Recording the Song and Rhea

Tonight I am attempting to record Rhea performing on piano and singing my chosen song "Everybody's gotta learn sometime" by Beck. I didn't want the hassle with all the copyright business so decided to get a friend (Rhea) who is a professional musician and music student to help me.

We met up and talked about what I wanted from her voice and then decided to just use a piano for the backing music.

As a way of recording on my Mac I can either record through photo booth, through iMovie, through garage band or record it on a recording device and then upload it to iMovie as an audio file.
Luckily, Rhea has a microphone that I can plug straight into my Mac and then record straight onto Garage band were I can then edit it to how I would like it.

Problems we encountered tonight : 

• Hard to find the right key that fits in with how I wanted and imagined it would sound, whilst still fitting in with Rhea's voice style. 

NEXT TASK :  meet up with Rhea again after I have tried recording the song myself and then finding the right key on the piano to match and recording the piano onto a different layer on garage band and then editing them together.

 A picture of the music Rhea was using, she had got the sheet music from the internet, but had found the guitar tabs etc to be too hard to play so opted to play it on the piano instead. I was ok with this as I liked the sound it made and it worked well :)

You can see me on the left holding my laptop. I wanted to take some photos of her playing etc, sort of documenting it. But I didn't have a camera with me so  instead I took the photos using the built in webcam on my laptop using the program photo booth.

Rhea playing the piano and singing.

The Interview

I was going to do a podcast with the interview for people to listen to but I thought beings as its going on the magazine page for them to read it doesn't really need to be accessible through listening. Plus it was hard to get more time with the person I was interviewing and was a long process to then upload it and convert it to a file on the internet to then go through web syndication or stream online to a mobile or computer device. (All of this use of technology scares me slightly so it didn't really appeal to me doing it through this process anyway ).

Interviewing For My Ancillary Product- Film magazine review page

For my film magazine review page for my ancillary product I decided to do a two page spread, a film review for my short film on one page and an interview with a fellow student Katharine Wood on her feature length film (she actually done a teaser trailer).  

It was a deliberate decision to use Katharine to interview instead of a real professional as I wanted to use intertextuality, using her and her products to help me in my film review in a magazine and in return helping her in advertising her product and it made her feel more proud about her work and as though all the hard work she did was worth it.

First attempt at Film poster

Using Paint.net I edited a photo I took of one of the actual props (box-head) to use as the basis of my film poster. 


My first edit of the poster .... and I encountered some faults and missing things with it. I also asked a few people from my target audience of what they thought of it and if they liked anything or if they could see any improvements that needed to be made.

Sam (19 years old) : "I like the surreal oddness of it, your design is simple yet effective and colours work nicely together. The only thing I would change would be the writing saying all the roles people played in the film at the bottom as I can't read it. Also its missing some conventional things you'd expect to see on a film poster"


On closer inspection I had missed out the age certificate, the star rating and a quote from a film magazine.

First drawn draft of Film Poster

Film Poster Research

I wanted to make sure I included every element in my poster that is usually seen in a professional film poster advertising a film.
I searched in google 'film poster deconstruction' and this is what I found.
This slideshare is useful in showing me the different things a film poster could involve and showing how the film poster could be seen with its hidden meanings and messages, for example the colours could signify something or be seen as symbolism.


http://www.slideshare.net/HigginsPlumb/film-poster-deconstruction-by-holliejade-higgins

Film Poster Deconstruction by Hollie-Jade Higgins

View more PowerPoint from HigginsPlumb

Obviously I realised that because mine is a short film it doesn't necessarily need to have everything as short films aren't usually seen advertised in busy public places such as where billboards would be or in newspapers/magazines etc. I'm aiming it more to be shown on the internet perhaps on independent film websites. 

Analysing Film Posters... number 2

One of my inspirations when it came to films was 'Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind'(2004, directed by Michel Gondry). When finding the film poster I was instantly attracted to its striking surrealism, the elements that I saw was what I wanted in my own poster. I love the grainy 35mm film like photos texture and the fact that you can see 3 of the main characters. The layout is interesting and a new fresh idea that I've never seen before. It's very postmodern in the way of it being paper, recycled with the ripping over the eyes, covering them from the truth, yet hiding their identity. The quotes/taglines covering their eyes link to the plot of the film and give insight to an audience who are perhaps naive to the film. 

I don't necessarily like the yellow colour of the title and tagline at the top. I think it looks too garish, attracting the eye away from the photos, which I think should be the main focal point (but maybe that's because I'm a photographer). The pun tagline at the top are clever in giving a little away, but not a lot. I think on my film poster I would like a clever sounding tagline to draw in my target audience.

I think the target audience that this poster was aiming at are people with perhaps a more broader mind of accepting difference, acknowledging the hidden meanings and thinking about things, analysing it, not just looking at it. More for the active audience and not the passive audience. Perhaps age range would be from early 20's to late 40's. Also as Gondry has released previous films his fans and followers would view this poster with great interest.

When thinking about where this poster could be advertised, I thought maybe the sides of buses or billboards as it would look striking and effective on a large scale, but because its more of an independent art house/indie film I don't think the budget for it would have stretched that far. Where it was actually advertised I'm not 100% sure, I'm guessing film magazines and in cinemas with the normal sized posters and perhaps online. It doesn't have an official website but this appeals to me more as not much can then be given away online.

In relation to how I want my film poster, I like the idea of the characters being shown, but on my own poster I am going to just show my main character but not all of him, keeping the mystery side of it still there. The reason of not having more than one character on my poster is because their faces (being boxes) look similar in drawn facial expression anyway, confusing the audience further.

Analysing Film Posters

Because I was having trouble typing text on to this post with the picture I had to instead type it on pages then print screen it then upload it as a picture. The things we have to do when technology goes wrong.

Where will my magazine review go ???

An article from the Sight and Sound magazine which is an international magazine done by the BFI.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/newsandviews/news/issue-2012-02.php

Bright striking colours are used to catch an audience's eye and the fact that they use very recognisable photos from things mean people can relate. Sight and Sound magazine could be a possibility of me using it for my magazine article because of how it is an art house cinema stlye magazine, advertising some independent short film directors and their films. But I want to go for something different.... and so my search continues...

 I came across Empire magazine and looked at some of their interview layouts...

I liked how the red and blue complimented each other in this one but thought that how the woman dominated the page brought the attention away from the actual interview.

This one in Empire again but it's too comical when it comes to the questions. It's not serious enough, and once again the photo takes up most of the layout.

This one I prefer as it is an interview with a big director- Terry Gilliam.

The colour scheme of blacks and whites and greys is something that I would want on mine I think.

More colourful and warmer to look at, but the interview is with an actor and so I can't really relate it to mine.

 I love the simplicity of this layout and I have took great inspiration from it for my own magazine article film review, what with the information being displayed down the side and the screenshot from the film striking in its surrealness.

Some of the film magazines I looked through to find examples of interviews and film reviews to base my own on.











If anywhere, my magazine article would go in Empire but under a feature like a two page spread advertising up and coming British female directors (because they don't usually have articles on short films in Empire). Because the Empire magazine is Amerian I might need to show that the feature has a sponsor, for example it could be American Express as they sometimes sponsor stuff in it. 
Also because Empire is aimed at a male audience they wouldn't necessarily want my feature to be in it so I'd need a sponsor to fund it.

Taken from the magazine Total Film (which is still very much based at male target audience). Its very plain in layout and instantly the amount of writing puts me off slightly. You can tell its going to be a big interview/feature because of how his face on the right takes up the whole page.