Ancillary Task: Producing the Film Magazine Cover

Pre-Production
We also began planning for the magazine cover in June last year. From doing the research then and looking at some sample texts, we constructed our first ideas on a planning sheet, here it is:

This displays our initial ideas that essentially included the main conventions such as the skyline, strapline, puff, masthead, inset images and so on. We placed the main characters from our film on here composed in a way that shows Eve and Micheal as the main good people, while Haden and Selene are further in the background. Lizzie and Iain came up with 'Elite magazine' but I really didn't like it so I said we should come up with more that we all liked, and was more field specific to film. 

The following images showcase the different magazine names we had brainstormed:

These are also some initial plans.
But we began discussing ideas with each other, so they aren't documented on paper.
We decided to go with the magazine name 'Box Office' as it is a film related term that would immediately establish the magazines genre. We did highly consider 'Silver Screen' and 'Picture House' but those were already ideas from other groups and we didn't want a conflict over them so we just moved onto other ideas such as 'Flix', 'Showcase', 'Take 1.', 'Debut' and 'Premiere', though we thought Box Office sounded a lot better and identifiable with the demographic of young adults/adults interested in films.

We knew we wanted the four main cast members on the front cover, so we thought about locations. We decided on the park as it highlighted connotations of childhood. I imagined empty swings and moody skies conveying the lost innocence in the new world, so we planned to produce a photograph for the magazine. Here's an image of the planned location:

Production
On the 26th of February, we went to the park during our lunch hour to take the photo. We used Fiona again to take the picture, using Iain's bridge camera, a Nikon Coolpix 520. Unfortunately it was sunny (which again created the wrong feeling for an apocalyptic genre) and it was windy so it was hard to take a good photo, we looked too effected by the weather. We thought about the composition in relation to the swings, like we almost involved the swings byholding the chain too (which I liked) but instead we ended up getting a picture from both sides of the swing set. Here are some images showing this:

I made sure that me and Iain were more back to back to show that we weren't connected, but more like the main opposition. While Clare leaned in closer to Iains ear, conveying the 'whisper in his ear' idea, and Lizzie stood more behind me and rested her hand on my arm/shoulder to show the closeness and reliance for protection and leadership. Our expression were similar in looking unpleasant, serious and direct (direct address). 

On our way back inside college we all thought the photos weren't very good, we we thought maybe we could take a better one inside and crop it over the location picture as we wanted the swings to be more visible for semiotic function. This attempt looked tragic in the end. Here's the example:

So we went forward with images we collected outside instead. We used Photoshop to edit it before adding magazine conventions, here it is:

This shot captured a low angle which helped to portray the significance of power in our film, as there is no authority, the power is passed down to us.  Haden wants it all but it appears shared here. What I was concerned about was whether having the main characters from both groups would establish them all as one group, but I realised it's conventional of magazines to have group shots despite the different character roles, e.g. protagonist with antagonist. 

Post-Production
Firstly, here is a video of us editing the picture:

We went onto editing, using Serif Draw Plus and our plans, we began to develop and produce these: 


























But... here is also a video showing the making of the poster- I suggest a new idea which changes the magazine cover a lot.

New Idea
We decided to reshoot for the cover, located in the corridor we used in the establishing corridor shot in the trailer, therefore complimenting that. But also, in a more weather controlled environment, we weren't set back and it was easier to shoot. Another thing that I liked was that my hair was cut shorter and so I looked more like I did throughout the trailer. So again, one lunch we went on the shoot, here is the image we used:

And we then swapped main focal images on our latest magazine cover, this is the raw outcome:

Although we tried editing it on Serif photo plus, Iain and I knew which filter we wanted and it meant editing it on our phones using google snapseed, for a dirty green 'grunge' edit. As a result, this looked much better as a magazine cover as the darkness made it tighter and more immersive. However, the quality seemed much lower, and so if we had time we'd have googled how to edit the picture on photoshop to create the same filter effect. 

We then went onto developing and changing our colour-scheme, use of conventions and composition until it looked well put together and thought out. Here are some images showing this journey:

And here is our final production of the film magazine cover: 
I will discuss and analyse this in my evaluation.