Conventions of Film Posters

Zero Dark Thirty (Poster 2)

Zero Darrk Thirty (Poster 1)

In regards, to our film being a War Drama, I researched into posters that represented films of a similar genre and looked at how their format differed to other films. I was particularly interested in the simple but powerful layout of Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and it's ability to convey the overall tone and storyline of the movie, without using a significant amount of photoshopped pictures or a detailed background. The use of a bold font for the title, goes hand in hand with the serious and suspenceful atmosphere of the film. In contrast, an epic fantasy film is more likely to use a cursive font to echo the stereotypical medival era in which a magic orientated story is set, rather than a bold font which indicates realism rather than reverie. An example of this would be Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings (2001) and the elvish language that is imprinted onto the scene in a ring like shape. It should be noted how Jessica Chastain's character is constrained within the title of the film in Poster One, as is the screenshots of pivotal moments in the film in Poster Two. This could be used merely as a device to keep the stories plot a mystery to the audience, the only clues being that the army is hunting for Osama Bin Laden and that this is a story that subsequently portrays these events. Or, it could be symbolic of how Jessica Chastain's character will be under pressure during the progression of the film and how her position of power, in a role that is stereotypically associated with men, will both constrain and liberate her as the story goes on. The black background, highlights the dark, subject matter as well as the atmosphere of the film.While, the use of acclaimed actress Jessica Chastain on the front of the poster, helps to promote the film by using an actor that is familiar to both American and British audiences. By informing the audience of other successful film's that the Director has made, the production team can draw in audiences who were impressed by this film and will presume that this film will be similar on it's level of positive reception. The second poster dosen't include Jessica Chastain's character on the front, choosing to advertise the film through giving references to the Director's other successful films, in order to appeal to it's potential audience. The use of pictures inside of the poster's bold writing, give an indication of what the audience should expect, such as war related material and American iconography. The caption 'the greatest manhunt in history' refers to the well known and infamous hunt for terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. This caption will draw in audiences, as the relevance of the 9/11 attacks still hold today.

The cursive font used for the 'Lord of the Rings'

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Issues in Editing

Editing Problems

On the first day of filming we encountered a couple of problems.

1. One of the problems we encountered was trying to time our lines with the kettle boiling. This was tricky becuase the kettle was unpridictable and this made it hard to figure out when it was going to start boiling. We altered the timing of the delivery of lines, in order to try make it fit in so that it started boiling in time to cut Charlotte of. We eventually decided to remove the kettle from the scene and add more dialogue in order to make the sound on the clip more clear and the clip more intersting to watch as we realised through editing that the focus on the kettle was unessecary. 
2. We futher discovered problems in editing when we shot the bedroom scene. In this scene, Sarah wakes up from her nightmare and ties up her hair. However, we realised in editing that the shot from Sarah sitting up in bed and tying up her hair was missing and thus we needed to either reshoot the scene or edit something else between them to cover the time not seen. We decided to edit Ellie's conversation from the en suite in between the shots of Sarah putting up her hair as the speech matched up. 
3. In our reshoot of the therapy scene, we tried to make sure that we added focus on Jasmine openeing the letter that was sent to Sarah's character prior to this scene. We wanted to make sure that the audience could see what was on the letter in order to gain a better understanding of the therapy session. However, we forget to film Jasmine closing the letter in a close up so we had to alter the size of the other shot in order to make them work alongside each other.

Shooting Pack 1 - House Scenes

The following is a shooting pack of the things we used during the shooting of the house scene.

Shot List

Storyboard

Script

Props

Character Profiles

Equiptment

Title Sequence Inspiration

For the opening titles of our film we decided we wanted them to give an insight to the film, and even foreshadow the fate of the character of Charlotte. To do this we drew inspiration from the opening titles of another short film called Stray Dog by Bertie Gilbert. This title sequence is a collection of static shots of inanimate objects that link to the characters, settings, or events of the film. And in a text overlay the names of the people involved in the film can be seen. This is then linked into the film by having a shot of one of the characters before showing the title on a black screen.

For our closing credits we decided that we wanted to keep it simple so that it wouldn’t take away from the impactful ending of our film, whilst at the same time we wanted the titles to be bold enough to match the tone of the film. Because of this we imitated the credit style from a short film called Office Space by PJ Liguori. This features a plain black screen on which appears static white writing paired with music that starts in the scene before.

Influences of our short film.

Long films.

We took influence from War Horse to influence our short film, we used this film for the trench scenes, as the film is a 12A there wasn't much violence through the war scenes to comply with the regulations, this is what we aim to do with our film. As our short film is a 15 we are able to add a bit more violence to the flashback war scenes, however we still want to keep them to a minimum with viollence because we don't have the resources to create a big war scene and also so that we comply to the regulations.

TV Programs

One TV program that influenced our short film, is 'Our Girl'. This gave us two ideas to use in our short film, one was a female lead and the other a female war verteran. We decided to use the female war verteran idea becuase it was something different, as normally in war films/TV programs they have a male lead. This is a choice we made not only because we are an all girl group, but also because it is something people don't normally do for their project. Also it gave us a few different genres to research int.



Another TV program we took inspiration from is 'The Vampire Diaries'. We used the show to influence the street scene, as in the show ghosts from the supernatural after life, also known as 'the other side' can access the human world. This leads to some people being able to see dead people and other people not. From this ghosts can walk through humans with out them knowing. This is what we took inspiration from for our short film as we are going to attempt to make it look like someone walks through Charlottes shoulder. We also took inspiration from this for the fact that only Georgie is the only person who can see Charlotte, much like in the show Jeremy is the only person able to see Bonnie when she is dead. 

Controversial Media

Films:
Woman in black (2012) -

"Arthur Kipps, a lawyer, is recently widowed and grieving the loss of his wife when he is sent to a remote village to put a deceased eccentric's affairs in order. Soon after his arrival, it becomes clear that the villagers are hiding a terrible secret. Kipps discovers that his late client's house is haunted by the spirit of a woman who is trying to find someone and something she lost, and that no one -- not even the children -- is safe from her terrible wrath." 
Originally awarded a 15 certificate it was lowered to a 12a after cuts were made. The film is a thriller/horror that features gore, jump scares, and death. The low certificate paired with the main star Daniel Radcliffe who was of Harry Potter fame (a series popular with children) lead to many children seeing the film who were then extremely scared as they were expecting something like Harry Potter, not a horror film. This lead to an outcry from parents and the media that the film was too scary for such a low certificate.


TV show:
Game of Thrones-

"George R.R. Martin's best-selling book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" is brought to the screen as HBO sinks its considerable storytelling teeth into the medieval fantasy epic. It's the depiction of two powerful families -- kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and honest men -- playing a deadly game for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and to sit atop the Iron Throne." 
Advertised as a fantasy series full of dragons, in the first episode alone there was incest, sexual assault explicit sex and violence. The story-lines often rely on sexual assault and one of the characters fell in love with their abuser and were married. This caused a stir as victims of sexual assault were worried that this would lead to the normalisation of  sexual assault and may convince victims of spousal sexual violence that what they were going though is normal and they just have to learn to love it, meaning they don't get help and get out of an abusive relationship.

Game:
Pokemon Go - 

An augmented reality game that allows people to walk around in the real world catching pokemon and battling gyms. The Pokémon series has always been somewhat controversial in mega christian circles and PETA claiming it encourages slavery, animal abuse, violence, and is the work of the devil. However Pokémon Go caused a media storm when it was released as people were using in game features to lure people to them to be mugged, children were going out at night in unsafe areas, people were falling down and injuring themselves, driving whilst playing, walking into busy streets, and in some cases finding dead bodies. People thought the app was making people brainless and reckless. Parents and Childline said that the app was unsafe and allowed their children to be victimised. They called for the app to be removed from the market and made safer before being put back up, Niantic never took the app down and as they hype quietened so did the parents but for 48 hours, it definitely caused a Moral Panic

Controversial Media

Controversial Media

Film: Escape From Tomorrow (2013)

Shot in Black and White, directed by Randy Moore and released in 2013, Escape From Tomorrow is an American fantasy/horror film that follows an unemployed father experiencing strange and disturbing hallucinations on the last day of his family vacation in Walt Disney World Resort. The film caused controversy from audiences and critics alike due to it's bizzare and violent nature but also because of the circumstances in which Escape From Tommorow was actually filmed. Moore had shot most of the film on location in Walt Disney World and Disneyland without permission from the company itself. Knowing Disney's strong reputation of being protective of it's intellectual property, Moore decided that it would be best if his cast and crew used independent filmmaking techniques as a way to divert attention from the production. This included keeping their scripts on their iPhones and shooting on hand held cameras. Moore was determined to keep the project a secret from Disney that he conducted editing in South Korea. Sundance, the festival in which the film was first chosen to be screened, declined to discuss the content of the film before it was shown. It earned the nickname of 'the ultimate guerrilla film.' Many of the people that saw the film doubted that it would even recieve wider screening because of it's negative depiction of the park itself. Disney finally admitted that it was aware of the film's existence but chose not to proceed with any legal action, thus allowing the film to be shared further.
Game: Hatred (2015)

Hatred (2005) is a isometric shooter game which allows the player to take on the character of a mass-killing sociopath who begins to try and kill as many humans as possible. The game was considered controversial by game fans and critics alike due to it's extremely violent content and was even removed by Valve Corporation (an American game developer) from their Steam Greenlight service. The game was eventually brought back after a personal apology from Gabe Newell for it's unsettling plot and glamorised violence. Hatred was received negatively by fans and critics alike for it's 'tacky' plot and structure. PC Magazine's David Murphy wrote that people should "get ready for the backlash about the ultra-violent shooter...if the game is ever released" and likened the game to it's predecessors Manhunt, Postal and Mortal Kombat due to it's similarly amount of generated controversy. Mike Splechta from GameZone believed that the game's timing could affect it's ability to "become the next scapegoat" in a society that had begun to consider video games responsible for school shootings and other acts of mass violence and/or genocide.
Television: 

South Park is an American animated sitcom that revolves around the lives of four boys (Stan, Kyle, Eric and Kenny) and their strange yet comical adventures in their titular Colorado town. Aimed to appeal to more mature audiences, the show uses crude language, dark, surreal humour and relevant topics such as politics, religion and war to draw in their adult viewers. The show, although popular, has received criticism for some of it's episode content and has caused discussion amongst critics for it's infamous structure. The series creators Stone and Parker when faced with questions about the nature of some of the episodes replied with the statement that they reject the notion of political correctness and emphasised that no one group or topic, will be spared the expense of being mocked or ridiculed, out of fairness to any person or group of people who have been mocked before. An example of when the sitcom came under fire from critics was when the series was recorded to have used the curse word 'shit' a total of 162 without censorship in it's season five premiere 'It Hits The Fan.' Further criticism came, with it's depiction of the Virgin Mary in season nine (2005) which angered several Catholics, it's portrayal of Steve Irwin with a stingray barb impaled in his chest in 'Hell On Earth 2006' which aired just two months after he was killed in a similar fashion and the depiction of the prophet Mohammed in the season ten episode 'Cartoon Wars Part II' which goes against the Islamic view that portraying Mohammed visually was blasphemous.