Final Campaign Project

Our 3 audience members we tried to keep in mind were:

1. Male or Female. 30-45 years of age. A culturally involved person. Has been a fan of films for years and finds them culturally necessary. 
2. Male or Female. 18-30 years of age. This group of people were raised on films. It is apart of their bred culture. Almost to the point they don't think they need preserved because it has been apart of them their whole upbringing. Which makes it important to let them know we need to preserve these culture altering films.
3. Male or Female. 12-18 years of age. Millennials. We want to teach them about how movies came to be what they are. That old films being preserved are just as important as the new ones to be inducted. We need to show them the value these films bring and how they have shaped our society and life as we know it. 

Once we figured out who our audience was we felt the need to further develop a campaign to bring those certain audiences in. We needed something to keep the oldies and rein in the newbies. This is when we decided to use the slogan's "Frankly my dear we DO give a damn," and "Play it again." The two slogans will draw in audience members 1 and 2 because of the nod to Gone With the Wind and Casablanca. I think another great aspect to these slogans are if you had never heard those two famous lines (audience 3 most likely) they still draw you in and make you want to know more about the National FIlm Registry.

Next step was a style guide. I am a very picky, set in my ways, person, so it took a lot to breathe and say it's ok to go with someone else's ideas. It took a lot to do so. 

We wanted to keep things classic. We are representing preservation so we're hoping that this branch of the National Library of Congress remains open for at least forever. We immediately decided on black and white. It is simple, classic, and ties in with old black and white/grayscale films. We also felt that those two colors weren't enough we needed an accent color so we opened up a page in photoshop and played around with colors. Again we wanted a timeless color accent. I have sadly fallen in love with a vintage lemon color so I suggested that, with it looking vintage but then we were worried it would time stamp the branding as a whole and would eventually need to be replaced. Then we played with an indigo color and it just seemed to clinical. It was then when we decided red. Red had so many roles in films. The ruby slippers, roses in performances, crimson lips, the list goes on. Red was our color. Red never goes out of style. We then had to define what color of red would best work with what we were going with. If it was too deep it didn't stand out against the black. If it was too bright or light it didn't accent, it stole the show in a clownish way. which is why we chose the blue-hued deeper red. It has a timeless feel, doesn't it? Don't answer that, that was rhetorical...

Let's talk fonts. Oh dear, I am a huge fan of sans serif fonts. I am into the whole deco/modern vibe. clean lines equal legibility. Apparently I was the only one of the group who felt this way. Lauren wanted a script involved. I couldn't let that happen. In my eyes script was/is a thing of the past if we wanted to suck in the younger audience we needed to keep things current with subtle nods to the past. Heck, kids these days don't even learn cursive. I was open to incorporating serif, but not over the top serif. The serif needed to have purpose, it couldn't just be there cause it's "pretty." We opened up a word document and played around with the fonts. I was looking into prominent sans serif fonts such as: Helvetica, Avenir, and Century Goth. They all had a modern feel that the kiddies could clearly read. I did love the font, Modern No. 20. It was reminiscent of magazines published in the 60s. It just had that vintage feel. It made me feel like I was entering into a vault filled with film canisters waiting for me to open them up and have a look, but sadly Wix didn't have that option. It did however have Playfair Display, which was similar. I had thought Courier would be a great option considering its the font used for screenplays but decided against it and used Enriqueta because it seemed like a more sophisticated version. The Avenir was decided because of it's modern feel. I felt the body needed to be legible and have the more modern feel we were wanting to capture our main campaign audience.

The style guide had been decided so we passed the talisman to Spencer where he designed the logo and the style guide for our campaign. He had experience in illustrator that he wanted to rekindle so we let him have it.

I was in charge of the website. I wanted to keep things mainly visual because we are dealing with the preservation of a visual art. I went through Wix templates to find a suitable one and could not find a theme that fit our story best so I chose a church one because the layout of the image on the pages was in our faces rather than a grip of multiple photos. I decided to find images of iconic scenes from movies that are on the National Film Registry list. I wanted to mainly stick to movies that would be recognized by the majority of our three audiences. For the home page I chose, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Taxi Driver, and Forrest Gump. I chose Mr. Smith Goes to Washington because Jimmy Stewart has a face most the 18-45 year olds could remember. Taxi Driver was chosen for the fact that it is a well-known movie from the 70s which would bridge the gap to Forrest Gump.  Forrest Gump was chosen because most millennials recognize the film and if they don't the film, they do Tom Hanks. I kept the "about us," "contact," and "Subscription/social media" bars at the bottom because that is usually the place people know where to go to find that info. Up at the top of the website there is a site navigation bar. Which is where you can easily navigate. I didn't include drop down menus because I feel it junks up the site. I did however have it change colors when you hover over an option.

Another tab at the top is important and will lead you to a list of the preserved film registry. I decided to choose an image of Scarlett and Rhett from Gone With the Wind because it tied in with our slogan and lead straight to the important page. On this page there are is a list of each year that the Registry has inductied films with the films below the year. I felt it was more navigable than the previous list that the current website is using. It is more simple and follows with the three to four grid system used on the other pages.

I also didn't want lots of words down the page so I decided to only show the first three years and add an expand button that will expand the page to show more induction years. 

The last important page is our contact page. Pulp Fiction is a classic. Anyone who's anyone has seen it. I chose this image because it seems like a demand for contact. I also wanted to incorporate a way for people to send in film nominations as well as simply contact us. 

Another big factor seen throughout the site is a three to four column look. I thought it kept the eye organized and made things more simple. 

Mis-en-scene The Darjeeling Limited

When cinematographer Robert Yeoman isn't working on a Wes Anderson film you can see him from time to time working on some of his more well-known films, "Bridesmaids,' 'Ghostbusters,' and 'Yes Man'.  Yeoman has quite the track record when it comes to cinematography. He has been able to be the D.P. for every one of Wes Anderson's films, including 'The Darjeeling Limited.' It is very obvious, stylistically that he has been the one to work side by side in films with Anderson. 

You can tell Yeoman is well versed in the rule of thirds by the way he composes his frames. for example:

Not only are both clear horizon lines breaking through the top and bottom thirds of the frame but Adrian Brody's character is also near the upper-right axis.

You can also see this rule applied throughout the film.

The foreground of where the characters are walking creates a horizontal line along with the actual horizon.

The rule of thirds is prevalent throughout his career, especially in Anderson's films. Some examples are:

 

Here is a excerpt from the film, 'Moonrise Kingdom'. The chair tops and the heads of the actors are following the rule. You can also see that the actress in the black her prominent eye is located directly down the center of the frame. Man can this man compose a frame!

This is another example of portraiture guides she is placed dead center while the lighthouse that surrounds her has vertical lines on the left and right side of her following the rule of thirds.

While the cinematography is dead on these films wouldn't stand out without all of the other creative forces such as: Wes himself, Mark Friedberg the production design, and all the others who have invested their time and lives to make these films come to life and beyond. Lets give them a round of applause for their outstanding work.

Rule of Thirds

Things in this aren't aligned exactly to the rule of thirds. Though I do think it is pretty damn close for taking this in a moving vehicle. The sun which is taking up most of the spot light is positioned closely to an intersection of the top third and the most left third. While the horizon is positioned slightly higher than the lower third. There is also a small white dot in the lower-right third of the frame positioned near a telephone pole which brings attention to that.

Design Presentation

For the good design I chose the movie poster done for the film "Jaws." Directed by Steven Spielberg, and was released in June of 1975.

Elements of Good:

When you read/view something you're most likely to do it from top to bottom. When you throw a huge shark into the mix things tend to go out of order. From what I've noticed, our eyes tend to shift straight to the largest or the most contrasting color. This poster does an excellent job at both of those things. With the shark being the center of attention, and the largest part of the poster, your eye automatically veers to it. Which gives you an indication that the movie is most likely a horror/suspense. Then you eye notices something red and contrasting above the shark. So, you move your eyes to the red shapes. You then learn the title of the film, "Jaws." Now the shark is starting to make sense. You have taken in the two more noticeable elements of the poster so you think, "It's time to look around the rest of it to see what's going on." You look down from the font, and notice there is a young women swimming. From what you can tell she hasn't a clue that her life may soon be over. The poster plays one of suspense film's greatest tricks- a sneak peek into the victim's future. Another element I found effective was the use of what I believe to be continuity. Where the water is cut off on the edges and berson who has been to the ocean or a large body of water would assume that the water continues on both sides of the poster, if the poster was real life. As the viewer of the poster I automatically feel terrified this woman will not make it out alive.

An important part of this design is the fact that it says that much with only four letters. That is the main reason I qualify it as a good design. I also enjoy the use of negative space surrounding the shark and woman.

For the bad design I chose the movie poster for the film  "The Devil's Mistress." Directed by Orville Wranzer, and was released in March of 1966.

Elements of Bad:

If there is one thing I hate about design is an abundance of clutter. And when it comes to visual design you should try to portray what you want/need without so much type. I can see why they need all of the type on this movie poster because, while it looks interesting, It isn't telling the story. It looks like your typical B-movie horror. Of course, that is what this is, but couldn't they aspire to be something more. While I am against women being oversexualized in any business, especially design, the look of the woman does fit with the lengthy verbiage used on the poster, I don't find it fair to pin that down. This hasn't been horribly done. the images flow from a loving couple to her about to murder him. I am still not a huge fan of the amount of type and the little amount of negative space is used.

Contrast, Balance, Harmony

This is a self portrait by photographer Edward Honaker. Some of you may have seen his self portrait series online. He created these to showcase how depression feels for him along with anxiety.

The Highlights and shadows of this portrait are very prominent through the middle section the way they are contrasting each other. With him slanding in the lake in a black suit and the bright reflection of the water it creates a bright contrast. 

The shadows and highlights in the grass section create what's known as a texture. The way the light bounces off the grass gives our hands a feeling of a prickly sharpness. and the way the light reflects off of the surface of the water it makes it look glossy. The way the prickly grass and the glossy water interact it gives the portrait a sense of disease. like the grass is encroaching on Edward and is going to take over. 

The way I interpret this size of the objects in the portrait are: that Edward is looking out to the body of water and it seems the way things are angled (the camera is positioned above him) he is much smaller and less in control compared to the body of water. And the size of the grass around him is overwhelmingly taller than him which makes me think that the world is closing in on him and he cant deal with what he is feeling. 

I like how the circular shapes are mirrored in the picture. with the larger body of water mirrored by the smaller one. and the white balloon mirrored to the black one. It makes me feel that whats behing him is dark and while he is trying to deal with what's going on in front of him, the world behind him is dimming and approaching.

All in all, I think this portrait does showcase a lot of contrast and balance. It could be showing harmony in a way. In the fact that this is an all around depressing portrait. 

Visceral Response

     Who can put sentiment aside when things pertain to the matters of the heart? Like we talked about in class, nostalgia has a firm grip on our heart. Which is why I chose to write on this photograph. I knew immediately this was the piece I wanted, no, needed to write about. As a child My grandma and grandpa would always take me to Disneyland. It became my safe place. I knew no matter what happened in life, I always had Disneyland.

     Approximately 2 years ago I went to Disneyworld with my family. While I was rushing out of the the Magic Kingdom to catch my ride I turned back with my phone and snapped a photo of the fireworks show. Little did I know a quick snap would result in something so powerful to me.

     Everything in this photo screams childhood to me. The Silhouette of the little boy looking up at the fireworks display, on top of his father's shoulders, reminds me of what it was like to feel hope as a child. The fireworks bursting upwards and outwards reaching for something greater than what they had before, another symbol of hope to me. Whenever I'm in need of comfort or Adulting has become far too hard, I know I can turn to this photo.