Classic movie posters and designers

Because we have to create a movie poster I thought it would be good to look at some classic movie poster and their designers.

Posters have been a strong form of advertising that many companies have adopted through the history of film production and advertising. There are many different aspects of a poster that can catch the eye of the consumer or intrigue them into the search to find out more.

The construction of a poster is not a simple task, there would be many people from a creative background, technical support and creation of the poster, researchers, Drawing artists and manager making sure that everything was above board and no rules and regulations were broken. This restrictions are a lot tighter to date but greater technology has been developed, bigger budgets are available consumer culture has changed and this has overall stemmed to new ways to advertising your film and make consumers aware of your product.

These very classic posters are just a small example of the wide range of posters that people created and how they connect with their target audience.

The E.T. and Blade runner posters were both created by John Alvin a very respected poster artist and has worked on over 200 posters.

The Clockwork orange poster was created by Philip Castle and many interpretations have been formed about the meaning behind he poster and this just shows the impact a poster can have upon your audience.

The Eraserhead poster created by Ben Barenholtz and director david lynch is just an example of how simple but effective a poster can be depending on your target audience and what you as the producer want to convey.

Marketing strategies have changed dramatically through the years but film posters still stand strong. Modern Posters have an exceptionally high standard and reputation for being extremely enticing with amazing concept art and stunning visual pleasures but at the other end of the spectrum they can also be very simple and very ambiguous. Many films do not just produce one poster anymore they create and original poster for the film but as the release date slowly becomes closer they release substitute posters creating world wide interest within audiences and build the excitement up until the release date.

I have found a really good website that hosts many images of posters called http://www.impawards.com/ and for some great examples of films that create more than one poster to create excitement within the potential consumers follow the links below for Inception and Tron Legacy which have over 15 exceptional posters each.

http://www.impawards.com/2010/inception.html

http://www.impawards.com/2010/tron_legacy.html

Santa's been!! and he knows me all too well

This year for christmas I received lots of lovely gifts but some in particular were Awesome with a capital A.
My mum and dad, I mean Santa reads my blog and has seen that I have been reviewing Empire magazine and Total film but I concluded that Empire magazine had better in depth reviews with lots of contextual information about the actors and directors in conjunction with their past films.
Having read this, I received a subscription to Empire magazine for the 12 calendar month issues. How cool is that? very is the answer.
Another gift related to my passion for films and empire magazine is an Empire movie miscellany, hundreds of amazing filmic facts that instantly guarantee a film buff status.
This book includes so many funny and interesting movie facts as well as film set lingo and cinematography slang. Many film shot names are explained and terminology is given some context.

-Did you know that the number of speaking roles in the entire lord of the rings trilogy is only 114.

-Did you know that Jim Carrey's first job was a janitor. Sean Connery used to be a coffin polisher and Kate Winslet was a Deli assistant.

Another awesome gift that I received was Christopher Kenworthy's book on master shots, there are 100 advanced camera techniques to get an expensive look to your low budget movie. After reading around half of the book so far, there are many shots that I have recognized or revisited the film it is depicted within to the watch the action of the shot unfold and let the dramatic irony take place because I know how the shot is done and that within 'fight club' many of the punches that are landed, are landed at least inches from their face but the camera techniques used make it look like they will have one big black eye in the morning.

Overall best christmas yet and thank you Santa for all my christmas presents, you may have just added a considerable amount to the look of our film and the perceived budget that was used.

My week of work experience at the 'Theatre Royal Norwich'

For the past week I have been at a work experience placement at the Theatre Royal Norwich. During the placement I was working closely with the backstage technical department which involved:
-putting up the lighting for the touring show.
-focusing it.
-Applying a rig check before each show.
-Placing various mics and speakers around the stage then connecting them to the sound board.

I then watched the first performance of 'Agatha Christies, witness for the prosecution' within the lighting gallery and 'Nick Monk' the lighting manager ran the first show, whilst explaining the process and what each button meant, I also had a pair of cans (headphones) which he was using to communicate with the touring manager back stage which enabled me to hear everything that was going on which was very fast paced and exciting.

The next day I got to do some of the ques, I would listen for the Lx cue and the number then I would reply by stating the cue and add standing by to show I was ready, unless it was a snap cue which then I had to complete upon the go ahead.
For the next three days I got to run the lighting for the whole show which was both very exciting as well as scary. The whole week was very exciting and I'm very excited about returning to help with the Christmas pantomime which they invited me back to. Above is the lighting plan which we had to follow, in all honesty this is a pretty simple plan with minimal lighting but I got the chance to look at some extremely big productions such as a nine hour Greek play called Tantalus which was a touring show with over a million pounds of lighting to give multiple effects such as the ripple on the sea. Bellow is a picture of the lighting plan for this show it was very interesting learning about all the different lights they used and got to see most of them from the Theatre Royal's collection.

All Hail Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is amongst the most respected composers within the film industry and as a composer in general, the German composer and music producer is most notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements.

A turning point in Zimmer's career occurred with the 1988 film Rain Man. Hollywood director Barry Levinson was looking for someone to produce some exciting soundtracks, and his wife heard the soundtrack CD of the anti-Apartheid drama A World Apart, for which Zimmer had composed the music. Levinson was impressed by Zimmer's work, and hired him to score Rain Man. Following from this, in nearly three decades he has composed music for over 100 films many of them exceptional films such as The Lion King, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down,The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes and Inception. Many have won multiple awards each.

He, himself has won four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Classical BRIT Award, and an Academy Award. He was also ranked 72nd in the top 100 living geniuses which was a poll collaborated by The Daily Telegraph.

Not only does Zimmer compose for films but he composed the opening titles to the world record holding video game, Call of duty: Modern warfare 2. sales reached $301 million dollars in the first 24 hours of release in the UK and U.S alone.

Myself and Blaine are adamant about using a soundtrack that was previously released on a computer game. The main narrative ideas have originated from a computer game and we want our main soundtrack to also be from a computer game. Our reasons for this is that 'we think it will give our short film a very post modern vibe, when people find out that the narrative and soundtrack originated from video games, this will enhance the sudden world wide interest that can be clearly seen above with Call of duty modern warfare taking over $310 million dollars within its first 24 hours of release.' The new instalment to the call of duty franchise: Call of duty Black ops which is set to release on November 9th 2010 is set to break records and this statement was released by one of the worlds biggest video game website. Gamespot UK regarding the progress. “We are ahead of where we were with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last year, which previously set the industry standard.”

This one video game franchise is part of a much bigger industry and with such interest in just this one game, overall the video game industry must be booming.

Quentin Tarantino is quintessentially known for the soundtracks included within his films, many of his soundtracks pay homage to other films or novels that he has been inspired from. All the soundtracks that are used within his films are available to purchase on Itunes and many websites such as Amazon. The soundtracks he uses are more of a collaboration than original soundtracks which creates his own original style but this style is now associated with Quentin Tarantino and sets him apart from other directors, his quintessential blood and gore with very humorous, but controversial violence in my opinion is provides a great example for Auter theory, which is based around the concept that if a filmmaker has such a unique style which can be instantly recognisable then their artistic voice will transcend genre.

'I don't believe in putting in music as a band aid to get you over some rough parts or bad film making. If it's there it's got to add to it or take it to another level'

This statement from Tarantino himself sums up what soundtracks are all about. This is why we want to include soundtracks within our short film and the main soundtrack that we have chosen will defiantly add to the whole film taking it to another level.

Our Main soundtrack is from a video game called Black Mesa Source: Half life. the soundtrack is titled End credits and we want to use it to end our film, we think that the track will heighten the atmosphere as well as setting the mood that we want the audience to be feeling that will make them thoroughly evaluate the content they have just seen.
Because the soundtrack does not belong to me I sent an email to the original composer, joelnielsen asking permission to incorporate his soundtracks within our film. Generously Joel emailed me back granting permission for me to use his soundtracks within our films. This was very exciting news and I would just like to thank Joel for letting us use his exhilarating soundtracks. If you want to visit his website follow the link : http: http://www.joelnielsen.com/ and if you want to preview the soundtrack we are going to use, then watch or rather listen to the video below:



I have provided evidence below of the email I sent to Joel and the reply from him granting me permission:

An epic trip to Epic

Yesterday our media group had the chance to go on an amazing trip to Epic studios, an independent television production company within Norwich. It is home to many well known TV programmes over the years some of the highlights include: Trisha, Loose Women, Frank Skinner Opinionated, The Wright Stuff, Late Kick Off, Question Time, The Politics Show, Knightmare, Anglia News and many more.

The trip involved many different discussions about the different types of media institutions and how, if we wanted to get a Career within the media industry what would be the best way to do so, either higher education, work experience, starting off low in the job being a runner/tea service but then you have a foot in the door and you can work your way up through higher jobs. We had talks from local radio presenters, people within the field of journalism, website designers, music video directors and designers, documentary film makers and some people got chosen to have a hands on experience with some of the studios equipment.

I was lucky enough to be chosen and I got the chance to go into the gallery and look at all there equipment, we then filmed a small news programme and I was in charge of VT (video tape) this job involves playing pr-recorded footage, archival footage and opening titles. I was sat infront of a mac, given a script and a little instruction on how to use the software. I was very nervous but looked through the script, found out were I had to play footage and then played around with the software to find out what I had to do. We went through a practice run and then recorded the news programme. The thrill that I got from being on a recorded show was amazing, there was pressure to get it right and this made the adrenaline pump through my body and overall it was one of the best experiences ever
re-enforcing my desire to work within the media industry involving similar camera work to this.

The lighting and vision control part of the gallery makes sure that the composition of the camera shots are to perfection and the news reporters or characters look good on screen, changing the brightness of the shot if it is to dark or vise-versa.

Lighting and vision control from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

The production control part of the gallery is the heart of the production this is where everything binds together ans is run by around 5-6 people depending of the content. Some roles within the production control room can be from playing the opening titles and other VT's, running the autocue, pushing vast amounts of buttons to cut from camera to camera,two people instructing the cameras what type of shot they want and when they will go to your camera as well as counting down VT times and always keeping track on sound and lighting, overall gelling the whole production together and in some big production there may be another person instructing doing and controlling their own little section of fixed shots for example of the audience. This was where I was playing the VT and once again just to enforce my enjoyment it was brilliant.

Production control from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

The sound control centre would usually have 2-3 people Manning the station, depending on the content within a programme being filmed or broad casted. The screens are linked together so each part of the gallery sees the same production of their screens, this enables the sound quality and efficiency to be optimized because when an interview is taking place, microphones can be made louder or quieter in a split second which makes the recording run smoothly.

Sound control from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Overall each section of the Gallery is as important as the others because if one section makes a mistake then the whole production is effected therefore everything must run smoothly.

Thank you To our teacher for arranging this trip it was very interesting both practically and theoretically and it provided me with lots of information about the media industry and ways to be employed and I gained some contacts which can help me with this because as you all know:

Its not what you know, Its who you know.

True leaders of film

I am part of a senior student programme that our school runs which gives me the chance to get my voice heard, we explore many issues around the school and help with non-curricular activities and various open evenings. As a part of this programme we went on a leadership course which enlightened us to become leaders of our school giving us confidence to stand up and lead a group in whatever task we face. We were asked to prepare a short speech about a leader that inspired us and I chose two of my favorite directors, Christopher Nolan and Shane Medows who have been role models to me, for many years, making so many truly touching films that you just cannot look away from.
Their ability to have a vison that they then process and turn into such amazing cinematic experiences just gives me an excuse to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a cinema ticket over and over again, (which in hindsight makes it less ridiculous).
Both directors have gained vasts amounts of respect for producing award winning films and one of the reasons that they inspire me is that they both became famous for their own hard work and determination. From a young age they both made short films which got them noticed within the industry, not straight away, but this didn't effect them they kept going with their passion and Christopher Nolan was talent spotted at a Cambridge film festival and Shane Medows got a job at Warp (an independent film and music production company) after many attempts.
Bellow are two films that were produced at the beginning of their carers which helped them acquire the respect they have within the industry to date.

Doodlebug-short film. Directed by Christopher Nolan:


The man with no name-short documentary. Directed by Shane medows:


If you want to view my leadership speech about the two directors, please follow the link bellow.
Leadership speech:
I have picked two leading innovators....
Another link that you may find useful directs you to Shane Medows official website which includes a list of all his different short film productions as well as music videos that he has produced.
Shane Medows official website:
http://www.shanemeadows.co.uk/

Three inspirational films from our teachers extensive DVD collection

After pitching our film, our teacher had a better understanding about what we wanted to produce (suggesting the pitch went well!!) and she found us three films from her endless collection of DVD's to watch, which had some similar elements which we suggested in our pitch but as well as this, she gave us two films that are based around different cultures. One is Apocalypto, directed by Mel Gibson a very famous film director chooses to film Apocalypto in Yucatec Maya language which distances the audience from the film because you are clueless to what they are saying, yes you can add subtitles but the way that the film is professionally directed utilizing techniques which make the visual narrative stand out and tell the story more enables the audience to watch the film and follow the film easily but due to the language barrier the audience imagination becomes part of the viewing experience which both me and Blaine think is a very good way to get the audience involved and this is defiantly a technique that we will research further and try and incorporate within our short film.



The other is also directed by Mel GibsonThe passion of the christ, which both me and Blaine also watched and this film dramatizes the last 12 hours of Jesus' life and the visual experience becomes the dominant story teller for an audience such as ourselves due to the cultural differences.



These two films by Mel Gibson will act as great examples of were the visual story has to be excellent in order for the audience to follow the narrative and after watching these films myself and Blaine feel that we have gained good knowledge of this technique and how this could effect our short film if we chose to incorporate such techniques.
The last film that we were given to watch was Dead mans shoes, directed by Shane Medows and the reason for this film being relevant to our short film is the way the director can exhibit the most uncanny and bizarre events, within reality and realistic locations through the use of very well written dialogue and characterisation to make the audience think that that is normality.



Blaine Keneally has created a very analytical post on the films that we watched, follow the link bellow for a more depth deconstruction and extracts of the films:
http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/directorial-techniques-to-consider.html

Whilst I was searching for a picture of the film Apocalyto I came across a review of the film and some views of a critic. They had very negative views of the film saying that the visual effects and cinematography were good but altogether the narrative just made him keep looking at his watched due to the fact he was bored.

"Here is a movie that immediately grabbed me almost from the word go. And then its grip loosened and loosened until I just didn't really find myself caring anymore"

After reading this I just couldn't disagree more with his views and that the man fighting to save his families life and unborn child offers a truly gripping narrative exploring the idols of selfishness and courage.
But this is my opinion and he is entitled to his.(even if it is wrong/I'm joking)

To view his views of the film follow the link bellow:
http://www.stomptokyo.com/reelopinions/2006/12/apocalypto.html

Inspiration for our short film

These are the video's that show some very good camera shots which I would like to incorporate into our short film, the first video is from 'Awaydays' its about a two young boys who join a football gange and basically kich the living day lights out of other football gangs the film was just like any other football factory film, a bit repetative but there is a shot right at the end of the film which grabbed my attention i think it is a very artistic shot and with the long periode that the shot stays the same the audience has time to stop and think which i like very much. The shot is between 00:57 - 1:07 eventhough the shot isnt that long the slow motion of it makes it seem longer aswell as this it also has a dramatic effect upon the audience due to the extreame close up of his face bleeding and his pain within. which I really liked when I was watching the film so myself and Blaine would like to put our own artistic twist on the shot and use it within our film.This secound video is an extract from the film 'Funny games' and this film is very unique with its filming style, their are many static shots within the film which regualy exeed 30 secounds but they were all framed shots with no movement, sometimes no-one is in the shot and only background noise can be heard and sometimes the shot stays the same whilst the actors moves around within the same shot. I couldnt get enough of it when you cannot see a convisation but you can hear it especially when their is blood in the shot and they are talking about how they just killed someone. This just gripped me to the screen as i was constantly guessing and trying to hear things that the killers would say but i couldnt turn round and look agt them and in my oppinion this was simulating the kidnapped hostages who cannot move but are always trying to find some information to give them the upper hand. This shot is from 8:29 - 9:15