Planning - Poster

Now that we have completed our filming, we know what shots and images we have to display on our poster and magazine cover, therefore we thought we would mind map a few ideas as to what we are going to include on our poster for this film:


From deconstructing existing posters we've found that the main features are:
- A main image that in some way relates to the film, managing to indicate the genre
- The date of release
- a website
- production and distribution details
- the rating of the film which will be a 15
- a tag line for the film


By identifying these features we can work with them and put them all together to construct a poster to promote our film.

Completed Film Magazine Cover

This is our completed magazine cover, from our previous deconstructions, we gained knowledge of the conventional features and therefore tried to amply it to our magazine cover.

This is a deconstruction of our magazine cover, we did this to show why we used certain things and how effective they are. 

Editing - Film Magazine Cover

We decided to edit our magazine cover on a program called Photoscape. Due to the fact that we were unable to include the funeral aspect in our trailer, we felt we would take photos of our main character in black as if she has just been to a funeral. Along with this, we wanted her pose to be away from the camera, almost as if she is to upset to look up therefore conveying her feelings.  We did a photo-shoot against a white wall with a spot light in the hope of increasing the professional nature of our magazine.  These are some photos from our photo shoot. We each took a turn to take photos to ensure we got each of our ideas across, including different each of our different positions and angles. Her image in these photos really emphasise the change she goes through by the end of the film. 

 These are photos taken of our group taking photos. This is also our original image that we used on our magazine 





 In order to gain the best picture we could we downloaded some editing software - Photo scape. This allowed us to edit our original photo, add text, add more pictures if necessary and other effects that we found useful. We did encounter some problems when making the title for our magazine cover ‘latest’ we had to create this on paint to get exactly the font and size that we wanted. We then added this as if it were a picture and aligned it exactly with the image.

when editing in paint we did have to make sure every letter was black around the edges and some had white patches. We did this to ensure it looked realistic. 

This is some of the features of photo scape we used. The main features that we used were resize, bright,colour, sharpen and bloom. 

At first, we edited our original photo to much and found that it did not look as effective, there was to much change that was not needed. We compared this to our original photo and found we preferred that one. Therefore we began again, we simply edited lightly rather than changed everything. We changed Deepen, brighten, and darken. 

We edited so much so that the light from the spotlight blended to much with her face. I was hard to see her nose and left side of her face clearly therefore we started again. 

We also inserted text. This was key to our magazine cover, we had a consistent font through out along with colour scheme. More will be shown in the deconstruction of our final magazine cover.

On the original photo, the lamp stick was clearly visible and we felt that it effected the picture making it less professional and realistic. We used something called ‘clone stamp’ this meant that we could duplicate part of the image, so we did this on the area very next to the lamp stand in the picture, meaning we kept the colour consistency from dark to light. This allowed us to get rid of this area and it looks as if it were the wall. 

We were also able to crop the image, we did this as the shape of the photo was not like a magazine. We cropped the top and the bottom part, we did this so that the title would cover part of the actress' head. This is very typical of magazine covers as everything is linked together. 

Although we did encounter some difficulties with the title, and our original editing with to much. We felt that we managed to complete it successfully and the completed product looks realistic. 

Deconstructions of Existing Magazine Covers

We decided it would be beneficial to de-construct magazine covers like we did trailers. By looking at all the different features of existing magazine covers we can gain knowledge of what the typical conventions are and therefore create a successful realistic magazine. We also used the same magazine covers and posters for the films in the trailers we de-constructed so that we can compare how they link together and work together to promote the film.

Planning - Magazine Cover

Next we wanted to mind map the name of our magazine cover and what we would include on the magazine cover as we now know what we have that we can include:


Possible names for our magazine cover:
- Up-Coming
- Catch Up
- Coming Soon
- Just
- Latest 
- Weekly Thrills
- Thriller Week
- Film Times


All of these possible names our based either around our films genre; so a magazine that is dedicated completely to thriller films. On the other hand other possible names have stemmed from the idea of a magazine which shows the new releases and upcoming films that are going to be released. The second choice would reach a much larger audience as it would not just appeal to thriller audiences however the first choice would promote our film very well as to be a thriller


Aspects that we must include on our magazine cover is:
- 'New star answers your questions: 'D.I.D You' - this is relating to a special feature inside the magazine as the actress appearing in our film is new to the industry and answers questions sent in by readers e.g. Did you enjoy doing this movie? 
- The main image of the front cover - this will be our main character and we will also say who took the photographs 
- We will include the Name of the magazine, the barcode along with the price and date - this will be make our magazine look more realistic. 
- 'Top 10 films this Christmas' - another feature inside that will include our upcoming film 'D.I.D You' and other films that are out this Christmas and this is often a good feature during December to have within a magazine.


We decided on the name: Latest. We didn't want our magazine to be named specifically to a certain genre like thriller. We felt that 'Latest' as a name was short and catchy and memorable. 

Completed Film Trailer

This is our final trailer, and we have added captions to our video on YouTube to explain what certain features have been used. Our film trailer is relatively short, but we feel perfect for television. From audience research we found that over half of our audience watch trailers mainly on television and therefore this will reach more people.

As you can see, we de-constructed existing products like trailers, posters and magazine covers therefore with the products we created I'm going to de-construct them to give an insight as to why we have done certain things. 

The first still represents really the heart of the story. The whole plot revolves around the mother, Helena and the events that occur due to the death of her baby therefore this shot introduces the characters. By having this as a first shot we see happiness and innocence due to the white colour themed setting. However, immediately in the trailer it soon goes very negative. As you can see the rest of the stills in comparison to the first are very dark and creates an eerie atmosphere. The costumes and setting manage to convey where she is well and this is the hospital.

The second still introduces the company who produced this film: S.E.R Productions and as you can see we have a colour theme throughout our trailer. The main colour scheme is red and black which is typical of films with dark themes therefore conventional of trailers. The black background allows the red and white to appear more vibrant and therefore catch the eye of the audience. The red smoke represents blood but also anger for the loss of her child and her not finding answers.

The third still shows the baby in his cot in a darkened room which creates an atmosphere and indicates that something bad is about to happen. Due to the lighting we were able to create shadows and we’ve created a shadow of a hand going over the baby’s got which we thought would be able to represent the baby being taken away from her  mother. Although we find out that it is actually her who kills her baby, by doing this we through the audience off as they think that it has been taken from her therefore they do not realise any twist and turns in the plot which is crucial for a successful thriller film. We also used a high shot to show the baby as inferior to whatever this is and seem helpless.

The fourth still shows our main character sleeping and drifting into a dream. We have managed to convey this by using the camera to pan up to wall as this is often associated with dreams. The dark lighting indicates night time which is when bad things tend to happen and this is iconic of films.

The fifth shows the dream that our main character and we did have trouble with the lighting however it is clear what is happening, this conveys the killing of the baby but it is not clear who did it. This is essentially one of the most important parts of the film as this is what is going to unfold as the storyline continues. We also made it a mid-shot as we did not want to make this scene to graphic as it is a sensitive subject.

For the sixth still, we used a low angle here to show the private investigator arriving at Helena’s house in the film. We felt that a low angle would convey how superior he is to Helena. He has the power to give her answers that no one else can and therefore this shot conveys this well. It also establishes the location of her home; this location is very thrilling as to have these things happen in her home where she feels safe it just adds to the tension of the film.

The seventh still displays an extreme close up shot of her eyes, this part of the film is when she is really suffering from her illness and the close up of the eyes manages to convey emotion and feelings but is also quiet unnerving for the audience.  This shot also allowed us to really show the make-up of her face that we have used. We used dark eye-shadow to convey bruises which only adds to the mystery of this. The audience will be question how did she get these bruises? This will be an aspect which will hopefully motivate them to go and watch this film.

The eight still is crucial to the trailer as it is the title, D.I.D YOU? Special effects are in use with the red smoke that we used and also with the star flashing through the middle of the title which together really emphasises the title.

The final still is of the release date, the production companies information/logo and website, however we have constructed this part of the trailer so that the release date and website are on the frame before to give the audience time to concentrate on that image, but then fades into the production and distribution details.

Audio Track for Film Trailer

When mind mapping ideas for our film name, we came up with 'Rock-a-Bye-Baby' which would represent the innocence of the new born baby but also the alliteration in the title 'Bye-Baby' would mirror the story line as the mother is forced to say good bye to her baby. From this we decided that we wanted to continue this nursery rhyme theme however create a creepy and mysterious version of one to ensure it fitted with the thriller genre. 


Our initial software which we were going to use was 'Audacity' in which would could create our soundtrack however we were not confident in using this software as we were not sure we could get exactly the right effect that we wanted. Especially as we had a very specific idea of what we wanted. If we had started from scratch and not had an idea, then this software would have been useful. However, we decided to look on YouTube for a nursery rhyme that we could possibly edit instead of starting from scratch.


We found 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' edited on YouTube in a way that was very creepy and therefore we thought we would use this for our trailer. We also asked permission for us to use this to avoid any copyright issues. Although 'Twinkle Twinkle Littler Star' is in the public domain (meaning that anyone can use this song) we still wanted to get permission. We also ensured that we made it clear that we would include their names in the credits.

We did get a reply and therefore were able to use this music in our trailer. Here is the link for the audio music:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfKem06m7Ys

We felt that this audio was perfect for our trailer because of the structure: it begins slowly, very calm and peaceful which reflects the situation in the beginning of the trailer. As it continues, small sections begin to get louder, but then go quiet which unnerves the audience. Mid way through the trailer, the pace begins to speed up dramatically which creates tension and an atmosphere. However, very sharply and quickly the music goes quieter again which just adds to the drama. We felt that combined with the trailer picking up the pace, the music would work perfectly with it.

This is audio is non synchronous which is defined as audio-track sounds that are mismatch or out of conjunction or unison with the images in the visual frame (or screen) sometimes accidental but sometimes intentional. This is intentional as our soundtrack does not exactly match the frames however this has been done to represent the unstable nature of our character.