Monday 4 July 2022

ANALYSING FILM POSTERS

You have been introduced to the task and in today's lesson, you will make a start on your analysis. Post finished analysis under the Page FILM POSTERS.

Formats for presenting poster analysis are here.

Film poster analysis. Follow the CIE guidance here:

When you analyse Film Posters 

1) identify the written codes -  title, the tagline, placing of the star talent, the billing block, release date
2) identify how layout and mise-en-scène has been used effectively in a poster: decide how the poster has prioritised the images. What is central to the poster image  / the key image? 
3) mise-en-scène: how do background images reinforce the narrative or genre or marginalise certain other characters? 
4) what is the colour palette used and how has colour been used to create effect? 
5) how have graphics and font been used to promote the production company and link the products from the package? Where are these positioned? How has colour on the fonts been used to distinguish between different elements of the written aspects of the poster? 
6) what is the narrative contained in the film poster (and perhaps links to the trailer content) 
7) how are the film's generic conventions signalled?

We learned from Dan Skinner on the FDA Teaching Trailers resource: there are two types of graphics that are used in posters and trailers. One is ‘copy’ and the other is ‘pedigree’. The term ‘pedigree’ is useful when analysing posters.

Pedigree is the term that refers to graphics from the studio that reassure the audience about the film’s quality. For instance, copy about distributors and companies (Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox)

The term ‘copy’ is useful when analysing trailers.
Copy will help tell the story of the movie. Some trailers have a quantity of copy, especially when the story is complicated, so the copy helps point to aspects of the story that are significant.

Friday 24 June 2022

ADVANCED PORTFOLIO BRIEF for submission in 2023

Year 12 students: you have made your A2 blogs complete with PAGES using the Simple template. You have worked in class over the last two weeks starting research into the A2 Advanced Portfolio brief. All your production work will be on your blog, whilst all examination work will be on Google Classrooms and your laptops (not on your blog).

Advanced Portfolio brief

Option 2: film promotion package A promotion package for a new film, to include two trailers (major task), together with an official social media page for the film and a poster for the film (minor tasks).

As discussed, on your new A2 blogs, you will complete:

  • the analysis of the FILM TRAILERS. Add the hyperlink and an image. Ensure that you have followed CIE's bullet points. Pick out the key terms in colour, such as introduction of the central characters, or central conflict, to make it easy to see that you have dealt with each of the genre conventions. Post all this work on the PAGE entitled FILM TRAILERS. Work straight to this page rather than use a Word document and attempt to copy / paste.

  • the analysis of three FILM POSTERS using an appropriate format like this. Pick films that speak to you personally, ones that may be of the genre that you are interested in making trailers for.

  • make a start analysing SOCIAL MEDIA: how is it used to promote awareness of films, engage target audiences, create a buzz, sustain audience interest? 

  • make a start on the TEACHING TRAILERS research. Use last year's cohort to see how to present your research form this excellent FDA resource. Post this research on your main blog roll.

A2 ADVANCED PORTFOLIO RESEARCH: ANALYSING FILM TRAILERS

 

A2 FILM PROMO PACKAGE: TRAILERS American Sniper

3.2 Advanced Level Brief Option 2: Film Promotion package 



CIE recommend that students study and analyse specific trailers as good examples of their kind.

CIE recommend identifying how trailers do the following:


American Sniper 2014
www.inc.com/lindsay-blakely/wild-card-hollywoods-independent-movie-trailer-power-house.html (American Sniper 2014) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99k3u9ay1gs
 https://www.inc.com/lindsay-blakely/wild-card-hollywoods-independent-movie-trailer-power-house.html

Gravity 2013 
www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468 
Pick the Main Trailer (2.23 minutes) yourself if for any reason this link does not work - type in the url yourself

Birth of a Nation 2016
www.imdb.com/title/tt4196450/ (Birth of a Nation 2016) https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1974974233?playlistId=tt4196450&ref_=tt_pr_ov_vi

Cloverfield 2008 
www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/videoplayer/vi78774553?ref_=tt_ov_vi (Cloverfield 2008) https://www.imdb.com/video/vi78774553?ref_=tt_ov_vi
Pick the Main Trailer ( minutes) yourself if for any reason this link does not work - type in the url yourself

Nocturnal Animals 2016

Friday 18 March 2022

SOCIAL MEDIA

Ensure that you have updated your social media: you have created material to engage your audiences such as T shirts, tote bags, mugs, #links, stickers, merch, screening shout-outs, competitions and much more. Have you included all the film posters that your production team has made?

Go back to your blogs and make all your images as large as possible. Matthew, for example., here..

PLEASE EMBED YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LIKE THIS

SOCIAL MEDIA: TIK TOK

I had the task to make a Tik Tok page for our film 



TV DRAMA REVISION This week includes The Crown, Ordinary Lies and an extract from Hot Fuzz.

THEORY REVISION This week starts with representation, stereotyping and reception theory. You all now have access to Essential Media Theory for example here


 

Wednesday 16 March 2022

MEDIA REGULATION: NEWS

Case study: interpret these two images and relate them to media regulation. Start by establishing your view of the role of the Press in a democracy.

 



Monday 14 March 2022

MEDIA ECOLOGY: THE ECHO CHAMBER


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When Exeter alumnus and photographer Joshua Irwandi published a picture of a coronavirus victim in an Indonesian hospital in October 2020, he was unprepared for the reaction it would provoke. The image took 2nd place in the 2021 World Press Photo Awards and was named a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, but it also sparked controversy in Indonesia.



Sunday 30 January 2022

CCR: HOW MY FILM REPRESENTS SOCIAL GROUPS & ISSUES

This completed section should be posted on your blog before next lesson on Wednesday 2 February 2022

SOCIAL GROUPS - images collected in Pinterest boards, labelled and groups: How does your film opening represent social groups or issues? Find images (= representations) and collate them in different Pinterest boards like this.

    • You have identified the social groups featured and presented them visually (in Pinterest). Roles and jobs? You could pull screenshot of your Pinterests here or perhaps take images from your casting post?
    • The focus is on how they are represented: stereotypes? anti-stereotypes? What are they like? Gender, status, age? 
    • Identify the issues in your film opening: recent 'issues' have included artificial intelligence, people smuggling, bullying, kidnapping, art theft, online fraud. How are they presented in your production?
    • Use theorists where relevant, with a light touch: see below the image about how to use Stuart Hall on representation


    STUART HALL
    For Stuart Hall, there is no one single fixed 'meaning' of any media representation or text; different audiences understand representations differently. So, in Off The Leash, whilst the film makers may have aimed at conveying the Transparent Animals as protesters standing up for democracy some audiences may view them as dangerous anarchists. However, the representation of the newsreader, the mouthpiece for the Government, tends to reinforce the likely preferred dominant meaning: he is coded as calm and composed, well dressed, white, middle class. He warns the audience that the protesters are dangerous and violent. The makers of Off The Leash use animal masks to encode the protesters as dangerous and the film's name reflects this.
    For Stuart Hall, stereotypes are generated because of the limited stereotypes the hegemonic elite show us. If the makers of the film intend to develop an anti-Government, pro- freedom agenda in the rest of the film, they will no doubt write about this here. Alternatively, they may have decided to show in their film the explosive danger of withholding basic freedoms from a society that is used to a very much more democratic process.


    Wednesday 26 January 2022

    FILM POSTER: MINOR TASK


    Minor task: film poster 

    • Your film poster is an individual production
    • A poster is big: work on an A3 canvas or your proportions will be wrong
    • Use Photoshop
    • It is part of a promo package so there must be brand cohesion
    • Your film title should look the same on your poster, film trailer & social media
    • The  centre of visual interest should convey the genre 
    • Set up a proper photo shoot for the photo. Screenshots will not do (Examiner's Report below)
    • The poster should observe film poster genre conventions (film title, tagline, star talent, image of main characters, release date, billing block, social media links)
    • The poster should convey film genre conventions through its choice of colours, characters, setting, layout ( for example, a thriller poster looks different from a romcom poster)
    • Sketch it in pencil on paper first - post all stages in its development
    • Keep all drafts, even if they feel awkward
    Your final poster goes under the page POSTER, followed by an account of its development, followed at the bottom by your poster research (that is already done).

    If you were inspired by professional posters, it is fine to acknowledge your inspiration. Talk about your development of ideas, drawing on your research and how it led to your outcome.

    There is a lot of helpful CIE guidance here (scroll down to the words film posters). This is what CIE expect if you are to reach the top level.

     

    Wednesday 19 January 2022

    SOCIAL MEDIA: MINOR TASK

    It is a new requirement for the syllabus to make a social media page as part of your promo pack. It can be live or embedded in templates. You have all chosen to make live social media some months ago.

    Checklist: 

    • As we no longer make a website, please add your research into websites into your Page SOCIAL MEDIA below the research on social media. Then delete the Page entitled WEBSITE.
    • Ensure that you have explained the importance of your chosen social media in promoting films in general and yours in particular.
    • Ensure that your social media feed is updated with recent content.
    • Check that the branding across your 3 products is cohesive: your film title must look the same across the three (film trailers, poster, social media feed).

    The most recent Examiner's Report:

                                From the FDA Yearbook 2020


    From the FDA Yearbook 2019

    Audiences: social media traffic
    Distributors' digital / online advertising spend