Intrusion Poster - Draft No.3 - Final draft

This is my third and final draft of the poster for Intrusion.

There were minor improvements with this draft, but I feel they had a good overall effect on the poster.

One of these improvements was that the captions were a bit too big, so in this draft I had them be a bit smaller. This is so that they are less eye catching and the audiences attention can be focused more on other things, such as the title itself, and the image in the poster.

I also made the text at the bottom of the poster smaller, because originally it was also a bit too big so it stood out in the poster more than it should.

I also changed the colour of 'A film by Ashley Banger' from red to black just to ensure all the text isn't the same colour, and just to add a bit more variety.


Characteristics of the poster? 


- The black and white background is used to connote the ominous theme I was going for in Intrusion. The colour scheme represents the darker mood and tone Intrusion was intended for, I felt that if I included colour in the poster it wouldn't quite pinpoint the tone and design I was going for.

- The 2 characters are facing away from the camera- this was used on purpose to create a mysterious relationship between the audience and the characters. The audience are left to interpret what the characters will be like, and what their intentions are. I thought this was good as it adds to the mystery behind Intrusion which is what the premise and poster is designed for .

Secondary Teacher Feedback- Short Film Draft #2

Recently I showed my second draft of 'Intrusion' to my other media teacher. He had certain, common improvements with my 2nd draft that were also found to be in my other feedback sessions from my other teacher and peers.

- One main improvement he told me that I definitely need to amend is the lighting in several shots that take place upstairs. He said some of the shots were just simply too dark and that this made the shots look noisy due to the lack of light, since I only sourced light from the candles. Next time, I will be using additional light sources when shooting however considerably dulling down the colours in editing, which will help me to achieve a similar effect of darkness in the shots. This is a good improvement I found and will make my next draft look higher quality.

- Another main  improvement/adjustment he found was that some of the sudden dips to black were considered to be unnecessary or lacking much point. Whilst I originally intended them to create suspense, and to help segment the story, my teacher didn't fully agree with this and would recommend I take them out. This is something I don't mind doing due to the fact that I partially agree in saying the sudden dips to back aren't fully necessary or structural.

- One other main improvement he commented on was the draft's length. The draft currently sits at 3.30mins approximately, whereas we should be aiming for a minimum of 4 minutes. This is something I definitely need to address in my next draft by shooting more footage.

- One last improvement was that I had several minor problems with continuity. However most of these were mistakes with things that I am going to be re-shooting so I'm not too worried about this for now.

Overall I'm happy with his feedback as I now have a clearer understanding of how to improve my product and will be carrying out these improvements as soon as possible.

'Intrusion' Draft #2

Here is my 2nd draft of Intrusion! I'm overall happy with this cut and think the vision has came together well.

'Intrusion' Draft #1- Initial Feedback and Responses from Peers and Teacher

After an initial screening of our first draft of our main texts to our peers, I have gotten some strengths and improvements for my first draft of my short film. I found this to be useful to me to quite an extent, as I now have a good idea of what people liked about my short film and also what needed changing or removing.

Some of the common strengths in my first draft were:

- Good use of ambient music. This is something I'm happy with and agree with due to the fact that I thought the piece of score was effective and appropriate for my short film. It was also something  I felt was a highlight in my video so far, so I'm pleased that people found it was good and well selected.

- Good editing. People liked the style of editing and thought the edits between the tripod footage and the handheld footage was good and served a real purpose. The purpose being the handheld footage was from the point of view of the thief's, making it look more gritty and realistic. This was why I used differing camera shot types and am glad people liked the different uses of them and thought it was effective.

- Several people liked the in and out focus of the first shot, as well as the fade in from black. They thought it was successful in achieving an ambient opening to the film; as well as swiftly establishing the setting.  They also thought it added to the suspense of the short film.

- Clever uses of lighting. I think people thought the way I was able to balance lighting with colour correction was well done and it achieves a suitable, respectable look. It makes my colour pallet look dark and low-key lighting but still has a fairly day-time esque colour pallet simultaneously.

- People also are beginning to like the narrative, despite it being only the first half of my short film. I am pleased with this as there is no dialogue in my short film as of yet, so it's good that people deciphering the narrative and plot just by the camera shots and the actions of the characters.

However they also had some weaknesses with my first draft.

- One significant, or more picked up than anything else weakness with my first draft short film is that the non-diegetic audio became repetitive, or made people lose slight interest in the film. This is something that surprised me and made me think twice about how I should go about audio in my product, so now I know in my 2nd draft when all shooting is complete, to have a range of audio types and be sure to change things up a bit, making a mixture of both diegetic audio and non-diegetic. This will keep things interesting for the audience and not have them be slightly put off by only hearing one piece and type of audio soundtrack like in my first draft currently.

- Some people found pacing to be an issue- whether shots went on for too long or some shots in general were't needed, which ultimately dragged out my short film or made it longer than it needed to be, also making it less effective. This is something I'll be sure to change in my 2nd draft round and will pay closer attention to shots that aren't 100% needed, and any ways I can speed up footage or takes.

- Some people found lighting to be an issue- whereas this is something I slightly disagree with. I most likely will just edit my colour correction more next time so that the colours are not as dark and low-key, and be sure to have slightly brighter and more colorful images.

Intrusion Poster Draft #2

This is the revised, 2nd draft of my poster for Intrusion. The first most notable improvement being that this one is now portrait, the standard convention for film posters. This was a fundamental improvement I had to utilise because my poster can't be landscape for significant, established reasons.

Another improvement is the text. I had to add all the necessary text at the bottom that my first draft didn't have. This is the text that will be found at the bottom of every film poster, all the information regarding the films production such as studios, directors, actors, producers and so on. This is also essential information that will be on most commercial film posters.

The image itself for the poster is now in black and white. I feel that this was a necessary improvement/adjustment as it suits the mood and tone of Intrusion much more than by using an image with lots of colour. This is because the black and white creates a bleaker, more sinister tone reflected in the darker, low-key lit colours. I also like how the house is now totally black in colour, creating a very mysterious tone and vibe towards Intrusion from the poster so far.

Overall I am happy with this draft, but I am looking to carry out more improvements for my next draft.

Film Review- Draft No. 2

Here is the 2nd draft of my second ancillary task, the film review. I produced and edited the film review using Photoshop CS5.

From my second draft, I have added all of the text, a secondary picture in the bottom right, the cast and film information on the right hand side, and the plot of the short film at the top right. These conventions are all things I have learned from my research into film reviews. The formatting is all up to speed in my opinion, and the picture and title 'Intrusion' is large and bold to attract the audiences attention. The film review would be for a double sided, A3 magazine page, which also a lot of my researched film reviews had the same structure.

Even though it is only draft 2 of my film review, I'm happy with it and don't think it'll need any more significant improvements or adjustments!

Feedback and Reviews from Peers and Teacher- Poster Draft 1

Recently our media class has undergone some feedback sessions for our ancillary tasks. I presented my first poster draft to the class and was relatively happy with the feedback and their responses to it. Some of the common strengths with my poster were:

- The choice of font, style and colour was effective to a fair extent. I am happy that my classmates and teacher thought this way, as I carefully selected and stylised the font to achieve a sinister, psychological-thriller effect to my poster, in which they also had similar feelings. They also liked the red, striking typography as it captured their attention and interest to the poster and the film. 

- They also liked the name for the short film itself, 'Intrusion'. They found it to be an appropriate, and effective word that represents the film and grabs the viewers attention and curiosity, despite the fact it's only 1 word.

- Another thing they picked out was the actual image from the poster, of my 2 main protagonists sinisterly standing outside of the house. They thought how it reinforced the title was good, and thought it was a good choice of primary imaging on the poster.

- Lastly, a few people thought how the primary colours used in the poster of red and black were successful in representing the moods and tones of the film, such as danger and crime which is what people deciphered from the colours used in the poster, which I'm pleased about as this is what I wanted.

Moving on, I also got given some disadvantages for my first draft of poster. These were things that people didn't like so much about the poster or things they saw as unnecessary or needed changing. Some of these disadvantages include:

- It needs to be portrait, not landscape. This is an essential adjustment I need to do for my poster as the main convention for posters is that they are done in portrait rather than landscape. This is something I will be changing as a result.

- Another thing they commented on was that my poster needed additional credits at the bottom, like how most conventional film posters do so including the production companies, directors, actors, camera and crew cast and so on.

- One person thought the poster would be better if the image was in black and white, as opposed to being in colour.  This is something I'm not fully sure I agree with, however I understand that if the image is in black and white, it may make the poster even more bleaker and explicit in the tone it's trying to create.

- Another person thought the depth and colour of the image on the poster could be improved, and will result in a better quality image. This is something I will do in order to get a better looking poster aesthetically.

These are all things I will be considering in order to improve my drafts of my poster.