The making of the poster

http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/05/13/how-to-design-a-movie-poster-with-an-example/

You can get different types of poster such as, the main theatrical;


or character poster;


 I am creating a teaser poster, which means it will include basic information which will not indicate much about the plot, will contain an image of main character(s) and the name of the film, similar to a main theatrical poster.

Images: Son Of Perdition will be made up of black and red colours and a unique, creepy font. This is to show that it is a horror genre. I was contemplating whether to put the actor's names on the film poster as they will not be recognisable as they are not famous. Although they are an important content, films with low budgets will find actors such as Thomas Turgoose who will be more popular. The main image on the poster will be the main actor in the foreground looking scared and on the right in the background will be a black figure. This setting will be in the woods, because it is the most dominant part of the film and the main stereotypical atmosphere where everything changes. All in all, the main colours will be dark and mysterious as the content and figure is mysterious, which makes it intriguing. When seeing the poster, the viewer will automatically know it is a horror because of the scared expression on the boy's face. When they see the figure in the background they will think that the boy is being chased. By using this 18-year-old boy, it will determine my target audience of 15-30 year-olds as the stretch target. The target audience will probably like this if they are into psychological thrillers as well.

Narrative: It is clear to identify the genre of the film and the types of characters from their facial expression, body language, stance, appearance and position on the poster. The impression you get of the character/personalities is that the boy is average (clothing) and scared (expression). An enigma is being presented through the mysterious figure. The key image will not be a still from the film, but it will be similar to it (for example, they do this for most film posters such as 'Jennifer's Body' and 'Prom Night'). 

I have thought about the layout of my poster and have researched others to get ideas. I will concentrate on completing the poster once the main task (teaser trailer) is complete.

Layout: The poster will not be a montage of images merged together unless the camera shot does not work when I try to take the picture as there may be trouble with lighting. Such problems can arise because of the sun going down quickly; therefore I would need to shoot it on several nights at the same time. If it is difficult getting both actor's in the same shot I will take it separately and merge them next to each other. Improvements in technology have changed production values- so I will be able to produce and print it using DTP. I will also be using a tag-line- see one my previous posts to view sketched layout 'poster design'. It will include credits information in small print at the bottom like all film posters, including cast, director, distribution and promotion companies. The certificate will be at the bottom to the left. The poster will list the website to promote it further.
Above, you can see a print-screen of fonts. I found these on http://www.urbanfonts.com/, in the category called 'scary'. This is so it will meet my chilling theme. I don't want a font that is too over the top because it will seem comical. I need a font that fits in with my horror genre and a sense of mystery.


Unique Selling Point: The Unique Selling Point is a marketing perception that was first proposed as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns. It shows that campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced them to switch brands and use them or in my case to come and watch my film over another film that is out at the same time. For example- M&M's: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand". 
The most challenging content is of course the male being the victim. This is different to some horrors and challenges stereotypes. The stars are also unconventional as they're not famous. Content which is conventional are the woods. I believe these combinations of conventional and unconventional themes will attract my target audience- they can relate to my main character and be placed in their shoes. I will make the trailer intriguing by not giving too much away so the audience is left wanting more. 

This is my final design for my poster. You can see my original and first draft design of the poster on a previous post here: http://aliciawattsa2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2011/10/poster-and-webpage-design.html This shows improvements and finalised ideas I have made.

Below you can see print screens of the process, from paper to technology.

I will be using Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 to make my poster.

Here you can see that I am consistent with the colours and font of the title.

This will be the layout for my poster. As you can see, I have inserted the title at the top, 'Perdition' being separate to 'Son of' because it is more dramatic. It is in capitals so it stands out and one can recognise this as the title of the film being presented. At the bottom, the tagline is in red to relate to the word 'Perdition' also representing blood and danger. Then, it says 'coming soon'  and in smaller font is the website and production company.

I have used the airbrush tool on paint to have a texture to the edge of the image. This is so it blends in with the black and looks quite effective.

This is a preview of how my poster could be laid out. I have used an Andy Warhol type style for the background image. This is so it is overwhelming and dramatic. I also had to change the tagline to black overwise it couldn't be seen. The font of the tagline is 'Mistral'.

I have used the same technique but cut out just the eye, and filled it in black. I think the background is too much to see the writing etc, so I won't be using this as my finalised product.

This poster represents my final ideas.

Note; I have added in a restriction image at the left bottom corner so it representes the type of film it is. Conventionally, teaser posters do not have the certification on the poster. For example;

These are several types of designs for the film 'Black Swan'. It is clear that the films main theme colours are black, red and white, as are mine. They are very effective because it is quite unusual, especially the top left image, as you have to look closely to figure out what the image is. The swan in all pictures is black, which is unconventional because swan's aren't usually black; they are white which symbolises purity and innocence, however what this film does it juxtapose and contrast with these connotations so that the genre of the film is portrayed. There are also hints of what is included in the film; if you look carefully, a woman figure is in each image. She isn't dominating the picture, so it's like an illusion.

The making of the webpage

I have researched which website I will use to create my website.

I have visited http://www.webeden.co.uk/. In my opinion, looks more like a website you would use to create your own business site.

Piczo.com seems like a more social-networking webpage. You can tell this because of the young people in the pictures, and bright colours. It also says "your blog" so it is also more like a blog, which is used to share your thoughts.

I have printscreened the front webpage for http://www.wix.com/. I think this website is a step-up from the previous two. With this site, it clearly states that you can add flash, which is much more interactional.

This is an example of one of the templates wix.com has.

Fig1. I have settled for my orginal planned layout. As you can see, the colours red and black are used frequently, representing blood, danger, darkness and mystery. The title is at the bottom, drawing the attention to the whole page. It is in a mist of black, representing the horror genre and adding to the suspensive atmosphere. 'Perdition' is slightly bigger than 'son of' because it is the most important word in the title.

Fig2. Here, I am editing the links at the top. This is the contact page - mainly for audience feedback.

New and improved Fig1: As you can see, I have made the picture dominate the background. I have also applied effects, such as 'shadow' to the writing to relate to horror and spookyness. I have also chanegd the colour and font of the title so it links more with the ones in my trailer. I have deleted 'Promotions' because I had nothing to put in this category.

Here is the new and improved contact page. As you can see, the picture is now fully noticable than fig2.

On my 'Pictures' page on the main site, I was unable to upload more than one picture due to a template error. To overcome this problem, there is a link to another webpage I have created containing all pictures. This has worked out for the best because it's much more interactive. The first four pictures are my own, from behind the scenes etc shots. The others are from Wix. I have used these pictures from Wix because they fit in with the style and genre of my film trailer and connotations are easily matched. For example, the fog and trees represent an eery atmosphere, as it was when I filmed in the woods. The fog represents mystery; because trailers include a lot of mystery.

Poster and webpage design

Looking at many horror posters, I found that the title of the film was below the main picture, as seen here (right). Like this horror poster, I will include the main character looking scared and a glimpse of the horror aspect. For example, in this poster the horror aspect is the hands grabbing her, and in mine will be a dark figure in the background. The fire clearly symbolises hell and it is at the bottom of the poster because hell is seen as underground. The mist/fog in the background is dark, mysterious and ominous (compared with the fire which is bright and dominant- where the attention of the viewer looks). There is also a suburban area in the background, showing normality and that she isn't in hell yet. The woman is pretty and blonde, representing that she is a typical damsel in distress. The unnatural hands are abnormal, and the attention isn't immediately drawn to them.

At the bottom of the poster, there are aspects of advertising, e.g. the website. It tells us the directors, actors, producers etc.

Here is my poster design...

On the right is a print screen of a webpage for 'Saw'. The tabs/links are at the bottom, so the attention isn't immediately drawn to them. The attention is on the picture of the hands. This represents death and perhaps pain. The background is black which is conventional. I think it is clever that they have merged the hands into a glove, giving a sense of disturbance. I think it's good that they link the homepage to Facebook and YouTube because lots of people use these sites. However, it may take away from the mood of the website as it is meant to be scary, and then the blue colour over the Facebook sign stands out and makes the viewer back to reality.

Here is my webpage design...

Website research

As you can see, I have annotated the website for 'Shutter Island' using Paint. Please click to enlarge.
I quite like this web-page because it offers lots of promotions for the film. When it loads up, it is animated as the loading bar moves. On the main page as seen above, there is also animation which I find very clever. The colours are quite dark giving a sense of mystery and this gives us an insight into the film genre. A common convention for a film web-page is to have the same setting and colour scheme as the poster and opening title sequence. It is also very common for the trailer to be embedded on the front page, as will I do for mine.

It is clear that the audience for this film are teenagers; as the character's are teenagers. Stereotypical teenagers are rebellious, as we can see this here because they have been swimming with their clothes on. This might mean that they are not meant to be in the swimming pool. The slogan "Two guys. One girl. Game on." gives us an insight to the synopsis. This is also a typical teenage film storyline; where two boys fight over a girl. Unlike 'Shutter Island', the picture takes up the whole page as a background, which draws attention to the characters and their surroundings. The use of blue represents the boys, and the red may represent love. Or maybe even blood as things get dangerous towards the end. A cherry bomb is a dangerous firework which also represents the storyline and the character's personalities, as they are very outgoing and rebellious which links to an explosion of a firework.

Corpse Bride is a stop-motion-animated fantasy musical film, and we can see this animated fantasy portrayed through the website. The main purpose of this website is to promote the film on DVD so viewers go out and buy it, although, the site implies they don't even need to move from their chair as you can order the DVD through the website through the links "About the DVD", "Own it on DVD today" and "Own it on DVD". This constant repetition is drilled into the viewer's head so that they are reminded of it where ever they look. The still-motion picture of the animation makes a good background because it shows the two main characters in the foreground and other less-important characters are seen in the background, such as the skeleton dog. It is clear that the genre is a fantasy because of the swirly writing, moonlight and plants that are also curly relating to the scene and writing. The moon behind the characters is centred and bright in contrast to the dark blue atmosphere; this also gives a romantic feel to the characters because they are holding hands and dressed smartly, showing that they have just got married or are getting married. Although we can not see the tagline like other film sites present, it is shown on their poster which is more critical to this film.

Poster Research

This poster is very effective, mostly due to the dark lighting added in the editing process. The darkness contrasts with the main characters pale skin. This gives the impression that he is motionless and dead (in terms of his personality). This may clearly present that he is the villain because he has no emotion and is hiding away in a dark, old room. The colour red that is used means that danger, death and blood are near. The red that is used over the title is extremely important because it shows the smear of blood. I like this poster but I think it is too organised. The character is facing and looking directly at the camera, showing he is aware of the audience. This could be creepy because it is like he is watching you.




This poster is very different from Sweeney Todd, the poster here seems like it is more innocent. The colours are very light and neutral, contrasting with the redness of the rose. The red here doesn't connotate blood; it is represented as love and passion. Like the previous poster, it is based on one colour. However this poster dominates with the skin of a woman (supposedly). You can tell it is a woman because of the soft skin, delicate hands and rose. The peachy colour to the skin represents warmth. "Beauty" is in bold to stand out as one of the most important words in the title. The picture of the stomach, hand and rose is obviously related to beauty. It may also be sexualised as it looks like it is implying that the person is naked.




This poster is very busy and colourful to stand out from other posters. It makes it clear what genre it is (comedy) by the use of bright colours, teenage characters, font, the character's style and their facial expression. It also says it is a comedy in the quote on the top right-hand corner. I think the producers have placed it here because when people look at a poster, after they see the picture, they begin reading from the top. The font of 'Juno' is bubbly and almost like someone has drawn/shaded it in. This is a very good comic type effect. The characters we see are of course the main characters. The boy is tall, average looking, and wearing what seems as silly sport wear. By this we can see that he is the most comical character, where as the also average-looking girl has a "I'm not impressed" type facial expression. The way she is standing emphasises her pregnancy, she is facing the side so that we can see her big stomach, we can also recognise her pregnancy because she has her hands on her back to stabilise her. Her top is orange and white stripes to match the background of the poster. She is a typical teenager in terms of her attitude which is also presented through her clothing; a leather jacket, skirt, ripped jeans and trainers. Some people believe that teenagers don't care about anything, and this shows through her type of clothes and the fact she doesn't look bothered that she's pregnant at such a young age. Shown through my points, the target audience are, without a doubt, teenagers.