Final poster
This is the finalised poster for our film, as you can see I used the same editing techniques on these original images as the poster draft below the rejected images. We only put basic information on such as coming soon because we wanted the poster to be a teaser to the short film and we also felt the poster had a much greater effect with a simplistic, modernistic and contemporary layout.
Rejected images
These images were taken for the re-creation of the image used in the draft poster below, I rejected most of them due to the angles and lighting. A couple of the images were rejected because of the detail, as you can see in the images below things such as pupils, eyebrows and hair is significant in detail, I found this difficult to re-create however after some practice with Macromedia fireworks I feel the images I created for the final poster related well enough to present a professional finish and quality.
Poster change
After discussing with my partner, Mathew. We decided the poster needed a more professional finish and needed something to make the poster have a 'grittier' feel. I feel the addition of the new image and the stronger relation it holds to our title gives the poster much more effect. After playing around with some editing options on Macromedia fireworks 8 I felt the final image had that dramatic, gritty feel we were looking for. This poster was exactly what we were looking for and so keeping the layout and font in mind I set out to create my original image for the centre of the poster.
More poster development
In addition to the mask image I then introduced a silhouette of our main character, I only wanted the silhouette as I didn't want to give away too much to the audience, so that there was some mystery as to whom this character was and their role in our production. Eventually we decided the poster looked its best without the mask image and simply the silhouette. However this wasn't the edit of the poster just a rough idea of what we were looking for.
Initial Poster ideas
These posters are the initial ideas we had for our short film, we rejected the first poster as we felt the main connotations the audience would assume from such images would be misleading, though our villain wears a Greek tragedy mask the assumptions presumed with a Greek tragedy do not relate to our films plot.
I then decided to remove the mask image to see how the poster looked as basic as it can be, we preferred the poster in this form in comparison to the first however we felt this made the poster look more like teaser poster rather than an official release date poster. When designing the poster again I kept the same basic image and focused more on designing a subtle image for the background, to keep the simplicity of the poster but add a little more information for the audience about the plot.
Poster Study
This poster is for the recent Thriller production, Insidious. Straight away our attention is drawn to the poster by the strong colours and dramatic contrasts between red, black and white specifically white as it is the centre of the poster. Instantly as an audience we can already guess the main themes of the film and what sort of genre to expect.
The deep red makes the audience think danger and death, especially as the writing is in a sort of blood written font. Even though red is also associated with passion, lust and love we can tell that it is not used in that context as the hands and the blood writing do not suggest such themes strong themes, on the other hand the red combined with the reaching hands could be seen to suggest a want or a need for the character in the centre, somewhat relating to the idea of red meaning lust etc.The black background leads us to think of nothingness and emptiness, its dark and usually related to evil and the unknown, this again gives the audience hints to what the film might portray. Finally the white of the character connotes innocence and purity, in relation to the red hands its almost as if the hands are trying to corrupt the character or impose some sort of threat.
Most of the symbols in the poster are the symbolic colours and writing, the dripping blood in the title writing symbolises death and danger, the red and black also symbolises danger. The main figures in the poster are the hands and the white person, both of which are represented graphically and both clearly edited to minimise the details of the images.
The messages in the poster are both visual and verbal, the blood writing, hands and character all present a different message visually however the additional verbal message is in the tag line "It's not the house that's haunted." this helps the audience to piece together more of the image as whole as they can link the topic of haunting with the connotations of red hands reaching towards an innocent (presented by the colour white) character.I think the tag line is also a useful persuasive technique because it also leaves the audience guessing, "it's not the house that's haunted." makes the audience ask what is? In addition because the characters image is in limited detail the audience will want to find out who the character is and what might happen to them that is slightly suggested in the poster.
Its clear what genre the poster refers to straight off the bat, the deep dark colours, the writing and the images all tell the audience to film is likely to based on themes like fear, tension and suspense which of course makes the genre likely to be thriller or horror, more specifically due to the tag line mentioning haunting its most likely suggestion is a psychological thriller.
In the way of USP's and expert witnesses there is none, this is common in thriller and horror films as the suspense is sustained if the audience is forced to go find out for themselves through choice of wanting to see the film due to plot rather than cast or reviews.
Discussing institutional context, there is very little about the production line of the film or for that matter any information at all apart from the text at the bottom which is for a facebook page for the film. Though lacking information this is a clever way of getting people hooked and maintaining that interest, by giving them little information the reader of the poster now has to go and find out more information for themselves.I think this poster played a hugely important role in the production and advertisement of the film simply because it was the first initial view that audiences got of the film and was the main ploy to get people interested and sustain that.
In my opinion I think the poster is a good and effective advertisement, it communicates its messages effectively with the audience and implicates the themes and genres of the film well. I also think what's quite interesting is the way the poster has a sort of 'classic' or 'retro' feel to it, its for a modern film however the poster reminds me of a film from more like the 80s or even earlier.
