Finished Magazine Cover

I am really happy with my magazine cover and think it fills all the connotations for a horror cover special. The image I chose is quite simple, a close up of the killer (Colleen) but she looks quite distant with a blank expression which is the character we are trying to get across. Also i think the viewer is getting an insight into the character as this is the most we have seen of her yet. The colours used, black, red and white follow traditional horror colours, dark, gloomy and bloody which works well with the genre. The taglines i created are supposed to draw in a audience... 'win' 'exclusive' 'latest reviews' are all used to make the audience feel like they are reading something extra special and that they are getting something from the magazine with the prizes. I have included other horror films so that fans of these films may be intrigued - appealing to a larger target audience. I think the cover looks professional and fits with the horror theme as well as working well with our trailer.

Magazine Cover Research

I have started looking in to other film magazines for ideas of what i need to include on my cover and have also looked back at  last year's magazine project research. Empire and Total Film are two of the most popular magazines and therfore the one's i looked into most, but i did find a few more obscure film magazines such as Sight & Sound and Preview.
We decided to call our magazine Premiere as it's a term well know in the film industry but also it gives a sense of seeing the information before others - First Look. Premiere is additionally a sharp, simple word which rolls of the tounge, making a perfect magazine name.
The photos which appear on magazine covers are often of one single person (main character in a new film), with most magazines using a close up of their face or mid shot showing some of their clothing. They are always capturing the audience's attention with eye contact - the viewer relates better to the image this way. The photos often have a plain or limited background colour which gives more space and freedom for taglines and other images. We are going to pick a photo which fits in well with the above guidelines - making our cover as proffesional as possible.
Taglines are the other very important feature on a magzine. They need to link to the main image as well as the issue (maybe a special). Total Film often use one very large tagline which is about the image, using the film name and quotes from actors, directors, reviews etc. This works well as viewers like to know other people's opinions, especially if stars themself. Smaller taglines are also used, spoilers, quotes, competitions etc. These all have their own way of drawing in readers.
I hope i include lots of these features when producing my magazine - me and Colleen are going to make a cover each then either combine them or choose the best on to submit :D

Photo for Film Poster

Colleen has drawn up some rough ideas for our film poster; what could be featured, layout and compostion etc. We decided to start taking some pictures and play about with the ideas. We managed to get a wide variety of photos - some of which came out well and others that will need a large amount of editing. We have uploaded a selction to our Flickr page.
If you look through our photostream you can see three photos which have already been edited - we had a quick play around with the photo's for experimentation!

film...

Today we did some more filiming, making use of the college equipment and our actor Tom. The idea is that he is one of the victims and therfore we wanted to get some footage of him being 'haunted' by our scary main character and some scared expressions. We filmed quite a lot and took a range of different shots and angels which i feel was very productive!
Later on in the lesson we uploaded our footage and started editing...at the moment our skills are very amateur and need working on but here is a clip of what we got up to:

Obviously this needs a lot more work - especially the lighting as the sequence where the taps are supposed to turn on without anyone touching them doesn't run smooth. We may need to refilm this or just use the editing software on the computer. I am pleased however with the shot of tom running his hands under the sink which then changes to a close up of him wetting his face. We did this to show a range of shots and i think it works quite well, especially as it is one of our first attempts at editing :)

December

I haven't posted in a while because we have been very busy and due to the snow we missed out on lessons. This month we braved the cold and took on the sea for a bit of filming, but we didn't get too much footage. We have uploaded it all onto the computer and hard drive in order to start editing asap, you can see a few of the photos we took on our flickr page (here).

[edit 16.12.2010]
Here is a clip showing some of the footage we filmed, which has been slightly edited...

You can see the post i wrote on our main blog about this clip [here]

In today’s lesson we came up with a list of Movie name ideas:

- Downfall

- Manic Water

- Shallow Water

- Red Tide

- Black Tide

- Murky Water

We then passed this list round the room on a tally chart for people to vote on their favourite, to see which titles would be most popular. This worked well because the people in our class are the same age as our target audience (teenagers and young adults) and therefore we got a clear representative of what our chosen audience like.

The title which came up most popular was 'Shallow Water'.

The feedback we got said:

"It's simple and intriguing name with a catchy ring to it."

"It tells the audience it's a water related film - something everyone is familiar with and therefore becomes a lot more scary"

"The idea of shallow water is creepy and gives a sense that someone/thing may be lurking in it"

Poppy...

Last week Colleen met with our friend Poppy - who we think will play the part of the main character! They went through some outfit ideas as well as make up. We want her to look quite dark and scary but not overly made up as she needs to look real and believable. I have uploaded the photos to our flickr account which you can see here