Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Product - Way Back Then

Ancillary Task - Magazine Review

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Ancillary Task - Choice of Magazine

For our task of creating the magazine review, we decided to look into which magazine our review would be placed within. We narrowed our choices down to Empire and Total Film and eventually decided to place it within Total Film. We decided on this magazine because it was more focused on films than Empire, and so would be more likely to feature a review on a short film.

Once we had decided on the magazine, we decided to review a two page spread that is featured in Total Film. This particular two page spread features a review of the film True Grit. The review features one single large screenshot with the text surrounding the picture. The use of the image is important in drawing in and attracting the reader to read on. The review takes on a very neutral point of view, coming to a conclusion that the reader.

The editor of the articles uses particular quotes from the text that help to summarise and generalise the viewpoint that the reviewer has of the film. The use of different subtitles for the text helps to maximise the effectiveness of the review, and makes it much more engaging for the reader. The Predicted Interest Curve was a feature that interested us, as it showed that Total Film uses originality and different ways of making a review more interesting. We also liked the Verdict at the end of the article, as it may well be that the reader only glances at that to get a quick summary of the consensus around the film without reading the whole article.

Overall, we feel that Total Film is a perfect choice for our film to be placed within. The depth of analysis and the variety of ways that Total Film reviews its films means that we will use Total Film as our magazine. The intended audience for our film (17-25 years) are also the primary audience for Total Film and so our film would gain the maximum exposure.

Ancillary Task - Layout of Film Review

After doing some research and looking at existing film reviews from 'Total Film' magazine and examples of last year's students' ancillary tasks we were able to see what worked well and which ideas we could incorporate to our own film review.

We decided that this layout could be effective. It is a two page spread therefore allowing for a greater focus and analysis of the film.

Ancilary Task- Layout of film review

This is a basic idea for a film review covering a single page in a magazine. It has space for both images and text. It is important to have a balance of both if you want to engage your readership for a film magazine.

Ancillary Task - Final Poster

This is our final film poster for our film 'Way Back Then'. As we had discovered in reviewing the poster for 'music and lyrics', with a Romantic genre it is important that the film poster features a picture of the central protagnists within the film. We wanted to get the colour of our poster right, as it would help the audience to summarise and understand the genre and feel of our film. Predominately, the poster's primary colours are green and white. Green is featured as it has the connotations of romance but is not as strong as red or pink, and is soft and reflects therefore the tone of our film. With our poster above, it uses a screenshot from our film that features a romantic setting, suiting the genre and nature of the film. The couple are featured centre of the poster with their backs showing creating a sense of mystery and romance. The title of the film is displayed clearly along with the tagline 'from the producers of desolo', which was the title of the thriller we made the year before. This is a commom feature in marketing films, especially mentioning directors as audience viewers are more inclined to go see a film if they liked a previous film that has been directed or produced by the same person or company. There are four examples of reviews from various papers and film related magazines,important in transmitting to the audience the general consensus about the quality of the film, as well as showing that specialised reviews such at Total Film rated it highly. The important billing information is at the bottom of the poster, featuring information on the actors, producers and directors involved in making the film. We decided when making the billing to follow the order somewhat of the film poster for Casino Royale, with the actors names appearing first, and the directors last.

Ancillary Task - Poster Analysis

In order to gain a greater understanding when creating our own film poster, we thought it would be worthwhile to look at current film posters in order to gain an understanding of what is required and what makes an effective film poster. As our film is a Romantic Tragedy genre, we decided to analyse a poster that is of a similar genre.



This is the film poster for the Romantic Comedy Music and Lyrics. The posters main image is that of the two central characters, played by Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. The image shows them in a somewhat intimate situation laughing, reflecting the comic nature of the film. The poster also features images relating to music in the background, and the two are sitting at a piano, reflecting a main theme within the film which is music. In terms of typography, the title of the film as well as the actors names is written in lower case, perhaps reflecting the soft comic nature of the film. The lower case also matches well with the light colours and theme of the poster. At the base of the film is the release date written in bold upper case, important obviously as it tells the audience clearly when the film will be released. As with all film posters, at the bottom of the poster is the billing block, font condensed and featuring information regarding those involved in producing and directing the film.

Ancillary Task - Example of Film Posters

We decided before finally making our final film poster to find examples of a few film posters with a similar genre or theme, primarily that of Romance.

Editing Diary

In the first week of filming we managed to shoot two seperate scenes for the film and edit them.

On Wednesday 10th November we shot the footage we needed for the 'meeting' scene at Costa coffee shop We took our own advice that we developed last year, which was to shoot longer footage than we would need in order to have a more broad selection to use when it came to editing, and we found this worked in our favour. We wanted to make sure that, when it came to editing, we could find a balance between not cutting each shot too short so it gave a fast paced effect but instead a calmer one to suit and enhance the romantic theme, as well as not letting them drag on so the film lost the audience's interest. We also made an immediate decision to use fades as the transactions between each scene in order to support the idea that the images were the thoughts of the main protagonist, Renaud, as he reflects on the past.

We next filmed at Renaud's House to shoot the illness scene. Originally, the shot of Renaud entering the room was going to cut straight to Charli in the bed, however when editing we found we had two shots that went well but the start of one and end of one were the best. We then made the decision to cut it into two seperate shots so we eventually had the sequence of Renaud entering the room and looking ahead at her, then a shot of Charli in the bed, and then Renaud looking down sadly before we seem him walking over to her from behind and felt the results were much more effective. Then was the argument scene which consisted of four over the shoulder shots for each piece of dialogue. However when editing we decided that each of the shots were very quick because the lines were short and sharp. In order to resolve this we decided to edit the exchange so that Renaud would say his line and the camera stayed on him as Charli began her line and so on. This was a very careful process as it involved matching the exact syllable of the words so that they matched the next shot exactly but we were very pleased with the result of this.

The next scene to edit was of the couple at South Wield  which we had collected a lot of footage for which we felt was a good decision as we could condense it down to the parts which were the best. We also had some trouble with the wind and as the tripod was being balanced on uneven ground for most of the shots there were some shakes which we were able to easily cut out. We also filmed a kissing scene here which had to be edited effectively so that it was believable and realistic. In order to do this we filmed the entire sequence from Renaud's dialogue "I like it here" to the couple looking back out to the lake as a long shot and close up so we had flexibilty when it came to editing. Our final decision was to use the start and finish of the sequence as long shots and the middle as a close up, we felt this was effective but had to be careful in matching up exactly how close the couple were to eachother when we cut to a different shot. However, because of this we had trouble with hearing Renaud's dialogue from further away and had to edit the sound so that the clip was louder when he spoke and then went silent again so the focus was on the romantic music and any blowing wind caught on tape could be removed.

Whilst editing the scenes filmed at Shoeburyness of the couple on the beach we were happy with our shots as they were scenic and romantic as we had hoped, it was for this reason that we wanted to use longer footage for each shot to create a very calm atmosphere for the audience. We felt that this would help us to achieve our aim of inviting the audience to relate to the couple as it would add to the characters' iscolation from the rest of the world, and also making their relationship seem more sincere and believable which was important to us. On the day we decided to shoot a variety of shots so that we could choose which were best to use, however when it came to editing the footage we found that all of the shots could be used and compliment eachother. For example we were able to develop a sequence from a shot the couple walking over to a rock, a close up/low angle shot of them sitting on it, and then a shot of them from behind which we assumed would be used instead of the previous could be used as Renaud leans in to kiss her on the cheek in both and enables us to link the two.

We then shot Renaud in a graveyard at St Mary's church. We decided to shoot him opening and closing his eyes (which would be used to seperate his memories) as one sequence and we then cut the parts we wanted and used them throughout. When editing the sequence of Renaud at Brentwood Train Station we had to deal with a mistake that was made on the day. As the train was coming towards the platform Renaud took a step back into the frame by accident and we thought we were going to have to reshoot the shot, however when editing we realised that we could cut the shot before he stepped backwards because it was possibly better to not wait for the train to come past the camera as the shot would be too long and take away the intensity that we were hoping to achieve for the cliffhanger of whether he did jump in front of the train or not. We therefore used a fade to cut to the titles and were happy with the results.

Costume and Props

We feel that the costumes our characters wear will play a significant part in reflecting their personality and moods, and so have given a lot of thought to the costumes. With regard to our title male character, Renaud will have differing costumes, but each reflecting his age, personality and style. In one scene Renaud is at the grave of his partner laying flowers. Here we plan to have Renaud wearing a long black overcoat, reflecting his grief and depressed mental state at the time. This will also be reflected in the weather at the time, which again has connotations of depression and grief.

In another scene Renaud is seen to be wearing another lighter coat, scarf, typical winter attire when he is seen with his partner on a isolated lonely beach. Overall we wanted to Renaud dress not stereotypically for people of his age (20+), but to dress with a slight alteration, wearing many shirts, cardigans, plain chinos, fashionable coats to make his character visually appealing and to give him a certain distinction with what he wears.

It is this distinction that we also wanted from our female character. Charli’s character wears light coloured tops, leggings and flat stylish shoes to reflect her bright, colourful personality, and to also make her character seem distinguished. This style or pattern of dress is only altered when Charli is seen in bed ill, where she is seen to be weak and weary, and is planned to be dressed in plain and simple clothes.


In terms of props we plan to use a limited amount of props, as the focus is on the characters and their story. A prop that we consider to be important is a bunch of flowers with a note included that Renaud will lay at the grave. The flowers are significant as it shows the pain felt by the male character at this point and his struggle with the grieving process. Other props include photos of the couple that show their ‘happy’ moments together and a book used in the coffee shop scene.