In Headlights - Font Choice

Target Audience

   

The certificate rating for our film would be an 18 because some of our content in our film would not be suitable for below this age because of the prostitution storyline.

An 18 film can contain issues such as:

-Very strong violence

-Frequent strong language

-Strong portrayals of sexual activity

-Scenes of sexual violence

-Strong horror

-Strong blood and gore

-Real sex (in some circumstances)

-Discriminatory language and behaviour 

This would allow our whole film to include any of these aspects which would be appropriate or our social realism film. Having an 18 certificate rating would mean that it would limit our target audience to aged 18 and above. 

Website Comparison

Awards / Festivals / Review Websites

As part of the promotional package of our trailer (website and poster), we have decided to carefully select certain awards, reviewers e.t.c. The ones we select to promote the film need to match to the type of film we are promoting. For example, our film being a low-budget British social realism film would not be suited to a mainstream award ceremony such as The Oscars. 

Awards

Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from around the world. We decided to use this festival because  it has awarded prizes to films such as the british social realism film 'Fish Tank' (2009). We felt that the award most suited to our film trailer would be the 'Un Certain Regard' because it celebrates young talent.

 

 

Sundance Film Festival is an American independent film festival that takes place in Utah. We decided to use this festival because it celebrated British social realism films such as 'Tyrannosaur' (2011). We decided show in our trailer that film is part of the 'Official Selection' for the festival.

 

 

Review Websites

 



 

The Guardian, a British national daily newspaper review a wide variety of films, with its own production company GuardianFilm and a weekly film review show. As widely read and respected film review paper and website we felt it would be suitable to put it in our trailer and poster.

 

 

Little White Lies, is a bi-monthly, British independent movie magazine. This magazine is a more indie source of film news and culture and we felt that because of its smaller, British status, it would be right for it to celebrate and promote a small, British, amateur film such as 'In Headlights'.

 

Poster Idea - Illustration

We were inspired by TYRANNOSAUR's unique illustrated poster design. The visual metaphor in its poster evokes a poignant motif. The image enforces the titles possible connotations. My initial interpretation of the poster is that the T - Rex under the ground denotes another more dangerous side to the small insignificant, in terms of scale within the poster, man holding ta bunch of roses in the foreground.

Myself and Oliver knew that the idea of a Deer in the headlights was a great metaphor for our trailers story. A girl, out of her comfort zone, stuck in the very apparent series of events which will determine her fate. We also felt that for the background of this potential trailer, a city road could help reiterate the Deer ( being our character ) out of her comfort zone.

Poster Idea 4

I wanted to use a still from this particular shot due to its ability to express the motion of the character.  Naturally being a Close Up shot, it enables the viewer to share the experience with the girl. Within one frame this poster captures a binary opposition that would feature in the film - Country vs City.

I featured both the original scenic landscape in the background of the shot however in addition i placed a still from another shot taken looking out from the train. This shot, featuring the more industrial scenery of our characters journey, captures a sunset; adding to our trailers artistic feel and mentality. This could also serve to give insight into the story of our character - going up in the evening - to earn the money her family in the most unfortunate of circumstances.

In Headlights - First Draft

Titles And Text

Shown here are print screen from a power points I made to show the titles and text I thought we could use in our trailer. I looked at many different other trailer for social realism films and other genres such as drama and found that the titles used in their trailers are as follows.

- Production Company

- From the makers of...

- Names of main actors and actresses

- Quote from magazine etc.

- Name of film

- Credits

This title says the names of the films that we used for our film opening for AS. I don't think we should use this one as they don't relate to the genre we are doing this year as they are all horror or thriller themed.



we have chosen a them of changing the size and capitals of text and words to make them look more interesting on the screen. For these names we have made the first names in small letters and large size to contrast and the surnames in capitals and smaller size.

Here we have used the same technique in the text, using capitals and non-capitals in the same text to create a more interesting piece of text rather than a basic and simple quote. 

The font we have chosen is called Franklin Gothic Book. we decided to use this font because it looks thin and professional, which is the look that we want our trailer to have. Also it fits really well with our end shot which can be seen bellow. 

This is the end shot that has our chosen font have picture on. The test simply reads 

I N  H E A D L I G H T S 

We have spaced out the letter to make the wording look wider, as i would look like this

IN HEADLIGHTS

We preferred the look of the spaced out lettering because it makes it look more cleaner and different, also it looks more modern which portrays London and business, which related to the business she has got into. 

Poster Idea 3

For my poster idea, I decided to use a collage format. This denotes many motifs of the film to the audience, as each image portrays a different element. I was inspired my the 'London to Brighton' poster, it also used a collage effect. However, the poster was titled at an angle, evoking ACTION and fast DRAMA. This was not the response I wanted to create with my poster, so I resulted to keeping it at a horizontal angle. I used a 'Bebas Neue' font for the title and review quotes, I felt it depicted a simplistic but striking presence, drawing the viewer in to question its meaning. I then used a 'Universal Accreditation' font for the film credits. This is a font used across the film industry and helped give my poster a professional look. 

Poster:

Inspiration:

Our Final Website Screenshots

http://271381.wix.com/inheadlights

Here are some screen shorts of our final website. After showing our target audience our draft of our website they gave us constructive criticism in order to improve it. As shown in our prezi, one piece of feedback we got was that it did not match the poster as well as it could. From this feedback we decided to change the background image of the home page to the same image as the poster in order to create consistency throughout our products. Also, from further research into websites we discovered that many film websites did not have the trailer on the home page, they only had a link to it. We felt that this looked more professional and so removed the trailer from the homepage.

Poster Idea 2

For this poster idea I have used a screenshot from the trailer, the original image can be seen below the poster idea. I choose to use this image because it shows a lot about the film. The main actress is the focus of the image which follows the typical conventions of a film poster. From this image you can see that the main actress is a young female who is sleeping on the streets which may lead the audience to question why and it suggests that there is a story behind as to why she is on the streets. There are also people  and traffic lights in the background which shows that she is in a busy place which makes the character seem even more vulnerable. I have included the typical conventions used in a poster, including the title, production credits, release date, awards, actors and a quote.

Costume and Make-up

Busking/Traveling scenes: For the our characters first outfit we wanted to create a realistic look for someone on the streets of London, so we asked her to wear lots of layers, including a hoodie, jacket and a scarf. We also asked her to bring a large backpack and gave her a guitar to carry whilst wearing this outfit, which gives the impression that she is carrying most of her belongings with her.

 Prostitution Scene: Prostitution is a key aspect in our trailer, as it is what the girl turns to when she is struggling to make money for her ill dad. We thought it was important to show this in a subtle way, in keeping with the feel of our trailer. One of the ways to show this subtlety was through her clothing. In this scene she wore a red vest top with thin straps. This firstly helps to signify that she is a prostitute by wearing not wearing much clothing, and most importantly the colour of the top is red. The colour red is associated with love and danger and it is very commonly associated with prostitutes, as it was a colour often worn by prostitutes far back as the 15th century to set themselves apart from other people.

 

Make-up: We thought that it was important for the character to wear make-up in the prostitution scenes to reinforce the message. She wore red lip stick, which again we choose because of the significance of the colour, and she also wore dark eye make-up. We smudged the make-up for the public toilet scene to emphasis the distress and the different emotions the character is going through.

Website 1st Draft

Poster Idea 1

This is the first idea for our film poster. As we have not chosen or finalised an idea or image yet we have not included all of the convections of a poster including the certificate rating, we will do this once we have chosen an idea.

I have used an image of the main character on the train as this clearly tell the audience who our main character is and that she is traveling. I made her face large so it take up half the frame, using the rule of thirds to position the picture on the right of the poster. I then made what was trees in the window our ending hot of London at night so that half the poster is dark and her face is light showing contrast representing the two worlds she lives in.

I used this dark space also to add the writing as we wanted it to be white to match the text on the film poster and website. This created a good balance across the poster and separates the two sides of the poster giving the audience two things to look at, whilst making the poster tie together.

Below I have developed my designed because I preferred on of the other layout of text that another member of our group used, so I have tried them out on my idea and I feel this works better.
 



Website Research

E N D L E S S   L O V E

I like the look of websites that have one big picture as the background.

This is the website for endless love, which is a romantic drama film. the website shows one large images that make a large impact and clearly shows the adience that the film is about love, but from the look on Alex Pettyfers face we can see that his expression is not just list but confusion as well which shows that spry may not be smooth. 

the movie title is clearly seen in a clear font, with the release date underneath, clearly showing that the film is  romantic film because the release date is valentines day. 

at the side we can see there are 3 tabs that are links to the trailer, image and about the film. there are neatly aligned at the edge as to not interrupt the picture. under these are links to social networking as these sites are crucial in promotion now. throughout the page they have production logos and companies named. all the information on the page in before the 'jump' so that the audience does not have to scroll to see or find anything on the page. 

G R A V I T Y

This website is deferent from Endless Love as it shows more information about the film, its credentials and quotes from credible companies.

The website still uses one large image for the main background, but has more text on the screen as well. This website also has the trailer on a separate page, named video. The layout of the main uses the rule of thirds. Making the text more to one side of the page, this makes the page look more balanced as the text and photo are separated, allowing both to be on the page but not over lapping. The text is positioned to the side of the girl in the photo, who is the main character, placed on the black part of the image as to not interfere with the photo.

The tabs at the top of the page take you to relevant information about the film, but nothing on the website has too much text as it focuses on video and images. the text that is present is aligned nicely used different sizing and layout of text to identify the most important, from the title being the biggest, then actresses, then release date and quotes.

T H E   S E L F I S H   G I A N T

 This is the only website out of the three that has the trailer on the homepage. The trailers pause screen is almost a mini version of the website, showing the title of the film and ratings from various critics. also it has the same image used on the background, this blends well with the website background. 

The main colouring of the website is a dull plain colour with bright wording and small black illustrations representing a theme of the film. 

Having the trailer on the home page gives the audience something that can immedietly engage with on the website. This means they wont have to go through the website to find the trailer. But on the other hand this website only has one page, therefore there is nothing else for them to look for. This could be reflection of the budget of the film. This film is a low budget independent british film, whereas the other websites I have analysed are high budget films with many large companies involved. 

C O N V E N T I O N S   F O R   H O M E P A G E.

Here is a list I have come up with of what I must put on the website:

- Name Of Film

- Rating Or Quote

- Release Date

- Director / Production Companies

- Actors And Actresses 

Poster Research

 We researched and analysed a variety of social realism film posters, looking into such elements as font, colours, etc.

Time Lapse - Final Product

We decided as a group it would be good to do the time-lapse of the same shot as the ending of the trailer.

The picture below shows a Google maps image of where I will take the time lapse from. it shows the day time of the end shot. This represents the girl staying in London in the same place for day and night to represent her strong will of staying there for her father.

I will take a photo every 5 seconds for 30 minutes and use iMovie to put the pictures together to make a slow movie with 10 frames per second. Then I will export the movie and inset it into our trailer. here I can speed it up to 125 frames per second to make a 3-4 second time-lapse.

Below is the finished Time-lapse. I did not edit the pictures as we did not want an effect on the final product as social realism films tend not to use effects, and we wanted to stick to the codes and convictions of this and make it look natural and realistic as that is a main convection of social realism films. 

Ending Timelapse Ideas

Time Lapse - Possible Locations

we got the idea for the time-lapse from previous experience and then saw that Ed Sheeran had used one in his video for The A Team, which follow a young escort around a city. the time-lapse shows a flash through time to show the audience that time is passing and she is staying still. 

we have decided on three final shots we could use for the time lapse that would be relatable or significant to our story line and trailer. all are views off Westminster Bridge which is the location that out trailer ends on. 

the first is off the right side of the bridge, showing the London eye. this would immediately signify to the audience that pour character is in central London, which represents money and business. through is dose not signify the gritty unseen side of London that we are trying to portray. we have chosen this shot as a possibility as we think that it contrasts the unseen side of London, to her being in the centre of London when she is mixed up with prostitution. 

this shot is the other side of the bridge. it shows the same shot that we have used at the end of our trailer, which would therefor show a repeat of the shot near the beginning and at the end of the trailer. these shots would show London in day and at night in the same place to represent that the main girl is in London through day and night alone.