Magazine Cover Ideas

Magazine Cover Idea 1

These were some rough drawings produced about the magazine cover, we thought about using the mask in our magazine cover as a main image however due to the poster ideas we decided not to use the mask twice as the main image and do something different instead. Through these ideas we came up with the technique of using biblical text as a texturised background which would link to the main trailer product also due to the religious sub-narrative and the shot of the bible in Act 3 of the trailer.

Magazine Cover Idea 2

This was another idea using the mask, we wanted to link the connection with the mask and the main girl character from the film with the magazine cover as in the film the mask is supposed to represent a psychological idea rather than a real entity and therefore in this image we are showing that the mask is in fact part of the girl herself making the audience infer that the mask maybe a psychological projection of the girl and the mask character may just be an embodiment of her own fear and doubt

Magazine Cover Idea 3

We included the biblical element of our film heavily in this cover as we were thinking of using an image of a bible with the name of the film written inside of it. We wanted to also draft a landscape magazine also as this would be a unique easy of producing a magazine and therefore may also stand out from the rest. 

Magazine Cover Idea 4/5

(4) for this cover we used the main inferences that would be gained from the title of the film with the use of an urban/rural clash of settings as well as references to the Garden of Eden and also the main character with her back turned walking away from the reader to show her vulnerability and her lonesomeness surrounded by large overbearing buildings

(5) For this magazine cover alike No.3 we experimented with a landscape style with the use of the recognisable mask as the main image, however this was a poor idea as the layout is poor such as the position of the mag title, which would not be seen if the mag was stacked on the shelf side by side, it would also be likely that none of the mask would be shown also

Magazine Cover Idea 6

This idea is very similar to our final magazine cover product, the use of the film reel at the bottom and also the running of the main protagonist were both used in the final product. The magazine name we decided would be 'Reel Talk' as it relates to film and also film reviewing. We decided this was the best layout for our film magazine cover as it fitted with conventions of many similar film magazines such as Empire and therefore would be identified nearly immediately as being one. We also concluded that using the girl as the main image would be better than the mask as we were planning on using the mask in our poster already and we wanted to create a more rounded product with more recognisable characters rather than just one. 

Analysing Film Magazine Covers

Slide 1: -
Slide 2: Spiderman Cover (May 2007)
Slide 3: Little White Lies (*01, *11. *14)

Sound Track Research

ConcreteGarden- Sound Track

This is small soundtrack mix that we created to show what sounds we would like to have in our trailer. They are mostly eerie experimental soundtracks, one of key inpirations is Jon Hopkins who produced the 'Monsters' soundtrack.


This kind of sound would be very useful in the beginning of our trailer in Act 1 as the build up of the sound and the build up for tempo would increase the intensity of the viewers experience alongside the increasing wariness of the girl. It is likely we need to find another soundtrack Act 2/3 as these scenes will be more violent and fast flowing with those of frequent jump cuts and a montage and therefore the use of a faster and louder sound will be needed. 

Costume Research

This is the mask we are using for our final product, it is a bauta venetian mask and is good as it keeps the alter ego faceless but keeps it a human aspect with the eye holes, also making it seem much more menacing. The alter ego will also be dressed all in black for it to seem less human and 'shadowy' and give it a dark evil personality just with its features. 

Film Poster Drawn Drafts

 1) Portrait image of Emma being suffocated my a male hand with the cult logo on.

Simple title at the top of the poster showing the film title

Tag line on Emma's chest area to do with a Biblical reference

Actors names appear left and right of her

Awards again in this same postition

Background will be unlit

 2) Main landscape image is the mask hung up on a hook in a room

Simplistic and effect- provides the audience with mystery

Roman font symbolising Biblical font

Actors names in the top left corner to establish that they are important

A tag line next to the mask above the film title so people will know more about the film

Film awards top rights corner to show what awards it has won

3) The view point of the mask being put on- the inside of the mask as if you were going to put it on

Centrally posistion title and image

Actors names symmetrically placed and the cult logo separating their names

This postitioning is also similar for the film award idents and film reviews than are below the mask ribbons.

Location Recce

This is our first recce of potential locations in our trailer, we decided it would be valuable to know what the area looked like aesthetically when translated into digital film and help us decide on lighting and tone that was needed.

Concrete Gardern Influences

Yesterday I watched the new Biritsh Horror Thriller the 'Kill List', it has common themes that relate to the film we are making 'Concrete Garden'. So I researched the posters that they used to advertise the film; I came across this one which is found particularly effective.

The poster encorperates the logo of the cult featured in the film, as we are using a similar logo this is something that could help shape our poster idea. The main characters face is merging with the logo and background image- it works really well and the colour scheme is incredibly effective. The poster also again uses something from the film to make the poster what it is- the 1-5 list of reviews linked with the 'Kill list'. The reviews are simple and effectively place and billing block also very simple; I really like this poster and hope to create something using similar techniques.

Film Poster Influences

 Halloween
This poster a complete cult graphic classic, and has actually been used time after time. This central image shows the force and presence of the halloween character. It has a simple black background with a centrallised billing block in white. All three posters are in portrait and I believe sticking to this convention would be good. There is few text on the poster and this makes it strong and bold and delivers a required effect. The tag line is bold and slightly like a graphic novel in font.

 One Missed Call
This poster at first resembles a sort of alien face and then you realise it is an optical illusion of three faces. You purposefully cannot see the rest of the body and this makes the character seem far more frightening. The tag line in red asks a rhetorical question to the audience, this immediately involves you. The title of the film is fairly low-key and allows most of your attention to be drawn to the image.

Saw2
We have chosen a particular style to follow to create our poster and be influenced. Portrait style and black background is a very common convention. Once again the antogonist is shown mysteriously with hard and sharp shadows, the thematic colours are consistent through out. Red, blacks and whites blend well to create and ominous vibe surrounding the central image.

We aim to create something that is guided by these posters but also breaks certain conventions of them, we may go down a more graphic route like the first two as we believe the mask is a very strong image.

Poster Research

This is the poster for the movie 'Se7en', I like this poster because it has elements of potential posters for our film. Initial ideas for the poster include the point of putting across the connection between the masked figure in our film and also Emma the main protagonist in our film. Therefore showing them together on the poster will show there close relationship, alike Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in the film who are detective partners. The poster also has a very sinister elements to it with the use of a red and black colour scheme therefore already showing that the film will potentially be a thriller or a horror due to the connection made with the colours, for example red being blood and black used to show its dark themes. In sevens case this is a mass murderer who kills victims who fit into the particular seven sins categories played by Kevin Spacey.

I think this is a fan made poster made for the film 'Face/Off', this poster is illustrated nicely and also portrays similar themes to our film narrative therefore could translate as our film poster also. The masked figure could be shown to actually be the antagonist Mark Francis as well as Emma the protagonist, blurring the boundaries of who the masked figure actually is and whether it is actually a living being or perhaps the alter ego created by the main character. The poster below is more likely to have been the true poster for the feature film due to the clear representation of the movies selling points, its main characters John Travolta and Nicholas Cage. This poster works well with the high concept theme however it is not the type of film we are creating.

This is the film poster for the film 'the silence of the lambs', the poster shows thriller aspects and also a potential female protagonist/antagonist alike our film. the thriller aspect is shown subtly with the skull symbol on the moth on Jodie fosters mouth which also has a reference within the film. The poster is not overdone and does not show the films main characters in an obvious way unlike the face off and seven posters and has a more 'independent' low budget vibe compared to the other high concept film posters.

CF, BH

News In Relation to our Narrative

Two Women Charged in Satanic Sex Ritual Stabbing

Storyboard Sequence

Cult Logo's

We needed to create a logo and indentity for our religous based cult. I looked through many previous tribal logos and pagan logos to get an understanding. I drew these two logo's on Adobe Illustrator and we will need to recreate these on a page and on Marks hand for our trailer.

Shot List

CF, BH

Costume Research

 A variety of masks inside the shop, some can be recognised from popular horror movies such as Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, however we did not want to use these masks as otherwise the film would be linked with the films which is what we didn't want to do.

 This  mask was   the kind of mask we were looking for  as it is a venetian mask. It is unique in its style and can be linked to  other thrillers such as V for Vendetta. 

These two masks are both venetian however the colour and brightness of the mask do not give the right style or representation we wanted for our main antagonist as the masks give off a more friendly vibe rather than an evil one. 

For our costume research my partner Billy Holmes visited a proffesional costume shop in clapham junction to search for a suitable mask to use in our trailer that would portray the right image we aimed to represent, something that induced fear in the audience and is easily recognisable. 

Concrete Garden Plot

Concrete Garden

Our protagonist is aged between 18-21 years old, she has just moved to London to study. She is not overly confident whilst her bodily language depicts the complete opposite. Her name is Emma Jennings and as she is very attractive feels rather alone in her new environment, but naturally is very likable and intelligent. She Starts College where she meets a range of new people all whom she feels will have very little significance in her life. She met with a strange young man similarly aged to her named Mark Francis, he provokes mystery and elements of perversion. Emma learns the ropes around London and soon becomes far more comfortable, as she settles Mark hangs around her more, she shrugs it off at first until she notices him following her home.

We learn more about the background of Emma and learn to sympathise and relate with her as her character is fully established Mark starts to obsessively stalk her. She becomes panicked and feels incredibly vulnerable, he speaks to her in a strange perverted poetic way, and this disturbs her mind. He talks of sex, revenge and religious events- her innocence is made clearer as we notice how she reacts in these dark and twisted situations. Mark starts to become actively involved in her life talking to her all the way home, waiting outside her doors. Emailing her weird images, she doesn’t have any one to rely on accept a few friend as he continues to haunt her.

She receives an email with a masked man telling her that ‘she is needed and she will be eternally rewarded’. This masked character soon becomes an alter ego of Emma and follows her around she cant tell the difference between her mind and reality. The alter ego is reflection of her paranoia and fright and this masked character continues to tell her similar things that Mark has told her on numerous occasions. People start to notice that she is slowly becoming insane, she starts to see Mark as this masked character on occasions he appears to be normal.

One day she feels ill blood drips from her mouth, a bodily change has occurred and she notices marks over her body, without any knowledge of how they appeared there. She tries to leave her house when she opens the door Mark Is there his face barely visible she screams and viscously claws him, he holds her down and tells her that the cult need her and she will be rewarded. Emma becomes frantic and completely insane. He notices her alter ego, and acknowledges the existence- he grabs the mouth of the alter ego and cuts to her in a strange unknown place. Her vision is impaired and she can her weird chanting. Emma greets her masked alter ego, at this stage she is incredibly disturbed and almost lifeless. She is greeted by a panel of similarly masked people, her alter ago goes over and meets them. She is apart of this strange cult, they call her ‘Eve’ and is offered red apples and she is harnessed down to stall. They carry out numerous practices; Mark heads the bizarre sexually provocative displays. Her alter ego tells her that its ok and she needs to let Lucifer take control of her- she continues to scream.

Concrete Garden

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch

This is a potential piece of art we may incorporate into our final products such as the trailer, poster or magazine cover. The piece depicts the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve are being tempted by the devil, the painting has an unnerving feeling to it such as the death of many animals surrounding the people and therefore would help us gain the audiences attention.

Characters

Emma Jennings. Main Protagonist and Central Character. Aged between 18-21. Innocence and naivety portrayed. New to the city. Unique style. AttractiveThe powerpoint below shows what different actresses we would want to use if we had the correct budget for our film.(Please click in the bottom right hand corner to view the presentation full screen)

Mark Francis

• Main antagonist and supporting  actor
• Creepy
• Aged between 18-21
• Mysterious and volatile
• ControllingIntense

Locations

Location 1


This area is located in Stockwell and will be the area in which our main character will live. We decided to use this area as it shown to have a safe aesthetic to it therefore the contrast with later on in the film where the character is more vulnerable. The area is urban but not that urban due to a large amount of greenery located in the area, another contrast to the scenes that will be shown later on in the film which will be very urban and un-natural. This wealth suggest naivety in the girl main character therefore the audience will have higher sympathy for her if anything happened to her.

Location 2


This street is located in Pimlico and has the similar aesthetics to the first location. This is another possible located of where the girl could live as it still would show a large contrast to darker grittier scenes later on in the film. The use of white houses is a key aspect of deciding where to film due to the contrast between light and dark and an stereotypical audiences associate perception with them; light is good and dark is bad.




















Location 3


This area is located up town near St.Pauls, the narrow street gives the sense that you are enclosed and cannot escape from there, therefore for psychological thriller it would be good to use. This location also reminds me of the scene in Inception after the main character played by Leornado DiCaprio is being chased in a European city, within this scene he runs down an alley and the walls mysteriously become smaller and smaller towards the end making it harder and harder to escape, this can be interpreted as him trying to escape from his dream or perhaps his reality. The meaning in using this alley is the use of the spire of St.Pauls, as our film has a religious aspect to it, it would be interesting to know the reaction and interpretation of the audience to this shot.

Location 4



This area is located near Wandsworth / Clapham and is a restaurant. I like the aesthetics of this building due to its gothic appearance and architecture. A typical 'haunted' house if you will, this location may be used to pretend to be the college in which the main character goes to school and meets the antagonist for the first time. The use of this building in the trailer may already suggest a  horror film due to conventions in other films which use the same kind of overbearing bold buildings. Our filming schedule is also planned for winter months, therefore another aesthetic of this area is the environment surrounding the building. It is located in a green area and since it will be winter the trees and bushes will be bare, another convention of horror films as it suggests mortality

Location 5

This location is near Bank, in the City of London which is a disused car park which is available for us to film in. We aim to use a green filter/gel for this area as it gives a creepy and eerie tone to the shots used. The location will be the area where we film the cult scenes which shows the different members of the cult the antagonist is a member of, the location has many different styles of area which will be available to use, we aim to give the feel of the main character not being able to escape from this area and to have a contrast from her place where she lives which is outside, light and clean whilst this area is dark, grim and underground. The underground aspect could also be used to have a sub-context due to the religious aspect of the film, it could be shown to be hell because it is underground.

Location 6

This is an outside area outside lambeth college, this could be a good place for the meeting of the characters. It is a large open space that is illuminated at night, the high wall feature adds for an interesting back drop. There is a strange orange sculpture, this can actually be filmed through and this distorts images and acts a filter.

Location 7


This location is in Forest Hill, South London and would be a good Master Shot of London at the beginning of the trailer to establish were the film is set. The area is also very secluded and eerie and therefore would go with the tone of the film. From this point also there is a view of Saint Pauls cathedral and therefore it would be useful to have a shot of St.Pauls to hint at a religious aspect to the film and also would link in later on in the trailer when St Paul is used as a backdrop to one of the scenes shown in location 2. This shot would also show the difference between urban and rural and therefore a contrast alike to later on in the film where the safe urban area that the main character lives in changes to a darker setting, (compare location 1 to location 4)

Studio Production

From our film we want a combination of an american and english film studios and production companies- to provide our film with and anglo- american feel. We have decided this because we believe our film does not suit the British Independent Arthouse bracket. This is mainly due to the budgeting of these films such as 'Skeletons', 'Shifty' and 'Disappearance of alice creed' do not provide the aesthetics of what we want our film to look like.

With an anglo-american production there be a significant amount of money pumped into our project, this will give it a stylish and high class feel and look to our film. Our audience will be broader as we can have a small american marketing project along side a European release. This will help of Psychological thriller to be successful and to hopefully receive international acclaim. W want the high aesthetic nature that an anglo-american production provides an example of this is 'American Werewolf in London', a classic example of British and American

talent combining. The film used a half and half combination of studio's; Polygram, Hearst Entertainment and the Guber-Peters company. This film had a good budget and made a nice profit in the US and the UK.

An American Werewolf in London

Another film that we are influenced by in its production and distribution is 'Big Nothing', Simon Pegg and David Schimmer both directed this- a fantastic example of successful of an English and American collaboration. They produced a great comedy-thriller that got noticed all over Europe and America with the studio 'Pathe', as a result was incredibly popular and well received and both nations. Whilst being set in Oregan still had a british vibe, so this proves that a combination can still stay true to both English people and Americans.

Big Nothing Poster

A film that really inspires our film is '28 days later' a cult Thriller-Horror set in a dystopian England. The film is pretty much entirely British from the locations to actors, but the film couldn't have been made with out the input of an American distributor. 20th century fox combined with Fox searchlight pictures to create this outstanding film and the British film council and DNA joined studios. Thanks to the help of the collaboration '28 days later' managed to pick up 'Best Horror Film' in the US,UK and Europe- not to mention a vast array of other awards. This is what we hope our film to achieve if released. With the backing of anglo-american money, the film managed to pull off great effects, actor and locations we would want this to be true of our film as well. The film production crew then managed to make '28 weeks later' and even a possible '28 months later'.

DNA Studio logo

20th Century Fox logo

Trailer Structure

ACT 1

• Shots of studio idents both english and american, winner of film festivals (Anglo-American)
• Establishing/Master shot of main location which is London
• Opened with soundtrack, with religious / positive tone
• Shot of main character in location
• Introduction to main character by sound bites to confirm narrative
• Antagonist introduced after main character to show importance in the film
• Capture her isolation, lo-fi vibe
• Introduction to other extra character, involved within the cult 
• Slow paced editing to fit conventions of a standard film trailer
• Use of fade in/out editing also

ACT 2

• The problem introduced/ Good vs. Evil standard convention
• Increase speed of editing between shots, reduction of use of fade in/fade out clip transition
• Character shows more emotion as cult influence intensifies
• Introduction of alter ego character, masked figure, add curiousity to the trailer
• Thrilling sound effects, to suggest deterioration of character and cult influence 
• Change of 'safe' locations
• More character development within the cult characters
• Shots of images related cult, religious aspects shown such as cross, devil etc.
• Dialogue between antagonist and protagonist to help introduce problem to audience
• Audience becomes more emotive towards protagonist
• Mystery introduced, psychological element
• End of ACT 2 and increase editing to montage speed

ACT 3

• Montage introduced
• Non-linear clips shown to not give away too much of the story
• Action scenes used with fast paced editing to increase suspense and sell the film
• Sound Effects used to increase action theme
• Problem is intensified with the antagonist, more shots of both antagonist and protagonist to show conflict
• Dramatic change of location to show the change of tone in the narrative of the fill
• Finale Introduction more alter ego character, long end shot to show all alter ego characters to increase curiosity of the audience and make them want to see the film more
• Title of film
• Credits shown