Poster Feedback

After I finished creating the first poster, we went to get feedback on what we needed to change. Isaac posted a picture of the poster on social media to see what people thought about it.

The general response was positive, however a lot of people picked up the punctuation errors in the poster. There were no apostrophes for "Death's" and "Man's". This was slightly frustrating as the fonts I used for the title were custom and actually didn't include apostrophes , therefore I had to make them custom with Photoshop.

Secondly I went and showed some students the film poster to get some feedback. I got some really good feedback from a student who is studying graphics design at a BTEC D* grade. He said that the landscape doesn't work with the poster. Originally we thought it was good to subvert the conventions of a film poster as it is unique, however from a public designers point of view it is portrait for a reason and that reason is it generally looks better. There is less unused space on the poster which means it is easier to get drawn into the bits you want the audience to see.

Finally I got some feedback from general people I know, asking them if there was anything they see that needs changing. One of those said people said the text at the top didn't look right, it was too far to the left and generally didn't work on an angle. I was soon to change that and have to admit looking back at it now i subconsciously was feeling the same way, I knew there was something that looked off about it but it was very useful having that second opinion on the text to point out what needs fixing.

Magazine Planning

Isaac made a template on how the film trailer should be constructed. He also made the credits however I had to remake them due to resolution and scaling problems.

Poster planning & First Draft

One of the Ancillary tasks was to create a film poster for the film trailer we are producing.

Due to me being the only person in the group who is confident with Photoshop, I offered to make the poster for the group. 

Isaac kindly created a plan for the film poster. I used it as a template to work off which helped a lot. Also Isaac wrote all the text which goes at the bottom of the poster, however I had to re-create it because or resolution issues with the picture. 

Isaac and I had a Skype call where I started creating the poster. Within a few hours we had created the first draft poster and it looked really good to us.

One thing we changed was the orientation of the poster. We decided that we could try making it landscape. By doing this we challenged typical conventions of film posters as they are typically portrait. 

The main image we used was a shot of myself looking into the barn. We thought it was a really good shot to use and we could fill the black with the text instead of having to remove parts of another scene. The short is a slight dutch tilt with connotes that something isn't right.

As for the typeface I thought a quite "grungy" look would work really well. It matches the theme of the film really well with all the barn scenes in the trailer. This bold typeface is common in thriller posters such as the one for the film "Black Rock". I decided to go with white and red as it not only fits with the genre and conventions of a thriller poster, but it generally just looks and works really well. Red is a really outgoing colour which pops on the poster.

Film Trailer ideas

Jak made a diagram of some ideas that we previously had for our film trailer.




Our ideas ranged from horrors to comedies and even some hybrid genre ideas came to our attention.

Jak summarized these ideas below.

1. Thriller - During the trailer we would want to outline the plot, introduce the characters and include short action sequences. The idea that we has was that a mass serial killer is on the loose and has taken some school students. Throughout the trailer we would plan on having torture scenes, police investigation, flashbacks, montage scenes.
2. Horror - During the trailer we would have jump scares, comedic horror and over the top reactions. We would base our idea on Halloween night where one country is entrapped and no-body can escape. Peoples fears will come to life, however, throughout the trailer we would follow two different groups (elderly, youth). This is what would provide the comedic aspect as we would present the teenagers as more scared and petrified.
3. Action - During an action trailer their would be lots of fast action shots compiled together, an antagonist vs. protagonist and a female heroine. Our idea was that an innocent school teenager unfortunately witnesses something he shouldn't have and this causes a major downfall in his life. The teenager tries to seek help but matters only get worse. ]
4. Comedy - Teenager based - crude comedy. Our idea was to have a group of friends reminisce about a girl they liked in Junior school, she was the most popular girl in school. However, many years later this group of friends see this girl at a gaming convention and become close friends with the girl. However, due to this relationship the group of boys are seen doing stuff to impress her and arguing with their friends.

IT- Trailer Analysis

IT, the mini tv series from 1990, based on the book by Stephen King, has been re-made into a 21s centry blockbuster film. Here I am going to breakdown the trailer and tell you why it is so effective. Personally when I saw the trailer I was very excited, the mix between the memorable scenes from the old mini series, to the characters and the actors chosen to play said characters.

The opening scene only lasts a few secconds but yet instantly makes an impact to the people who have either read the book or watched the previous 'IT'. The scene consists of close-up shots of Bill making the boat for Georgie. This makes an impact because people will remember the famous gutter scene. Instantly when a viewer sees this scene they are reminded of the film and how scary the previous was.

Next it shows Georgie going close up to the gutter and IT jumps up in "jump scare" way. This is effective at showing the audience that they are in for a lot of scares.



It then cuts to a title card. This tells the audience that it is from a book Stephen King wrote. Stephen King is a famous writer known for his work in the Horror and suspense also writing books which have turned into horror films such as Carrie and The Shinning.



Straight after you get introduced to the main case. This is such a well constructed shot wide angle shot.

Next it cuts to scenese of the kids and the school in the town. A narrator who is a child is talking about how people are dissapearing 6 times the national average. This above is a very well thought out and constructed shot. It shows  a missing poster, however if you look closely there are bits of peper to the left. This is from a previous poster of a missing sign which connotes recent dissapearances. Added to that all the nails in the pole tells the audience that there has been many missing posters before this.

This is a typical setting for a horror film, a "haunted house". In this case it's a burned down house but it still has a very eerie vibe.

The use of the child taking the inhaler is not only comedic in a way but it connotes a disturbance has happened.

After this it goes into more compilation scenes with the title cards which read "What are you afraid of?" This adds to the trailer as there is non-diegetic sound of creepy laughing. This overall adds to the tone of the trailer making it very scary.

It finishes with a jump-scare which is to scare the audience and give them a taster of what film they would be going to watch. If it scared the audience this could be a good thing and a bad thing. It could scare the viewer from watching the full film, or it could make them want to watch it more as it could be argued that most modern films are not very scary.