Analysis of a film poster- Just My Luck

(A quick presentation I made on Prezi with my annotation of the film poster on, which I created before writing my analysis)
http://prezi.com/fraaj6n2nclb/untitled-prezi/

One good example of a similar film poster to our film is the one released for Just My Luck, because film has a similar theme of fantasy and magical elements to ours. The first thing to comment on is the fact that although the main theme is around luck and magic, the poster keeps this knowledge hidden. The way the main characters are placed on the poster does not suggest that either of them own this luck. This keeps the audience guessing why "everything changes in a wink of the eye," and encourages the audience to watch the film to find out how luck links these characters. This would be a good tactic to use for our film poster. We do not want to give away too much information regarding the content of our film, so a simple pose like shown in this poster would be a good idea for a film poster as it would inform the audience about the key characters, but not why they are linked. However, the fact that the film poster is ambiguous, can be interpreted as ineffective. The poster doesn't really tell the audience what the film will be about, why the characters are linked and how the luck will be involved in the plot. Because of this, it could be argued that the film poster is not effective in encouraging the audience to watch the film, instead it may fail to entice them due to the little information provided. I think that although we don't want to give too much away, it would be more effective if we represented luck in our poster. For example, we want to demonstrate that the penny gives the main character luck and that the film will revolve around this. This could be achieved by our main character holding the penny.

The main character is front and centre of the poster to emphasise her importance. She is the first individual the audience would look at, as she takes up majority of the foreground compared to the male character. The use of pink for her jacket creates the personality of the character; rich and feminine. The use of pink gives the impression that she is surrounded by good events and luck due to the bright colours used. In contrast the male is dressed in dark colours such as black that suggests that he may be associated with bad luck and terrible misfortune. This emphasises that they are polar opposites. He is behind the main girl which gives the idea that although he is important, the luck is not his, it is hers, and because of this he is a lesser character. I believe that it would be effective for our film poster to subliminally give impressions about what we want our audience to think. By having our characters in a similar position, we could suggest that Sarah is the main, lucky character, and Leah is the character who brings her the bad luck.

The background used is extremely effective as a means of setting up the location of "Just My Luck." The background is of Manhattan, which is the location throughout the duration of the film, which is effective, as it instantly gives the audience information about where the film will be set, to see if it appeals to them. This is a good method as it sets up what the location and the characters would be like, which could possibly entice the audience into viewing the film. I think it would be effective for our film poster to include familiar location that we use in our short film. For example, I believe it would be effective to use the background of Dorothy's house (where the penny is given to Sarah) as a means of creating a familiar background, that the audience would instantly recognise when they viewed the film, as they would have been aware of the importance of this location before even viewing the film. However, on the other hand I also feel that maybe it would not be effective to use a location as our background for our film poster. Because our main storyline is around the luck from the penny, it could be more effective for our film poster to possibly have the penny as the centre, with the main characters sharing the shot. I think, a simple poster with a close shot of Sarah and the penny would be much more effective, to demonstrate its impact and the main character. This would be more effective, as our story is not about where it was shot, but about the impact of the luck penny's luck.

On the "Just My Luck" poster, "everything changes in a wink of the eye" is used for the strapline. This is an effective strapline because it mentions the theme of the film (the luck) but is fairly ambiguous and vague about what the film consists of. Its primary function of providing an insight to the film is achieved as it very briefly explains that the film will revolve around luck influencing an individual's life. However, it is also effective because it keeps the audience intrigued because it doesn't give too much away about the story, which undoubtedly encourages the audience to go on and watch the film. With regards to our film we also want to achieve something similar with our strapline. We want a short and brief but powerful strapline as a means of enticing the audience. However, we also want to inform the audience about our film before they watch it, in order to make sure we encourage them to watch our film. We could achieve this by having a similar ambiguous strapline to encourage them to watch our film, in a bid to find out why "what goes around, comes back around."

The font used is extremely appropriate for the poster and the film. It is simplistic in terms of style. This is effective because it doesn't ruin the purpose of the poster by distracting the viewers attention away from using the poster to make a decision about viewing the film. The use of pink is also effective, because it demonstrates the kind of person the main character is, and whether they are interested in watching a character like this. The font is placed at the top centre of the poster which is eye-catching. The audience doesn't have to search for the title as it is clear and central. The remaining text such as the actors/actresses names, strapline and review are in much smaller font, which is also effective as it demonstrates that these are less important and doesn't distract the viewer's attention from the purpose of the poster; which is to stress the name, theme and characters of the film, in a bid to encourage the audience to watch the film. The pink and black coloured font is simplistic and effective, as they are polar opposites. For example black often reflects negativity and misfortune - linking back to the film's theme - whereas pink often reflects positivity and good luck. This is undoubtedly effective as it subliminally informs the audience about the film's theme and is extremely effective as a means of drawing the audience in and encouraging them to watch the film. Additionally, it could also be interpreted as resembling the difference between the boy and girl in the film. For example, she embodies the luck (pink) and he embodies the misfortune (black). I think it would be effective if we took inspiration from the font and font colour used. For our film poster it would look professional if we had the font in a clear and eye-catching place, such as centre or top-centre, with a large bold font, as it wouldn't require the audience to search for the name, and therefore if they were enticed by the name they would browse the rest of the poster and make their decision as to watch it or not. Also, it would be effective to use a simple font type. Our film is fairly simple and straight forward and it would be a nice link to have a font that reflected this.

Poster Photo Photoshoot

This is the process we went through during the photo shoot, to take the pictures of the character in our film to put on our film poster designs;



We firstly created a design for our poster so we knew which type of photos we needed to take. This was the first time we had used a DSLR camera therefor it took us a few shots to learn how to focus the camera and get some good pictures.

We chose a few different poses which we could edit into our film poster, and also some different ones so that we had a choice of photographs if we decided that we didn't want to stick to our original idea.

We chose to have our main character Sarah to be closer to the camera and Leah her friend in the back ground, often peering over her shoulder, this was as we wanted to portray the idea that Sarah has the most important role, however both of the girls eyes are focused on the penny, this shows that the penny is significant in the film, this is reinstated by the film name 'Luck Out'

Audience Feedback results (on First draft)

These are the current results of the audience feedback questionnaire. Lots of different people have taken the questionnaire and so we have a wide range of opinions and feedback to help improve our film further.

Results of Sections 1

In this section we asked for a little bit about the person taking the questionnaire so that we could see who is telling us their opinion of the film and whether they were who we were aiming it at and whether their age/ gender would affect their opinion. We have also asked if they think the film is understandable and what genre they think it could be? Also in section one we have asked if they like the style and to state anything they thought was good as well as bad. Also by asking who they think it appeals to this gives us more of an idea of who would enjoy this short film. We have included open questions for the people to give their feedback, this way it is not restricted and they can say what they think. It also helps because we can see any improvement the audience think will benefit the film and we can then try and put it into our film if possible. 

Results of section 2
In section 2 we have asked questions about what has been seen in the film. We have asked this to see if certain aspects of the film are picked up on and understood. We have also added a misleading question 'What is the dogs name?' to see if people were watching properly as this isn't stated in the film.

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Analysis of results
We have have a wide range of people who have taken this questionnaire, both male and female and ages ranging from 10 to above 31. This has helped get a wider view of what different people think rather than just getting the same type and age of people for example teenage girls. 

This graph shows that out of the everyone who answered the questionnaire females enjoyed the film more and overall gave a higher rating out of 10 than the males did. However this doesn't mean to say every female who answered enjoyed the film. But on average this shows that it appeals more to women than men.To get a more accurate idea of who it appeals  to, here is a graph showing who the respondents thought it would appeal to.
The graph shows that some people thought the film appealed more to teen than adult and children but there is a small percentage that thought it would appeal to all age groups. 
Overall these two graphs show on average female teenager are more likely to enjoy the film more than any other people. 



We asked for people to state what they liked and dislike about the film and we have had mixed results. They have mentioned that they think the film has been made to a high quality by having good angles and camera as well as including music that is relevant for what is happening on the film at that certain point. They have also mentioned that the title sequence is good and looks professional. 
However the majority of people have mentioned the story line to be too confusing due to jump in time at the start of the film. Originally we wanted the flashback to be the point of realization for both the character and the audience and this would show they are the same character at different ages, but this questionnaire has shown we need to make it more clear to the audience. To sort this problem we need to show that time has moved on and the 2 girls are the same character. We could do this by adding some text on screen to show some years have passed or for the character to say something that shows she is the younger girl a few years on. By doing this this would help explain the character a bit more helping another point the audience dislike about the film. 

An improvement that only one person has mentioned but I feel is a big thing we need to do is to alter the volume of some of the sound. They have mentioned that the music is too loud in some parts and that the voice over is too quiet in others. This is a simple alteration that will help improve the quality of the film as well as the audience's understanding because the voice over is a very important turning point in the film.

Another improvement someone said was 'to expand on the thief's role and show more of the characters traits, possibly a reason behind why she took the things and maybe turn the story on it's head and give a plausible explanation why she stole the items e.g. she didn't steal but had them for a good reason that pleased her friend'  I really like this idea and if we were to make the film longer and more detailed we could take this into account, but as we are only making a 5 minute film I think this would cause the story line to be too complex.

Section 2 has helped greatly; in seeing if the audience has or hasn't picked up on certain parts of the film that are both important and minor. every question asked everyone got it correct. The main part of the film we wanted the audience to pick up on was the phone getting fixed, but the way the question was asked only a few people put this in their answer, but this is enough to show that they do pick up on it. Even the misleading question about the dogs name went well because no made up a name or thought they had heard one. 

Overall the feedback we have gotten from this questionnaire has been very helpful and we are going to use this to improve our film further to make more clear and appealing to our target audience.

Audience Feedback Questionnaire

Audience Feedback on 1st draft of film

Here is the first draft of our film : 

We asked for some feed back on the film on the social networking site FaceBook, we posted the link to our film and asked people for some feed back,  within 15 minutes of the post being on we got '3 likes' on Annabelle's post and are still awaiting feed back from Becky's post, we are pleased that within such a short time already 3 people 'liked' our film.

We have also posted it on Twitter and are still awaiting some feed back. 

Day 4- Shooting pack (Re shooting)

We have added a day of filming because when we added the clips onto the computer few shots needed to be redone to make it them better quality and the storyline more clear. This is our shooting pack for our day of reshooting a few shots.

Treatment
Title of film; Luck Out

Duration; 5min

Certificate; PG

Audience; Our traget audience is women and teenage girls because they can relate to both our main characters.

Script;

Shooting Script;
Long shot of Sarah walking down the street and down Leah's path
Medium to Long shot of Leah walking down side of house
Medium shot of Sarah walking up to the door
Close up of Sarah knocking on the door
Medium long shot of Sarah walking into the house
Long shot of Sarah speaking to Lucy (Leah's sister)
Medium close up of Leah panicking and scrambling to get her things together
Medium shot of Sarah walking up the stairs
Extreme close up of the coin been turned in her hand
Medium Long shot of Sarah going straight into Leah's bedroom
Shot reverse shot as Sarah talks to Leah who is hiding the stolen things
Close up of the things Leah has stolen when Sarah finds them
Medium shot if Sarah furiously getting up
Extreme close up of the double headed penny been slammed down on the table tails up.

Storyboard; 

Risk Assessment

Character Profiles
Sarah Brown Aged 16
(played by Annabelle Durham)
Character; Spends all her free time with her family and friends, she loves going shopping, to the cinema and out for her tea.
DOB; 27th April 1996
Hometown; Barnsley
Interests; Shopping, helping her family, baking

Lucy Jones
(Played by Jessica Venson)
Lucy is Leahs sister, she loves, shopping, parties and going out. Lucy is at university doing a fashion degree and only comes home at weekends.
DOB; 21st December 1993
Hometown; Barnsley

Leah Jones
(Played by Rebecca Nightingale)
Leah is Sarahs best friend and is like her sister, she is a quiet person but likes spending time with her friends more than her family.
DOB: 1st May 1996
Hometown: Barnsley

Extra Flashback research

Vanilla Sky is a film about a publisher who falls in love but his lover doesn't agree which causes things to take a turn for the surreal when she drives herself and him off a bridge.
This film include several flashback in different styles, from slow motion to pictures from the past and I think these type and style would be appropriate for our film for the flashback at the end, when Sarah realizes that it is the penny that is lucky, and previous shots from the film are show to prove it is the coins and when it happens.

This flashback has the main character speaking over the picture explaining how he feels, and every so often flashes back to when he was a little boy to where he is dreaming and to when he if falling off the building. All this is in slow motion to create tension and atmosphere. (the flashback starts at 1:23)




The very last flashback included a mixture of pictures film, home videos all at different speeds. This is the most effective and i think we could use a similar flashback in our film.

Revised Storyboard

Music for our short film-

Whilst editing our film, we decided to conduct some research into music styles and types that we wanted for our film. We decided to search for music from online websites that provided royalty free music to use in our film. We conducted this research because music and sound overlays play an extremely crucial role in our film as they allow us to create a particular mood for our film, something that was necessary in our opening scene in which Dorothy and Sarah are coin collecting and also our flashback/realisation scene where Sarah realises that Leah stole her money at the end of our film.

Some tracks we found included:

1//  incompetech.com

We browsed through genres such as drama and fantasy to try and find some music for our film. Because we had virtually no luck we decided to search for music by feel, such moods we tried were relaxed and mystical. We found a really effective piece of music involving a piano, called "Sovereign" by Kevin MacLeod, which created a mystical and unknown mood. Something like this would be effective for the opening scene of our film, where Dorothy and Sarah are coin collecting, because the audience is unaware of the characters and therefore we could use it as a way to create uncertainty whilst we reveal the characters in a relaxing way.






This track can be heard on the video below:

2// jamendo.com: 

This website allowed us to search for the specific kind of music we wanted to fit our genre. Because our film is a fantasy-drama we thought it would be effective to search for music with a solo piano. For example: "Leaving Steps"by Sergey Kovchik, which would act as a simple and powerful background track due for the opening scene with Dorothy and Sarah coin collecting, as it creates a mood of uncertainty, which is how the audience would feel at the beginning of our film as they don't know the characters. However, a major problem with this music is that it is very overpowering, which would make it difficult to tame so that the audience could hear the dialogue between characters. Also it sounds very sinister and dark, which is something we do not want to convey in our film.



To hear this audio, follow the link below:

http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/859216/leaving-steps


After trying a few audio tracks, we decided on two to use.

We decided to open our film with the track, Easy Lemon, from incompetech.com, by Kevin MacLeod, as we thought it was the most fitting for our film. We decided to begin the track immediately and continue for the first 30 seconds of our film. We chose this track because it allowed us to set a relaxing and calm tone to our film. The beginning of our film is just telling the audience the background to Sarah's penny, and how this will affect future events, because of this, we believed this was the most appropriate audio track. In our opinion it suits the film's fantasy conventions as it also creates a feeling of uncertainty as the audience are unaware of who these people are and why they are important, which we hoped would entice the audience to continue to watch our film.We then decided to fade the music out during the dialogue between Dorothy and Sarah and reuse it again for our opening credits and title sequence. At this point the track picks up a bit in terms of tempo which we thought fitted in well with our title sequence. Our title sequence was supposed to depict that Sarah was reminiscing/daydreaming about her childhood and we thought the music conveyed a happy mood which could reflect Sarah's happy childhood. We thought this track was also effective, as it allowed us to subtly transition from Sarah as a child to Sarah as a teenager, which in combination with the shots used, it conveys that Sarah was daydreaming on her bed.

This video track can be heard by viewing the video below:




We also decided to use the track I Feel You, from incompetech.com by Kevin MacLeod, for the flashback sequence at the end of our film. We wanted to alert the audience to Sarah's realisation and therefore believed it was important that we obtained some dramatic music to convey that Sarah has finally realised what her friend is like. The music was also an effective choice as we was able to get it to merge well with the storyline. as we could match the transitions and tempo of the music to establish that Sarah was having a flashback, because of this we believe it is more clear to the audience that Sarah is realising the luckiness of her penny. We also decided on this music as it allowed us to create a dramatic ending by the way we made the music abruptly stop to allow Sarah to speak.

This audio track can be heard by watching the video below:

We are pleased with our choice of tracks as we believe that they worked effectively in conveying the ideas we had and in combination with our shots and voiceovers. They allow us to set the mood of the film and influence the audience to view the film in a certain way. We have used them to create dramatic tension and act as a substitute for narrative. Because of this we believe the music in our film is effective in conveying the message we want to give.

Revised script

During filming, we decided to alter our storyline as we came to realise that some sections of the narrative were unclear and poorly structured. So we decided to revise the script to remove any ambiguity and lack of clarity. 

We decided that our storyline would be more effective if Sarah was given the lucky penny as a child. We decided to alter her age, as it would convey a more effective passage of time for our plot. We decided that it would make more sense for Sarah to have grown up, as coin collecting with her Grandma would have been something she would have done as a child, rather than as a teenager.

In addition, we also decided to change the events that highlight how lucky Sarah was. For example, we believed it would make more sense to extend the narrative around the lucky events, to help the audience understand the impact of the events. We also made sure to have frequent shots of Sarah holding the penny, so that the audience would understand its importance. For instance, Sarah places the penny in her coat pocket and takes Kandi for a walk. Despite letting go of Kandi's lead, so finds her because of the penny. Similarly, her phone breaks, but it miraculously fixes. We extended this part of the narrative and introduced shots of her holding the penny to ensure that the audience understood that the penny was bringing her the luck.

Another alteration we made to the story was the introduction of Leah as Sarah's best friend, which we felt was more appropriate due to our film wanting to target younger as well as older women. Because a best-friend stealing would affect a woman of any age, we believed that having the best-friend assume this role would create a much larger impact than a boyfriend, due to the "best-friend" importance amongst females. And because of this, the audience are more likely to sympathise with Sarah, which is what we want. 

We also decided to introduce a flashback at the end of film, in order to make sure the audience fully understands the events that have taken place. For instance, the flashback allows us to tie up all loose ends of the film, making it a closed narrative, as everything is explained by Sarah when she realises. We think this is much more effective, because we didn't want the audience to be left confused by the storyline and the importance/impact of the penny. As we believe the flashback avoids this problem. However, we didn't want Sarah to explain too much, and not leave the audience without any questions. We decided to end it with Sarah slamming the penny down on the drawers. This leaves the audience guessing where what will happen to their friendship and will Sarah continue to be lucky, or has the penny fulfilled its duty?