How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

The aim and overall theme of my documentary was 'whether the media influence how someone feels about the way they look.' It was this sentenced that I wanted to bare in mind when creating my poster/magazine review. This was because I felt this sentence summaries my documentary, therefore if I created a poster and magazine review conveying this message, it was sure to support and advertise well the Short Film that I had produced.

I conveyed this message with my poster by putting newspaper text in the background. Like the magazines that were shown in my film, this text represents the media. As seen on the front cover of the magazines in my Documentary, I chose to feature a very beautiful and airbrushed model on my poster. One which looked perfected and too good to be true, in other words, false. Having her face featured represented the media using unrealistic images for young girls to conform to. I also felt by creating my poster in the style of  the front cover of a magazine almost, helped to link it to the magazines and beautiful faces that were shown in my Documentary. The image of the girl I put on my poster also had lines across her face, these lines symbolised her having plastic surgery in order to look how she does. This again links to my Documentary, as a plastic surgeon is interviewed, as well as the idea that the images on magazines are not real, they do not represent what a 'real' person looks like. Aside from that, I was keen not to have too much on my poster, I wanted to keep it simplistic and to ensure it did not become over complicated. I felt with the background newspaper text, the perfected image and the lines on her face all worked in drawing the conclusion that my documentary was about how the media use false images on their front cover that don't represent what the average person looks like and that plastic surgery can play a part in this. I felt I had conveyed this message well through the means of images, rather than writing too much text. The only text I did include on my poster was the title and the date. The title also helps to convey what my documentary is about ''The False Reality.'' This is the idea that the images we see are false but that is the harsh reality of how it is nowadays. The date was included as it is essential it is included on a film poster so that the audience know when it is realised. Overall I felt my poster worked nicely with my film that i'd created. I feel I was able to give off the main point of my documentary through images, which I feel is what a poster aims to do. I chose the text to be black and white as text often is in the media industry and the picture was made to look extra false by making the girls skin look perfected and adjusting her eye colour so that it was obvious that they didn't reflect the natural colour of her eyes. Not only did I enable people to workout the aim of my documentary but I also gave them some information of the kind of things that would be featured in my documentary, i.e. the plastic surgeon due to the surgery lines on her face and the magazines due to the media text situated behind her. I think my poster reflects my film well and I don't think there is anything I would change in order to improve it. The colour of the text for my film date and colour of the girls lips even goes with my documentary as a similar tone of pink was used in the title/credits of my film, making them combine affectively. One thing I would change however, is that I should've included the production logo (seen here on the bottom right hand corner) in my film. This wasn't something I had thought of until I had completed my film and started my poster, and I think they would've combined slightly better if my production logo was shown in my film, something which it doesn't currently feature.

Moving on from my poster, I then created my Magazine Review. Unlike my poster, which I feel combines with my Documentary really well, I do not feel my review compliments my short film quite as well.

I feel the colour of the text works well with both my poster and my Documentary film. The pink tone is consistent throughout all three of my pieces and works not just because it is featured in all of them but because pink is a colour which represents my target audience for my film - young females. The dark purple in the background, I feel also works because this colour also would be liked by my target audience as it is a colour majority of young females like. This colour however it not featured in my poster, therefore you could argue the colours used don't combine affectively. Having said this, I was unable to have the same background as on my poster because that would've meant putting text on top of text which would have been almost impossible to read. The purple colour is however featured within my documentary when I am putting on my make up and you can see the wallpaper with purple tones included behind me, so in some aspects the colour works well. I also didn't feel it was appropriate to leave the background completely white, therefore I feel I chose the right colour as a background. In terms of the title the colours match with the poster as the same grey is used. In hindsight however, I feel placing the word 'false' in a different colour/text like I have in my review worked really well and was effective and I probably should've done this with the title of my poster and the title in my Documentary too. Another thing I feel which would've helped combine my poster, review and film together was if i'd have chosen the same font for the tile of my Documentary. They have all been placed in different ones and they wouldn't looked neater and more professional and consistent if i'd have placed them all in the same font. Having said this, the title of my poster and magazine review are in similar fonts, just my review font is thinner and smaller because there is less room on a review than a poster, plus the fonts available on iMovie are very limiting so there's not garentee I would've been able to use the same font for my film tile in my documentary anyway. I feel the information box of the top left of my review doesn't necessarily combine well with my documentary. This is because I made up the information due to the fact I thought it would look more affective, for instance saying a films running time is only 5 minutes doesn't look that impressive. If I was to do this again, I would ensure that all the information in the box was truly relevant to my actual production, regardless of how professional it appeared as it doesn't accurately reflect what my film is actually like. An example of this would be the fact there are only three interviewees in the film, not the five that are suggested. I do feel however that it was necessary to include this information box and it was an important factor to include within my review, this is demonstrated by the fact most professional reviews, such as Empire Magazine include a basic box of the films information. In terms of the images used in my review, I feel that it doesn't really combine very well with my film and poster. I think I should've included the image of the director however also included some images of the characters in my documentary and perhaps the image of the girl shown on the poster. From the review, visually people do not know who is featured, something that I definitely was wrong not to have included. Having this image would've allowed my 3 pieces to interlink more appropriately and including the images wouldn't have taken very long to do. In terms of the text however, I feel the plot outline combines my magazine review, poster and film affectively. This is because the plot outline is obviously what my documentary is about but just summarised into a couple of sentences in my review and the poster represents this same plot outline, but instead demonstrates this via images instead of text. I feel the review text itself in some ways combines well with my short film however it other ways does not. This because I did not get feed back on my Shot Film before writing my review, therefore the positive and negative comments I made were strictly my own views and what I suspected the audience would think of my work. This meant that the overall review is not 100% accurate to what the audience stated. Another thing that changes this is due to the fact I had very limited space to right my review on therefore couldn't include as many aspects as I wanted to due to shortage of space. This means that due to lack of detail people may not get a true reflection of what my film is actually like, meaning it doesn't combine hugely affectively. Having said this, I got as much detail as I could in within the space I had and some aspects I what I included myself, for instance the idea I should've focused more on the media industry rang true when I got back my audience research. The same is true for the overall verdict, this should've been made once my audience feedback was gathered, however I do feel it does reflect what my audience said about my film regardless, however it could've been slightly more precise. Lastly, the fact the title of the film in my review has a white background behind it combines well with my film as the title there too had a white background. Although the background of the title in the poster is not white, it is still a nude colour which is similar. 

In conclusion, overall I feel the combination of my film and poster worked really well. I feel the message of my documentary is conveyed accurately via images in my poster. I also feel that the colour scheme is similar as shown in my documentary and I like how certain elements of the poster foreshadow what is seen in the documentary, i.e. the plastic surgeon. The only thing I think that could change about my poster in order for it to combine with my film would be for me to have included my production logo within my film. I don't feel that my magazine is as affective with combining it to my main product. I feel the colours combine well however the information in the information box is misleading and the review text isn't completely accurate due to having not gotten feedback before I wrote it and lack of space. The plot outline combines affectively with my Documentary and poster however. In hindsight I should've include two more images on my review, one of character interviewed in my coursework and another of the lady situated on the poster, this would've enabled all three elements to combine better. Another thing that would have meant they combined better would've been if the exact same font was used in all three elements.