Script:
To ensure our media products look as professional and high quality as possible we looked at a number of existing real media products and noted what we liked and disliked about them. This way, we were able to use our favourite parts of each product (including the film's trailer, poster and magazine cover) and change the parts we didn't like about them to improve our products further.
Trailer
Once we had decided on a plot for our trailer, we could categorise it into a genre of dance, and therefore look at similar products' trailers. There are three main influences that we used from existing media products and put into our trailer.
Firstly, after watching the trailer for Center Stage we immediately liked the shots of the ballet dancers stretching, as it built up tension using the short clips and range of shots. We then decided that we could use similar shots of Lauren (playing Savannah) stretching at home in our trailer. We did this at her house as we tried to show the audience that Lauren was not a professional dancer by the fact she was falling when doing stretches and struggling.
Secondly and similarly to the first influence, on the trailer for Billy Elliot there were many fast paced shots of him practicing his ballet at home in a mirror. We liked the way that as Lauren was practicing to herself in a mirror it gives across a message that she is an amateur at ballet but also very passionate about it as she is doing it in her free time.
Our final influence was inspired by the film Black Swan. It features a shot following a girl in the spotlight ballet dancing on stage. It was a very effective shot as all eyes were on the ballet dancer as the lighting meant that the rest of the shot was in complete darkness. We featured a similar shot to this at the end of our trailer, which was a shot of Lauren ballet dancing in the spotlight on stage, but differed the original by the fact that it was a long shot from a distance away from the stage and lasted a long time without being cut.
Poster
Our main inspiration for the poster was from the Centre Stage poster. When designing our poster we looked at al our initial influences' posters to see how they had made their trailer's storyline into one picture. The Centre Stage poster feautures the main characters with the soles of their ballet shoes facing the camera. From the shoes being the main feature of this poster, we then thought of using the two types of shoes: ballet and trainers, to represent Lauren's two personalities within the film would be a simple and effective way of displaying this on a poster. However, we then went one step further and realised that we could include the lower body in the shot which would show more of the two costumes and would hint to the audience clearly exactly what the plot of the film would be. By doing this and also not including the face, it meant on a practical note we were more able to produce our posters without involving Lauren as she was very busy, meaning Mia and I could pose for the photographs.
Our poster also features a tag line and a release date at the bottom, as from researching film posters we found that this was very common throughout the posters as it gives the audience a hint of the plot through the tag line, and then directly tells them when they can go and see the film by the date being on there.
Magazine Cover
With the task of designing our magazine cover, the first thing we had to think about was which magazine would feature Believe on the front cover. After researching film magazines such as Sight & Sound, Little White Lies, Empire and Odeon, we realised that Odeon magazine would best suit the plot and genre of our film, as the other magazines featured either a lot of independant films or action blockbusters in Empire's case. After some more research we found a Odeon magazine with a Twilight featured cover. By looking at this, we were able to copy and edit the title to look as similar as possible to the font, as well as use similar content features for the magazine on the front of our cover.
One particular piece from the Twilight magazine which inspired us was the lens-flare effect put onto the lettering. This added a glow to the font and make it really stand out. We then found a similar effect on Photoshop and decided to place this on the 'Odeon' and also 'Believe' lettering which adds elegance to the page and connotates the glamour of ballet.
Trailer
Once we had decided on a plot for our trailer, we could categorise it into a genre of dance, and therefore look at similar products' trailers. There are three main influences that we used from existing media products and put into our trailer.
Firstly, after watching the trailer for Center Stage we immediately liked the shots of the ballet dancers stretching, as it built up tension using the short clips and range of shots. We then decided that we could use similar shots of Lauren (playing Savannah) stretching at home in our trailer. We did this at her house as we tried to show the audience that Lauren was not a professional dancer by the fact she was falling when doing stretches and struggling.
Secondly and similarly to the first influence, on the trailer for Billy Elliot there were many fast paced shots of him practicing his ballet at home in a mirror. We liked the way that as Lauren was practicing to herself in a mirror it gives across a message that she is an amateur at ballet but also very passionate about it as she is doing it in her free time.
Our final influence was inspired by the film Black Swan. It features a shot following a girl in the spotlight ballet dancing on stage. It was a very effective shot as all eyes were on the ballet dancer as the lighting meant that the rest of the shot was in complete darkness. We featured a similar shot to this at the end of our trailer, which was a shot of Lauren ballet dancing in the spotlight on stage, but differed the original by the fact that it was a long shot from a distance away from the stage and lasted a long time without being cut.
Poster
Our main inspiration for the poster was from the Centre Stage poster. When designing our poster we looked at al our initial influences' posters to see how they had made their trailer's storyline into one picture. The Centre Stage poster feautures the main characters with the soles of their ballet shoes facing the camera. From the shoes being the main feature of this poster, we then thought of using the two types of shoes: ballet and trainers, to represent Lauren's two personalities within the film would be a simple and effective way of displaying this on a poster. However, we then went one step further and realised that we could include the lower body in the shot which would show more of the two costumes and would hint to the audience clearly exactly what the plot of the film would be. By doing this and also not including the face, it meant on a practical note we were more able to produce our posters without involving Lauren as she was very busy, meaning Mia and I could pose for the photographs.
Our poster also features a tag line and a release date at the bottom, as from researching film posters we found that this was very common throughout the posters as it gives the audience a hint of the plot through the tag line, and then directly tells them when they can go and see the film by the date being on there.
Magazine Cover
With the task of designing our magazine cover, the first thing we had to think about was which magazine would feature Believe on the front cover. After researching film magazines such as Sight & Sound, Little White Lies, Empire and Odeon, we realised that Odeon magazine would best suit the plot and genre of our film, as the other magazines featured either a lot of independant films or action blockbusters in Empire's case. After some more research we found a Odeon magazine with a Twilight featured cover. By looking at this, we were able to copy and edit the title to look as similar as possible to the font, as well as use similar content features for the magazine on the front of our cover.
One particular piece from the Twilight magazine which inspired us was the lens-flare effect put onto the lettering. This added a glow to the font and make it really stand out. We then found a similar effect on Photoshop and decided to place this on the 'Odeon' and also 'Believe' lettering which adds elegance to the page and connotates the glamour of ballet.
We also really liked the colours of the font used on the magazine cover with the fuchsia pink and black theme. We decided to keep to this colour scheme because it could easily relate to our storyline and ballet theme. We also added in a subtitle called 'The Dance Edition' as we wanted to ensure the audience were fully aware of why the black and pink colour scheme was so strong.
When thinking about the positioning and pose of Lauren on the cover, we researched into other magazine covers and found that many of them featured the main actor/actress of the film but in a natural pose in character. Because of this, we placed Lauren sat on the floor in a posey but natural position, meaning the audience would be aware that it was a ballet film due to her costume, but also may feel like they're getting to know the actress aswell as the part she plays in Believe, which could boost the publicity and make them more interested in seeing the film.
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