Film Poster Mock-Up

Please click to enlarge (sorry for bad lighting!)

I thought a less is more approach would be best for the poster of our documentary, as it's genre doesn't require a bright, busy layout, which would give out the wrong message and impression to potential audiences.

For inspiration, I went to www.impawards.com - a site dedicated to almost every film poster. I searched through many different posters from different film genres, including Supersize Me, Requiem for a Dream & When You're Strange, but ultimately went with a poster that I thought gave an indication into what the film was about without giving too much away & keeping a less is more type of style. That poster was for Little Miss Sunshine.

This inspired the layout of my poster, especially the idea of having a strip of images of people featured in the documentary, accompanied by a photograph underneath to give some insight into what the film is about.

For the photographic image, I drew inspiration from the

poster for Hard Candy, which has an image of a girl placed in the centre of the poster, looking quite small in the frame as well not facing the camera, perceiving her to be introverted. It also has connotations of loneliness and sadness, which is an apparent theme in our documentary.

I thought we could replicate this in our photograph for the poster, having a teenage boy or girl standing in front of a school building, but having them appear to be very small within the shot, with the school dominating it, giving intimidating and unwelcoming connotations. This represents the struggle some gay teenagers face with going to school as it isn't a welcoming, happy place; but a place of sadness and suffering. As our documentary explores homophobic bullying in schools, I thought this image would give an insight into what the whole documentary is about and intrigue people to see it.

As our audience is predominantly teenagers and adults (those who work in schools more so), the image of the building and the teenager is something they can easily relate to and potentially encourage them to watch the film as they can identify with the environment and experiences with the young person on the poster.

When creating this poster, the group hadn't decided on a working title for the film or a tagline. We've now decided on "The Other Side of the Rainbow" as our title, with the tagline "This certainly isn't a pot of gold". I don't think this poster reflects the title of our documentary, and therefore will not be used. The group decided to come together and make a mock-up together.

Poster Analysis - When You're Strange

Final Evaluation

Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the my group's presentation due to illness. I did however contribute work leading up to the presentation.

I wrote half the script for the presentation (sample pictured below) summarising each slide and expanding on any points made on it.




I also created 3 slides for the Powerpoint presentation, including information about our interviewees.












I have planned the interviews with the three people above (Lee Smith, Dave Robson & Dalia Fleming) and have given them sample questions to prepare themselves for the interviews. Lee's sample questions are on his slide.

Dave's sample questions:
- What is your role at the LGBT forum? What kind of work do you do? What aspired you to get involved?
- Do you think homophobic bullying is still a serious issue within schools, and do you think schools are prioritising tackling the issue?
- Since working at the LGBT Forum, has homophobic bullying within schools been an issue that has been raised often?
- Do you or anyone else who works at the forum go into schools? If so, what do you do?

Dalia's sample questions:
- Do you think homophobic bullying is still an issue in secondary schools nowadays?
- Since working with Stonewall, have you met a lot of teenagers who have been victims or have witnessed homophobic bullying in school?
- What do Stonewall do to help victims of homophobic bullying?
- What can other people do to help prevent this from happening in schools?

Audience Research

We handed out questionnaires to 41 people around our sixth form. They were mainly people aged between 16-18, but a few teachers also filled them out. Here are our results displayed in pie charts.

















The general consensus from our research was that people didn't think it was wrong to be gay but felt uncomfortable with it, despite a vast majority of those people having gay friends or family members. It was also believed that homophobia & homophobic bullying was not an issue at Dunraven school and there was a 50/50 split about it being a choice.

Documentary - Who I've found to interview

As we're doing a documentary, we don't have a script or actors in our film. Here are a few people I've found to interview for our documentary.

Lee Smith - one of my best friends & a gay teenager at Dunraven Sixth Form.



Lee's interview will be less formal than the others and will be more of an informal chat with...


Asher Wood!





Dave Robson from the LGBT forum in Wandsworth.






















Dalia Fleming, a public affairs intern at Stonewall.

Research into Genre - Documentary

In order to make the best documentary possible, I decided to research into examples that were 5 minutes or less, and texts that focused specifically on homophobic bullying.



In Bed with The Kills is a behind the scenes look of The Kills during their photoshoot/interview for Nylon Magazine. I found this video incredibly useful in terms of making our own documentary visually interesting in the short space of time we have. The video is only 3 minutes 25 seconds and uses a lot of close ups, focus pulls amongst other shot types, and successfully manages to use handheld in a sophisticated way without making it disorientating for the audience. With practice, I think our group could also master these techniques and subsequently make our own film visually interesting.




The video above is the shortlisted short films made my young people, in association with Stonewall, on homophobic bullying. They were screened at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in March 2010.
These short films are incredibly useful as they shine a light on homophobic bullying in their own unique way. The first film is a talking heads, documentary which is similar to what we're planning for our documentary short - this will be a good resource of inspiration for our film, although it is a little dull in terms of camera work. The second film is a fiction piece highlighting not just the bullying of homosexuals, but of people are thought of as homosexual simply for engaging in activities that don't conform to the "typical" behaviour of their gender stereotypes. Finally, the third film looks at the violent attacks on homosexuals in schools using a CCTV style of filming.

I think we could take inspiration from all these films to tackle the issue of homophobic bullying within schools and how to make it visually interesting for the audience.

Review of a Short Film

This a short entitled "Train Now Leaving"

Like a short story, the narrative of "Train Now Leaving" is simple; it's simply a woman on a train, talking to her loved one. What makes it work is it's themes of: memory, loss and longing; and how it uses simple dialogue and visuals to get these themes across.

By having no back story into the characters and what has lead to their current situation, it allows the emotions evoked within the audience to be purely based on the young woman's dialogue. The idea of memory and reflecting on pivotal moments in her life with her now absent husband, accompanied with her longing for him to return and informing him on what has happened since he's been gone is heartbreaking, and allows the audience to sympathise with her - thus making it an effecting short film.
Furthermore, the background music is romantic with a melancholy twist, complimenting the idea of love and loss.

Being in shot in black and white gives the film a bleak look, signifying the woman's loss and how the colour has drained from her life now her partner isn't in her life, enhancing the sadness of the film. In terms of editing, the cutting from the movement of the train to footage of their daughter, Sophia, and the canted shots of the tree leaves with sunlight streaming through remind us of childhood and the innocence and naiveté that comes with it. This, juxtaposed with the tragedy and suffering of the voice over highlights another theme of the loss of innocence and how the purity of life most of us experience as a child dissolves as we grow up.

What is a Short Film

Wikipedia - Short film is a technical description originally coined in the North American film industry in the early period of cinema. The description is now used almost interchangeably with short subject.

Wordiq.com - A short film (also short or short subject) is a motion picture that is shorter than the average feature film. Definition of maximum length vary from 40 minutes (AMPAS rule) to about 80 minutes. The short-form film is to the full length film what the short story is to a full-fledged novel.

My Definition - A short film is a motion picture that is shorter than the average feature film. It relies on a simple narrative that has multiple subtexts that can be explored and yet still have the ability to evoke specific emotions amongst audiences despite not having the time to create a back story or allowing the audience to get to know the characters they are watching.