Post 14: Ancillary Task 1- Postcards

Hollywood films use a range of advertising to help advertise their film to the widest possible audience as possible. They usually use conventions like a big dominating picture which is usually a still from the film, it uses star power by presenting the main actors names usually at the top, some use slogans, they usually have the release date, some awards along the bottom and sometimes they have the directors name. All of these factors join together and draw in a wide audience. 

This is an example of a Hollywood film poster. As we can see the picture and the title of the film dominate the poster as well as the main actors name Tom Hanks. This will immediately catch the audiences eyes and get them wondering what this film is about. It also shows the release date in the bottom right hand corner and along the bottom we can see the awards it has one along with the names of the production companies and directors names. 













This is a poster of the film Twilight, which I have annotated to show the different techniques it uses to grab it's audience.

 

However, short films aren't usually as widely spread as hollywood films and so instead of creating film posters they use postcards. Postcards are a more direct way of addressing with the audience. In class we have been looking at some postcards of short films and been analysing them so when we come to make our own they fit the codes and conventions for typical short film postcards. As we found commonly the front of the postcard had a dominant photo from the film, the title and a slogan. The back of the postcard tended to contain slightly more information, telling us names of crew members, who produced it, filmed it and the distribution company. It also normally contains a website for the film so the audience member can find out more. 


This postcard is from the short film 'Divine'. This picture shows my annotations of what the postcard shows using most of the codes and conventions. 

This postcard tended to follow the majority of the codes and conventions. for example, the front of the postcard contains a dominant still image from the film, with just the title of the film and the slogan around it. The back of the postcard then gives slightly more information, it tells us the production company and some cast and crew information, for example who the producers and directors are and who stars in the film.

This postcard is from the short film 'On Life's Edge'. 

This also follows the majority of the codes and coventions I found. The front of the postcard is different to the one from Divine as it still has a dominant picutre, however it does not cover the entire front, and there are three smaller still images from the film on the left hand side. It also contains the film title, but we also see the production company name on the front. The back is also quite similar to others I have looked at, including the title and a synopsis of the film, a cast and crew list and names or production companies and other companies who are part of the film. This one also uses more bolder colours such as the yellow. Whereas the Divine postcard uses black and white which doesn't make it stand out as much.

For my own postcard for our short film I think I would like to try and stick to quite darkish colours such as black or white or grey. This is because our film is about Billy feeling lonely and isolated and so I feel using dark colours on the postcard will help portray the theme of the film, I think it would be inappropriate to use bright colours which stand out. On the front of the postcard I want my main picture to be very dominant and be the whole front of the postcard. Also on the front I only want to have the title of the film and the slogan, nothing else. On the back of the postcard I will have a synopsis of our film and a cast and crew list. I also want to put a website on there so our audience could go on and find out more about the film. In class we have also been talking about QR codes which are quite modern and useful and so I want to put one on my postcard so the audience could scan it and find the informtaion.

These are two ideas I came up with for the front of my postcard.

This one is showing Billy sitting under the stairs huddled up, holding his legs. Showing only Billy, the title and the slogan, 'What do you do when there's nowhere else to run?'.








This one is a close up of Billy and I would try and get a still image from part of footage we shot so it would be seen in the film. Again only displaying Billy, the title Dumped and our slogan.