Katy-ann: A-level Media : Media Studies Unit 2

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Media Coursework : Analysis of Posters and DVD Covers

Opposite are the three posters that I analysed for my coursework research. The 3 posters are (From top to bottom)

1) The Lovely Bones

2) The Blind Side

3) The Titanic

As more research I also analysed the film's DVD covers as well for comparison. (From top to bottom)

1) The blind Side

2) The Lovely Bones

3) The Titanic

Media Coursework :Research

For my coursework I had to come up with a film idea and chose how I would ‘make’ the idea come to life. I decided to create a script for my pre-production and a teaser poster and a DVD cover for my production tasks. I chose this option because I found through my practice task I was quicker at creating the script, and I enjoyed playing around with the dialogue, which means I can be more imaginative.

My film genre is going to be true story, as a friend of mine had a bad childhood and I wanted to show how not everyone has the perfect childhood and how they deal with these imperfections. To ensure anonymity, I altered the characters names and the situations so more people could relate to the idea. I did some secondary research on the genre by looking at different true films such as 'The Blind Side, 'Titanic', and 'The Lovely Bones'. I analysed film posters to get a better understanding of what my poster should convey, such as images/ typography to give the audience the correct image. Creating a mood board of true movie film posters/ DVD covers helped me to compare and contrast the types of colours/ layouts/ fonts used.

For script assistance I studied different types of scripts (websites mentioned below) and used Google’s search engine to look at different types of script layouts. Relating back to my practice task also gave me inspiration.

These are the questionnaires that my focus group filled in.

I undertook primary research through a focus group by asking them questions about my idea. I took note of their answers and adapted my work towards their responses. From this I decided to target my film towards the female population aged 12A and above.

When I knew who my target audience was, I started looking at audience theories. The one that applies to my work is the uses and gratification theory because it reflects my text and the theory shows how an audience can relate to what they see, which is the way want my target audience to react to my film.

My focus group also came up with more true movies:

Anne Frank
Boy in the striped pyjamas'
Call the midwife ( TV Drama Series)
Life of Pi
Music of the heart

For more research I looked at the marketing campaigns and DVD releases for these titles for inspiration. As the Life of Pi has recently been released, I compared all the film posters and made notes on what made the poster eye-catching and the composition of the whole text.

Using the BARB website I found that call the midwife had a rating of 10.18 million viewers on 30^th December 2012 and 10.85 million viewers on the 3^rd February 2013. This hints that there is a huge audience out there that enjoy watching films/TV series based on real life. This research helps with my marketing campaign as it shows that I would have to persuade a wide audience range to see my film.

Next I found different true story books for film title ideas. To help me decide, I wrote out a list of different titles that I came up with and narrowed it down to a top 3:

Losing reality
The reality of being me
Life is calling

I added these titles to my questionnaire and the focus group helped me to decide on LOSING REALITY as the title. Once I decided on the title it was time to write my script!

Here are some of the websites that I used to gather the research :

Evaluation of 'THE HOBBIT' project

Hey guys,

I know I have not updated my blog in a while, but I have a good excuse because over the Christmas holidays I have been working on a project that is going to prepare me for my coursework in 2013.

The project that I have been working is a marketing campaign for 'The Hobbit'. For the marketing campaign I had the task of :
*Doing background research about the book/film
*Create a storyboard for the first half of Chapter One of the book
* Write the pitch and treatment for the film
*Create a DVD cover
*Make a teaser poster for the film

For the research I read some of the book to get a better idea of the characters and settings and I looked on Google images for DVD covers of action-adventure films. I also created a mood board of all different interpretations of 'The Hobbit' and I created a list of the different films that were the same genre of the film, such as Tron, Harry Potter and a few more. Another thing that I did was look at different Harry Potter film posters for ideas.

I adapted the codes and conventions from the research through a number of different ways. For my pre-production tasks; the storyboard and the script, I used the mood boards to get an idea of what the characters could look like and I also read the book to see how the characters are conveyed and how the Author of the book, wanted the characters to speak.

For the research into the target audience, I looked at the age ratings for the rest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I also looked at the age ratings for other action-adventure. Another bit of research that I did was some secondary research on who would go and see an action-adventure film.I did this by looking at the codes and conventions of the film and seeing what audience it could appeal to.

I took all of the research for my target audience and used it in the process of creating my production artifacts. I did this by looking at all the research and deciding what age rating I should give the film and then designed the poster and the DVD cover based on what I thought would be suitable for the age rating. I also used Google to look at what the types of codes and conventions a film of that age rating portrayed.

After finishing my DVD cover and teaser poster I looked over them and I am happy with the way they turned out. Some of the features I am happy with are :
* I am happy with the colours that I used as I find they work well for what I am trying to convey.
*The design I have used works well with the colours.
*The layout of the design as it fits well on the cover . (The DVD)
* The design fits well with the story of the book.
*I believe that how I've drawn them conveys how I see it in my minds eye.

Looking over the production artifacts I have noticed that there are certain things that I could have done better.
* I could have spent more time on both of the designs
*There could have been more annotations on the products
* The poster could include more of the magical aspect of the book/film
* Maybe the colours on the poster could have been more realistic

The overall effectiveness of my final products is not as effective as it could be, however I do think that they work well with the film and the book. They also convey what I am trying to get across towards the audience, and for my first crack at doing this sort of thing, I think it turned out pretty well.