Between the devil and the deep blue
The reasoning behind our short film's title is rather straight forward. We took the predicament of our main character and tried to think of a good way of articulating it. In the end we settled for 'Between the Devil and the Deep Blue' as it is a synonym for stuck between a rock and hard place. This effectively reflects the characters predicament. He is stuck between the devil in the form of his mother and the deep blue, which normally would mean an equally hard place but in our film it can also represent the unknown world without his mother that the boy is setting off to.
This is the final movie poster, we decided that the less said the better as it was meant to be a mysterious film and giving away too much in the poster might defeat the point of the film. On that note the idea of placing both women on the poster was scrapped because it would reveal too much too early and remove one of the most compelling plot points. This is the final draft of the movie poster and I believe it that it came out amazingly well. The review looks exactly as we planned it in the planning stage. The banner image is eye catching as it looks like The Friend is staring out at you and the bold red banner draws the reader in. We elected to give our review four stars to avoid looking arrogant andwe included links to where the reader might view our film in the bottom right.
Before I set about creating the poster for the short film I think I ought to break down what makes a successful short film poster, specifically what makes a good short film poster for the psychological genre.
This concept movie poster is focused around the protagonist, The Boy, he is centered on the left side of the poster, typicaly in movie posters this is where the protagonists are placed. As we see in many films the "good guys" move left to right and the "bad guys" move right to left. This poster also has the title font of the film in order to tie it in closer and allow the audience some degree of recognition between the two pieces of media. The second draft of the poster changes the focus to the two females in the film. These two are of course, The Mother and The Girl. As above we have followed the convention of movie posters having the protagonists on the left side of the poster and the antagonist on the right. Futhermore this dualality could tempt people into comming to see the film as it establishes the strange and psychological nature of the film.
This is the initial layout for the magazine review, we hope that the large image and bold title text will help to rope in an audience. The image will likely be the same image that we will use in our review. The three coloums to the review will reflect the three parts of the review to allow for an easier flow. The first will be general impressions and plot overview, the second will be impressions of the character and opinions on how the story was delivered. The third and final will be rounding out the impressions of the film and making comparisons to other films.
Short film reviews and movie posters are very rare and only the most successful short films merit the reviews and posters. Despite this we hope that our short film review and poster would feature across a a double page spread in empire magazine. We would like this because empire magazine is prestigious in the film world and would help to boost the visibility of our short film. Furthermore the magazine is well know as a film reviewer so our poster and review would not be out of the ordinary on this platform. Finally the magazine is global allowing our film to become far more than it otherwise would have been.
Music is a key element of many films as it helps to establish the tone of the film. We will conform to this convention in our short film by using music that is traditionally associated with the psychological genre. This tends to be dark and foreboding music often paired off against lighter music to create an uneasy atmosphere. We will be using a mix of synth 70's style music for the intro then shifting to more modern and traditional music as the film progresses. Intro music - 'Dance of deathThe intro music of the short film will be a song called "dance of death" this is a royalty free sound track from a website called purple planet, a link will be provided at the bottom. This song is inspired by 70's horror films this style of sound track has come back into popularity with the hit TV show stranger things which used a similar style of intro track and is also the TV show we drew a lot of inspiration from. The high pitch synth music is off putting and uncomfortable and establishes the theme and tone of our psychological film as uneasy. Forest music -'of elias dream'The second track we hear in the film is a song called 'of Elias dream' which is far lighter and ethereal this is meant to represent the characters exploration of the forest and to represent the happy and kind nature of The Friend who is introduced in this scene. Ensuring that the audience associates the friend with this lighter sound is vital to properly establishing the developing her character quickly. This music persists with the friend into the school scene but is quickly cut off with the arrival of the mother. The lighter tones give the audience a sense of security because the music is not explicitly suggesting that danger is imminent. School music-'INTIMIDATION'The music is only present for a relatively short period of time in the middle of the film where The Boy and The Friend are confronted by The Mother and proceed to have an argument. The music is low, deep, and intimidating as the title might suggest. This will represent The Mother as dark and intimidating and help to establish her as an unlikable character. Beach music-'Shadow lands'This music is slow and reflective, lots of piano and gentle notes that hang in the back ground for long periods of time. This softness helps to round out the film and provide a suitable juxtaposition to the opening music. The rejection of the real Mother and The Boy walking away to his new life away from her is supported by the optimistic feel of this piece and allows us to end the film on a high note but leaving questions unanswered which is a common theme in the psychological genre.
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