Poster - Ideas

Poster Ideas

Poster - Types of Film Posters

Types of Film Posters

Places people normally see film posters are at bus stops, on public transport, underground stations, billboards and around cinemas to advertise film releases in the future.  

Film posters can vary in size a lot. Some are especially made, like the posters on the side of buses.

To exhibit their film the best they can, film companies will have many copies of different sized and shaped posters made to appeal to a mass target audience.

Conglomerate companies will have the the accessibility and budget to produce and exhibit many posters. Whereas, smaller film institution may not be able to afford the costs of exhibition and will have to limit how they promote their film.

Poster - First Draft

Poster - First Draft

This is the template for my poster. I created this myself and my initial draft of what I imagine my poster would look like.  I haven't decided on what background image is going to be yet, so my poster is going to be only template at the moment. I will add the image when I have finalised everything. 
The font colour is red at this moment in time as the colour stands out a lot with the temporary white background. However, the background image is yet to be added so, this may be changed. The red colour could represent blood and death. This relates to our genre and is foreshadowing what is to come in our film trailer.
Moreover, the font for the poster is similar to classic horror and thriller films. This allows our target audience to see the poster and understand the genre of the film quickly.

Poster - Drafts and Ideas

Poster - Drafts and Ideas

I decided to create some film poster ideas. This was because I wanted to try our different layouts and backgrounds to see what fit best with my genre. As you can see, I created three different film posters. 

The first has more of an action look about it due to the colours and and blur of the picrture.

The next, to me, looks more like a war poster or a book. I do really like this look, but I don't think it's appropriate for my film trailer as it doesn't suit my genre.

The final one, I can't tell whether I love or hate it. I think it looks very mysterious, which is always good as it leaves audience members with a lot of enigma codes. However, I am unsure if the flower is appropriate for the action genre. It could symbolise death, but it is the main focus of the poster and I am not sure if that is the look I am trying to establish.

As you can tell, all my text is a bright red colour. This is to make it stand out against the different backgrounds. Moreover, the red text could help to foreshadow the plot in my trailer. I wanted to make sure the posters left the audience with enigma codes to make them want to watch the film. This would help broaden my target audience to a mass one. 

Poster - The Evolution of Film Posters

The Evolution of Film Posters

1920s

The 1920s was known for movie posters that employed fairly traditional type for the time and hand-drawn illustrations.

1930s

In the 1930s, we see a shift towards bolder designs with a growing tendency towards illustrations focusing on main characters of the film, particularly close ups of their faces.

1940s

By the 1940s, character illustrations were the most prominent.

1950s

In the 1950s we start to see poster designers trying conceptual approaches, such as the Love in the Afternoon poster which is free of characters.

1960s

60s posters don’t go as far as getting rid of illustrations altogether but, play a more important role in the layouts. The illustrations move to a more peripheral role.

1970s 

The 70s is an example of the fast movement of trends in technology and the media industry. Photographs play a big role in posters for the first time, often taking up the bulk of the poster.

1980s

This is where we start to see the movie poster in a form similar to what we see today. Large photos as the big central image are more. However, the amount of text has increased compared to previous decades. 

1990s

Posters of the 90s include pretty much what we have today; photgraphic backgrounds, slogans at the top, and the names of the protagonists and antagonists actors above the name of the film.

2000s

Through the 80s and 90s we see the evolution of movie posters slowed down. In the 2000s we see improvements to keep up with trends in photography, but the layout often remains the same. Towards the end of the decade as minimalism comes into account. That can be seen in the posters of movies such as Up, The Dark Knight and Buried. 

 

Trailer - Up to Date Storyboard

Research- Storyboard Draft

This is the storyboard we designed, we used the screenplay and shot list as a guide to show us what shots are in each scene and the audio. We just needed to make it animated, which was difficult as neither of us were artists, but it showed the specific shots and angles we used. So it is still quite helpful. We edited out Storyboard quite a lot and had to do redrafts because we came up with new ideas, we then edited out first draft and put our storyboard in the order we thought each scene was. We then created different storyboards using the template the we originally Done. This is our most up-to-date draft of our trailer storyboard;  it may also change depending on what footage we obtain or delete.

Trailer - Analysis of Survey Results

Tinika and I created a survey on Survey Monkey to make sure we were including the correct characteristics to appeal to our target audience on our poster. From the feedback we received, we need to make sure we change a few aspects of our poster etc.

One of these aspects is our film title. Tinika and I weren't too sure on the title 'Silence' and when we recieved the results that 'Shackled' received two thirds of the vote, we knew we needed to change it. This was really helpful as we now know we are appealing to the majority of our audience.

We also know to include a variety of colours in our poster. I still think we are going to use more dark colours as it fits with the genre of our trailer. However, we know now to include bright colours too.

This was a really helpful thing for us to have done as we received great feedback and it will allow Tinika and I to obtain a mass primary audience as we can appeal to more people.

Trailer - Male Gaze Theory

Male Gaze theory

 We applied Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male gaze’ theory to our film trailer, to ‘stereotypes of characters’ which means that more men are engaged in our media product as the female protagonists is more ‘pleasurable’ and ‘satisfying’ too look at. Our protagonist within our trailer is a young white female, blonde hair, which challenges the stereotype of the main character of being a young white male. The protagonist of a trailer is conventionally portrayed as a ‘dumb’ blonde and usually dies first. However, within our trailer we use various shots, and angles to suggest that the protagonist can escape the situations and portrayed as strong although in a compromising situations. There is a scene that shows vulnerability of the protagonists as she has been kidnapped. We chose this character as our protagonist, as we wanted to challenge the norms and conventions of trailers. Our antagonist within our trailer is a black male; they are also another one of the characters most likely to die first. This doesn’t happen in our trailer, he is dominating within our trailer and he is the one that controls the protagonists.