Textual Analysis - Step Brothers Movie Poster

This is my textual analysis of the "Step Brothers" movie poster. In this post I have gone into deep analysis of the Step Brothers movie poster. I have done this because one of my ancillary tasks is to produce a movie poster for the short film I will be making and before this analysis I had little knowledge about movie posters.  

After this post, I have learned what the purpose of a movie is and who the movie poster appeals to. Also, having previously had no knowledge of movie posters, I have gained a better understanding of why movie posters are made and what makes a good movie poster. I have learned from the Step Brothers movie poster that irony plays a huge factor of a good comedy movie posters.  

Textual Analysis - Code 8

In this post I have produced a YouTube video in which I go into deep analysis of the short film "Code 8". I have done this because I felt that I needed to gain a better understanding of modern short films and that I needed knowledge in how a good short film is structured.

After completing this textual analysis and producing this video, I feel that I have gain a tremendous amount of knowledge and understanding of short films such as how they are structured and what makes a good short film. I am now aware that keeping the number of characters to a minimum is essential in a short film because, due to the short duration of the film, we cannot learn a lot about all of the characters which can be extremely frustrating. Also I have learned that mes en scene is crucial because the clothing that our characters wear and the location that they are in can tell us a lot about our character without taking the time to properly introduce us to our characters. 

History and Development of Short Film

In this post I have produced a timeline for the history of the short film. I have done this because I felt like I needed to learn and understand the conventions of short films in order to reproduce a high quality short film of my own for this project.

Through completing this timeline, I have now gained a tremendous amount of knowledge of the history of the short film and I now understand, in greater detail, the conventions of the short film. Also I have learned how the short film is popular today and what sort of short films are being produced.   

Initial Response to Chosen Brief

I have put a lot of thought into which brief to choose and why. After a great deal of observation at all of the briefs, I managed to narrow my decision down to 3 briefs that i liked the sound of; Brief 1,2 and 10.

I liked brief 1 because my passion is music and I take music and A-Level as well as taking drum lessons outside of school. This brief appealed to me because of the idea of linking my passions and skills together. The only thing that I did not like about Brief 1 was the ancillary tasks. Although I liked the idea of making a website homepage for the band, I thought that the other two ancillary tasks were a bit dull and I had little knowledge in fields required to complete these tasks.

I liked brief 2 because it was to create a promotion package for a film that included a movie trailer. This appealed to me because I have a lot of knowledge about movie trailers because I made a film trailer for my course work in year 12. I felt that brief 2 was the safe option, including the ancillary tasks, which made it appealing to me however I knew that this brief would not prove to as much of a challenge to me.

I liked brief 10 because this brief was keeping to my strengths however, this brief would challenge my skills due to the duration of the film that we have to make. I have a few good ideas about what I could do for a short film and these ideas would not be suitable for a movie trailer due to their story lines however they would be perfect for a short film.

After a lot of thinking and brainstorming, I have decided that I will go with brief 10 and produce a short film. I have decided upon brief 10 because I feel that I have many good ideas that I would love to produce and see in the form of a short film. Other than this, doing brief 10 would stick to my strengths however it will challenge my skills in film making. I believe that this would only be beneficial because I think that challenging my skills will allow me to improve them whilst learning new skills along the way.
                                                                                                                                                  

I have decided that I am going to team up with Charlie Palmer to produce my short film. Me and Charlie are good friends and we both have a wide range of knowledge in films and media. After quite some time, Charlie came up with 5 ideas that we could make into a short film. Me and Charlie discussed all of these ideas and we are pleased with how they have turned out.

   

Researching Radio Skills

This is a radio advert that I have made for Truo and Penwith College. I made this radio advert purely to get some experience in making radio adverts because, looking at the briefs, it is quite likely that I will be required to make a radio advert as an ancillary task for one of the briefs.

Here is my finished radio advert.

This is the timeline that I made to help plan our radio advert.

This is a screenshot of my advert in the making and just some of the things that I have learned about the program have been labeled.  

After making my radio advert I have learned many things including learned how to used Adobe Audition, I have learned the importance of planning the radio advert thoroughly before recording and editing the advert, I have learned what is involved in making a radio advert and also I have learned what type of conditions are the best for recording sound along with how to work a Dictaphone. All in all this has been a worth while task and I now feel confident about the possibility of recording a radio advert as part of an ancillary task.  

Researching Photoshop Skills

This is a practice photo shop picture that I have created. I took on the task of learning how to use photo shop because, Looking at the briefs, I know it will be extremely likely that I will have to use photo shop for one of my ancillary tasks.   

Here is my first attempt at making a movie poster. As you can see, I have learned how to cut out objects and I have learned how to merge backgrounds and add a glow that sits behind the main title of the movie. I have added this glow behind the title to add an emphasized look to the title and make it stand out from the poster more. I have merged the two backgrounds to create the exact background that I wanted for my movie poster instead of having to search the internet to find one and compromise on a background. Lastly I have cut out the characters for my movie because this makes my characters contrast the background of the movie poster so that the person looking at my movie poster can tell that these characters are the main four characters in the movie.