Poster and poster Research

For our poster we researched many different types of posters from different genres of films. The most common types of posters were those which involved many different characters within the film on the poster, however some posters such as saw only involved one character, this could be said for scream as-well. The Casino Royal poster featured the main character and then clips from the film down the side. This is where we have taken the idea to import clips from imovie onto photoshop.

From research we have found that posters have to include the following

A catchy tagline

Names of the people/company's involved in the making e.g producer, Distributor

Reviews

Logo's

The release date, this is important as it shows the difference from the teaser poster to the final poster as the date is more specific

For our poster we decided to stick with the original image of the main character due to this making it recognizable from the teaser poster fro potential audiences.From researching many posters we gathered a good idea of what the poster needed to include and we feel that the poster we have produced is a good example of this. We used clips from the trailer on the poster, we took intertextual reference to the Casino Royale poster which also did this.

After audience feedback of this poster, we realised that we needed too research more posters in order too be able too get a higher quality end product. We felt that more of the cast should be shown as this is our poster and not a teaser poster. Through researching we found that horror poster predominantly use red and black as we did in our first attempt and will continue with this colour scheme for our revised poster. I did feel by having just the female on the poster that this would attract the male gaze theory yet if more blonde cast members appear on the poster the male gaze theory may only increase. We found that we should use the idea of when the main protagonist is taking a picture in the trailer, the picture that is taken should be the background of our poster. We are also using intertextual references too Donkey Punch as their poster includes a silhouette image of their main characters.

When we downloaded the picture into Iphoto we were given the option too rotate the image too the right way round. The menu as visible on the print screen came up asking if we wanted too change the colour contrast, brightness levels and sharpness of the photo, we did all of these too gain a higher quality photo. We then saved these changes and opened it up in Photoshop for a wider choice of editing possibilities.

Too prepare the poster for all the detail that we were going to put on we put on the title of the film first as this was our biggest font.We used the font 'impact' for the billing block, this was chosen as through our research we had realised it resembled what had been used in 'The Unborn'.

When we ere writing the tagline we didn't no whether too have it in one long line of over two lines, we also had too choose between two different font types. We therefore asked class members what they thought and went with the most popular answer. The smaller font was chosen and looking at other posters this was a wise choice as the tagline is usually quite small underneath the main title.

After looking at the font types photoshop had too offer (this was a downside to photoshop that you had too actually put what you wanted too change the font type too in the font you wanted before you could see what it looked like. Usually the font name is written in the style of the font, doing this wasted alot of time. We then decided too search it into google and found this website http://www.1001fonts.com/fonts_overview.html?page=1&category_id=14 which is where we got the font that the taglines in from.

We then started too add reviews onto our poster. As the name of our magazine is Kingdom we added a review from them. We got the stars from Microsoft word and transferred them across too photoshop. As its a British film we needed a popular British newspaper, although it is debatable too how popular the Sun is, its readers are generally younger than most newspapers therefore would attract a higher number of our target audience then a newspaper such as the Mirror. We could of used the Guardian as this is a respected newspaper too with film as it specialises in a film guardian on a weekly basis. We added a quote from Johnathan Ross who is a famous film critique, this also may drag in an older audience as he is of an older generation but can still appreciate the film.

As with every editing process we have gone through we were constantly asking for audience feedback. We found that it would look more effective if we cut out the background and had it black, it would look more like a poster and less like a picture. We mainly used the Laso tool too get rid of the remaining background. We also needed too move the credits too the bottom of the page so therefore we could fit the reviews in top of the page.

From research we knew that we now needed too include more than just one photo as before we included snippets of the trailer onto the teaser poster. We decided too add a knife as this is a phallic object and is done on the Dark Ride poster,it also links in with our narrative as one of the three victims gets killed by a knife in the shower. We decided against the hooded figure as the black hoodie would of blended into the black background too much, it also shows too much of who's wearing the hoody as the shape of the face and hair colour is present, this would loose our narrative enigma for the audience.We also added the picture of the eyes too give narrative enigma as the audience are unable too tell who's eyes they are from watching the trailer or what this characters involvement in the narrative is.It add's atmosphere too the poster and looks like your being watched.

This print screen is in the process of adding the knife, we thought that this was a good place too put it as its unclear too who the knife is pointing at or if its a female/male who's holding it and therefore keeps the narrative enigma. However adding the eyes we found challenging as just placing them like we did with the knife didn't work well and they just looked placed there with no reason behind it. Therefore we decided to blend them into the background and through audience feedback gained this looked effective and a higher quality poster than our first attempt therefore we achieved what we set out too achieve.

Our revised poster: