Ancillary Task 1

Film Poster

Research

As part of my A2 Media course; I have been briefed to produce a poster for our horror teaser trailer that we produced in the preceding part of the course. The purpose of a poster is predominantly to entice our desired audience through the use of powerful and suitable images that reflect the film's themes, with the intention of persuading them to watch our film. Also, posters exist to inform viewers of key information about a film's release including its title, release date and perhaps the cinema complex or online viewing site on which it is available to the audience. This is particularly important for some institutions as they want to encourage audiences to pay for their viewing of the film so that they can make profit on the film. Firstly, I will look into the conventions of such products and see how professional examples have gone about stylizing their posters which will enable me to produce a poster of conventional and effective layout.

Codes and conventions

In this task I shall be outlining the conventions of a typical film poster; to consolidate my knowledge of these significant elements so that during the planning of this product I am well informed. This will also involve identifying these conventions in real, professional film posters with a similar genre (horror) and style to our film. To investigate into this I shall select and annotate several posters for horror films.

Annotated horror film posters

In the horror film posters I observed in this task I have noticed that recurring conventions include a stylized film title, anchorage (main image) enhanced with editing, and icons of the film's narrative, website and social media promotion, the billing block and tagline. This allows for a conventional format that both attracts and informs the audience, however the flexibility with features included shows the variance within horror film posters. In some instances some of the conventions (including release date and critic review) are not included. House style is of key significance as this creates a poster that is aesthetically appealing and enticing. This is portrayed through a selected colour scheme to compliment the style of the film. Labelling these features has allowed me to recognise how they have been positioned on professional products and are arranged using colour and size to inform and captivate the audience.

Poster genre research

In this task I will be analysing several posters advertising films of the horror genre. The ones I selected are reminiscent in some way of the themes of our horror teaser trailer production Eve, which will be helpful for when I create my own poster, as this ancillary task requires me to do. I shall look into key aspects of the film's represented target audience, content and the communication of genre through imagery and text.

In conclusion, this task has enabled me to analyse deeper into the layout and design of two professional looking poster advertisements for horror films. Key features that I have noticed include how the antagonist of the film (whichever form it takes on) will likely be featured in some way on the poster, to captivate the audience's interest. This is effective in appealing to the target audience of horror lovers by giving them a preview of the force of evil within the narrative. I have seen how text is incorporated with imagery to target the product's audience, and this has inspired by own poster in which I will be including a hint towards the supernatural evil that conspires around our protagonist Eve.

Target audience research

In order to produce a successful product that satisfies the needs and wants of the audience, it is essential to conduct audience research. I decided to conduct an interview comprised of a selection of questions which I feel will derive answers of usefulness to me when producing my poster.

Interview responses and findings

Composition

This task has allowed me to learn about the conventional composition types for film poster. I will be able to apply this when designing ideas for the layout of my own posters. The compositional technique I believe I will use in my idea is the Z-format which guides the viewer's gaze to key elements of the poster and gives it a simple but effective style. I will also likely trial ideas that use elements from the rule-of-thirds layout as well as the circular format as I believe they would result in ideas that are aesthetically satisfying.

Planning

Ideas Generation

I came up with the outlines for three initial ideas, which I shall be producing a visual representation of next to help me decide upon the best idea which I will go through with.

Initial idea sketches

Idea 1

Evaluation 

This design follows the rule of thirds layout, with the focus of this design being the striking main image of the protagonist in shock, surrounded by threatening messages that are effective in conveying the narrative of our piece. The positioning of the title above the anchorage is clear and easy to spot. I think that to allow the focus to maintain upon the title, I would blur the sinister messages in the background, causing the viewer to focus more upon the details, engaging with my poster. Therefore I believe this design is captivating and will appeal to our audience. Additionally I believe it is effective through the use of the image of our protagonist Eve with a horrified expression. This conforms to the conventions of film poster of featuring a key character, and her body language (with the choice of colours and additional imagery) shall be successful in communicating the genre of the piece. Other conventions I have chosen to include here are key ones including a tagline, billing block, social media and 'coming soon' to provide the audience with information that will encourage them to become proactive.

Idea 2

Evaluation

This design uses the conventions as mentioned above, but with the addition of a critic review. I experimented by including this due to its acclaimed abilities in convincing the audience of the film's quality and increasing their chances of wanting to see the film. The layout of this design is typical of the Z format and draws attention to the anchorage. The main image again includes the protagonist to introduce this key character to the audience, and her frightened expression conveys the genre of the film as horror and the themes of terror involved. The background imagery of the dark hands reaching for Eve. This presents her as the victim, well informing the audience of her position as protagonist. I particularly like the mysteriousness of the dark hands which mirror the rather unknown threat of evil within our film. It isn't clear where the hands are coming from or who they belong to, which acts as enigma, exemplary of the theory of Barthes. However I think that this design may be difficult to achieve an impressive outcome. Also, as I desire for the hands to be of black colour, this means I would need to select a different colour for the main and dominant background colour of the poster. I think that the only appropriate one would be red however this would result in complications with selecting the colour of text and so overall this design would be hard to organise.

Idea 3

Evaluation

For this design I experimented with a landscape format. The main image draws inspiration from the circular layout, featuring the protagonist's wide (in fear) eye reflected in the surface of a hand mirror held in her hand. I believe this anchorage appeals to our audience, with teenagers and young people being known to have a particular interest in their appearance, as suggested by the use of the hand mirror. I believe that organising the photography for this design would be rather difficult as I would have to have optimal lighting conditions to achieve a shot that captures professionally the imagery required. Despite the distribution of text (in contrast to the main imagery) is fair, this design is undeniably asymmetrical and consequently aesthetically lacking.

In conclusion, the design I have chosen that I shall be creating for my film poster is idea 1. This being due to the unique and effective layout which uses successful conventions and appeals to our audience with striking and captivating imagery.

Development of house style

After deciding upon my final design, I am now at the stage where it is necessary to develop further my house style, including defining elements of my product like colour scheme and composition etc. This is to prepare myself for the creation of my poster.

Now that I have planned out in more details these key elements of the poster, I feel I am fully prepared to engage in the production of my poster.

Photography 

I can now move on to the stage of photography in which I shall be arranging the composition and taking the pictures for my poster. This will involve taking several shots for each of my ideas. I took these photos with a DSLR camera for optimal quality.

Chosen photo

I have selected the above image due to the highly impressive quality of the shot, achieved by the use of a professional DSLR camera. I ensured to hold the camera still to obtain the crisp focus that captures the different textures of the model. Also, I found the expression of the model Grace (taking on the role of protagonist Eve) to be most appropriate here, as I directed her to widen her eyes to communicate fear, as in the shot she has discovered something horrifying. In comparison to the other photos, her expression in this one is most dramatic and this is the main reason why i chose it. This is in order to clearly communicate the genre of horror which thrives upon fear and enticing similar feelings within the audience. I think that the addition of the hand over of the mouth is more interesting than the others shot of her simply looking scared. Her covering of her mouth emphasizes her disbelief of the situations she finds herself in, reflective of our narrative. We used the prop of fake blood and splattered this across the subject's face, and I think this greatly adds to the dramaticness of the image, enhancing the power of the image in attracting the viewer, and informing us of the genre and themes. In terms of the orientation this photo, I recognise it isn't as straight as I would like, however I will be able to rotate it as the background will be taken out.

Film Poster Production

Poster First Draft

Below is my first draft for my movie poster for 'Eve'.

The feedback I received on this first draft was predominantly regarding the size of text within the piece. I see that the additional text placed surrounding the character could do with being a smaller size and perhaps a darker shade of red. To improve I will also seek a font that is more alike scribbled text to convey the idea of menacing messages, reflecting our narrative and enticing the audience with the conventional themes of evil of horror.

Poster Improved Version [2nd Draft]

Upon receiving audience feedback for the draft, they felt the main image was perhaps too light in contrast to the dark background. To improve I shall be retaking the image as the body language conveyed could give off misconceptions.

My third and final draft may be viewed on my 'final products' tab.