Poster Construction

The production of the poster went as follows - a draft had already been made and as such there were not many difficult decisions to be made.

• The main image was the first thing which was made, first off using the rectangle tool and duplication tool in order to make the lines - adding an outer shadow and black stroke in order to provide depth. The main image was then added, overlaying him over every one of the lines and then duplicating from a different image the gun coming out over the edge. In order to blend the two images the same thing was done as mentioned in a previous magazine post, with an entirely transparent rectangle being overlaid on to the two layers. This was then corroborated through the use of stocks downloaded off the internet, all of which can be seen below. Finally, concerning the main image, the city shot was used, being the same as that previously spoken about in my magazine cover post. 

The layers which are shown here can be explained as such; the Layer 5 and Layer 5 copy are the aforementioned internet downloaded stocks, with Layer 20 also being this. Layer 11, 7, 8, 9, 18 and 19 are all used in order to give the image depth through blur and FX as well as allowing the hands and gun to be found outside of the rectangles. Further down, the image labelled Act 1 is named so due to it being taken from our trailer through the "Save current frame" option in Final Cut Pro. This and then the background image (Layer 1 copy 4) are overlayed on Layer 2 copy 4 which is the merged under layer of the rectangles. Click the image to enlarge. 

• Following the making of the main image the titles were then made, consisting of the film title "Two Evils" and the release date, "August 2015". The same effects were used on both of these, utilising a black colour overlay with a red stroke and black drop shadow to add depth. They were placed around the outside of the gun to link the danger associated with firearms to our main character and the moralistic suggestions that the title has. The certification was a stock photo taken from the BBFC website and given a transparent background through the use of the magic wand tool.

• The completion of the right hand side of the poster was done in the addition of a slate, critics views, awards and actors names. The actors names used the same font effects as the title, while they used a bold version of the type face used in the "August 2015" font shown above. Above this, the critics reviews consisted of the same type face once again except with a black overlay and placed next to stars taken from a stock image website and given a black overlay. Finally on the right hand section of the poster, the slate used the cinema type face along with the media trope of mixing all capitals and all lower case in order to highlight important names and companies. Below this, the social media logos were taken from stock websites and google images, and placed next to colorised links to our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages which could then be followed post-viewing of the poster. 

• The final section of the poster came in the form of the tag line, first presented within the trailers narrative graphics. Again using the same type face as the title, "When you are caught between two worlds… Which way do you turn" is an all capitalised tag line rotated 45 degrees anti clockwise. It can be seen below.

Magazine Construction 2

Many developments were made between my previous construction post and this one due to my focus being on producing poster development posts. A list of improvements can be found below, with exemplar images at the bottom of the post. 

• The title was made bigger in order to fit the space at the top and provide a more eye catching spectacle, with the tag line being changed from "Definitive movie reviews" to "Definitive Move News and Reviews" in order to promote a more journalistic based criticism instead of just a media-critique magazine. 
• The image and beard were replaced due to the spots on Gabriel's head in the previous image, and through the use of the spot healing tool, were removed. The image and false beard were then merged in to one layer in order to make manipulation easier. The new foreground layer was duplicated twice; the first duplication had the cutout effect added to it and then lowered the opacity to 80% in order to provide the detail of the real life face but the artistic intention of the filter. The second duplication was placed underneath and enlarged by 0.1 in order to provide an outer glow which the simple outer glow effect found within the FX tab couldn't provide. 
• A barcode was added, simply through taking a stock photo from a google search and placing it in the bottom left hand corner.
• The main image looked relatively out of place with the three different versions of the same layer clashing in some parts. In order to overcome this I created a rectangle and placed it over all three of the layers, colouring the rectangle the same shade of teal as I did the title, and changing the blend mode to hue in order to provide a limited area colour correction and blend the three layers together. Not only did this blend the entirety of the three layers but also allowed the beard to look more in place.
• Finally, two separate images which were taken when I was on the south bank were blended, with both reflected a 75% opacity and gaussian blur at 5 pixels. This provided the perfect, stylised backdrop for the magazine cover and increased the idea of anonymity within the city, expanding upon Barthes enigma code. The image was much more subtle than the stock photo which was used prior to that, also shown below. 

The revised tagline and enlarged title

The rectangle which was used to blend the three layers and beard

The second draft of the poster, only now requiring a title and puffs

The highly colorised photo of myself which was not chosen to be in the background of the poster.

Magazine Construction 1

Starting off on my cover, my previously mentioned influence in Little White Lies and ALA-Champ will have a major effect on the way in which the magazine comes out. Starting out, the masthead was the most intriguing thing for me due to the decision to make the background black. I wanted to create a neon-styled title which reflected my film, and did so as shown below. 

Using the neon type base, the following effects were used in order to present the blue glow and the depth which creates the verisimilitude of the title. The top layer is the one which is seen on the foreground of the above image, with the one below providing the depth to the text, utilising a Gaussian blur and 15 pixels. This shadow gives the title depth in my opinion, something adding to the professionally aesthetic title of the magazine. Following this I added the main image through the Photoshop RAW image editing software. Not changing much apart from the saturation of the image, reducing the contrast and heightening the vividness of the colours in order to again provide depth, the image was taken on a digital SLR and originally with a white background, although after importing I used the magical wand tool and inverted selection in order to remove this and allow a transparent background. It was found, however, that the image chosen had our protagonist looking considerably younger than we wanted him to, and as a result utilised the brush tool in conjunction with the brush presets in order to give him a beard and make him look older. Examples of this can be found below, providing the look of my magazine covers first draft. 

Finalised Holiday Filming Schedule

This is the schedule for our filming dates coming up due to the fact that we want to complete all of our filming over the christmas/winter break in order to leave ourselves with enough time to complete the editing as well as get underway with our ancillary tasks (poster & magazine cover). We felt it was necessary to plan our time ahead in order to keep on top of things over the holidays, whereby daily contact is not as easy.

Filming Schedule:

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Institutional Analysis of Sight & Sound

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Institutional Analysis of Little White Lies

The publisher of the magazine Little White Lies is TCOLondon. This is a company which specialises in slightly off the wall, individual and quirky takes on stories which would not usually get views, or angles on films which are not usually assessed. The very branding of the website (www.TCOLondon.com) as shown below differentiates itself from other forms of media by defining itself as a breed, something which is lifelike and ever evolving. From work in skateboarding, phone companies, games consoles, and sponsoring YouTubers, their list of partners ranges from Grolsch to Audi. This shows where the inspiration for Little White Lies comes from, as well as why the company decided to back such an out-there product. Even within their distribution, with Little White Lies originality being an online-only magazine, they establish themselves against the norm and through this use of technology cater to a specific audience.

This audience is that of 18-30 year olds who are either young professionals in or students of media. They must have significant disposable income because of the monthly subscription of £3.95 for a product which, looking past its potential as a collectable and art, provides less than a week of entertainment. This suggests than that like Empire and Sight&Sound, that the demographic for the company is ABC1 and massively involved with South East London promotions. This is done in the Barbican, BFI and Picturehouse cinemas' and film festivals which caters to the sort of indie film buff audience with disposable income. The benefits of this are found within independent and cult cinema fans who would rather discuss films as an art form rather than just passive entertainment. The magazine caters to independent critics and in depth interviews with cast, directors and producers in order to help their readers form opinions upon the films they cover. 

The magazine, along with others' of its type, use mosaic geodemographics in order to establish the type of person their product is going to cater towards. An audience segmentation can be found below. This shows that the majority of the audience is found within London based Hipsters which falls under the magazines demographic of Group O buyers, standing for Urban Intelligence that 'Mostly consists of young and well educated people who are open to new ideas and influences'. It also caters to audiences such as Group E, young people who have gone through higher education and can be liberal of idea, and have access to disposable income. It caters to this audience through claiming to be about truth which connotes authenticity. Because of this, the more niche audiences of Arthouse film fans and Aspiring filmmakers are also catered towards, while more mainstream film fans and design students are left to read magazines like Empire and Total Film.

The purpose of the magazine fits with the publisher's slightly independent style of reporting. Even from the weight of the paper the magazine feels like a substantial product, filling a gap in the market for collectors items concerning film, which is then corroborated through the hand drawn/graphically modified artistic style of the covers (Of which they employ independent designers) and the typography of the front cover. The choice of film is also essential as to its purpose, and in turn the sorts of audience which are going to read it. Taking up yet another niche gap in the market, focusing on films such as "Black Swan" and "Let The Right One In", they decipher films which are not only in between the mainstream and indie genre but also those which are going to obtain a cult following. Due to this, in combination with the subtle yet aesthetically pleasing cover which screams that the magazine producers know their movies, the magazines' purpose is to fill a gap in the market between Empire's mainstream coverage and Sight & Sound's more individual movie coverage through an artistic and bold cover, substantial page thickness and quality which would leave you wanting to show your collection off to your friends. 

Sight & Sound "Cosmopolis" Magazine Cover Reasearch

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