

At the bottom of the poster we also see a tag line to give the film a purpose, the tag line is usually used to help reassuree the audience of the filsm purpose with such classic as "just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" for the film Jaws 2 or "there can be only one" from the highlander film. Those lines give away a little about the films purposes such as thriller or action. This ones tag line is "on october 6th, shift happens" this parodies the line used in most action films when someone must justify a characters death being "shit happens" from this line we can tell that the film is most likely going to be a comedy film.

Putting all these features together makes for a good poster and i will definitly be needing examples like this due to the genre of my poster being a comedy one aswell so i will need to know how to use the white space.

As you can see my second poster to analyse goes outside of my cosen genre, and is the poster of the film Aliens vs Predator. I have chosen to analyse this film poster as it is one of the only ones which can provide a good source for a parody poster which is what i plan on making my poster rather than a generic comedy film poster such as the one above, although i will still need to use similar conventions to the ones used in Employee of the Month.

The one thing that i really want to take from this is its use of the main characters, although they do not have specific names they represent two titans being brought together for a clash to end it all. The way in which they lay out this poster is what appeals to me the most, it brings the two main icons facing one another in an attempt to create tension between the two, this is a similar form to what i wish to do with mine but bring it more focussed towards a comedic tone. The way it brings the two together and fits the title into the middle is the same kind of layout which i want to take from this poster and incorportate into my own. While the previous poster has the comedic value and tones which i want from that one, this one offers an excellent oppertunity to parody a film/scenario which many people have wanted to see for so long, much like Freddy vs Jason or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.

Film Trailer

The film trailer has been finished and fully edited to its needs although a few snags were encountered.

The trailer uses most of the features which i talked about beforehand in my analysis of existing trailers and incorporates them into my trailer. A full summary of everything will be given in the evaluation.

Unfortunatly due to the program adobe premiere pro 2.0 the trailer is not at its full potential, while all sections of the trailer have been edited to the adequete length and arranged in the right way, the program refused to allow certain parts to be shown once it was converted into a video. In order to rectify this problem i had to import it into movie maker and use that to save it as a video and get a lesser quality video than it would have been. This is visible when some scenes show and are darker than others, although this could also be due in part to the camera quality too.

Reason for no recent updates

Unfortunatly Blogging has been at a standstill recently as i have been preparing all my work for one big upload later on today sorry for the inconvenience.

Editing begins with issues

Editing began on the 10th of March 2010 with a few issues regarding the camcorder and issues with the PCs operating system and drivers for the camera.

First issue was exporting the film onto the computer, as i am going to be editing from my laptop, the easiest option, i thought it would be easy, unfortunatly the maximum operating system for the camcorder was XP and my laptop runs using Windows 7, this meant the drivers for the camcorder could not be installed and I initially thought i would have to re-shoot using another camera. Luckily my home PC which my family share uses XP and i was able to install the necessary drivers and software onto that so i could obtain my footage.

The next problem i have encountered is with the footage itself. Becuase of the cameras age, it has some problems with audio/visual lag, as such the audio is out of sync with the video. While this seemed to be a problem initially, it only applies to the opening of the trailer, where the original audio is needed. Using Adobe Premiere Pro's editing system i was able to separate the audio onto a separate line on the timeline and make up for the audio lag by syncing it to the video. This is the final problem i havfe encountered thus far.

All that remains to do now is to put the comedy sketches in using rapid editing and find some music to go with the film, as i was planning for a christmas release, perhaps some christmas music? i will see what i can find.

Here is but one of the issues i have encountered allthough it is the most common one, the program Premiere Pro will continueously ask me to locate files which are being used as it cannot find them, and it will freeze and not respond alot aswell.

Review of Ideas in light of Filming

Ok so the filming took place on the 9th of March 2010, due to certain restrictions of time and the quality of the camcorder being used, some of the ideas which were listed below could not be performed, although most of the essential parts still remain, health and safety prevented the trolley riding scene from being filmed. While some scenes could not be filmed, the physical comedy side of things still remained. Here is a list of the scenes which i have filmed.

• Opening shot in a bar of two friends making conversation, one in each shot



• Panning shot of deputy manager walking into the bar



• Point of view shot from one of the friends of the manager telling them one will be fired



• Voice recording of further bad news



• Shots of each friend looking at one another competitively



• Spillage scene of one luggage boy dropping a case and spilling the contents everywhere



• Smack scene of one luggage boy being hit in the face with a case by the other



• Scare scene of one being scared by the other in a hall



• Mystery scene at the disclosure of the cast they wish to keep this one private until the finished project

Filming went off very smoothly and with only a few minor problems of laughter during some of the scenes which meant some substitutions had to be made

Storyboard is now available, could not be rotated on the blog

Expansion Upon Ideas

The main point with this production is that it is a teaser trailer and not a full blown reveal trailer. Given the current genre which I am doing, comedy, that could be a little difficult as I must give away a little but not too much.
I have had some new ideas upon how I am going to do this:

• Opening title "two friends"
• Shot of two people racing on a luggage trolley
• Title "now"
• shot of the two laughin in a bar
• Title "enemies"
• Shot of a third person telling them one will be fired
• Rapid editing now used of random moments of physical comedy
• Title Comedy factory presents: Luggage Boys
• The final scene is undecided as of yet however an idea i had was going to have it end with the two in a face off?

These Ideas will be put into story boards and uploaded with the next post: Cast, Locations and Final Ideas

Film Trailer Review

In order to gain a sense of what I am going to be creating I must look at existing works of comedy film trailers, I have chosen two film trailers to analyse and from that analysis use their ideas in my own production.

The first trailer I am going to analyse is Epic Movie, this film is from two fo the directors of the Scary Movie franchise and there was already predictions as to the jokes which would be featured in the film.

This trailer is a trailer of a film which is parodying many others, as this is the case most of the parts shown in the trailer are showing parts of other films which came out at the time of the films production re enacted by the cast in a comedic way. The trailer shows small clips from various parts of the film which have little to no contnuity in them, this is quite standard of a conventional trailer, however most trailers show sections of the plot which the audience are sometimes able to string together, as this film does not have any real plot to it, the trailer does not need to show any evidence of a plot. Returning to the first point about showing small sections of jokes in the film, this is standard of a comedy trailer as in order to entice an audience into watching the film, a trailer must show short snip in parts which will appeal the most, this is true for all trailers, e.g. action films will often show the most parts with explosions, or a horror film will often show the parts which lead up to a scare or the climax of a scare. This technique is applied to most trailers shown and this one is no different, I will be applying the same technique to my production, however due to time constraits it will need to be much shorter than the two minute trailer shown.

The second trailer im going to be analysing is for a recently released film, Youth in Revolt, this trailer focuses much more on the story but still reveals some of the jokes which will be told during the film.

This film trailer uses the more similar format to which I plan to make mine in, it uses a more story based narrative as opposed to the random jokes of Epic Movie. My film trailer will use the same style which this one uses, this trailer tells the audience the basic but key points of the story, e.g. boy, not man enough, creates destructive persona, hilarity ensues, romance is a secondary objective by the director. Those key points in the story, coupled with a few comedic actions by the main characters are what attracts the audience into watching the film.
Another plus point which i find useful about this trailer is the background music involved, it shifts midway through the trailer to a completely different song (Bon Jovi-You give love a bad name) this is done out of necessity as the film needs to establish the characters feelings but in a more comedic way than a traditional love song about having ones heart broken.

Both of these trailers are good examples of comedy trailers and I will be using the same ideas which they have shown me to make my trailer an attractive, funny piece of media e.g. Use small quick jokes and gags, establish a basic plot line for people to follow, use background music effectivly and change when appropriate or for comedic purposes.