Character stereotypes

The protagonist of our trailer is a young white female with blond hair, this challenges the socially normal stereotype which is normally a young, white male. Furthermore, the protagonist of our trailer is usually the character who is classed as the 'dumb' one that dies first. This character is usually the most vulnerable and innocent, who seems as though they would not be able to handle them self in tough situations. However, throughout out trailer, through the use of varied shot, angles and dialogue this character is portrayed as strong and powerful. This character does have a moment within the trailer where she is portrayed as being vulnerable but with her strong willed personality she is able to overcome this.
My decision for choosing this character as the main protagonist was done on purpose because I wanted to be able to challenge normalities.
From my research, it is males who mainly engage in action films. Applying Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' theory to 'stereotypes of characters' could mean that there will be an increased chance in men engaging with the trailer because a female protagonist is more pleasurable and satisfying too look at, opposed to a male.

Another challenging stereotype is our antagonist who is not visually seen a lot, but he does play an important part.This character is a young,black male. Black males, just like the white blonde female are usually one of the first characters to die, however this doesn't appear to happen within our trailer. He obtains a high status within the film and has a dominating presence about him.

Magazine Cover - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our magazine cover to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the cover and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

One of the main things people liked about our magazine cover was the big, bold font that we chose for the magazine title. They liked the grey gradient that we applied to it that gave it a rustic look to suit our genre. As well as the magazine title, the group also liked the film title, as they noticed that we used the same font on the poster.

As well as this, a few people said they liked the "couple of the year" caption. They said it resembles something that would actually be put on the front of a magazine for a new upcoming film.

Another favoured trait was the way the characters were a different colour to the red background, because it makes them stand out because they play important roles in the film.

The group also thought that the black banner on the top right corner of the magazine cover was good because it looked professional.

On the other hand, many of the group did not like the 007 caption, as it did not look professional and looked somewhat out of place on the magazine cover. However, they also criticised our placement of the other captions such as the "their most in-depth interview" caption.

The sample also could not see the date of the magazine, nor could they read the caption on the banner on the top right corner.

Overall, the sample really liked out magazine cover, as the image colours, images and fonts we used suited the action genre. The main things we must change are the sizes and content of the captions.

Conventions of Film Magazines

Magazine Name Tally

In order to decide what to name our magazine, we decided to come up with three names on our own that we liked. We then asked 20 17-18 year olds in our year group to pick their favourite one using a tally chart. The most favoured name was 'REEL', therefore it is most likely the name we will use. However, since the number of people who chose reel was only 2 away from the number of people who chose lens, we will do a survey using survey monkey to determine which name to use as our final choice.

Magazine Name Survey

Survey Analysis from Monique Jackson

Film Poster - DRAFT 1 - FEEDBACK

We presented the first draft of our film poster to a group of teenagers aged 17-19. The people in this sample group were all males, as this is the demographic of our target audience. Below is a photo of the notes that we took whilst the sample analysed the poster and discussed what they liked and what they felt could be improved about it.

People really liked the image that we created for the poster. They said that they like how the science lab is layered on top of Rebecca and how the images fade together. They also liked the chromatic effect that we used on the image, as it gives the poster a more polished look. Also, they liked that Rebecca looks as though she is trying to get away because it helps show that the genre is action.

They also liked how the release date was visible in big, white text because it means that it is easy to find our when the film will be released.

The sample also liked the font used for the billing block, as it looks professional and resembles a real film poster billing block.

As well as this, they approved of the production logos at the bottom corners of the poster because they add to make it look more realistic.

Finally, they also liked the font of the film title, as it is big and bold so it suits the action genre.

Some improvements that were discussed were the addition of a BBFI certificate logo so people know if they will be able to see the film when it is released. Another improvement is changing the colour of the film title to a lighter shade so that it is more visible on the background image. Also, a big criticism was changing the colour of the headline and billing block, as they were barely readable. However, we explained that because there are so many assorted colours in the background image, black works the best. To this, the sample suggested adding a border around the film poster so that the text is visible. As well as this, people also suggested that we take off some of the names at the top of the film poster so that only two or three names can be in a bigger font and stand out more. Lastly, we got some feedback to put the caption under the film title all in one line.

Conventions of film Posters - Analysis

Types of Film Posters

There are many different types of film posters and these are a few: Teaser poster, Video/DVD release poster, genre identification, character poster and the main poster.
A character poster features an individual character, or an ensemble of characters from the film. This character poster may contain a tagline that gives off a reflection of the character.
A teaser poster, which is also known as an advanced poster is a promotional poster. The purpose of this is to alert target audience members of a new upcoming film and to create hype.

The main places where a film poster is known to be published are: billboards, bus stops, on buses, underground stations and cinemas.

Through thorough research about different types of film posters, my partner and I have decided that we are going to do a standard sized A4 poster.






 Due to the variation of different film posters, there are many different sizes.                      Large companies who have a big budget are able to create these large variations in film posters, whereas smaller companies are unable, therefore they make one or two.

Film Posters History

What is a Film Poster?

A Film poster, is a poster that has been created in order to advertise a film. This method of advertisement broadens the horizons for the amount of people who will see the advertisement for the film. This means that the amount of people who will potentially view the film, will increase.
In this day, a variation of film posters displaying different images, and different texts are printed out. This is because if people see a variation of images from a film this may incite them more, into engaging in the film.
A film poster will generally contain an image with some text, the image used on the film poster is usually of the protagonist (as they are usually the bankable, A-List star). However, prior to the 1990's, illustrations were more commonly used than photos.
Gordon Gorey stated that posters - a transition from "sound-orientated beings to primarily visually-orientated"

History

The covers of film posters didn't contain any stars, this is because the actors felt embarrassed participating in this 'new' industry and so decided to remain anonymous. Producers were thrilled with this outcome as it meant that they had complete control of this medium, as long as there were not any stars.

1910 saw the demand in the public wanting to know the names of the nameless actors. The producing companies realised that they could make money out of the 'movie stars' and so, this sparked a change which meant that now, actors names were published on film posters.

The 1920's were considered the golden age of the silent movie. Beautiful locations took the place of the cinema. Well known artists were bought in to design portraits and movie posters of the protagonists.

The film industry really became its own in the 1930's. Not only did the 'Great Depression' happen, where people believed that the cinema wouldn't be as popular due to tight restrictions on money, but the Great Depression saw an increase into the number of people who went to the cinema, because they wanted to escape reality.

With the 1940's came the development of the television. Due to this new creation a number of people who use to attended the cinema replaced it with the TV, as a result, the movie companies reduced the amount of films they created. This meant that a lot of actors and actresses were out of the job which proved a devastating blow for them.

In order for fight the popularity of television, in the 1950's movie companies created more fantasy films. The ever popular 'war' genre was now replaced with other genres, such as, science-fiction, comedy and 'B' drive in movies. Although drive-in movies had been around since 1933 it reached its peak in popularity during the 1950's with over 4,000 screens in the United Sates alone.

The 1960's bought the boomer generation to their teen years. Since there were so many children from the post-war baby boom a majority of the films were teen orientated. Rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley entered into the light of stardom, not only for his music but for his involvement within movies. Action films became increasingly popular during this time as we saw the introduction of the infamous double agent, James Bond 007.

The 1970's was a launching pad to the era of the blockbusters the 1980's. Movies such as, The Godfather, Star Wars, Rock and Star Trek were born. Posters of this time did use photography but there was the occasional use of drawing and painting created by famous artists like Ansel Adams, Frank Frazetta and Bob Peak created some popular posters of this time.

Special effects belonged to the age of the 1980's, this was the key to the success of films such as, Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The 1990's welcomed computerisation of special effects, which bought two of the largest money making films in history, Jurassic Park and Batman Forever.


Finally, the earliest forms of advertising for movies included hand painted crates and sandwich boards. The turn of the 20th Century saw a world with a very high illiteracy rate. Posters or advertising for any entertainment needed to have vibrant colours and pictures and a limited amount of words, so that the advertising could be appreciated by a large number of people.

Types of Posters

There are different types of advertising film posters, for example:

Teaser Poster

This type of poster is a poster is released early, as a promotional one. The content of the poster is very basic, this is so that not too much information about the plot, theme and characters are not revealed. The purpose of a teaser poster is self explanatory, the poster is released in order to inticte and create and awareness for an up and coming film.






Character Poster

This type of poster is self explanatory. It is a poster that reveals the different characters within that film.
On the poster, there will be the name of the actor, the characters name.