Poster Research

 

BLUE VALENTINE

This poster for 'Blue Valentine' works for a number of reasons. Firstly, the colour blue is an obvious part of the image and works with the title. The dark blue lighting reflects the solemn mood of the film whilst also connoting to images of youthful glamorised San Francisco nightlife. The couple pictured look young and exciting, and their body language suggests passionate romance.

The title is simple and white. The font used almost looks like handwriting, which perhaps hints to a young couple who are still immature and have a childish relationship. The title is also very large so shows the audience what the film is called straight away. The love-heart shaped 'V' for valentine and the tagline 'A LOVE STORY' make certain the audience cannot miss the genre and idea of the film.

However, although the poster clearly shows the film is about a romantic relationship, the poster does not give away too much. This could be seen as a positive because the audience is left wondering what happens in the film, but also as a negative because the poster is somewhat misleading in the fact that the audience may not expect the film to contain violence and the deterioration of a relationship, which it does.

Across the top of the poster it says 'accademy award nominee  - best actress - Michelle Williams'. This is obviously to show the audience that the main actress is worth watching, and thus attempt to persuade them to go and see the film. Ryan Gosling is also an obvious attraction, predominantly to the female members of the audience due to his good looks.

The positive quote at the bottom of the poster reads A FILM BY DEREK CIANFRANCE, THE MOST PROVOCATIVE FILM OF THE YEAR'. Although this does not actually seem to mean very much, it does it's job in getting the audience to the cinema to see the film.

DEAR JOHN

This poster for dear John is similar to the poster for 'Blue Valenine' in the way that the image is obviously of a couple which insinuates that the film is largely about their romance. However, the setting of the photograph is different. The couple are on a beach and the lighting is very bright, with beautiful scenery in the background. This gets across a different mood than the Blue Valentine poster. A more happy and springy mood, however the couple's body language is slightly less passionate but in a way, more loving.

The title 'DEAR JOHN' is in capital letters and a simple font. The colours white and orange work because they are warm and stand out from he dark colours of Channing Tatum's hoodie. The tagline underneath the title reads 'What would you do with a letter than changed everything?' although the writing is rather small, it is in white so captures the audience's attention and is a rhetorical question so makes them think about it. The credits are in small orange font, which means they do not stand out too much and retract attention from the poster.  However, the word 'FEBRUARY' is in bold white print so that the viewer notices it. This is important because it will stick in the viewer's mind and they will remember when the film will be shown in cinemas and perhaps make them more excited to see it. Above the title it sas 'From Nicholas Sparks, best-selling auhor of THE NOTEBOOK'. 'The Notebook' is capitalised because it was a very successful and well-known book and film which the target audience of this film will probably have seen, as the films are of the same genre and directed at the same sort of audience.

LOVE HAPPENS

The poster for 'Love Happens' is very similar for the poster for 'Revolutionary Road'. The image is in the centre of the poster, slightly towards the top, and shows an intimate picture of the couple touching noses (how sweet). The colours in the picture are mainly greens whites and yellows, so bright and airy (very similar to the colours of 'Dear John'). The colours represent organic sunshine and happiness, and get across the notion that the film is clearly about the romance between the couple depicted.

The credits 'Aaron Eckhart' and 'Jennifer Aniston' are in green font against a white bar at the top o he poster which makes them stand out. They are deliberately bold and stand out from the rest of the poster because the names will generally make the audience want to see the film as they are famous actors. The title is also in the same green and the same font, but slightly bigger than the actor's names.

B.M

Production Company research

Considering other trailer's of our genre such as 'Like Crazy'; 'Dear John'; 'Revolutionary Road'; 'Blue Valentine'; we will look for a production company name that sounds not very well known whilst also retaining an element of successfulness and a medium budget.

'Like Crazy' has two production companies: Paramount Vantage and Indian Paintbrush. Paramount Vantage is more well-known than Indian Paintbrush, but the style of the logo is individual to the film. The colours in the indian paintbrush ident look arty and warm, and the font is simple and modest in both production company logos. The name 'Indian Paintbrush' also sounds rather exotic.

Paramount Vantage, however, is a well known high budget Hollywood production company which contrasts to Indian Paintbrush. This contrast works because it shows the audience a brand which they trust to make good films (Paramount Vantage) whilst also showing a company which is more arty and alternative (Indian Paintbrush).

For 'Dear John', the production company is SCREEN GEMS which is owned by Sony, and RELATIVITY MEDIA.

Screen Gems is an American production company, a subsidiary company of Sony. It used to be an animation company from 1939-1946, and it's name was derived from an early Columbia Pictures slogan. It is rather well known, and has produced other successful hollywood blockbusters such as 'Easy A' and 'Friends with Benefits'. Our film production company would not be as well-known as this, because we want to give it a more modest arthouse feel.

Relativity Media is another full-scale american film studio. Although it is successful, it is not as well known as Screen Gems, and had not been affiliated with such mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. Therefore, this is more similar the film studio we would use for our film.

Blue Valentine's production company is the Weinstein Company. This production label is so famous that it does not need to have  the name along the bottom. Although this is a nice and professional technique, our production company label is not nearly famous enough to do this, so we will have to have the full name written along the bottom, or somewhere on the symbol.

B.M

Taglines Research

For our trailer we need to include taglines in the graphics in-between shots in our trailer to recreate the romance trailer conventions and also highlight the narrative of our film. For planning purposes we used the line 'When can you tell if love is a dream, or a nightmare' but agreed this would not work and didnt really capture our narrative. We looked at other trailers for inspiration:

Revolutionary Road:

'How do you break free / without breaking apart'

Remember Me:

'He had lost his way / until the moment / he let someone in'

One Day:

'...comes an extraordinary story / of friendship and loss / and the enduring power of love'

The Vow:

'Can a once in a life time love / find a second chance?'

Celeste and Jesse Forever: 

'Sometimes the end / is just the beginning' 

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist:

'When plans get changed / the possibilities are infinite'

We also looked at Instagram pages which are dedicated to love quotes similar to those in films:

Storyboard

This was a final animatic of our storyboard - this will help us to have a clear structure in our minds when filming and editing the real footage later. We put 'She's Always A Woman To Me' in the background by Fyffe Dangerfield to have an idea of how our style of music will work with it. We also added a couple of sound effects to it.

B.M. W.H.

Colour, Mood & Tone

We would like to show a clear divide in moods throughout the trailer of when Grace and Isaac are happy together to when their relationship faces problems and inevitably deteriorates to the end. One of the main ways we will show this is through colour.

For the beginning of the relationship and therefore the trailer, our shots need to reflect a happier time and we will show this with brightly coloured settings (for example the coloured houses in Brighton and the lanes.) This will also be reflected in the brighter costumes that Grace and Isaac will be wearing at the beginning of the trailer.  Although I really like the colour scheme that director Wes Anderson uses in his films like ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, this would be too bold to replicate in our trailer as later we need to create a more depressing feel and this would be too unrealistic and noticeable to change from this obvious a colour scheme. However, we will be taking influence from this but just creating a more subtle colour scheme.

For later scenes in Grace's office etc. we want her to seem really unhappy and bored with her life so we want her shots to look grey and flat to reflect her mood. A lot of this depends on lighting and location, so we will choose a very monochrome office and light it really brightly so it looks flat and ugly.

W.H.

Symbolism

• As well as using colour to create a depressive mood in the office for Grace, we want to show that she feels isolated and locked into her own world. For this, we want to create the separators they sometimes use in offices to make her look cramped and boxed in.

• To show that Grace is becoming overloaded with the jobs at home by herself, we will be including a shot of her looking very busy and trying to handle cooking, being on the phone etc. all at the same time. This will also apply to look like the typical stereotype of a domestic mother, so this will suggest to the audience that she is getting ready or at least wanting to settle down. This will also emphasise the downfall of Grace in comparison when she sinks into depression and unhappiness.
• For the shot of Grace collapsing against the door, we want to film it from the inside of the house to suggest that she is shutting herself out of the world, like the office booths, and hiding herself away from everyone.
• For the shot of the hands intertwining, we would like this to be ECU to create a sense of claustrophobia and over-whelming closeness in the argument, suggesting to the audience that this might be one of the reasons for Grace's downfall and the downfall of their relationship.

W.H.

Costume Planning

To make sure we have continuity in terms of costume within our shots, I compiled a spreadsheet and list of different costumes to know exactly what costume our actors should be in for each shot.

Grace's Costume Changes:

Isaac's Costume Changes:

W.H.

Location Planning

Since I think the costume planning will work well in terms of when we start filming, I wanted to do something similar for Location. I set up groups of where we will need to film with sub-groups within them so that we can move quickly between locations and film all the shots that are in that location.

Locations:

Shots:

W.H.

Graphics Planning - Background and Movement Influences

Although many trailers like 'Revolutionary Road' and 'Blue Valentine' use basic text on black background for the credits, we thought that it would be a lot better to follow other trailers with more inventive backgrounds on the credits. We thought this was much better as it helps set the scene and mood and also would look a lot more professional to use a slightly moving background, and will look work better to create more colour. However, we still want to retain a level of simplicity so we don't want to use distracting font. 

In 'The Lucky One', they use a faded and quite basic background for the credits, but also include a bright exposure in the movement of the title. 

I really like the use of light in these credits as it is a lot more interesting than a simple title on the background. We would like to incorporate a light change in our credits though possibly something more subtle and elegant like in 'Like Crazy':

For the credits, the graphics fade in and out from the scene. They also play around with light with the glitter and put gradients across the font, which is very subtle but works well in making it look professional and classy. This also happens in the titles:

In the trailer for 'Dear John', the background does not actually move or reflect light (though fades in and out), but the actual credits do, drawing more attention to them.

Through looking at these examples of credits, I have understood that simple font is still necessary in terms of conforming to the conventions of a romantic genre trailer, however there are ways to develop the graphics to make it look more interesting than that of 'Revolutionary Road' and 'Blue Valentine.' Evidently colour is extremely important in terms of symbolism for each film - 'The Lucky One' tries to replicate the desert as Logan is fighting in Iraq, whilst 'Dear John' uses blue as an echo of the sea which is where John and Savannah spend a lot of their time. I really like the credits for 'Like Crazy' as it is softer and more romantic trying to recreate a feeling of fairy lights. This would also be perfect for our film as we want to create this same comfortable, homelike romance and we will be filming a lot of fairy lights when we film at Christmas in the Laines in Brighton. To come up with similar graphics, we will be using Final Cut Motion for our credits.

 

W.H.