Mean Girls - Poster

The colours used are typically feminine and 'girly' because the film is aimed at girls more than it is boys. The colours are carried through into the clothing where the 'mean girls' look very feminine in the mini skirts and co-ordinating outfits. There posing also gives off a lot of attitude to link with the 'mean girls' title and storylines. Them characters contrast with the protagonist character who is focused on by making her image bigger. She is represents a 'normal' teenager.

There is a mix of bold and regular font to distinguish words and emphasise important words. The slogan 'what your back' is faded into the bottom-right hand corner introducing the theme of revenge. The layout is very packed in comparison to the other posters, but it is still clear and effective. The title is on a vertical axis to make it more playful and lighthearted than having 'Mean' starring at the audience in the face.

The Proposal - Poster

The surnames and certain texts stand out in red, for example the surnames and the "PROPOSAL". This is to clearly emphasise the words which are suspected to grab the audiences' attention. Again the colours for thr poster are red, black and white just like the poster for 'The Ugly Truth'. These colours are bold and masculine to stand out. Also they are not genderly related but are gender neutral for the film to appeal to a wider audience. The image again stands out because it is black and masculine and bold. It provides humour for the audience who see the poster therefore predicting the trailer of the film as a romcom as the woman is pushing the man against the wall. It subverts the gender stereotype as he is being pressured and controlled by the woman who is proposing. The characters are both making eye contact with the audience to grasp the attention. They are dressed in professional and sophisticated clothing suggesting a work based film. This is also suggested by the pun underneath the title. "Here comes the Bribe" it is a pun on the word bride which links it to the image and the title, everything is interlinked. The poster suggests the upcoming storyline and theme of the film through the elements in it. The layout is clear and there is more text on the bottom right-hand side because the focus on the poster is the image which does the talking for itself.

The Ugly Truth - Poster

The poster immediately draws the audience to the image as it's bright and colourful. The image says a lot about what the film is about and the audience can make predicitions about the themes of the film. The couple are shown holding a heart. The woman is shown holding the heart in the air as if she is expressing her search for 'the one' while the man is shown holding the heart near his genitalia which is of direct contrast to the woman. Therefore suggesting the woman to be typically feminine in her red dress connotating sex appeal while the man looks typically handsome and masculine as he is getting the audience to focus on his 'rude' attributes. The block separating the two suggesting conflicting opinions. Finally the text is mixed with capitalisation for the important words i.e. surnames and the film title is mixed with bold font to make the word 'ugly' grab the attention of the audience because it is a impacting word. It is a white background with black font to emphasise and make wording clear and bright. Also the layout is symetrical to create a good clear balance.

Introduction

Advanced Portfolio
Products - genre / title ... RomCom. Possible titles 'Broken Rules' & 'Social Suicide'/
Aims - To represent the British teenagers using cross-media and synergy
Target audience - Teenagers

The choice i made for my coursework is to complete the film trailer with the poster and a magazine front cover featuring the film.

A basic outline of the film:
A new girl from out of town who comes to England and attends a public school. She is the 'nerdy' type who does not fit into the social cliques. But her luck changes where she is taken in by the popular group, however everything is not all perfect. Problem then equilibirum gained.

Elements to consider of conventional teen associations:
Drugs .. Alcohol .. Parties .. Sex .. Shopping .. Sports ..

Decision and Research on Existing Trailers

For my coursework I was given a number of different briefs to consider and ultimately chose which brief I was going to follow. I chose:

2. A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options:

• A webste homepage for the film;
• A film magazine front cover, featuring the film
• A poster for the film.

Examples of film trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPgZcW8MCaA&feature=fvst - The Proposal

The trailer seems stressed with car horns, alarm sounds and other sound effects. The one screen text is typed up as graphics to introduce the character. It is a business environment emphasising the woman as the boss and in a superior position to the man. She controls him suggesting his character as a push-over in addition to a family guy (family phone calls). The trailer focuses on establishing a sense of the film's narrative. One simple way of describing a narrative is that it starts with the situation in 'equlibrium', then something occurs that creates a 'disruption' to the way things are. The narrative in this trailer is that it starts off with disruption of them getting married because she is going to get deported then them falling in love. The key points of the narrative are at the beginning. The trailer does not give the whole storyline away to the audience, instead it leaves the audience predicting whether the couple will get married, or will she get deported or will they fall in love and move to Alaska? These predictions are based on the generic expectations of romcoms where the two hate eachother to begin with but soon fall in love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g5QNpucNMw - The Ugly Truth

The trailer focuses on the two principle characters. The other characters provide a functions mainly to add to the comedy in addition to emphasising the dysfunctional relationship of the main characters. For example the twins show the alpha male character of the man. The relationship between the two lead characters is stereotypical because the man is very masculine and rough and ready whereas the woman is stereotypically naive when it comes to men, she wants a professional and truthworthy man. Also they hate to love, it's a direct contrast but it makes the relationship work. The lighting and music is particular to its gender as the lighting uses highly saturated colours to make it playful and show the fresh comedy and warmth of the film. The music is upbeat and also playful and light-hearted. These elements work together and give a sense of what the film consists of and allow it to appeal to everybody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFP68RpX1Fg&feature=related - Mean Girls

The trailer's main focus is established through the music and setting. The music is very fresh and updated and the setting is in a high school. Therefore it is obvious that the film centres around teenage lives more specifically girls. The target audience will feel this and relate to some of the themes of the trailer i.e. weight, bitching and gossiping and social cliques. The trailer opens with comedic dialogue to grasp the audience and to present the genre of the film. The text is shown on a film strip which makes it more fun and ordered as if presenting her life in film stages. The 'mean girls' in the film are presented through individual introductions and little clips to support the dialogues. The main character is shown being guided through school life by two chaperones who act as narrators of the film trailer. In the last half of the trailer, the audience can see why the three girls are called 'mean girls', providing a disequilibirum to the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIH3ItCXoe4&feature=related - John Tucker Must Die

The trailer starts off by setting the scene of a basketball game at high school providing a cheery and upbeat opening. The narrator states "the story is about John Tucker" so the audience can immediately identify that the film is centred around relationships. Then his character is introduced as being this popular, socially successful teen. A snapshot is taken of the scene almost in an attempt to look like a year book again focussing on the highschool setting. The music is about a secret- which gives a sense of mystery and an idea of a cunning plan. There's a 'whooshing' sound to show the different girls at the dinner table to show him as this 'player' and womans man. Then the plot is brought forward. Then it all ties up till the end where the main storyline is for 'John Tucker must die'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=511k8-3dj4w - She's All That

This film trailer is shorter but it gives an example of the plot line clearly presented through a trailer. The male character is introduced and his popular status is shown until he gets dumped. The narrator then introduces the storyline of him taking on a bet and his challenge is the geeky girl. The trailer gives all the trials and problems that are needed to be overcome till they come the couple come together in the climax.

I chose to analyse these few trailers because this is the genre which I would like to apply to my coursework. I wish to produce a comedy film targetted at teenagers with traditional and stereotypical ideas of teens and social cliques and pressures of trying to fit in. The collective identity I am going to portray is the British teenagers. A few ideas of my creative film titles are 'Social Suicide' being putting humour to teens exaggeration. Or 'Broken Rules' of problems of teenage rebellion.

Digital Technologies Skills Audit

An analysis of my skills using digital media technologies and any skills I need to develop for my next peice of coursework.
There are a variety of different technologies that I may choose to use in order to complete my coursework. I may use desktop publishing (Publisher) where I have already aquired the skills of creating text boxes and then inserting text, changing font and the colour of font, layering objects and merging them on top of eachother and rotating objects. Additionally I know how to change the background colour of a text box and even the background of the document, or instead I know that Publisher allows you to use a border or image as the background. Furthermore I can crop images and add another object for example an arrow to the image.
These skills can also be used in Photoshop, in addition to the following skills of adding effects to an image for example fade, distort image, crop image or polishing an image up. These effects can be aquired using the tools on the left-hand side. There are many more ways in which I can edit an image as there are a variety of other functions. Photoshop is based around layering images and when finished folding them to form the final product. This is also a skill in which I have managed to grasp from previous works.
Most of this next peice of coursework involoves using a camcorder, I know how the basic functions of a camcorder for example loading a tape, zooming in and out, using a tripod and changing the colour effects of the recording to serpia or black and white. I also know how to look back on what has been recorded which allows me to delete any recordings by rewinding or forwarding the tape.
Once the videos have been recording; I will need to edit them. One of the skills which i am already familiar with include cutting footage however I know that I will need to master a few more skills for my production work. I would like to be able to capture footage, change the time speed of recordings, remove or add sound/soundtrack and rewind images. There are more funtions on video editing that are unknown to me but I hope to be able to work out any tools that are any advantage to me, I can do this by experimenting with some video recordings.
Moreover, from previous works I know breifly how to set up a webpage however I would need to polish these skills.
From my year 12 coursework I have gathered some points of improvement that I will need to take into account with this coursework for example I know now to use clearer images as blurry images can have an opposite effect. Also I know from the work that I should make things clear and simple.