Conventions of a Film Magazine cover

1. Masthead

The masthead of this magazine is in a bright colour (red) although it is behind the image of the Harry Potter characters. The masthead being in the background connotes that the magazine is well known, as the full logo does not need to be seen. The bright colour contrasts with the white background, making it clear and easily read. Although the images are in front of the text, the bright colour draws the reader's eye to the title.

2. Pug

The pug in the corner of the magazine is coloured gold, which connotes the best possible treatment. It also helps to draw attention to the colour and therefore the words in the triangle.This helps to attract the audience as it draws their attention to that part of the magazine, while not taking up too much space.

3. Puff

A variety of puffs are used on this magazine. An  example of this is the black circular puff on the left of the cover. By using the colour black, the circle contrasts with both the white background, and the coloured image behind it. The white text on this circle contrasts with the opposing black colour, making this stand out more against the black and background. The text reads, "The exclusive the world wanted." This connotes that the audience want to read what is in the magazine, and therefore will buy it. Also, by using the word exclusive, it connotes that what is inside the magazine cannot be found anywhere else.

4. Star power

 The image on the cover shows 3 famous actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. These three actors together play the main characters in the Harry Potter franchise, and have since they were young. The magazine is advertising the final film of the franchise, which is the 8th film. This is useful as over the previous 7 films, the world has gotten to know and love the three characters. By showing them on the cover of the magazine, they would be easily recognized by most people, and fans of the films, books and actors would buy the magazine simply because they are featured.

5. Contrasting colours

The main colours featured on this magazine are white, red and gold with some small parts in black. These colours both compliment and contrast each other. The background is plain white, meaning that any images and colours used are more defined and easily noticed.

6. Strapline

The strapline reads,

"Harry Potter
The Perfect Farewell"

By using the word perfect, it connotes that both the film and the article can't possibly be any better, and is of the best quality. The words 'Harry Potter' are in a larger font and contrasting colours to the rest of the magazine. These words are recognised universally and will attract audiences to the magazine easily.

Times Up Planning: Storyboards and Assigning Roles

One of the first and most important parts of planning our trailer was to assign the roles that each of us were to carry out for the remainder of the project. This would make the planning much more simple, as each of us knew exactly what jobs we had to undertake, as well as what responsibilities we had. We devised 8 roles, so that each member of the group could have an equal amount of responsibilities. The roles that each of us were assigned were:

Director: Rhiannon
Producer: Tom
Editing: Rachel
Camerawork: Elizabeth
Storyboard: Rhiannon
Music: Tom
Costume: Rachel
Script: Elizabeth

Although these roles are assigned, all of the team has a say in every aspect of creating the trailer.For example, even though Rhiannon's job was to storyboard the trailer, we all had an input and gave ideas as to what should be included, Rhiannon simply put the ideas together.

Here are our first drafts of the storyboards:
 

We then created a full, more detailed storyboard:

We will use these when it comes to filming and editing our trailer, as it enables us to envision exactly what we wish it to look like. This gives us a simple framework, to which we can then add effects and more clips if they are needed.

Time's Up Pitch

Title

The title of our film is Times Up. We decided to use a specialized font that looks like those used on a digital clock, to fit the connotation of time running out. The colour of the font is red to connote danger, and also to create a sense of verisimilitude with the font and colour used on digital clock numbers. We also used a black background to create a sense of mystery. We used this as it is common for people to have a fear of the unknown, and this is a theme that we wanted to represent throughout our film.

Production Company

Our production company logo is the title Chilling Entertainment in two sinister looking fonts, "Symbiote" for Chilling and "Necropsy" for Entertainment. Both of these fonts connote different common conventions of psychological thrillers; white noise or paranormal activity and blood and gore. The text is white and presented on a black background for a polar contrast, and so the colour white can connote the meaning of the word chilling. Behind the text is a murky white handprint that would common.

Narrative

Our protagonist Gabrielle, is left alone for the week by her mother who is working abroad for extra money. At first the main character is happy with this because it means that she gets to spend more time with her friends having parties etc. However, this all ends up badly when one night she sees a masked person standing outside her window waving at her. She sees this through her mirror and when she turns around to look outside, the person is gone. She speaks to her best friend, William, who tells her to speak to the police about it because at least she stopped it happening from the future. The police send Gabrielle and William to a detective who says that the masked antagonist is a serial killer who has never failed at his schemes. When he calls to say how much time they have until they die, they always die when the timer hits 0. Throughout the movie, if we created a full one, there would be a time in the corner that would appear every now and again and it would show how long the main character had left until the time will run out. Her best friend decides to stay with Gabrielle to help make her feel safe from the antagonist until one night he calls and says that she has 12 hours to live. The detective keeps CCTV looking at the house to make sure that she’s safe and this killer can’t get into the house. Somehow, the killer finds his way in the house and has locked all the doors and cut all communication from the outside making it impossible for Gabrielle to get the detective’s help. William goes missing and the protagonist now has to survive on her own. The killer chases her throughout the house and there are emotional scenes where she was trying to hide or defend herself from his attacks. After a series of events, she realizes that she has survived over 12 hours and she finds out that a person she knows has been the killer the whole time and that normally the killer poisons their food, but Gabrielle hadn't taken any poison. After an ending battle to the death, Gabrielle manages to stop the killer and escape through the basement where she finds William. The detective finally breaks his way into the house and finds the dead killer along with Gabrielle and William. This ends the killings once and for all.

Characters

The characters that we will use in our film include an unknown killer. Having a murderer or serial killer as the antagonist is typical of the psychological thriller genre.  The killer’s face will be hidden by a white mask, therefore hiding their identity. This follows the conventions of films such as Scream.

Another character we will use is Gabrielle, the female protagonist. She will be played by Rhiannon, and shown throughout the film as a dominant female character. This is atypical of the thriller genre, as females are often shown at damsels in distress, needing rescued by the male protagonist.

Gabrielle’s best friend Emma will be played by Rachel. We chose to include this character as a voice of reason, and someone to keep Gabrielle calm. She will be the one who decides to go to the detective, who will be played by Rhiannon’s father.

We chose to use these characters as they are roughly the same age as our target audience, 18-25, therefore the audience will be able to relate to the characters that are portrayed on screen.

Target Audience

Our target audience is men aged 18-25 as this age and gender is stereotypically more likely to enjoy psychological thrillers as they involve violence and scary or unsettling material. Our audience will be a global mass audience. This means our film will attract people of all ages, nationalities and film preferences due to its genre. Horrors and thrillers are particularly popular upon cinema release as mainly teenagers and young adults are known to view it in cinemas in groups of friends as entertainment.

Setting

We wanted to have our trailer mainly shown in a home because this is seen as where a person is most comfortable and relaxed; however in our trailer we see the antagonist invading this space and destroying this comfort zone. The door and the window are two of the areas we will be filming as we need to show Gabrielle’s mum leaving the house at the beginning of the trailer and this is to connote that she is already leaving her comfort zone slightly. The picture of the window is also what we have in mind as she sees the antagonist through it and this is also to connote that the antagonist is getting closer to invading her space. These are only just some of the pictures of settings that we have in mind. We have other ideas for places to film in, but this will be decided when we practice filming. 

Conventions of Film Posters: Prezi

https://prezi.com/tvpxlwkmdmjx/generic-conventions-of-film-posters/

The above link leads to a presentation I created on the conventions of posters in the psychological thriller genre.

Creating a trailer for an existing film

I used filmeducation.org/teachingtrailers to create a film trailer for Die Hard. On this site, there is an online trailer making software, which gives you clips and sountracks to create a trailer for the film in any sequence you like.

 This taught me that there are many different ways that a trailer can be structured using the same variation of clips. It also showed me how a range of clips are required, with different moods and lighting effects. The music you choose also creates the effect of the trailer, as I also discovered on this website. Some peices of music just did not fit the clips I had to use, showing me that we need to think about both the music and the clips we will use in unison.

The finished version of my trailer is below:

http://www.filmeducation.org/teachingtrailers/secondary/make_a_trailer/view/96E5F

Psychological Thriller Conventions

Props:
Props are used in psychological thrillers to keep the audience involved. They do this by using props that give hints to what will be key aspects of the film.
One of the most stereotypical props found in a psychological thriller movie is a mirror. This is to show the character's own representation of themselves, while also showing the "darker side" of said character. An example of this is in Black Swan, where the main character gains a split personality. Her reflection turns to look at her, showing her darker side and that everything is not what it seems.

Costumes:
The costuming used in this genre will differ between each character, often depending on the context or storyline of the film. Often, in a psychological thriller film, an antagonist will wear clothing that makes them appear as just a regular character. This means that they will wear more casual clothing such as jeans and a t-shirt to allow themselves to blend in with society and not stand out. In other situations, the antagonist will wear more formal clothing, such as a suit. This presents them as being more in power and controlling, as suits or formal clothing will often connote that a person is in the upper class. In most situations, an antagonist will wear monochrome colours, as this represents their 'inner darkness.'

The costuming of the protagonist also depends on the time period and location. They will often wear the opposite colour scheme than the protagonist, mostly much lighter colouring. In many situations, the protagonist of the film is a detective, such as in Se7en. In this case, they will often wear a stereotypical detective outfit, which is a suit with a long, brown coat over the top and then a trilby hat. Other outfits for a typical protagonist include general, casual clothing, and formal work clothes.

Setting:
The setting of a trailer sets the mood for the film. The setting of psychological thrillers depend on the storyline, but are often either in an urban city, or in an abandoned forest somewhere. By setting a film in an urban city, it allows for storylines including a threat to a wide range of people, as a city often has a high population. This makes the antagonist pose as a threat to society as a whole. On the other hand, if the film is set in a more rural enviroment, it means the antagonist is a threat only to the protagonist and perhaps a few people that are emotionally linked to them. This also evokes fear in the audience as it makes them feel empathy towards the main character.

Generic Conventions of Trailers

There are many conventions that appear throughout any type of trailer, no matter what the genre. For each convention, I will give a definition and then a trailer that gives a strong example of the convention.

Dialogue: This is any type of conversation between characters. This is used to give some indication to what happens within the film. Dialogue is often only one or two lines long, and therefore doesn't give away any main parts of the story.

Voiceover: Voiceovers are used to narrate the narrative, as well as giving hints to the storyline and introducing characters. It has become cliche to have a deep voiced male such as Peter Dixon, Morgan Freeman, Don LaFontaine or Hal Douglas narrating the trailer, as this was a convention used frequently in old-style trailers.

Spectacle: This is when the best or most exciting parts of a trailer are shown, with the intention of drawing the audience in and making them want to see the film. This will often include special effects.

Music: The choice of music in a trailer impacts on the mood. The music is also often synchronised with the camera movements and titles.

Credits and intertitles: Words that appear on screen and give information to the audience. Often includes taglines, production companies, release dates, information about the actors and the name of the film.

Unique Selling Point (USP): This is something that makes a particular film unique and unlike anything else out there.

Pace: The pace of a trailer gives the audience an insight to the film. If it is fast paced, the film is often full of tension and is more than likely in the thriller or action adventure genre. If it is slow paced, it is probably a comedy or romantic film.

Now You See Me Trailer Analysis

Genre:
The genre of Now You See Me is a hybrid of thriller and adventure.

Narrative:
A group of four magicians rob a bank as the final act of a show. They get caught by the police, but then it is revealed that the bank robbery was just a distraction for a bigger trick that they have been planning for years.

Unique Selling Point:
This is a film about magic that is aimed at adults and set in the real world. Often, when a film is about magic, it is either aimed at children, or set in a fantasy world where real magic could exist.

Target Audience:
Females aged between 18-30

Music:
The music starts quietly with contrasting loud accents. These accents are synchronised with the cuts of the trailer. Then, when the characters are seen hosting a show, the music becomes more modern and relaxed. This is because it gives the feeling that the audience of both the film and show are safely in the magician's hands. Once the show has ended, the music becomes more tense, dramatic and fast paced.

Shot Types/Camera Angles:
When characters are shown on screen, they are shown in either mid shots or closeups. The only long shots of the four main characters occur when they are on stage in the show. This is then used to show the large audience around them, showing just how many people they have in the palm of their hand.  In the beginning of the trailer, no characters are shown, and instead there are panning and establishing shots showing the setting of the film. This is used so that the audience can identify with the location.

Pace:
The pace of the trailer is fast throughout, slowing down for very short periods when a conversation is happening. The pace also slows very briefly to build tension, or to keep the focus on a line of dialogue. An example of this is when the two men are talking. There are very few cuts in this conversation, where the man says, "I got nothing," as this is to have a humerous effect on the audience.

Dialogue:
Most of the dialogue in this trailer is done by adult males. There is only one female in the trailer, who only speaks in the beginning of the magic show. It is typical for magicians to have 'glamerous assistants,' and therefore this may be the role of this woman. The dialougue is in the style of a showman, as the magicians are always performing, whether they are in front of a crowd or using magic to escape from handcuffs.

Voiceover:
The voiceover of this trailer is spoken by Morgan Freeman. This is useful to the film as he has a very iconic voice. People can recognize his voice easily and therefore will go to see the film due to the fact that he is a part of it.

Special Effects:
There are many special effects used in this trailer, used to show off the film. Examples of this include the black swirling ribbons, the bank robbery machine, the handcuff trick, bubbles with a girl inside, a smashing glass effect, the group falling from a building, and spy-like graphics hovering in the air. These are all used for the spectacle effect, otherwise known as showing off.

Credits and Intertitles:
Very few intertitles are used in this film. The production company logos appear at 0:12, and then there are no more titles until 1:30, when the Now You See Me logo appears. This is then followed by the actors names and the film's credentials. The producers used this effect to keep the focus of the trailer on the action and spectacle shown, rather than taglines and captions.

Safe Haven Trailer Analysis

Genre:
A hybrid of thriller, action adventure and romance

Narrative:
A girl moves to a new town and falls in love, her ex is hunting her down and finds her

Unique Selling Point:
It is romantic, but with themes that are creepy and thrilling which is unusual for a romantic film

Targer Audience:
Females between the ages of 17-25

Music:
"Go Your Own Way" - Fleetwood Mac. The song is very slow with a fragile sounding female singing the lyrics. When dialogue happens the music becomes instrumental

Shot Types/Camera Angle:
Mostly midshots when showing characters, gets the audience used to seeing the faces so they can recognise them in posters etc. May know an actor and recognise their face.
Panning shots at the beginning to show the location of the trailer, also shows a birds eye shot.
High key lighting until the mood changes, shows natural setting and that the girl is sfe and happy. When the lighting becomes low key, the mood changes with it to show darkness, fear and uncertainty.

Pace:
The pace of the trailer starts out slow, as there is an equilibrium. Then when the voice says, "he's here," the pace begins to quicken, building up tension. This pace begins to slow down towards the end of the trailer.

Voiceover:
There is not a voiceover as such, but the non-synchronous dialogue continues after the shot has cut away. The only voiceover is when the man says, "There is no safer place for you than here with me," of which we never actually see him saying this, just hear his voice.

Dialogue:
Most of the dialogue is based around the theme of romance, showing the two characters fall in love. The majority of the words are spoken by females, giving the trailer a fragile, vulnerable feel.

Special Effects:
Special effects are only used in this trailer when there is an intense moment. Slow motion and a sepia filter effect are used in the flashback, close to the beginning of the trailer. This shows the difference between the 'reality' and what is a flashback. Also, in a fast paced sequence when the man is hunting the girl, there is a special effect of fire. This is an example of spectacle, as it is showing the most intense and interesting moments of the film.

Credits and Intertitles:
The credits are shown on a background of water. This connotes innocence, as the water is clean and pure. The titles are in a plain, bold white text, making them contrast with the blue background colour. When there is equilibrium in the trailer, the titles and credits are calm, and have a semantic field of romance. They show links to well known romantic authors and directors. Then when the mood changes and the equilibrium is disrupted, the titles say things such as, "It's not what you're running from, it's who you are running to." There is then the title of the film, followed by the information about when it shall be released in cinemas. On this screen there are also the film's credentials, and social media information.

Black Swan Trailer Analysis

I have analysed the first 60 seconds of Black Swan. I am doing this to look at the way editing is used in Psychological Thriller Trailers.

0:00   Rating screen
0:06   20th Century Fox Logo, fades to white and music starts
0:08   Cross Creek Pictures logo
0:10   Fade from white to ballerina on stage
0:12   Closeup of ballerina's shoes
0:13:  Longshot of her dancing
0:17   Fade to black
0:19   "Opening night Venice Film Festival 2010"
0:21   "Official Selection Toronto Film Festival 2010"
0:22   High angle of ballet class
0:23   Midshot of man walking in class
0:24   Nina dancing in ballet class
0;25   Nina's mother talking
0:26   Nina eating at the table
0:28   Sat on the floor stretching feet
0:28   Stretching in front of mirror
0:29   Pan to black, looks as if someone has walked in front of the camera
0:30   "A film by Darren Aronofsky"
0:32   Man and lady on stairs making announcement at a party
0:33   Closeup on man's face
0:35   Closeup of Nina
0:35   Black screen
0:37   "Director of The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream"
0:39   Girl saying "I'm Lily"
0:40   Back of girl's head walking outside, hair in ballet bun
0:42   Nina and man
0:43   Lilly being lifted
0:44   Back to man and Nina
0:45   Closeup on Lilly looking back
0:47   Nina looking sad
0:48   Dancer doing turns in studio
0:48   Closeup of Nina's head as she turns
0:50   Nina looking upset and alone by a dressing room mirror
0:51   Nina's back, scratched and scarred
0:52   Nina talking to her mother
0:54   Nina's mother cupping her cheek
0:55   Man stroking dancer's leg
0:56   Nina looking into man's eyes as they dance
1:00   Nina saying "I don't wanna talk about it"

The Butterfly Effect (2004) Trailer Analysis

I have analysed the first 60 seconds of the trailer for The Butterfly Effect (2004). This is one of the most well known psychological thrillers around, so the research I have done for this trailer will contribute to the trailer I shall soon create in the same genre.

0:01: Title: "Some people want to forget the past"
0:04: Letters change and rearrange: "Some people want to change it"
0:07: New line cinema
0:10: Ashton Kutcher talking to girl
0:11: Flash effect, orange
0:11: Young boy in pain/confusion, effect of doubling
0:13: Back to AK and girl
0:14: Fade to young boy and girl
0:15: Fade to teenaged boy and girl
0:16: Fade to boy and girl leaning in to kiss
0:17: Boy and girl kissing
0:18: Coming out from a hug
0:18: Girl smiling
0:19: AK and girl in bed "do you think that we'll be together forever" (changes to black and white at 0:20)
0:22: Fade to black
0:23: Girl looking back, sad
0:24: Explosion
0:24: Girl screaming
0:24: AK yelling in hospital bed
0:25: Panning shot of ambulance
0:26: Panning shot of graveyard
0:27: AK standing by grave
0:28: Dropping letter into grave
0:28: Standing up
0:29: Note says "I'll come back for you."
0:31: POV AK through window reading journals
0:32: AK on bed reading journals
0:34: Reading journal on different chair
0:35: Journal closeup
0:36: AK looking around
0:36: Big goth man talking to AK holding journal
0:37: AK opening eyes
0:38: AK's bedroom, wiggles with effect
0:39: Effect to AK looking as if in pain
0:40: Flash, AK starts screaming
0:40: Pan to him by window
0:41: Doctor talking to lady
0:42: Demonstrating on skull x ray
0:42: Topless angry AK
0:44: Woman walking backwards
0:45: Topless AK walking backwards
0:45: Flash to group stood by car
0:45: Cut to AK reading journal
0:46: POV of journal, looks up at room
0:48: Little girl on screen
0:49: Panning shot around AK
0:50: More clips of children on screen
0:51: Spinning fast around AK
0:52: Girl runs backwards on screen to little boy
0:52: Slowed down spinning AK
0:57: Cut to black, milisecond flash of AK screaming in pain
0:58: Black
1:00: Fade to AK getting out of bed

In the first 60 seconds alone, there are 54 cuts including the two initial captions. This means that there are 0.9 cuts per second. This makes the trailer fast paced, and therefore highly exciting for the audience.

My film poster

I also decided to create a poster for my AS film, Baby on Board. This allowed me to be more experienced with using photoshop, and although this film is a completely different film genre to my film I am creating this year, I was still able to experience the conventions of a film poster. This has furthered me in creating a film poster.

Practice magazine cover

In preparation for creating a magazine front cover, I decided to create a cover featuring my AS film, Baby on Board.  

This is the original poster draft for my film poster, Focus. I used original images of people I knew to form connotations of different genres of film such as horror and teen angst. The main image is of the main character in film, Starkid. This image has a space themed background, and so I decided to use blue as the main colour throughout the magazine. This is a countertype, as my main target audience is female. A stereotypical female magazine would use colours such as purple or pink, and so my magazine is different to the norm, making it individual.

With the second draft of my poster, I decided to change key words in each headline to a brighter colour that contrasts with the rest of the colours. For this, I chose gold. I chose this colour as it connotes high status and premium quality.

Doing this project has taught me a lot about how a magazine cover is constructed, as well as how to use tools such as the pen tool on photoshop. This means that I am more experienced in creating a magazine covers, and therefore my final magazine cover will look more professional.