Typography

I have been looking at different posters to see which typography is best suited for our Akeldama. I have been looking at exiting posters for similar themed films to see how they have continued the theme in the typography and have tried using similar fonts to them.

The writing on the poster for The experiment' is based on army stencilling. 'Death Race' uses a font more based on that found in racing video games but still has be worn away to resemble an old stencilled sign. 

 This is a solid stencilled font. 

The bottom font it more directly based on army stencilling.

This is also a solid font that we were first considering, as it looks gritty and distorted. However, this is more suitable for a horror/sci-fi genre rather than a thriller, therefore, we are not going to be using this font.

Tagline research

This is the poster for Death Race (2008) and underneath the title is shown the Tagline 'Get ready for a killer ride'. This is a pun on the idea of the film being a race in which everyone want to be the last one alive. The film is an action film and this tagline relates well as it shows that this is a film based entirely around racing cars as already shown in the images and hinted at by the title. 

Gamer (2009) had the tagline 'Who's playing you?'. This relates well to the idea of the film as the main characters are fighting for control of there own bodies. It is a twist on the idea of someone 'playing you' as in being used or lied to as well the use of 'being played' in terms of someone hiding who they really are form you. The use of a question makes the viewer think longer about the poster and therefore the film. 

'Everyone has a breaking point' was the tagline for the 2010 film 'The experiment'. The idea of having a 'breaking point' relates to the idea of 'a mental breakdown', breaking out of being trapped and the idea that people are going to fight as they have reached their 'breaking point'. This tagline relates really well to the idea of the film but does tell us that the experiment is going to break down and so reveals the main part of the film a little. 

The film 'The bay' from 2012 used the tagline 'Panic feeds on fear'. This is a very unnerving tagline and relates very well to its horror genre. The image shows some sort of animal living inside a persons throat and so we can assume that the tagline is referring to the parasites feeding on the humans in the film as well as the fear people have of the parasites feeding the panic and chaos. The use of the word 'feeds' is used because, even though there is no mention of any parasites in the tagline or title, we immediately make the assumption that something is going to be eating the characters and shows that it is a horror film. 

'Hunt to kill' (2010) had the tagline 'survival of the baddest'. Although this is not necessarily a particularly clever or witty tagline it give the viewer a good idea of the genre and general plot of the film. The tagline here serves its purpose in that it shows us this is going to be a slightly 'over the top' action movie probably with some cheesy lines. 

Tagline

• For our tagline, we wanted something that stands out and involves the audience. 
• To do this, we may involve a question directed at the audience. 
• This is to get the audience thinking about what they would do in the situation if they were in the film themselves.
• Our final decision for the tagline is:  1 million viewers, 24 hours, 5 players, 1 survivor. 

• We thought this tagline was appropriate for our genre and storyline, as we have noticed a few other taglines within the same genre that are similar.

• We also wanted to add text at the beginning of our trailer to give the audience a clear idea of what the film is about. In the film trailer 'Arena' (2011), the first thing that is heard is diagetic dialogue saying 'Going live in 3,2,1...'. 
• We took inspiration from this, but other than as a voice recording, we put it into text as we were already using a voice-over further on in the trailer. 

Research for the website

For the website there are some conventions of thriller/action movies to abide by. I looked at a series of websites to see what the conventions would be, below I have shown the main features commonly used in film website, which should help us with our website design.

Typical conventions found:

• Social networking links such as: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr. Which are the most prevalent three I have found.
• Background images linked to the film poster and trailer e.g. pictures (usually close ups or medium shots of the main protagonists or antagonist), or a picture of an iconic scene taken from the film.
• Trailer automatically plays on the opening of the website home page
• Links to a store, shop or gallery page
• Twitter feeds, or a way for fans to interact with the site. Usually run along the side or at the top of the home page
• Critics reviews quoted on the home page
• Tag line of the film
• Animation related to both the genre and individual film
• Any iconic symbols from the film will be displayed on the website i.e. The Hunger Games emblem is an animation on the film's website, and likewise on the SAW website the jigsaw puppet is featured as both are identifiable symbols of the films.
  
  
  
  

RAMBO WEBSITE:

There are critic reviews, to the right side of the home page, for example the one above mentions Silvester Stallone's well known reputation "STALLONE PROVES ONCE AGAIN WHY HE IS A LEGEMD!" This is a commonly found feature on websites, as using a famous actors name, makes a film appeal to the already excisting fan base of the actor/actors. The use of having good critics review, also gives the audience confidence in the film, and suggests that they are going to enjoy viewing it.

There are links to different pages, offering a store, gallery, and ways for fans to download the film trailer, by givng freebies like this it again increases the fan base and promotes the film to a range of people.

(above) There is rambo inspired animation on the home page, which loads several different times showing animation and graphics linked with scenes from the film, for example it uses the colour scheme, khaki colours and scratch marks connoting the idea of army and survival, which are main themes of the film. If possible, our website design could possibly do a lower tech version of this type of animation.

SAVAGES WEBSITE:

The trailer beings automatically on entering the website as is conventional for film websites. It is positioned in the middle of the home page, making it prominent and attention grabbing to the audience (above). A feature we will replicate on our own website.

The title of the film is bold, and prominently placed on the top of the sites home page, as well as the directors name just above the title, as well as the release date of the film and other film information. The typography used for all three is the same using continuity to give the site a more professional look (above).

In the top right corner of the home page there are links embedded to social networking sites, and also to You Tube, where fans can post videos and other links to the trailer. These are important features used on most websites, as film creators want to encourage fan interaction with the site, as this boosts the fan base populous and fan loyalty. We will definitely include social networking links on our film website.

Poster information

Conventions of a film poster:

• Title (to tell audience what the film is called i.e Akeldama)
• Tagline (appropriate for genre and film)
• Keep in genre (to let audience know what type of film it is, and to attract the target audience)
• Same typography (as the website and teaser trailer)
• Ratings (such as 5*, 4* etc.)
• Release date (to tell the audience when the film is going to be shown in cinemas)
• Main starring actors (to attract 'fans' attention and increase film popularity)
• Pictures relate to film (appropriate images)
• Golden rule (to allow the audiece to move their eyes aruond the whole poster to take in all info)
• Focal picture (to firstly attract the audiences attention. Eye-level)
• Info on production companies (to tell the audience who produced the film, and to increase popularity)
• Accurate use of language (approprate to the genre and film, and to allow all ages to be able to understand)
• Images are clear (so that audience can easily see the images, and relate to the film)

Potential photos to add to poster

 

• These are pictures we may add to our poster including all four extreme close ups of each other the characters eyes. This gives a sense of mystery and enigma towards the audience which is what we want to portray.

Typography sources

To look for typography we wanted a font which would be bold and eye grabbing to catch our audiences attention. Because of this we decided against using the traditional fonts found on software such as; word, PowerPoint or Adobe Photoshop and instead looked at a series of online sites.

The first site we looked at was dafont.com: http://www.dafont.com/

(Above) is the homepage for the website as you can see it others a wide range of font styles to choose from, it is also user friendly as each different style has a sub heading to look from which meant that it became popular to work from (below).

Another site which was also helpful and offered an even wider range of fonts was 1001fonts.com: http://www.1001freefonts.com/

This site is also easy to use, and has clear subheadings which link to pages containing particular styles. Heres an example of the type of page it would link too:

There is a link to download the font in different formats and also a link called 'customer preview' which is a really useful way of seeing how our chosen text will look in that font style:

This is a font we are not likely to use as the italic writing appears very feminine and 'girly', which is not appropriate for our trailer/poster/website, however the rough dappled effect on the lettering is good and connotes an idea of decay or erosion, which we might wish to exploit.

Another website is 100 greatest free fonts: http://www.awwwards.com/100-greatest-free-fonts-collection.html

This site is less userfriendly than the others, so it may not be as good to use. The most noticable difference of the site is that it has no direct links to fonts grouped into different categories and instead the user is meant to scroll down the page till they find a font they like (below) this may make it more difficult to find a font we want to use, however the fonts that the company have are a lot more contemporary and unusual:

As you can see the fonts above are colourful and there are a range of ways they can be displayed, I already found one typography type that we might want to use:

It is simple, but stylish as the letters are elongated and plain, and the rounded corners of the letters i.e the “L” which is not sharp and angled, as it is in most fonts makes the font appear modern and is different from typical typography. Our film trailer, might suit a font with a similar simplistic style, as the title is already unusual “AKELDAMA” so a simple font may work well to emphasise the words.

Shooting schedule: January

The final month of filming! With only a few shots to go January is our last scheduled filming date.

Shooting Schedule no 5:

Crew needed: Summer, Farah
Date: 4th January
Actors needed: Drake (Dani), Della (Farah Speer)
Actor arrival time: 11am am meet at Summer's house
Arrive at Destination: 11 am
Time allocated for makeup: An hour/

Begin shooting: 12 pm
Estimated shooting time needed: Two/three hours

Props needed: Makeup (fake blood and body paint for bruising, wounds etc.) costume and weapons fake rifle.

Lighting: LED lights
Sound equipment: (all)

Camera equipment: two tripods, Cannon 550D, Nikon DSLR (for photos)

Starting the website

I have set up an account on Wix.com which we will be using to create our website. This I think, from having a look at what we can do on there, is the best website design site we can use as it is simple and allows us to really control the entire design. 

Below is a screenshot from our website. This is not going to be the complete design because we need more images but I started practicing on the site to see what could be done. I think either a group shot or a dramatic image of one main character would be a good idea as it will show what type of film Akeldama is without revealing all the story. I think it would also be  good idea to use the same or a very similar image to the one used on the final poster as it will make the whole campaign fit together better.

We obviously are yet to have a fully edited trailer to upload, but once that is completed we can see exactly how the website will look.