Film Article

The first of my two ancillary tasks was my film article. As the role of a film article is to promote a film by giving more information about it than that of a film poster, it was important to make sure that there are unifying themes in both ancillary tasks to make sure that they represent the main product to create a synergy between the products; so I make sure that the film article followed the same unifying theme as the short film does in terms of it involving the same style of humour that exists within the article as seen in the short film; in this case Film Noir Parody. For example, the articles headline is "Here's looking at you, Craig" which, as well as making it clear to the reader that the article is going to look into the acting career of Craig Cameron-Fisher (the actor in my film), in particular in regards to The Huge Snooze, but it is also a pastiche of the famous line from another Film Noir movie featuring Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, in which Bogart's character repeatedly says the line "Here's looking at you, kid" which is also the line he ends the film on. As previously mentioned, the idea of playing homage to popular Film Noir conventions, as well as certain famous films within the genre, was seen frequently throughout The Huge Snooze so for that to continue into the article about the film establishes that parodying Film Noir is the main, unifying theme of my short film. There is an underlying comic tone to the article, as you would conventionally expect from the majority of magazine articles; whether it be film, game, music etc. For example, one of the imaged used on the article, which is a still taken from the short film depicting Marshal Mallows laying back on his chair with his shoes up on the desk, and the caption reads "Craig seems like quite a laid back guy". As well as re-establishing that the article is focused upon the main actor Craig Cameron-Fisher, the use of overly cheesy humour is often used in magazines. The main premise of the article focuses upon an interview between Craig Cameron-Fisher and an invented interviewer who asks Craig questions related to the relationship between Director and Actor as well as about the short film it's self which gave me an excuse to put genuine context, as well as some necessary made up context, to give the reader more of an insight into where the idea to do the film came from and what it was like to create. This also gave me an excuse to address the topic of sexist humour in the short film which firstly made the article more interesting and also made the authenticity of the short film come to life as it was made apparent that the film had been getting complains, which it hasn't really, to appear as if The Huge Snooze was a genuine short film by an established director featuring an established cast. This is emphasized more so within the article with reference to previous films that the director had directed and previous stage and screen performances that Craig Cameron-Fisher had partaken in; both of which were made up for the authenticity of the article. I believe that the film article created a unifying theme between it's self and the short film by following the theme of pastiche and parody of the conventions of Film Noir and individual Film Noir movies; as well as referencing specific moments in the film, for example the shots of Lotta's breasts, to help explain why they were in the film. 

Like my poster, my Film Article was also made in InDesign. The main premise of the article focuses upon an interview between Craig Cameron-Fisher and an invented interviewer who asks Craig questions related to the relationship between Director and Actor as well as about the short film it's self which gave me an excuse to put genuine context, as well as some necessary made up context, to give the reader more of an insight into where the idea to do the film came from and what it was like to create.This also gave me an excuse to address the topic of sexist humour in the short film which firstly made the article more interesting and also made the authenticity of the short film come to life as it was made apparent that the film had been getting complains, which it hasn't really, to appear as if The Huge Snooze was a genuine short film by an established director featuring an established cast. This is emphasized more so within the article with reference to previous films that the director had directed and previous stage and screen performances that Craig Cameron-Fisher had partaken in; both of which were made up for the authenticity of the article. When I had written this I inserted it into my InDesign document and then I used the 'Split Columns' tool to divide the text into three columns to make it look more like a article, as articles have split columns of 3 rather than a huge block of text. After a fitting Headline and pull quote were added (of which I used the 'text wrap' tool to make the text go around the pull quote rather than be masked underneath it) I took appropriate stills from my film that would work as stand alone photographs; of which I used one of Mallow leaning back on his chair with his feet up as well as the image of him peering out of the blinds that I used for my poster; using the 'place' function to embed them into my article where I wanted them and sized them appropriately. Like in my poster, I also added a five star rating next to the title of my film underneath my headline as well as a film release date. A friend of mine wrote a review of my short film of which I used the shape tool to create a red box and put the review within it. The article was looking a little bare, and didn't quite fully look like a film magazine so I wrote 'Film First | Short of the Month' at the top of the article to make the magazine look more authentic as the magazine's title was added and one would imagine that the fact that the page is labels 'Short of the Month' there would be other issues of the magazine, as well as other pages within this magazine, adding to the magazines authenticity. In photoshop, I creates a film strip and filled it with still shots from my short film and added this film strip to the bottom of my article to make the article look specific to the topic of Film, as well as just adding something a little more interesting and unique to the article as before adding it it looked too generic and very boring.