Directors Quote

Now that I have created an image for my director, during my research I noticed a lot of magazine articles be it reviews or not include quotes. Consequently, I have therefore come up with a quote for my review which can be seen below;

I ensured the quote itself is written in a different font to the rest of the review text so that is stands out. It is in one of the fonts which I tried out for the title of my review called 'Neou Thin.' The word 'Director' is in the same font in which I used for the word 'False' in my review title called 'Jenna Sue.' This was done so that similar fonts were used throughout. If too many different fonts are used in the text the review can look untidy. The font 'Jenna Sue' was also used because this font is like handwriting and a quote is personal to the individual that says it. By writing 'Director' in a hand writing style emphasises this.

Director Image

Now that i've come up with a way of presenting my images, I now had to take original photos of people/objects to appear in my review.

I wanted to take a picture of someone who could be named the director of my film. I took this primary image of my sisters boyfriend, Andy.

                                          
Like with my original image of my sister, I ensured that I took the picture of him up against a plain background. This is because it is easier to edit and in my opinion, looks more professional when nothing is behind him. As well as this, I also particularly like what he is wearing and is outfit was consciously chosen. I feel as though he looks like a young upcoming director. Especially the sunglasses which are iconically resembled with celebrities.

I ended up editing the photo of Andy in iPhoto on my mac. Firstly I cropped the image slightly using the crop tool;

 Then I made the overall look of the image brighter. Including the background and Andy himself;

I then copied and pasted the image into word and resized it so that it was an appropriate size for my review;

Finally I added a border line in the colour white all the way round the photo;

Idea Change!

I have decided not to go ahead with designing my images as polaroid photo's. This is because I tried doing this but I didn't feel it worked. I think for this idea to work properly i'd need to take the images directly with a polaroid camera and I simply do not have the funds to do this. I have however found a new way of creating a similar technique as demonstrated below;

I have not made this original picture in to a polaroid photo but having a thick white rim round the edge of it makes it look similar to a polaroid and makes the image stand out more.

Images

Today I decided to take some original image to put on my Magazine Review. I considered putting pictures of all my characters on my review however there is rather a lot of them and my A4 document simply does not advocate enough space. I feel it would look odd if I could included pictures of a few of my characters and not all of them. With this in mind, I decided to take some images of objects that convey the idea of what my film is essentially about - beauty. Below are the primary images that I took and edited;

This photo is taken of a hand with painted nails which  are typically associated within the beauty industry.

This is another beauty product. A picture of a mascara by Maybelline.

This is a photo of another make-up associated item, a powder brush.

I did also consider using the photo I took for my poster and putting it on my magazine review.

A picture of various colour eye shadows.

Laslty, a close up picture of an eye.

Polaroid Photos

I was keen to come up with an innovative idea for my images. I watching Ed Sheeran's new music video for his latest song to be released 'Drunk.' At the very start of his video, I noticed a wall behind him full of polaroid photos. As you can see below (0:00-0:21)

I loved this idea. I felt polaroid photos were a bit different. They represent 'snap-shot' moments in a persons life and a review gives a person a snap-shot of what a film is like. As well as this, I could also invisage how they could be used in plastic surgery, through taking photos of someone prior to them being operated on. Example of polaroid photos:

                                       
After looking at sample polaroid photos online, I then set about creating my own in a microsoft word document. How I created the polaroid photos is demonstrated in the print screens below:

Firstly I created a text box and filled it with the colour black.

Then, I created bigger text box and filled it with an off-white colour.

Next, I put the black text box on top of the off-white text box to complete my polaroid photo. 

 I could easily adapt the colour of the polaroid photo by changing the colour of the text box.

Review text

Today I decided to start writing my magazine review. From the research I carried out via looking at reviews written by leading magazine 'Empire' I found out I should include; a table of the films details, a plot outline, a review and a verdict. With these points in mind, this is what I came up with:

This is the information box I created, giving the reader basic details about the Short Film.

FILM DETAILS

Certificate 15

Genre Documentary

Cast Thirla Rich Beth Barwick Alice Leng Jonothan Clibbon

Directors Rachel Howard

Running Time 5 minutes

Plot Outline:

Documentary film interviewing various individuals (including professionals) about how the media affects the way someone feels about their body image.

Review:

This film is in a documentary genre so intrigues an audience purely by its non-fictional format.

The Film has a good introduction. It starts by telling the aim of the documentary via a voiceover and explains why this is an important matter to discuss within today’s society. The audience visually sees a pile of magazines with the ‘ideal’ form of beauty plastered all over the front pages.

Throughout the short 5 people are interviewed about their views. The film does a fantastic job of interviewing people with a mixture of opinions and experiences.  Characters also vary widely in age range from teenagers to the elderly: allowing the audience to see how perceptions of body image change throughout generations.

Despite this, the documentary could be seen as being biased as it fails to interview someone from the media industry who may have been able to justify why they use ‘perfect’ images.

 The questions the interviewer asks are not prejudiced towards either side of the argument. The interviewees answer the questions depending on their own interpretation. Furthermore, it is good how the interviewees include the question in their answers; allowing time in the production to be used efficiently.

The interviewer not always being shown could be seen to be a failure of the film. There is no prominent presenter throughout and maybe having a consistent figure present would have linked the people/locations, which are ever changing. 

When locations change, it uses establishing shots very well as we see wide/mid shots of the area, enabling the audience to acknowledge that the setting has changed.  The film mixes stable shots with unstable shots. This represents a true documentary style as having shots that are not perfect enhances the real life element and constructed footage makes the film more professional.

Another positive is that the interviewees are not all asked questions in a standard interview format, i.e. sitting down. For instance, lady is interviewed whilst performing lazar treatment on a patient.

The documentary concludes that the media does affect how someone feels about their body image as the evidence discovered within the documentary backs this up. It balances the fact that although this may be the case, there are substantial reasons for the media to use airbrushed images.

It is good to conclude on a balanced opinion; however in some ways it can be seen as a copout as the answer in the documentary clearly shows the media does affect someone’s confidence. By ending on a more one-sided point of view makes the documentary worthwhile watching as the audience gets a definitive answer to the question posed.

Verdict:

A very current topic, with a good range of people featured, but lacking participation from the media itself.

Stars

Now that I have come up with a title, I have decided to design some stars to put underneath my title. Stars are a key element in any review so I wanted mine to stand out. I find stars are difficult to draw using software on a computer, therefore I looked an images of stars that I could use that are included within fonts. I went back to the website where I got the font for my title from, 'da font.' I found a font that included a star that I liked in it. Here are the stars I found below;

Although I have not drawn this image myself, I am aware that fonts do not have copy write attached to them. I really liked the look of the star above and thought it fitted in well with the look of the review.