Filming

I started filming on January 27^th and finished filming today on the 28^th of February. The filming went generally well and I managed to get all of the appropriate shots I needed. Filming this time round I was more confident with how to handle the camera, I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of the camera. It was the same with the tripod which I didn’t need much of the time this time round as most of the the shots were constructed by running with the camera to simulate running in a blind panic. 

When I needed to redo some of the shots everyone understood what was needed, so nothing was difficult to do. Generally because of the simplicity of the shots was a surprisingly easy shoot. Now that I have finished filming and also have all the shots that needed to be corrected, I will be editing between now until I have finished.

My Production Logo Design

While editing I was brainstorming a few ideas on how I wanted my production logo to look. This time round I was more knowledgeable in using the software Premiere Pro on the Apple Mac computer and I came up with something simple and I think impressive. Initially I brainstormed ideas around 123 and ABC productions and then while fiddling with the software I came up with ‘Two Two Mirror Productions’, I liked this name it's catchy, simplistic and now all I had to do was make it.  While doing so I played with the word mirror so I decided to make a reflection of the word two. Below you can see the final product. 

Research - Production Logo

Production logos are often used as a brand, to market the quality of a movie, what genre it represents as well as signifying to the viewer who funded the film. These are used by a wide range of entertainment media companies, TV studios, film makers, studio theatres and animators. Production Logos are often seen at the beginning opening credits of a movie, if not always, and they play an important part in marketing what theme the movie will be about. For example, Walt Disney movies, are generally U certificate, PG or 12, it’s almost a natural order of film making that this company will not make or produce something with a 15 or 18 cert, which may follow more mature themes. The type of movie they market will be suitable for a young audience or for families, therefore, when an audience see’s their brand at the opening of the movie, they are comforted in the knowledge that the movie can be viewed almost universally by all ages.

Although, production logos are not just used for the consumer alone, companies need the opening films for advertising space for themselves. If the slot at the opening of films or at the end were not available to place the logo it would reduce the marketing and advertising advantage for the entertainment business, therefore it is a necessity. However, most movies usually show a production logo at the beginning rather than the end.

 

There are many production logos that are established and represent that the director or the filmmakers have had money put into the making of their movie, these are the likes of MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney pictures, Universal, and many more. These are all successful and longstanding giants above the likes of Pathe, Ealing studios or the BFI. Initially the graphics for a Production Logo would be represented by a cinematic theme, e.g. 20th Century Fox have searchlights which sweep, as would be the characteristic of a Hollywood red carpet party. On the other hand, with MGM, although the lion does seem random, it is representative of when viewing entertainment were Circuses where lions were a main attraction; beneath the lion the image is a theater mask again referring back to visual entertainment. These images refer back to examples of visual and theatrical entertainment, and therefore the graphics are not random but make references to what the branding is about. However the trend is different today, production logos are more about the company, rather than what they represent, Pathe on the other hand has a rooster which is the graphic for the logo brand. DreamWorks although successful and established, is a young studio company founded in 1998 in comparison to the likes of MGM and Fox Light. The graphic of the boy with a fishing rod sitting on a moon crescent in the sky, this may seem as if this does not represent TV or film entertainment, however the use of this was to follow the current trend into CGI, many movies were beginning to use computer generated images for movie making. The founders of DreamWorks therefore wanted to characterise this. Hence the name and the logo do fit, although it may seem initially that the usage could seem random.

Furthermore, pre 1990’s production logos were often ‘still’ images, however, as film making advances, production companies are under pressure to keep up with viewing habits. 20th Century Fox now have moving searchlights, Pathe now have an animated logo, where the name ‘Pathe’ is on a string, and as it turns the shadow is that of a rooster. However, Pathe when founded in 1908, was a production logo used not for entertainment, but for broadcasting news. However in current years, has made the move to producing and funding films, particularly less mainstream quality movies. It is now a strongly advocated company in regards to film making and has earned its position amongst the ranks of more Hollywood and LA based film studios.

As you can see with the MGM logo, the competition, year on year increases for movie makers, and for studios, they have continuously evolved their logo’s to keep up with trends and cinematic technology. As you can see below, MGM, which had a ‘moving’ production logo of a lion roaring, has become over time colourful, as filming moved forward from black and white motion pictures to colour, and now today from standard filming to computer generated images. Here you can see how their logo has evolved, and will continue to as technology in filming continues to evolve too.

My Film Magazine Cover

After my magazine cover research, I started to brainstorm ideas how to make my magazine cover. I wanted in the end to make a magazine dedicated to one type of genre. So I decided to make a horror film magazine. From the research I had many ideas on how to construct a magazine cover. The software I used to make the magazine cover was Photoshop. I used this software on my Mac home computer. I did at first have to fiddle with the layers and the gradient colour filter before I actually started, as I had got a lot of practice using Photoshop when I constructed my poster the magazine cover was easy. Below you can see a picture of the magazine cover in progress.

While making the film magazine I wanted to add a few more USP's to make it stand out more and draw the most attention. I did this by going onto a royalty free website called Deviant Art from here I filtered out some horror images and chose a few to include on the magazine cover. 

It didn’t take me long to have a magazine film title because I just played with the words ‘Fangoria’ and made ‘Gore-Mania’. I used blood red and black as my colour scheme, this is common to the horror genre convention. I liked the idea of using a section of film strip containing picture stills of other possible articles. This film strip convention is not only common to Fangoria but I've also seen it used by the more mainstream magazines such as Empire and Total Film. Another USP I included was that of the free poster, also common to many popular film magazines. 

I included a bar code for added realism and placed the issue date and price on the top left hand corner. This is unusual, most magazines place the price near the bar code and the issue date on the top right, usually below right of the title. Under the title I included a humorous strapline "You'll need your Mummy, reading this magazine...", using the "play on words" double meaning of "mummy" in the context of the horror specialty of the magazine. 

I exploited the rule of space convention and avoided any text above the horizon leaving a large vacant space in the middle of the magazine cover. I also used another USP in the form of an exclusive behind the scenes look at the featured film with the features listed justified to the right in bold yellow text. In addition I added another USP calling the magazine a "special edition". Aside from the title of the featured film which used the same font as the promotional poster, all other text on the cover used the same font as the magazine title text except the date, price and edition text which used another font.

Below you can see the finished product.

Research – Magazine Covers 7 Fangoria

Fangoria is an internationally-distributed US film fan magazine specializing in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films.

 

The magazine cover mainly focuses on horror films. Which is why there is a dead woman on the front cover, next to the picture is the title ‘Ghost Story’. The left hand side shows a section of film strip containing 3 pictures with bright bold yellow text underneath each indicating several other articles inside the magazine. The colour scheme is all dark with red and yellow. The title font fits well with the theme of the magazine as does the title itself,  it proudly proclaims what the magazine is all about, "fangs" and "gore". If your in any doubt then it also includes a strapline under the title proclaiming what else the magazine likes to cover, "Monsters","Aliens" and "Bizarre Creatures". The magazine sticks to this layout convention from issue to issue, hardly ever deviating from it.

 

Below are some more examples:

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangoria

Research Magazine Covers 6 Variety

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine.

 

This magazine cover features two of the main characters from a James Bond film, they also show the Bond logo. The colour scheme is blue shades in the background and black suit for Bond and dark mauve for the Bond girl. The text uses a bold white font and all of it seems to be dedicated to the Bond film, no other article is mentioned.

Below is another example, this seems more conventional, with a title banner across the top using Variety's distinctive font in the largest size of any font on the cover. The cover features a publicity close-up still of George Clooney from the film "Descendents" and all the text is left justified in a column on the left, carefully avoiding his face.  Again all the text is dedicated to the featured film, no other articles are mentioned.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_%28magazine%29

Research – Magazine Cover 5 Starlog

Starlog was a magazine specializing in science fiction and fantasy genre of movies, television series, and books. 

The front cover shows the main character of the new film ‘Conan the Barbarian’. It shows him holding a weapon; there is  text right next to him in bright yellow emphasising that you can read the reviews in this magazine. The colour scheme for this cover is mostly yellow, orange and white. They are a very bright colour scheme.This draws the attention to the text as it stands out from the background. Generally this magazine list its articles in bold, bright text in a column justified mostly to the left. In some cases where more information is needed on the cover, also to the right

 

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlog

Research – Magazine Cover 4 Sight & Sound

Sight & Sound is a serious film magazine, it reviews films with the sort of literary rigor reserved for books, this may be because  the magazine is the longest running film magazine in the country. The magazine reviews all film releases each month, including those with a limited release, as opposed to most film magazines which concentrate on those films with a general release. Sight and Sound is also known to include a full cast and crew credit list for each film reviewed .

This magazine cover shows only the director of the film instead of any of the main characters from the film. This shows the kind of magazine that Sight and Sound is, it is not interested in hype. The magazine title banner remains consistent from issue to issue and hardly ever changes. The covers usually feature stars or directors in simple poses, generally specifically shot for the cover. This is in contrast to Empire or Total Film which tend to use material given them by the studios. Sight and Sound tends to list more of their features on its front covers than other magazines. Fonts they use are generally less eye catching and less colourful, presumably because their philosophy is not to promote but report.

Reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound

Research – Magazine Cover 3 Film Review

Film Review was a very popular monthly film magazine, it specialised in film related news and information, its approach was a little more high brow than Total Film or Empire but they none the less appealed to those interested in the more mainstream releases. It ceased publication in 2009.

 

I have found this magazine cover on the internet through Google images. I thought it would be good to analyze the main conventions of an older magazine cover. You can see that the picture of ‘James Bond’ aka Sean Connery is covering a part of the ‘Film Review’ title this is okay, as it is such a well known magazine that people will still know what it is. 

It also talks about other films and articles that the magazine will have and most of these are showing these because of their popularity. I like the style in which ‘Film Review’ is laid out; there is also a quote from a reviewer of the film, which is a good tactic to use to lure the reader in. This will make the reader want to know more about the film, as it has had good reviews. I could also include this convention.

Also most of the space is dedicated to Sean Connery there no other small pop ups showing images of other film inside the magazine only text is shown and that at the very sides to making sure they don’t cover his face. This is a really good technique to use because all of the attraction will be on the main character, this will draw the reader to what we want them to look at (voyeurism).

The color scheme is also picked to fit in with the character that is featured on the front cover; so for example, this one is bright and white to fit in with his suit and gun. Below the are a few more I found, notice how they use more unfamiliar conventions the older they get. The oldest magazine uses a bubble to highlight a feature and the fonts are smaller, less colourful and less appealing.

 

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_Review_%28magazine%29