Media Question 8

On the front page of the observer, they have boxes containing the story you will find if you decide to click on them. They have a punchy Title and on the smaller ones, a small description of what the story entails. There is a subcategory called featured, which are the trending/important stories on the Observer website. This is important as it can bring more people into their site to read their stories they have on offer. There is also an image on the front of the boxes that have a slight relation to the story too. The colour scheme of the Observer is classy and is considered as professional colours, which on a newspaper website shows the sophisticated nature of it.

The typeface used is important too. There are two different types of typefaces, Serif and Sans Serif. Sans means without, the Serif is the detail on the side of the letters. So Sans Serif means without Serif. Arial font (The one used now) is an example of a Sans Serif font. Serif fonts make the reading of big text extracts easier as the brain sees the font linking to the other words. This is why it is used so frequently on older broadsheet newspapers. In this case the Observer newspaper website uses Serif font as it is more sophisticated than a Sans Serif. 

The uses of narrative change from each story, The main story on the front page is in first person as the person who wrote the story refers to themselves as I. The next story is in third person and refers to the guy in it (Jordan Peele) as his name, this is third person. There is also a story written in the second person, this is referring to the reader as you or your. It is an effective way of breaking the fourth wall and connecting to the reader, as it seems they are talking to someone rather than a page on a website.

The first story on the front page is a controversial and involves gender politics.This is engages the reader as it is a sensitive topic to talk about, this will overpower the moral side of the reader and their curiosity may get the better of them. 

My Media Production Company

IGNITE FLIMS

I named my production company is named IGNITE FILMS. I did this because it is based on my username on many gaming platforms that I use on a daily basis. I brain-stormed for logo ideas. I got ideas from a marketing workshop i visited and logos i had made prior to this one. I will show you the steps i went through in order to create the image above (my header) and the Ident which is on my Youtube Channel which is linked last.

I opened up my copy of Photoshop CS6 2018 and created a 1920 x 1080 canvas with a black background. I made the background into a layer and named it Gradient. I chose the Ellipse tool to make a circle, to make is perfect i held Ctrl + Shift in order to make it a perfect circle. i filled it to be white and thus the main circles had been born. The dotted lines were made with the Ellipse tool again, however i changed the line to dotted and made it smaller. I proceeded to add some text in a font i downloaded called Laser84. Laser84 is an 80's style font that is really aesthetically pleasing to me. I added stroke to it and made the stroke 5px large. Next i created a clipping mask to be able to make the circle and the stroke on the font look like a galaxy. To do this, i place the image on the canvas and made it the bigger than the main circle. I right clicked the galaxy image layer and created the clipping mask. I created many versions of the logo using differing images.

I also created my Media Eye-dent. To do this i used two programmes Adobe After Effects CS6 2018 and Adobe Premier Pro CS6 2018.

First of all I downloaded the Saber plugin for Ae for the fire effect. I created some flare for the background by using the particle effect, moving it to the bottom right-hand-side of the screen and changed the settings of the particles so they would float and spread them out. Please note that the type of particle was shaded sphere. Then i coloured them a nice fiery orange colour. The reason i chose orange is because it links to the name of my media productions company, IGNITE being the verb to ignite a fire. I then imported a transparent PNG file of the logo into the composition. Please note a transparent image is going to be easier to use when doing this as you wont have to keylight the background.

Next I added the Saber plugin to my logo. The style of effects had a really wide choice, however i found the fire choice and applied it. I changed the layer it would effect to the logo and toned down the brightness of the flames as you could not really see the words in the logo. The actual fire effect was also altered as the fire interfered slightly with the parts of the logo, linking things that should not be linked. After the effects had been changed to my preferences I added the logo again, this was to allow the fire effect to fade out when the logo faded in. I added keyframes from the two second mark to the three second mark to make the fire take time to fully form and slowly disappear. After that had been successfully applied I proceeded to add the effect, Venetian Blinds, to the unaffected logo to make it fade in. I changed the width of the blinds to 10 and changed the direction to 45 degrees. I set it so that from the two second mark to the three second mark it would fade into its full form.

Youtube Channel for the Ident

Exam Question LEGO MOVIE POSTERS

The typeface used in the LEGO Movie is a custom one designed specifically for the movie. This therefore allows the audience to familiarize themselves with the font as it is only be seen on the LEGO movie posters. On the poster it is put in the top center and is significantly larger than that of other text on the poster. In the individual posters the actor is put along-side a picture of the character that the viewer of the film will see them play/voice-over. This allows the audience to see and recognise familiar actors they have watched prior to watching this film. Parents will be able to relate to other actors such as Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Will Ferrell.

The slogan has been used to appeal to the average LEGO builder. The wording used in the slogan makes is appear if the creators of the film are going to 'assemble' the film on the release date. This relates to the average LEGO builder as they are 'assembling' the LEGO sets. The verb assembling also makes the film stand out compared to other films, as their release date, coming 2018 seems bland.

The images in the posters feature the main and central characters in the center so that movie goers or people that have seen the movie can affiliate themselves with characters in the film and build an emotional bond with them. The figure of each character in the posters also are LEGO character models. This creates a sense of nostalgia for parents watching the film and knowledge that the film is child friendly and won't have serious gore in it. For the children the blocks and the way the characters have been shown in their LEGO models will create a correlation between the things they love to play with on a regular basis and the fun times they have had with individual character, many of them coming from iconic LEGO sets. The scene is also completely made out of LEGO bricks adding to the assembly aspect.

In the ensemble poster, the facial expressions show a lot of what personality each character has. The large majority of characters have a serious face on as if they are about to go to battle. There is one character who stands out though, Emmit. Emmit's face is him looking completely out of his mind scared. This is an effective use of both comedy and it allows the viewer to see aspects of themselves in Emmit. People usually themselves as the nobody, and they want to make a difference. Emmit is that sort of character which we can relate to. He is also placed in the center so we know he is the main character. 

The image on the ensemble poster has an explosion in the background showing Lord Business with an angry expression. The explosion acts as the spectacle of the the poster. The animation of the film provides an element of escapism from the film.