Taking the pictures for the Magazine Cover.

The day Lewis and I decided to take the photos for our poster, we also thought that it would be a good idea to take the photos for the magazine cover also, this is because we had all the equipment we needed, the actors, right setting, lighting and time. So we took the pictures at Lucy Ballance's house as it had a dark room, which when the lights were off was pitch black, which was perfect for our photo as we needed absolutely no light apart from the specific lighting we chose which was a small battery torch (which can also be seen in the final photos).

When taking the photos, we experimented with the lighting and angles of the camera to give the best effect. We ultimately decided on having the main source of light in the actual photo, with the character looking up into the camera to give the best menacing look.

Film Poster

From having our draft drawn out for our poster we then started to create it on our laptops. The programme that we used was Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Draft 1

This is the first poster that we created with no audience feedback, at first we liked it a lot as the photos taken from before worked really well. The editing that we did was to change the contrast and lightness of the whole image. To make Lewis's hand look more worn we also used the burn tool (which darkens areas) in specific spots to heighten the shock factor. We also wanted the title of the film to be hard to read to increase the mystery of the image. Our main influence for our poster was the babysitter poster we liked this one because we thought the image of the girl was a symbolic and eye catching image. To make our poster mysterious and to differentiate to the babysitter one we decided to darken the surroundings of Lucy.

Draft 2

After creating our first one we got audience feedback, the main thing that they said was that the image of Lucy wasn't scary and shocking enough. They said it "almost seems like she knew she was going to be taken" this isn't the effect that we wanted. So instead we used a different photo that we had taken before that we thought increased the scariness and shock factor. As well as this the audience also advised us to changed the title of the film and add a date. We made the title of the film easier to read and changed the placing of it slightly to center the whole poster. When adding the date we decided to make it just the year and again to center it, to make it different to the title we added a gradient to add some depth to it.

Draft3After making those edits we went back to the audience and got more feedback. This time they said the image was perfect and thought it was great. They still couldn't read the title of the film that well, so we went back and increased the opacity of it so it would stand out more, like the date we added a gradient. They also said that we needed more detail on it. This is when we added a lot of new aspects. For example we added a little light shining through the middle of the title, this is a typical convention of horror posters as it denotes that isn't much hope left. We also added another convention of film posters which is a tag line, ours says 'This time they wont let her go...' which we thought doesn't give a lot away about the film but still entices them.

Draft4

We wanted more audience feeback from our third draft and this time they were impressed with it but still thought it was a bit bare and not clear enough. To make it easier to read we increased the brightness and contrast. To add more detail we added four of the actors names, two either side of Lucy to carry on with the central theme. We also added production detail at the bottom of the poster which nearly every film poster has.

Final Poster

We again got audience feedback and realised that one the school compuers you couldn't see any of the detail so we had to go back and increase the brightness huge amounts. We also increased the contrast to up the scary factor. Overall we are really pleased with our poster and have great feedback from it.

Magazine Analysis

Magazine Analysis

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For the magazine cover what we need to consider is the layout, colour scheme, other stories and what picture we are going to put on.

For the layout we thought that we could make it as central as we can having the character in the centre of the page with the title of the film just below in the same font we have used in the poster and trailer.
We want to include some sort of promotion on the cover, as this is typical convention of all magazine covers, we have decided on inserting 3 free posters all of which promotes our own film. We also are going to include, information of other stories in the magazine such as reviews and interviews but also something a bit different like behing the scenes special of the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

We also need to come up with the name of the magazine, and what font, colour and size we are going to have it. We want to name of the magazine to be related to film, so its easy to understand what the magazine is about as it is the thing that will pop out the most when people are looking at magazines on the shelf in the shop. Below are a few ideas we have:

The Take
Film Preview
Review Mag
FILMmag
Take1
TakeOne
Hollywood
Blockbuster
EPIC FILM
We will choose out of the above.

WE also need to consider what colours we are going to use, and after looking at other already existing magazines we have seen that there isn't many different colours and they all conicide with eachother. So havig lime green, with a dark maroon isn't going to work. We also want to make sure they cover has a sinister effect so it relates with our film.

Taking the photos for the poster.

In order to start creating the final product of our poster we need photos of our main character Rosie played by mine and Hannah's friend Lucy Ballance. The three of us organised a date when we were all free to go round one of our houses and take the photos. We decided on Lucy's house as she had a good room that can be pitch black with no disturbances like street lights. We wanted to use a professional high resolution camera (an SLR), I knew a friend had one so I asked if we could borrow it, which we could. The day after me and Hannah went to Lucy's house and choice a spot to take the pictures. First of all we chose in front of her front door because the door is a heavy wooden door which would be a nice dark background. I would be the hand that covers her mouth so I went outside and got my hand dirty to give it the 'worn out' effect, we rubbed Lucy's mascara with water to give the effect that she had been crying and again to give the 'worn out' effect. We also messed up her hair as well to make it look like she had been bashed around and struggling. When we turned on the SLR we realised it had no battery and had no charger for it. We then thought that we would have to find a charger and waste time, however we chose to use a digital camera that Lucy had. To help us make the choice we took a few photos to see how professional the photo outcomes would look, we were happy with the outcome and choice to use Lucy's camera. Here are a few of our first photos we took:

We stopped taking photos for a while and looked at the ones we took already, we wasn't sure about taking them in front of the door and thought that it was generally too bright. To overcome these problems we went into another room and turn all the lights off and used a torch as lighting. This direction and outcome of photos we liked much so carried on using different directions of light and intensity. We also realised that Lucy's reaction/expression in front of the door wasn't terrified enough and shocked so we changed that as well. Here are our final photos for the poster:

Overall we are very happy with the photos and think that they will create a great poster and achieve the effects we want.

Creating the poster

Now that we had the photos for the poster I started making the poster using Adobe Photoshop CS2. This is a program that I am very familiar with and have used for about three years.