Comparison

Both films use similar techniques in their poster, the simple characters in the middle and the white background. Both poster invoke a sense of happiness and hope yet at the same time curiosity. The pursuit Of Happyness has the most effective marketing overall as there website is very well done whereas the Blind Side’s website leaves a lot to be desired. Both posters are constructed well though. I dislike on TBS (The Blind Side) how much they market on there website. For TBS the buy now emphasis is more important than the actual promotion of the movie. For TPOH (The Pursuit of Happyness) the inform people about the movie, promote it and whatever before selling you the DVD. Viewers don’t want DVDs shoved down there throats. Nor do we want to know how great people think Sandra bullock is, will smith is way better than her and TPOH doesn’t say how many awards his won.

The Blind Side

White is used as an accent. Blues and greens are mostly used, indicating a analogous colour scheme. However, the colour changes for every page of the website, so there isn’t really a fixed colour scheme, rather a fixed colour pallet.
There is a sense of balance in the web site but because the site has so much going on, it kind of gets lost in translation. There is no clear emphasis, and the focal point is lost in the mess. The back ground is too busy to be overlayed with more characters and writing on top. The principles of design look like the have tried to have been applied but didn’t turn out quite right.

This is for the website; the overall feel is bright and clean but not crisp. If it was whiter and had a little less black (not that there was much) the crisp feel could have been achieved. The poster achieved the crisp film as less was happening and there was a white background. It was also bright and clean.

No there is only one poster. Films only really need one promotional poster anyway.

The website is laid out in a cluttered manner but you can still manage to find the links to different pages. The font is the exact same as it is on the poster. This brings in a certain unity between the poster and the website.

A lot of 12 year olds have seen this movie, having the site set up the way it is isn’t very inviting for younger kids. Kids need it simple and fun. The transitions between pages weren’t anything interesting and the main goal of the site was to sell you the DVD, not to inform you about the movie itself. Teenagers and adults are their target audience and younger kids. They did a poor job on appealing to a target audience because the website was so bad. The poster is great though. Keeps you interested make you curious and it’s nicely put together. The website really let down this movie and the great promotional movie poster, as the website just wasn’t up to scratch.

In terms of promotional stuff, on the first page the buy now button for the DVD is as big as the enter the site button and is right next to it. When you enter the site the information about the DVD, its features, is larger than the picture of the main characters. There is a lot of promotional stuff. Also the trailer is able to be watched on the first page, even before you enter the site. There is information about Sandra bullock as well, stating how many prizes she has won ect. I don’t like how they try ot talk up Sandra bullock, she isn’t that great and it annoys people. I also dislike how much promotional stuff they have, it subtracts from the purpose of the website- to interest people and tell them about the movie. They could have lessened the promotional material to increase there effectiveness.

The Pursuit of Happyness

It has a neutral colour scheme, accented with red and other occasional brighter colours.
Transition between different pages is effective, it fades to a light wash then a shine spreads out from the background where the father and son are holding hands. All done whilst fading in the new page and corresponding background picture.

White is the predominant colour used on the website and poster, nearly all images on the background, of the website, has a soft glow around the edges. This is purposefully used to signify hope and happiness. Red is used to grab your attention and highlight not only the internal website links but important parts relating to the movie. The site is not packed with a lot of information and pictures it has a lot of space and flows easily as it is balanced well. The site and the poster and simple and effective.

The website is balanced well due to having characters in the background picture on one side whereas the links and drop down boxes are on the other side. You eye moves towards the picture then moves to the information. On every page of the website, the focal point is a picture of the characters. Emphasis is made on these main characters as the audience wants to know wow the main characters are and they are meant to get clues as to what they are like from how they are represented on the website. You shouldn’t have to watch he trailer to know anything about the characters, some things are meant to be picked up on. There isn’t any obvious repetition of anything, apart from the colours used, but that is the colour scheme rather than something they are repeating. The overall feel developed by this website and poster is light, clean and crisp. This works well with the genre of the film as it is a drama with a happy ending. There is only one official poster for the film that I have been able to find. What is on the poster is the first page of the website basically, it’s that same image and feel.

The website is laid out a little differently to others I have seen. On the very first page before entering the site, it shows you DVDs for purchase and the gallery, about the film, the trailer and then it gives you the option to enter the site. When you enter the site there is a large picture in the middle then over to the left it offers you “menu” when you hover you curser over this the whole menu folds down. This is so the menu doesn’t subtract from the image in the centre. This is the same for most of the other pages, the main links are visible but to get to the sub links (for example, gallery is a sub link of media) you have to click on the main links. The font is slightly different to the font used on the poster, it is more cursive rather than the more block like appearance. In terms of promotional stuff, once you entre the site, in the top right hand corner of every page is a DVD that you can click on and which glows when you hover your curser over it. Also above the background of the site are release details of the DVD.

The target audience is who ever might be interested in watching the movie, anyone from ages 14 will understand the film. The idea of a website and poster is promote the film, get people interested in watching it or to keep their interest, provide them with information about the film as well. I like the way they have incorporated the shining light from the poster into the website transition and picture borders. I also like how off the poster, red is used as an accented colour. The promotional materials overall, are very effective. The brightness of the poster and website portrays a happy ending and hope for the characters yet at the same time evokes curiosity in the viewer. There is nothing I dislike about the promotional material. I think they have done a great job.

Inspired Elements For Poster

I love the use of that white shine in both websites and posters. It is very effective, shows that there is happiness in the end. I want to use it to symbolise Fiona finding her peace. In my poster I want her walking towards the light; into an archway, of some sort, with the light shining out from it. This idea was inspired by the posters of the two movies I analysed. If I had an image of Fiona with her back towards the camera walking away I would have used it for my poster and made it look like she was walking into the light. This would have been copying The Blind Side poster, and using elements of The Pursuit of Happyness poster.

First Lesson Back

This is my first creative media lesson for the term. As it is now week 6 there isn't enough time for me to make the web site, so i am just doing the poster. I have some ideas already for the poster. Last time i made the poster (grade 9) it took so long. So hopefully i will be able to work quicker at it this time. I need a phrase to put on the poster though (i may just use my log line). Though before i create my poster i will need to do the analyse task which i will be doing this week.

Reflection

Our EDL is now on my blog, the props list has been email and i reposted the dialogue (because Bec said we needed it) even though that wasn't apart of the group task - i had done that for my treatment. I hope you find everything on my blog and remember to give me a good mark. I worked too hard on this whole thing, i'm even still doing it now- when i'm in America and the term has finished!

Dialogue - Slightly Modified in Film

Nurse Rose - “Hello Fiona, you gave us quite a scare, I presume you didn’t know that you were allergic to those flowers. You are perfectly fine now and when you feel ready you are welcome to leave. Sorry I’m not here to explain everything to you properly; I had to run a very important errand. Kind Regards, Nurse Rose.”

Councilor Jane - “Fiona, you have to understand that what you have described to me, isn’t true. You really have to come to terms with that, if not, you will never get better.”

Councilor Jane - “I don’t hear any screaming, I am taking this as a good sign. Fiona, this is your dog, you have had it since you were little… Fiona he isn’t dead, you have created that memory yourself, he was never dead. The sooner you can accept these facts, the sooner you’ll improve. I’ll leave him with you for a while.”

Fiona – “Dear Fiona, you have talked to me about the memory that you hold of yourself fainting and ending up in a hospital bed after smelling a flower. This is the flower you told me you were allergic to. I asked all your doctors and they grantee that you weren’t and still aren’t allergic to any flowers. They also told me there isn’t a hospital like you described and there isn’t a single registered nurse, in Queensland, by the name of Rose. If you don’t believe me, smell the flower. You must let these memories go, they are causing you pain. Accept the truth and move on. It’s the only way out of this facility for you. From Councilor Jane”

Fiona – “If a flower I was once severely allergic to, now fails to affect me at all, perhaps I’m invincible. I have always enjoyed having wind in my face, today I have decided to learn how to fly. I only wish to offer Councilor Jane some advice; you should have locked the door to the roof.”

Props List

The props list was in table form and could not be copied across to my blog.
I have emailed it to you..
Thanks,

EDL

File/Clip Name


New2

HaS01

Op01

Op02

Op03

Op05

EZS01

Op06

EZT02

EZS04

grave

Sand02

Chap01

Chap02

Chap03

FS01

FS04

FS12

FS11

HS02

HS03

HS10

HS13

HS14

GOOD

CJS01

GOOD

DOG01

DOG03

DOG09

DOG07

DS01

DS03

DS02

DS03

DS02

DS03

SS01

SS03

SS04

SS04

SS05

SS07

SS06

SS09

SS12

End01

Genre Specific Elements

My film is a drama, i had once thought of making it a thriller but changed my mind. I wanted to make a film that really exploited its genre and with a thriller i knew i wouldn't have been able to do that quite as effectively. There are a couple twists in my movie which lean themselves to the thriller genre, such as when she discovers her dog is actually alive. I love the ending of my movie, it really confirms the dramatic ness of the story.  My music also helps create an effective dramatic basis to my film.

Transitions and Speical Effects

The only real special effect that i added was on the sandwich scene. Ts involved layering the footage, finding at start position that matched Claudia up, then the second layer changed the opacity. This enabled the people walking past to have a ghosted effect. I have put different filters on various scenes; however these don' t count as special effects. I have used transitions to hopefully make it clearer what memories are real, which are fake and what aren't memories at all. I have use cross dissolves as my primary transition, though have mixed i up by having the transitions dissolve to black o white, depending on the next scene. the white looks really effective, and he black looks more normal <-- as in seen more commonly. The white and black transitions are genre specific elements, creating a more suspenseful atmosphere.

Biggest Mistake

The largest mistake i have constantly made throughout this whole movie is that i haven't reflected enough. I don't purposefully not reflect rather i just forget to. This is a bad habit I've had from the beginning. Nevertheless, when i reflect i write larger reflections to make up for it. I hope i don't get marked done for not having an abundance of reflects, i think the time and effort i have put into all my assessments makes up for it.

Sandwich Scene Effect

Up until the start of this week, i still had no effect on the sandwich scene but i decided it was extremely necessary for me to have the effect on it. Initially it was Mr Andrews who came up with the specific idea of the effect; however it came form my idea of lots of people pass her yet she is never noticed. I opened up Finalcut again, as i also wanted to put in credits, and i sought Mr Andrews advice on how to do it. the end result is really quite effective, the people look like ghosts, perhaps implying they were never really there, maybe Fiona just thinks that if people were there, they would ignore her, and as she is ghosted as well maybe she doesn't see herself as a whole just fragmented, which all comes back to her being not mentally stable. So all worked out well from the sandwich scene effect.

What I Could Have Done Better With My Sound

Some transitions between loops could have been created/changed to sound a lot better than they did. Most where acceptable but one or two, I could never get quite right; however I gave it my best shot. I’m not the most musical person around so the sound was a little difficult in that regards. Nonetheless, garage band was created for people who have no musical ability, so that made my life a little easier. I could always hear if something sounded wrong, but I didn’t always know exactly how to change it straight away as I might if I were more musical, I just kept playing with it, changing loops and transition until it sounded better. The biggest thing I could have done better is that I could have finished it quicker in general, instead of wasting the couple of lessons I did at the beginning. With those extra couple of lesson I could have been less stressed at the end, had more help to develop and better my final sound track. So time management is something I still need to do better. With using Finalcut I learnt how to do things more effectively, this I tried to apply to garage band; however it wasn’t until later on that I got to doing things more efficiently.

Sound Ideas That Never Worked Out

I would have loved a heart rate monitor flat line sound, but it is a bit slack to assume Mr Andrews would drop everything to create one from scratch, so even though I requested it I didn’t hold my breath and created a ending that I could included it in but would be equally good without it. At one stage I thought perhaps I could have her breathing being the a undertone to the movie, as in each memory would have a different pace of breath depending on the emotion evicted by Fiona in each memory. This might have made the movie better, though more than likely it would have just confused the viewer as I’m not sure if I could have portrayed the meaning of the breathing clear enough.

Sound Process

The process of creating the sound track for the movie was a lot more stressful than what the Finalcut section was. The music isn’t about right or wrong conventions, or wether it looks good, it is about creating something to enhance your film, to add understanding, and emotion that soundless movies can’t. To make a soundtrack well, is to truly understand your characters and what your film is about. I believe I have done this extremely well, mostly because this is my story so know one is to know it better than myself. I could easily spend another week or two on my garage band truly perfecting it, but the standard it was when I handed it in is satisfying.

Film Ending

When I wrote the story I had in written it in that she dies I the end. However, it wasn’t until we actually started filming that I decided she should jump off the roof. I knew we couldn’t actually film her doing this, so we brainstormed and came up with that we will just film her running up the stairs. Once at the top Rebecca wanted to finish the shot by her walking through the door onto the roof, back facing the camera. I rejected this idea and thought it would be best if we then stood on the roof ourselves and shot Claudia when she stepped through the door. I told Claudia to have a solemn look on her face, to be at peace. Claudia did this better than I could have imagined. For me, Fiona committing suicide wasn’t purely because she was a lonely, depressive mental patient but that she could no longer keep battling with these memories, that is was her way of letting it all go. I thought the ending is happy in a way, her finding her peace, moving on to a better life. To symbolise this more I had suspenseful music playing whilst she ran up the stairs; however, was on the roof made her peaceful, reoccurring piano loop play, fading it into when her name tag is taken away.

Submitting Reflection

I have only just submitted my final version 100%completed into the drop box on the multimedia drive. It was due yesterday by 4pm but due to my stress levels and abrupt change of film length in garage band, I could not submitted by 4. I then tried to convert everything when I was in prep but for so reason it wouldn’t work, I had been told not to compress the file, so I didn’t. I tried exporting my sound out of Garage Band three times in three different ways that I could think of but yet none of them would work in final cut. I decided to leave it until today as we had creative to ask Mr Andrews to go through it step by step with me. He had already done this in class, I listened, but as he said everyone has to do it differently, because everyone did things in different ways. Anyway, its done now and only slightly late.

Reflection

I am now so far behind Bec and Claudia - who i was trying to pace myself by as time management isn't my strong point. My music is going no where and last lesson i was surrounded by talking people who kept distracting me. So i now sit by myself and work silently. I'm thinking about borrowing out a lap top for Thursday night and just doing a whole heap of my creative media, so I'm back on track. Last lesson Mr Andrews asked us all to print out the task sheets off blackboard and ring them to class, i printed them out but instead of putting them in my diary with everything else, i put them in my bag. This morning i was in a rush and i just grabbed my diary and forgot the sheets. Considering i printed out an extra sheet about reflections off blackboard, so i could improve them - i think the fact that i forgot my task sheet should be forgotten. I'm trying hard in creative media because i do like the subject but I'm pushed for time as my other subjects are very demanding. I'm trying to improve my reflections and reflect more frequently as i know its where I'm lacking.
To Do:
Basically my whole music sound track; i have picked the loops i like and placed them in the project, so that i don't lose the ones I've spent two lessons selecting; however, I'm yet to actually start placing things in the right spots and layering sounds.
Film the grave scene again and in the right format; this is if we get time to do it before we go overseas.
Put the extra effect on the sandwich scene - with Mr Andrews help.

Reflection

It is now week six and I'm really starting to try and start my music off. I am falling behind as i have so much other work at the moment, so i can't do creative media for homework. I never get to much done in class because there are so many distractions. Bec's and Claudia's progress with the music is making me feel in more behind. I really need to start getting more work done in class. One of my biggest problems, other than time management, is that I'm so indecisive when it comes to the music; i just don't know what i want and where. Also due to my bad memory, i keep forgetting to bring headphones which makes concentrating and making my music a whole lot harder. Next lesson I'm going to bring my headphones and work really hard.