Evaluation Of My Film

Creating my final product, I have felt I have developed significantly from my AS Foundation Project, and have gained a more applicability with my editing and planning skills. In the creation of Grace, I wished to challenge the stereotype of a mainstream Drama, and move in to the verges of 'Emotive Drama'. With this in mind, I researched broadly around the areas of Drama, taking my main inspiration from 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', which shows the life of a person with a 'disease' of sorts.

Although my trailer features no actual characters, except for the 'ghost', I chose to represent Grace using the location based symbolism - reflecting her hectic, disorganised personality by prop placement. I feel that this was achieved, with the location giving a 'lived in' vibe which I hoped it would create. The 'Ghost' is the only shown character, which has very little importance with the overall storyline. I chose to have the 'ghost' as a normal, modern female, which require very little managing of the wardrobe. The 'Ghost' I feel, is very effective when utilising the 'black and white' theme, which although somewhat simplistic, has the desired effect of creating a memory like atmosphere. In some cases (from my audience feedback), the lack of characters and the 'ghosts' presence can be misconstrued into being a Supernatural drama, but this usually occurred with younger audience members. 
I aimed to work with the conventions of the 'Drama' genre, whilst attempting to create my own, unique product - I wished to do this to both challenge what 'Drama' is, and also to create a 'wow' factor in the audience. The research I completed around the broad area that is 'Drama' led me to develop several conventions, of which I used and manipulated into the themes of my film. I made the main theme of 'Grace' age and youth, which was not quite a major theme of my trailer, although it does not necessarily have to be (an example being 'Friend Green Tomatoes' - there trailer does not reveal the main themes of the story, only hints at them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYDQG0c-cs). Although my trailer does not reveal any major themes of the story, it does generate a deep emotive effect, with the theme of death being hinted at the most, but this does not make death the principle theme, with the Ghost showing memories and reflection.
My trailer does not aim to appeal to younger audiences, as the darker themes would lead to it being classified between a 12 and 15 certificate, and so the complex nature of the trailer does not detract from it's effectiveness. I would expect the major part of my audience would be Middle-Class, around Middle-aged males and females, as both my poster and magazine cover have a sophisticated, middle-class air.
My soundtrack, I feel works well with the trailer, as it is a somewhat reflective classical piece. It is possible that if I had had the financial backing, I may have used a piano/vocal track, which would have moved away from the classical soundtrack 'stereotype', and steer the piece out of art-house and in to mainstream (i.e (500) Days of Summer featuring Regina Spektor).
I chose to remove the spoken non-diegetic sound (shown in my storyboard) as I did not have access to enough layers, and found that the silent effect was more appropriate.
I would choose to have my film distributed by American Empirical Pictures, whom I decided upon following my research. Although they have a very select filmofraphy, they have been shown to release various spans of Dramas, whilst remaining somewhat unknown. Their films have shown to break the stereotype of their respective substraights, and this is what I hoped for in 'Grace'.

Another possible distributor would be Paramount Pictures, who have distributed various high grossing drama pictures, one of the largest being 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. Although Paramount's films tend to be more mainstream, it would allow for a large scale release of my film, and move it away from a more 'art house' theme. Other dramas such as 'The Soloist' are slightly more in keeping with 'Grace's' less stereotypic theme, as well as using classical music to reflect life.
From showing my trailer to potential audience members, I have found various opinions. Most found the trailer to be representative of a 'Drama' film, with 65% of the audience member I showed remarking that they would want to go on to watch the film, with another 15% saying they would look at other promotional content to possibly go on to see the film. The remaining 20% said they did not generally watch emotive dramas. The criticisms some had were that some of the titles went too quickly, and so if I were to recreate my trailer, I would extend the length of these. The feedback from the Mise en Scene, is that it immediately translates as an elderly persons home, with the flowers at the beginning portraying them to be female. They also liked the ghost-trails used on the 'ghost' scenes to give it a reflective, somewhat spooky appeal.
Overall, my own opinion of my film, leads me to believe that it gives a broad, symbolic overview of my film, with the sound and images working together to generate an emotive response in the audience. If I were to recreate it in an industrial setting, I would use a more effective prop to symbolise a body in Bed, and add another layer of sound to allow for the non-diegetic speech I had intended for.

Media Story Board

This story board does not include titles which were added in the editing stage.

Evaluation Of My Magazine Cover

Like in my film poster, I wished to keep a mystique behind my film, and chose not to feature any of the main characters, so breaking with the norm of an Empire magazine. From my research, I found that the colour of the text varies according to the film genre, and I chose white and gold to represent 'Grace'. I did this to create a sophisticated and contrasted script, which would in turn draw the eye of potential readers, as well as representing the Drama genre.

The prospective audience members I showed the piece to easily recognised the contrast between the tree and the river as dark and light, most realising it being reminiscent of life and death. The audience also liked the colour theme, and found it to be representing a drama film, without have read the tag-lines.

Like my poster, I created my magazine using Adobe Photoshop, which allowed me remove the saturation of the tree easily - and like my poster I used DaFont for the film title, and used Corbel for the other text. I imported the 'Empire' logo from their website, and then recoloured the text to suit my theme. I used layers and masks to bring through the tree trunk, which created a background/foreground shift.

I feel that my magazine cover works well to both retain the anonymity of my film, instead focusing on symbolism to sum up aspects of the film. If I were to create it in an industrial setting, I would make the background (minus the tree and river) in a matte style, and the text in a glossed style to 'lift' them from the background and give them prominence.

In this piece I have attempted to keep with the conventions of the 'Empire' magazine, from which I gained my inpiration for my piece. I have added various ancillary articles to the front page of films which release around the same time as 'Grace' would in theory, and I have chosen one of their typical drama themes, 'Gold' and 'White'.

I am exceptionally happy with my magazine cover, as it is an attractive, yet simply mysterious summing up of 'Grace' and sets it apart from traditional Drama magazine covers.

Evaluation of My Film Poster

In creating my Poster, I wanted to limit the potential 'leakage' of main plot areas of the film, and in doing so, I decided to use symbolism to hint at what the film may be about. I chose the road placement, so as to represent a journey, Grace's and Diana's mental journey in the film. In searching for the location, I scrutinised various aspects before settling on the one used. I feel that the road not only is easily distinguishable as showing a journey, but has an immediate focal point with the vanishing point, which is intensified by the trees following the road. Taking the vanishing point as the focal point the piece, I chose to use it as a feature, placing the hands underneath, so to ensure that the audience would see the focal point, and then read the other information of the piece. I stuck with the conventions of Drama, using a calligraphy font, as to foretell of an emotive drama piece. From my research into potential fonts, I decided on this font, 'English', because it is easily read, but also is reminiscent of aged handwriting, so to represent Grace.

From showing my poster to audience members, they all find the piece to easily foretell of a drama, and the hands symbolising some sort of emotional joining. My audience also saw the film as a 'Drama' genre, most using the font to distinguish this. They also see the mixed cloudy/sunny sky in the piece to foretell of a mixed atmosphere.

I created my piece using Adobe Photoshop, and I found this easy to use, and using layers I was able to easily incorporate all of the factors I wished to. The text was bought in from 'DaFont' and then coloured in Photoshop. If I were to recreate this piece I would outline the white text with another colour (i.e. red or blue) to lift it from the background slightly. If I were to industrially create the piece, I would emboss the film title, tagline and other words around the hand, to draw the audiences’ eye.

I feel that my film poster works well with my trailer, as it retains a sort of anonymity for the main characters, whilst generating a mysterious interest in the piece. I do however, feel that the Young/Old theme is not shown enough between the two hands, and if I were to recreate it I would work on this aspect.

Overall, I am happy with my Film Poster as it creates the mysterious, slightly ambigous theme in the film. It is easily distinguishable as a Drama, both because of the text and the content, and raises most of the themes I wished it to, without making the story of the film too obvious.

Inspiration For My Magazine Cover

Like my poster, I wanted to some how demonstrate the Life and Death aspect of the film - with the dark tree demonstrating Death and the shining river symbolising Life. I chose to make a simple magazine cover, as I wanted the piece to be poigniant, but without over complicating it. The cycle of Life and Death is also easily shown by the Fauna used in the piece, as well as the river representing a Journey.

I used the background/foreground shift to keep with the research I had made, as well as to make the tree more prominent. I chose the colour theme of gold and white, as both are sterotypically conjoined with drama, and also suit the sophisticated font of the title.

Reaction From Audience

I chose to show my poster to a sample of 30 potential audience member, showing them three alternate versions, on which I had removed certain aspects of the text. I then asked them to choose the most effective. These are:

Potential Idea A: In this idea, I removed all text, leaving the opposition to be represented with the hands. I think this idea is much simpler, and so would not need for much reading.
Results: 11

Potential Idea B: In this idea I used only the 'Life' and 'Death' faded text - I prefered this take as it still keeps the opposition, without the somewhat random other text.
Results: 17

Potential Idea C: In this idea, I kept the same features to see whether the audience would prefer this.
Results: 2








I decided that I would use Potential Idea B as my final idea, as it is more simplistic, but still allows for the opposition in the piece.

Making My Magazine Cover

Stage 1: This is my original photo which I downloaded into photoshop to begin editing.

Stage 2: I then removed colour and darkened the tree area, to give the idea of death being represented by the gnarled tree.

Stage 3: I then brightened the river area to give an oppostie to contrast the darkness of the tree.

Stage 4: I then recoloured the leaves to highlight the darkness of the tree trunk. It acts as another area of contrast in the piece.

Stage 5: I then added in the 'Empire' title, and using masks I cut around the branch to create a background/foreground shift in the piece which I found was typical from my magazine cover research.

Stage 6: I then inserted the Barcode and 'Selling Point' (which I later removed in favour of a small barcode).

Stage 8: I then inseted a tagline and then a gold banner over which I can place my film title.

Stage 9: I then inserted the film name in 'English' typeface which I also used on my Film Poster.

Stage 10: I then put in my name in the editors slot, placing it under the film name to give a double tiered effect.

Final: I then inserted other text (i.e. other stories, price, website and slogan) - I also changed the barcode to a smaller version as to show more of the photo.