POSTER DESIGN IDEA- JACOB

JACOB:

The disco ball and its shimmer over the images of Lola convey that the programme will be about a star. The three images show three different sides of Lola, and how they are merged together in black and white looks effective.

The glowing channel 4 logo ensures the audience can see the channel clearly, and the 'coming soon' entices them to keep an eye out for further promotion later.

Even though I kept the poster fairly simple I still believe it to be still a bit too busy, as I know that a lot of the time simple images, fonts and colours etc collected together often work much more efficiently in advertising a product. However in this case I still like to think I finished this design to quite a good standard.

Still the theme of this documentary is about someone outspoken so the collective images of Lola on a fairly busy background could quite well in the final design.

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A key concept behind this design was the idea of a tacky tribute act poster that would be common to see in working mens clubs etc. With Lola now a failed star I thought this would work well although would not make an obvious comparison to everyone who would see the poster. For the design I used a variety of tools, mainly layering to move the pictures of Lola around each other resulting in a collective and good looking composition allowing the different pictures of her showing different moods to be set perfectly side by side for the maximum effect the pictures could achieve.

The poster was edited through Photoshop. The images of Lola were then altered through moving the contrast which allowed them to stand out on the green background and achieve the 'tacky' effect. I then I used the burn tool, to darken certain features of Lola's face to emphasise the mood. The images were then blended into the background using the blur tool.

The '4' icon at the bottom of the poster was a focus point, so I used a contrasting yellow colour to allow it pop out to draw attention. To achieve maximum effect I used a glow instead of colouring the entire image in yellow. The inside was white and the outside glowed yellow. I achieved this editing the style settings under layers.

POSTER DESIGN IDEA- AMBER

I chose two main images to represent the rise and fall of Lola; on the left she is looking up hopefully and on the right she looks down and defeated. The channel 4 logo clarifies the channel it will be shown on clearly. The five-star rating from Heat magazine gives the programme credibility to entice viewers, as does the 'coming soon'. The white background keeps it simplistic, and the pink glow around Lola gives her a quality to reflect the fact that she was a star.

Another idea behind the two moods of Lola set in this poster drew comparisons for the advertisement shots for the similar television programme Kerry Katona whats the problem?

The idea behind that poster focused on Kerrys suposed bipolar condition, even though that obviously isn't a theme in our film Kerrys character and the concept behind their been two sides (the rise and the fall) could be applied to our final design.

POSTER DESIGN IDEA- AMY

POSTER RESEARCH - AMBER, AMY, JACOB

As our project is a 5 minute extract from a television documentary, posters are often a rare tool used in advertising in this case.

It would be better to take in inspiration from posters used in blanket realeased documentaries shown in mainstream cinema.

The main image summarises the subject of the documentary clearly; his shocked expression and the amount of fries stuffed into his mouth indicate that it will be about the fast food industry- namely McDonalds. The simplicity of the poster attracts and keeps the attention of the audience; his wide eyes and open mouth draw you in.

The colours used (yellow and red) are the colours of McDonalds and their slogan, “I’m Lovin’ it!” is used by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone out of context, to praise the documentary rather than the company. As mentioned, the colours represent McDonalds and the font of “ME” is very wide, perhaps to symbolise the weight that the man will gain as a result of his “super sized” diet. The tag line “A Film of Epic Portions” is a play on “epic proportions”, and again this helps to give the audience ideas of what it will be about, also hinting that it will be funny. Reviews from journalists give the programme credibility, as do the award nominations. The link to the website for the documentary allow the audience to find out more about it if they want.

The text of the name of the film gives a “rock and roll effect” giving the audience a sense of the content of the film. It has a shine effect making it seem like it is made of metal, this once again adds to the tough “rock and roll” feel of the film.

The tagline makes the film seem like an epic story about the two men’s lives however when taking it in context of the rest of the poster it seems that this could be seen has humorous rather than serious.

This particular poster has a lot of quotes and awards to advertise the film drawing in potential viewers by giving it credibility. This gives the film a U.S.P which is very important when selling a film in order to gain a lot of profit. Who the quotes are from indicate the target audience of the film magazines like “kerrang” and “rolling stone” show that the target audience would actually be people who are interested in rock music. Also magazines like “maxim” show that the film would be more suited to a male audience.

The image gives more of an indication to the genre of the film the fact that the men are quite old and scantily dressed would lean to the idea that this film could be a comedy. The expression of the men portray the feel that the men take them selves quite seriously, their clothes and poses give the idea that the actually think that they are very good rock stars. I get the feeling that this could be the opposite of the actual situation which would once again make the film be a comedy.

This poster is a teaser for the upcoming documentary Babies which follows four babies first year of their lives in seperate corners of the globe. Each segment of the poster creates a distinct colour creating a more visiual impact on how each child is from a different country. The fonts are simple in white and blue with the pleasant tagline "everybody loves BABIES" reflecting the light hearted subject of this film.

Man on Wire was 2008 documentary film about Frenchman Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Centre in 1974. Yet again the poster focuses on simple fonts but across a powerful but basic image without any obvious editing. This the poster a distinct eye-catcher with all the focus being on what appears to be Philippe in the middle of is high wire walk.

Food,Inc. was another 2008 film focusing on a much hard hitting subject of corporate farming in America. Like the poster forSupersize Methe poster takes a humorous approach to what can be seen as a serious issue. Another basic poster lacking a busy set of images. The tagline and the image of the barcode on the cow all add to the theme and effect of the poster allowing it become more eyecatching and reflect the actual topic of the film.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK ON THE FILM- JACOB

To gather audience feedback for our project the final film was posted on YouTube to gain comments to help us make any changes if completley necessary and to just generally learn about what people thought of our work.

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T2t0hXf0C0

The link was posted on Facebook, this gave us a wide range of contacts to review our film particularly our target audience of 16 - 24 year olds. Also we interviewed class members to gain more direct feedback.

"this is really good! i though the video had a clear storyline, it followed on and made sense. I especially liked the ending of the boy waving the piece of paper and the intro was clever."

"I thought the first shots worked very well, sets the doc up properly. I think you've created and portrayed the character of Lola brilliantly. The slow motion works well too, like where she's smoking, it looks like she's loving it, but you're having fun at her expense. Works in that sarcastic c4 kinda way.The one criticism I would have is when you write "hidden camera footage" it should either just be overdubbed, or maybe footnoted? Make it a little more subtle. Also, it's good you've got the "fans" involved! Helps to make it feel realistic!"

"A fast paced, funny documentary, i liked the use of hidden camera footage and thought it was very well filmed all together."

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Even though we allowed people to post comments on YouTube this was not enough. With limited access to YouTube accounts we set about interviewing people in class directly along with our friends on Facebook via the links we sent. In class we were able to receive direct feedback and were able to set about on any problem brought up quickly. However time was as an obvious restraint to how much we could actually change about the film. One student noted upon how the exterior of Lola's house wasn't seen during the film and it would work well as an establishing shot if we could find a building to use as the outside of Lola's house.

We were able to find a block of flats not far from college and able to generate a quick establishing shot outside to solve the problem. This was not time consuming and was one of the few problems brought up through the audience feedback that we thought personally would affect the quality of our film.

YouTube LINK TO FINAL FILM - AMBER, AMY, JACOB

REPRESENTATION- AMBER

The main focus of our documentary is a woman, Lola Rouge. Women in the media often are subject to stereotyping of gender roles: namely a sexual, domestic or passive role. Imagining our documentary was real, and that Lola was real, she does not adhere to these negative stereotypes. Although delusional, she has a strong character and is very dominant in her manner. However, the fact that she was once a famous singer -and particularly in the performance scenes- she does take on a role based on physical appearance and attractiveness, as it is a huge part of who she is.

Class is also a theme in our documentary. Lola was once a superstar, and the differences in her lifestyles (before and after her downfall) are evident. Her clothing changes dramatically, from a glitzy dress to a tracksuit- a stereotypical clothing choice of "chavs" (a working class stereotype). The view of the exterior of her home also highlights a working class / underclass lifestyle.

TITLE SEQUENCES- AMY

Creative Review's best film titles of all time:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/july1/film-titles-list

The Internet Movie Database's list of top and bottom rated documentary titles:
http://www.imdb.com/chart/documentary



Some documentaries have footage, then a short title sequence, and then the rest of the documentary, followed by the closing credits; others have the titles and some opening credits immediately; others use variations of these.
In our documentary we hope to have a short title sequence immediately.

'WHEN LOVE TAKES OVER'- AMY

In our documentary we are using the song 'When Love Takes Over' by David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. Usually on projects like this copyright music is not allowed to be used however after looking at the terms and conditions of Kelly Rowland’s record label we found we could use the piece if it was for educational purposes with out breaching the copyright law; below is the actual paragraph from the website:

Can I email a request to be serviced with promotional product?
Though we have plans to make this service available, it is not at this time, sorry. Please note: The use of any of the information, artwork, photographs or music contained herein is solely and entirely for home entertainment and educational purposes.

RISK ASSESSMENT- JACOB