6/1/18-
I first researched the posters from one of my favourite films 'The Dark Knight' (2008), as I knew that many different posters were made with different styles, some I may be able to use for inspiration, despite the film not being a horror, and it being a feature length rather than a short film.
This first poster reflects the grittiness of the film and Gotham, with the black and white, as our film is in black and white, I could indicate that using black and white. However, this could sabotage the poster's appeal and it's ability to catch the audience's eye. I had an idea to use the positioning of the Joker for a possessed Elijah in the top centre. The creepy eyes and it looking like he's looking over the other characters would inform the audience of the genre and look really cool. Also the lighting of the poster is really cool, half lit and half dark, shows conflict between good and evil. This doesn't really apply to our narrative as well as Batman vs Joker, but it does apply to Farrah's inner conflict regarding wanting her fame back, so this lighting could be applied to her rather than the entire poster, indicating that the conflict doesn't apply to the whole narrative. Finally, the title and credits are tiny compared to the imagery, this is because they're so iconic as characters, you don't really need to know what the film's called or who's in it. This however, wouldn't work for us, as our characters are new, and people need to know what it's called. 
The final 'The Dark Knight' (2008) poster that I'm using for inspiration is a more simple version and is stripped of any characters, relying solely on semiotics and symbolism to excite the audience. Again the grittiness of the film is shown by the brick wall and graffiti, indicating the crime aspect of the film. I don't think I could get away with quite so heavily relying on symbolism, due to our film not being as established as Batman. However, I do like the idea of a poster, with a lack of characters, and representing the film using maybe just a setting, significant prop or concept that inspired us. In all three of these posters, but this one especially, the actual title isn't the main focus that the artist it trying to draw the audience's attention to, therefore the font is very basic with just a bold white title, spaced along the bottom of the poster. What I could take from this however, is the lack of lighting at the top and bottom of the poster, it highlights the text and the image in the centre simultaneously. Finally, I notice that on not one of these film posters, does a certificate appear, therefore I feel like I shouldn't include one, unless it complements the style of the poster, maybe it could be part of the image as opposed to just an image itself.7/1/18-
TITLE:
Talking more about titles, in the actual film, DEVIL morphs into our title DESIRE EVIL, to show this on the poster, I could make the D from desire and EVIL all a different colour to the rest of the title, for example red to symbolise the devil/danger/the devil. Also, I would like it bold and catching the audience's attention, contrasting to 'The Dark Knight' (2008) posters, because our film is much less established and features much less iconic characters.
IMAGERY:
A key image I want to include in my poster is one of my earliest ideas that was a inspiration to the entire plot and the forest scene. That is, a parked car in the forest with it's headlights beaming and smoke blowing, being shown by the headlights. Similar to this image below.
As the twist of our film is that she's stuck in hell, bricked in her 'house', I could include a trapping brick wall in the poster to hint at the concept. This is a painting on a brick wall, which might not be, but to me it could represent hell, with the red and oranges, and the black looking like smoke. This kind of design could be cool to include in my poster.
TAGLINE:
Straight away I thought of a line from the film, when Elijah warns Farrah that if she answers, he'll know she's listening. Therefore one idea for my tagline is 'Don't answer when he calls...or he'll know you're listening'.
I then, to have a few choices, researched how to make a tagline. Kopywritingcourse.com suggested to dumb your product down into a sentence or two, then to trim it down twice to a short phrase.
The sentence or two dumbing down our film is...'The Devil tricks Farrah, making her think he'll give back her fame, just so he can get her soul into hell.' I then shortened it into these ideas.
'He knows what you desire'
'Desire is for the damned'
'When life is your hell, what's left to fear?'
'Ladies and Gentlemen... the godfather of souls'
'Only Famous in hell'
'Hollywood reject, Lucifer's company'
'When you get what you want...run'
I will now choose between these finalists:
1)'Don't answer when he calls...or he'll know you're listening'
2)'Desire is for the damned'
3)'What's left to fear, when life is your hell?'
4)'Ladies and Gentlemen... the Godfather of Souls'
5)'Hollywood reject, Lucifer's company'
6)'When you get what you want...run'
STYLE:
Now that some ideas are flowing, I want to think more about style. There's one style that's become really popular, with all sorts of productions, TV shows and films utilising it. It's a take on 80's sci-fi posters, but updated. I thought that as we have made a horror film, I could pay homage to older horror sci-fi films with this style. Here's a few examples...
It's a painted effect, as posters used to be painted back in the 1980s, both TV shows are almost horrors, with 'Stranger Things' (2016-present) showing this more. The multiple character style is effective here, so much so that I think I will plan both a poster with multiple characters and one with none at all.
Here's a few more examples, obviously these films aren't horrors, they're dramas and comedies, respectively. However, 'Miami' (2017) has both the painted effect and the lack of characters idea that I've been playing with. I could have the forest and the car with headlights, as aforementioned, in this style. I notice that in a lot of posters in this style, the colour purple is incorporated the most out of all of the colours. I think it gives it a 80's, neon lights kind of feel. This wouldn't be appropriate for a poster of our film, however, as it's much too comedic or non-serious. I think that darker colours would be better, maybe similar to the 'Stranger Things' (2016-present) poster, but even that is a bit too 'light'.
The film 'Drive' (2011) had many posters, some realistic and just featuring star Ryan Gosling standing in front of his car. However, they also followed this new 80's homage style trend too, due to it's similar tone to such 70's and 80's films as 'The Driver' (1978) and 'To Live and Die in L.A.' (1985). The lines on the poster to the left, obviously indicating speed because of the narrative and focus of the film. However, the image in the poster on the right, the headlights on, in a forest is pretty much exactly what I wanted to do, I think it's cool that it's in a silhouette too, and the rough painting behind it is great. One design idea is that I could have the silhouette of the Devil in his hooded cape, with the forest headlights in it and painted blood or a crucifix behind.
An alternative style that I could utilise is a spoof of the old 70's poster style where all the characters are packed tightly into centre of the poster above the title. This suggests a Sleuth, detective, crime film. However, I could switch it around, to make it suit a horror film, by having the same layout, but instead of all the characters doing cool poses, maybe have Farrah screaming, blood everywhere and Elijah's possessed eyes.This is one of my other favourite films 'The Nice Guys' (2016) and it also spoofs the style, but by being religious to it and it's a comedy, so their serious poses are for comedic effect. I like the way that they've put their billed stars, with the first name having a smaller font than the last name. However, this poster obviously isn't really specified to my genre of horror. This too is a very simplistic poster, with all the focus on plot points: cars, characters, guns, helicopters and the time period, and the title, so much so that it has no space for a certificate, or any credits, only the two top billed stars. I should probably start looking at some actual horror posters now huh?
Optical Illusion:
Another style is the optical illusion style, where audiences are drawn in to find the optical illusion and word of mouth would start about the poster and then in turn, about the film. Here are some examples...
These are both horror films, so we're back on track. The first poster 'As Above So Below' (2014) is less of an optical illusion, but it perfectly hits the concept of the film and creates intrigue, whilst having no characters on the poster at all, suggesting the concept is more of a focus that the characters or actors. This is the kind of poster that I could do, as it hints at the concept, setting and scares. So I could maybe include occult images, indicating possession or hell (the concept), the aforementioned forest (the setting) and maybe Elijah possessed or the Devil (the scares). The poster on the right, is a true optical illusion poster, 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981) again shows the setting (the UK) and also shows a werewolf in between Wales and Ireland, for astute audience members.
Sketched image:
Another style is when an image contains in it several other images and it's sketched. Here you can see the poster for 'Inception' (2010), inside the portrait of Fischer's head is all of the characters and a key setting, the corridor. This is another example of a great indication of concept, as they all go into Fischer's dreams without him knowing, hence them literally being inside his head. I could copy this as I could have an image of Farrah, with her bricked window and a smaller Farrah screaming in her head, suggesting the premise of the film. I love the spots and dots around it as if it's a splash, maybe I could do mine in red, with all dots of it, as if its been sprayed onto the wall, to indicate my genre and narrative. This is again simplistic, so I'm definitely leaning towards a simplistic poster than one with all the trimmings (credits, certificate) on it. I'll probably only include actors, title, studios and tagline, text-wise. This is to keep the focus on the imagery, which is the most important thing, and to not make it too crowded by all these things, which will result in nothing standing out at all. This is a controlled chaos poster, because it's all contained in his head, surrounded by dead space, as to not confuse the audience. Pop Art:
The final style that I researched is the pop art film poster style. These are usually not the main posters, and are on collector's DVD cases or just alternate posters for sale. Most films have a pop art version of their poster, usually after their release at the cinema, as it focuses on a certain prop or scene in the film that have become iconic since the film's release. Here's some examples of 'The Shining' (1980), 'Django Unchained' (2012), 'Hateful Eight' (2015) and 'The House of the Devil' (2009). Firstly, I love the idea on Django's poster of reflection of scenes/themes in the film, as a way to put more into the poster without making it overcrowded. The Shining and House of the Devil are horror films and the former's positioning of the antagonist is a perfect idea for my poster. The way he's looking over everything is really cool and connotes his power over characters below. I'm not sure about the lines however for my film poster. The latter is a character-less shot of the setting of the house. It is surrounded by approaching hands clawing up the cliff, this is a really good idea and might be good for my poster as at the end of the film she and the house she's in, are in hell, therefore it would fit really well.
11/1/18-
I then conducted research into short film posters.
I looked for short film horror posters that had a female protagonist on the cover, and I hit the jackpot with the second one as it has a set of scary eyes at the top looking down on the poster and reigning over the female lead and a setting, made in an 80s style poster. This however isn't as much as I want to include, I like the idea more of the first one, with the female lead being the main point of focus with some allusion to the plot or a scene faded into the main image. However, 'Containment' is quite a bland and plain poster, as a result I think a mix of the two would be best, as these are two extremes.
I have decided to begin to draft three separate posters so that I can properly judge which one to utilise and which one works best with our film. They will be a character-less poster, a singular character poster and a multi character poster. But first I should consider target audience in my poster research as at the end of the day I want to attract my target audience more than anyone else.
Target Audience:
If I want to attract my audience, I first have to find out how to attract anyone with posters, so I researched poster essentials these are: grabbing attention, iconography, style, interest, recognisability, lasting appeal and appeal.
I continued with my research on how to attract an audience using a poster (http://reedcomm.com.au/?q=node/21)
"The world’s top posters also deliver a potent promise about what the experience will bring to the viewer. This is best expressed in emotional terms. Sometimes a single frame from a film can deliver this promise. It’s also a great way to feature the stars, particularly if they’re well known."
Whilst the part about featuring stars doesn't apply to our film, the theory that the world's best posters deliver a promise about what emotion the film will give the audience I can use. As our film's genre is horror, and our aim was to scare the audience in the film, therefore the poster should promise that the experience you'll have of watching our film is one of being scared, and you'll mostly feel the emotion of fear. As a result I will definitely go for a scary poster.
But you also have to tell the story with the poster. Such as 'Jaws' (1975), "JAWS created a brilliant image for its poster that is far more potent than any single frame taken from the movie" because you can tell a lot about the story, so it's target audience, mainly horror lovers but it was the first ever blockbuster so I guess it had a mainstream target audience too. But nonetheless, it attracts it's audience because it shows potential audience members what the story is: it's about a shark who's terrorising people around the shore, and the poster itself evokes an emotional response because of the huge shark with tonnes of teeth. Also 'Jaws' makes another promise with it's tagline, whilst not clever "words play an important role in poster design. I believe that a written proposition about what you will get from seeing the movie is essential. Some producers shy away from a tag-line, but they’re simply missing an opportunity to give the audience yet another reason to choose your movie over the competition." I will take this on board, excuse the piss poor pun.
Our target audience is young people, more specifically below 30, even more specifically 17-20. This is mainly because our target audience primary research proved that young people were bigger fans of the horror genre, and therefore would be more interested in seeing our film. Also, due to my suggested way of finding the questionnaire participant's psychographics, we found that the people who liked the horror genre, were mostly main-streamers and aspirers. Whilst main-streamers are conformists and are conventional, it's possible that they may like the genre because of it's recent growth in popularity. Therefore, it's only aspirers I have to cater towards when designing my poster. They are materialistic, acquisitive (greedy), orientated towards image, appearance, persona and fashion. This obsession with image suggests that to attract them I should put Farrah in the forefront of the poster, as she too is materialistic and is acquisitive of fame. Also the poster should be very professional and smooth, as to not scare the aspirers off.
16/1/18-
The second ancillary task is to make a review for the film, for this I researched film reviews of both short horror films, like our film is and just general films, that I found on the internet or in magazines.
The first review I looked at was for the horror short 'Bedfellows' (2008) in which a girl is in bed with her partner, only for their sleep to be interrupted by the phone ringing. She asks her partner to pick it up and hand it to her, she's ignored, so she leans over herself. Answering the phone to her partner she realises that she's not in bed with him but in fact a nightmarish ghoul.
From addictedtohorrormovies.com the review is very personal and even comes with a story of how she watched it, involving her sister recommending it to her, whilst she was watching a boring film. It being a review for a short film rather than a feature length film, gave away a lot of the plot, excluding the jump scare at the end with a self aware attitude to spoiling 50% of the film for the audience. It's a short review for a short film, with only half a paragraph of emphasis on actually reviewing the film, which is second to the story of how she watched it. What's also deemed less important in this review is the rating out of 5, it's in the same font in the same size, stuck at the end, as if it's just a necessity and an afterthought. It does however, recommend the film, as a scare but if not, a laugh or a prank. She explains how she pranked her boyfriend by scaring him with the film. The review is completed with a link to youtube to watch the film. Also included is the director and actor's names at the beginning.
While this personal touch is nice and is, for me, preferential to a robotic, personality-less review, I think that it should not make up more than 40% of the review, and more depth in the review of all aspects of the film, not just the scariness (although I suppose the niche nature of the website would allow this). From this review I will take the personal touches and the narrative review format that she utilises, but I will infuse it with more in depth analysis and opinion and more terminology.
I looked for short film horror posters that had a female protagonist on the cover, and I hit the jackpot with the second one as it has a set of scary eyes at the top looking down on the poster and reigning over the female lead and a setting, made in an 80s style poster. This however isn't as much as I want to include, I like the idea more of the first one, with the female lead being the main point of focus with some allusion to the plot or a scene faded into the main image. However, 'Containment' is quite a bland and plain poster, as a result I think a mix of the two would be best, as these are two extremes.
I have decided to begin to draft three separate posters so that I can properly judge which one to utilise and which one works best with our film. They will be a character-less poster, a singular character poster and a multi character poster. But first I should consider target audience in my poster research as at the end of the day I want to attract my target audience more than anyone else.
Target Audience:
If I want to attract my audience, I first have to find out how to attract anyone with posters, so I researched poster essentials these are: grabbing attention, iconography, style, interest, recognisability, lasting appeal and appeal.
I found out that head and shoulder framed shots with bright lighting and flashy gradient background posters are the most eye catching, however while this might suit 'The Hangover' (2009), a comedy, it really doesn't suit our horror film. As a result, I'll have to take advice from the research I found on style. Posters should reflect the film and be consistent with it. So if it's an artistic independent film, have an outlandish artistic style poster, or a comic book movie, have a comic book style poster. Therefore a horror film's poster should be scary and this is how I attract the audience's attention.
Other more obvious things I found out was in regards to recognisability, have differentiated imagery and an original layout and concept so that it's recognisable. It should create interest for the film, an incentive to see it. Having lasting appeal is dependent on having a concept that suits other formats and to not be too 'arty' in other words keep it as simple as you can. This feeds into my plans perfectly to do a minimalist, scary poster with original imagery.
I continued with my research on how to attract an audience using a poster (http://reedcomm.com.au/?q=node/21)
"The world’s top posters also deliver a potent promise about what the experience will bring to the viewer. This is best expressed in emotional terms. Sometimes a single frame from a film can deliver this promise. It’s also a great way to feature the stars, particularly if they’re well known."
Whilst the part about featuring stars doesn't apply to our film, the theory that the world's best posters deliver a promise about what emotion the film will give the audience I can use. As our film's genre is horror, and our aim was to scare the audience in the film, therefore the poster should promise that the experience you'll have of watching our film is one of being scared, and you'll mostly feel the emotion of fear. As a result I will definitely go for a scary poster.
But you also have to tell the story with the poster. Such as 'Jaws' (1975), "JAWS created a brilliant image for its poster that is far more potent than any single frame taken from the movie" because you can tell a lot about the story, so it's target audience, mainly horror lovers but it was the first ever blockbuster so I guess it had a mainstream target audience too. But nonetheless, it attracts it's audience because it shows potential audience members what the story is: it's about a shark who's terrorising people around the shore, and the poster itself evokes an emotional response because of the huge shark with tonnes of teeth. Also 'Jaws' makes another promise with it's tagline, whilst not clever "words play an important role in poster design. I believe that a written proposition about what you will get from seeing the movie is essential. Some producers shy away from a tag-line, but they’re simply missing an opportunity to give the audience yet another reason to choose your movie over the competition." I will take this on board, excuse the piss poor pun.
Our target audience is young people, more specifically below 30, even more specifically 17-20. This is mainly because our target audience primary research proved that young people were bigger fans of the horror genre, and therefore would be more interested in seeing our film. Also, due to my suggested way of finding the questionnaire participant's psychographics, we found that the people who liked the horror genre, were mostly main-streamers and aspirers. Whilst main-streamers are conformists and are conventional, it's possible that they may like the genre because of it's recent growth in popularity. Therefore, it's only aspirers I have to cater towards when designing my poster. They are materialistic, acquisitive (greedy), orientated towards image, appearance, persona and fashion. This obsession with image suggests that to attract them I should put Farrah in the forefront of the poster, as she too is materialistic and is acquisitive of fame. Also the poster should be very professional and smooth, as to not scare the aspirers off.
16/1/18-
The second ancillary task is to make a review for the film, for this I researched film reviews of both short horror films, like our film is and just general films, that I found on the internet or in magazines.
The first review I looked at was for the horror short 'Bedfellows' (2008) in which a girl is in bed with her partner, only for their sleep to be interrupted by the phone ringing. She asks her partner to pick it up and hand it to her, she's ignored, so she leans over herself. Answering the phone to her partner she realises that she's not in bed with him but in fact a nightmarish ghoul.
While this personal touch is nice and is, for me, preferential to a robotic, personality-less review, I think that it should not make up more than 40% of the review, and more depth in the review of all aspects of the film, not just the scariness (although I suppose the niche nature of the website would allow this). From this review I will take the personal touches and the narrative review format that she utilises, but I will infuse it with more in depth analysis and opinion and more terminology.
19/1/18-
I hunted for a more analytical film review to contrast the the 'Bedfellows' review. I found a review of an anthology of films, which are multiple shorts in a row that make up a feature length film. Like the 'Bedfellows' review, this is a fairly short review only five short paragraphs long. The image used at the top of the review is footnoted with the actor's name and the title of the movie with the studio coming after in a dimmer colour. The title is very simple and lacks wordplay but this makes it straight and to the point, enticing readers in, 'might rob you of your sleep' is what horror fans want, they want to be scared. The review isn't wholly helpful as it focuses on the fact that the films are by women rather than actually reviewing the film. There's not really a conclusion at the end or criticism of the film, only stating that it's a "mixed bag" suggesting some shorts aren't as good as others. This review lacks a score out of 5 or 10, which I will not take on.
This review explains why the film is groundbreaking stating how it's an "ingeniously practical solution to the age old problem of getting people to actually watch your short film", suggesting that 'XX' is a "model structure" for future anthologies. As it's an anthology film she's reviewing, she deals with them one by one, grouping two in the middle however. I will definitely not take this review's structure as the half-assed conclusion isn't sufficient to tie up her feelings of the film and there's no countering her feelings of the film, she either really liked it and found no fault with it whatsoever or just omitted the bad things from her review.
I then looked at a review from a more familiar source, Empire online, with their review of 'Alien'.
What I loved about this review was the the simplicity in design, with a huge picture to draw the reader in as the header above an original synopsis written by the critic which itself is above five simply red stars. This tells you everything before the review even begins. It tells the reader that this critic thought positively about the film, reminds/tells the audience the plot and shows you a cool still also which also reminds/tells the audience the type of film it is and a little bit of the tone of it. I will definitely take this design on board. It includes the certificate, name of the critic, release date and running time. I might only add a director's name, the cast and maybe any other famous people involved. For example with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981) I would have put...
Release Date: 30 July 1981
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 115 mins
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys Davies
Music Composed by: John Williams
Screenplay: Laurence Kasdan
Renowned archeologist and expert in the occult, Dr. Indiana Jones, is hired by the U.S. Government to find the Ark of the Covenant, which is believed to still hold the ten commandments. Unfortunately, agents of Hitler are also after the Ark. Indy, and his ex-flame Marion, escape from various close scrapes in a quest that takes them from Nepal to Cairo.
As for the actual review, it starts by telling the audience how 'Alien' is unique. It states that it is actually as good as the poster suggests it is, unlike many films. I will take this on board and start with how it's unique. It also includes a history of the film to explain why its groundbreaking, in what atmosphere it came out in, which might not be applicable to our film as much, but definitely influences and what films it's like can be included. I could say something about it coming out in an atmosphere of 'passable films'. This is a review for an old film which is why it is telling the reader why it's iconic, rather than giving an opinion on whether they should see it. Therefore I will buy an Empire magazine and look at current reviews, one good and one bad for balanced research on how the critics praise and criticise the films they review.
Empire magazine review:
I thought as it's a magazine review we're doing, I should probably look at a magazine empire review. I already had a copy of Empire from October that I bought because it was a Star Wars special edition. I flicked through and found a film that I saw starring James Franco, so I used that as an example, also because it's a horror film. I like the idea of having a large still frame, just like the online reviews I've looked at, that's definitely what I'm gonna go with in regards to layout of the review. The verdict thing I feel is slightly limiting, to give a proper judgement I think I should have a concluding paragraph rather than just four lines, maybe I could have a verdict at the end like this in regards to whether I recommend it or not. Like the online reviews, this review sets out the context in which the film came out and goes on to state what is unique about the film, in other words the good parts. Then compliments the narrative whilst describing it. It also follows the convention on comparing it to other films, this review compare this review to 'Dog Day Afternoon'. Surprisingly there's not much detail, but I suppose for the amount of words it's quite detailed. I didn't think the magazine reviews would be so similar in layout and format to the online ones I researched, but in reflection, this allows me to take more ideas from the online reviews, without fear of them making me create an online review rather than a magazine review. I like the empire format and layout, I especially liked the idea to have a joke as the caption of the film as opposed to the 'XX' review that just told you who was in the image.
Here's what I've found to be the conventions in most of the reviews I've looked at:
-Director, Cast, Producer and studio
-Rating
-Intro, positives, negatives and conclusion
-A still frame from the film
-Catchy title with wordplay informing the audience of the writer's perspective straight away
-A personal story about how you came across this film
Target Audience:
After researching some reviews of short horror films and blockbuster feature length films, I will decide what to utilise in each of three areas, namely the actual main body or the writing in the review, the format or structure of the review, how it's laid out and finally the visual aspects of the review, (the images, colour scheme and what stars to use etc.)
ACTUAL REVIEW:
I will definitely include a personal narrative of how I came across the film similar to the 'Bedfellows' review, but will fuse this with a more humorous mocking tone and detailed criticism, with obviously praise of things that I enjoyed. I will also include a comparison like "it's like a cross between/mix between film x and film y" like a lot of reviews do. From Empire, I will include an explanation for why it's a unique film, it's unique selling point.
FORMAT OF REVIEW:
The structure I will use is that of a typical review, as I feel they are more accessible to casual readers and therefore will attract more readers, getting to the point will work in my favour.
-Intro (how I came across the film, and an overview of what I thought about it)
-Positives
-Negatives
-Conclusion, do I recommend it and justification for the amount of stars I have given it.
VISUAL ASPECTS OF REVIEW:
I'm debating whether to include stars or simply just a score out of five, which would make it a bit more high brow and serious as opposed to more immature big golden stars. Alternatively I could include just simply small black stars like the empire review.
But nevertheless I will definitely have a huge header of a still from the film like the online and magazine reviews do, and possibly another still at the end or by the side like some magazine reviews do.
20/1/18-
I began drafting my three posters, just basic outlines of what is where, but first I drew a poster featuring the most basic conventions of posters. Hopefully by drawing first drafts of my three ideas, I can whittle it down to one that I like the most or see that some of them might not work.
Here's the conventions of posters laid out onto a basic poster with a basic poster structure, that I will use as a reference point when I draft my posters.
CONVENTIONS OF POSTERS [AS A BASELINE TO REFER BACK TO]:
I used 'The Avengers' (2012) poster which is quite a basic poster that strictly follows all of the conventions, as a baseline for my poster drafting. I drew the outline of some of the characters and setting and included where typically the title, actor's credits, credits, studio logo, tag line and release date is. This is to help me identify if I've got everything included in my poster, although I might for stylistic reasons or because of the nature of our film, leave out some of the conventions included in this mock poster. I then below this, made notes on the poster, indicating what I could do in reference to the different conventions or notes about what the MARVEL avengers poster did, and why and how it'll be different in my poster. For example, we only have two actors in our film and me standing there like a nob in a cape. Therefore we might not need the top row for actors credits like MARVEL does, maybe only two small credits above the title. Also, MARVEL can afford to waste a lot of the space on the poster with credits and to not have a tagline due to their concept already being explained in the solo films.
FIRST DRAFTS:
This is the draft of the character-less poster idea.
Here's the first draft of the singular protagonist poster.
Finally, here's the first draft of the multi-character poster idea.
29/1/18-
I then looked at a review from a more familiar source, Empire online, with their review of 'Alien'.
What I loved about this review was the the simplicity in design, with a huge picture to draw the reader in as the header above an original synopsis written by the critic which itself is above five simply red stars. This tells you everything before the review even begins. It tells the reader that this critic thought positively about the film, reminds/tells the audience the plot and shows you a cool still also which also reminds/tells the audience the type of film it is and a little bit of the tone of it. I will definitely take this design on board. It includes the certificate, name of the critic, release date and running time. I might only add a director's name, the cast and maybe any other famous people involved. For example with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981) I would have put...
Release Date: 30 July 1981
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 115 mins
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys Davies
Music Composed by: John Williams
Screenplay: Laurence Kasdan
Renowned archeologist and expert in the occult, Dr. Indiana Jones, is hired by the U.S. Government to find the Ark of the Covenant, which is believed to still hold the ten commandments. Unfortunately, agents of Hitler are also after the Ark. Indy, and his ex-flame Marion, escape from various close scrapes in a quest that takes them from Nepal to Cairo.
As for the actual review, it starts by telling the audience how 'Alien' is unique. It states that it is actually as good as the poster suggests it is, unlike many films. I will take this on board and start with how it's unique. It also includes a history of the film to explain why its groundbreaking, in what atmosphere it came out in, which might not be applicable to our film as much, but definitely influences and what films it's like can be included. I could say something about it coming out in an atmosphere of 'passable films'. This is a review for an old film which is why it is telling the reader why it's iconic, rather than giving an opinion on whether they should see it. Therefore I will buy an Empire magazine and look at current reviews, one good and one bad for balanced research on how the critics praise and criticise the films they review.
Empire magazine review:
Here's what I've found to be the conventions in most of the reviews I've looked at:
-Director, Cast, Producer and studio
-Rating
-Intro, positives, negatives and conclusion
-A still frame from the film
-Catchy title with wordplay informing the audience of the writer's perspective straight away
-A personal story about how you came across this film
Target Audience:
After researching some reviews of short horror films and blockbuster feature length films, I will decide what to utilise in each of three areas, namely the actual main body or the writing in the review, the format or structure of the review, how it's laid out and finally the visual aspects of the review, (the images, colour scheme and what stars to use etc.)
ACTUAL REVIEW:
I will definitely include a personal narrative of how I came across the film similar to the 'Bedfellows' review, but will fuse this with a more humorous mocking tone and detailed criticism, with obviously praise of things that I enjoyed. I will also include a comparison like "it's like a cross between/mix between film x and film y" like a lot of reviews do. From Empire, I will include an explanation for why it's a unique film, it's unique selling point.
FORMAT OF REVIEW:
The structure I will use is that of a typical review, as I feel they are more accessible to casual readers and therefore will attract more readers, getting to the point will work in my favour.
-Intro (how I came across the film, and an overview of what I thought about it)
-Positives
-Negatives
-Conclusion, do I recommend it and justification for the amount of stars I have given it.
VISUAL ASPECTS OF REVIEW:
I'm debating whether to include stars or simply just a score out of five, which would make it a bit more high brow and serious as opposed to more immature big golden stars. Alternatively I could include just simply small black stars like the empire review.
But nevertheless I will definitely have a huge header of a still from the film like the online and magazine reviews do, and possibly another still at the end or by the side like some magazine reviews do.
20/1/18-
I began drafting my three posters, just basic outlines of what is where, but first I drew a poster featuring the most basic conventions of posters. Hopefully by drawing first drafts of my three ideas, I can whittle it down to one that I like the most or see that some of them might not work.
Here's the conventions of posters laid out onto a basic poster with a basic poster structure, that I will use as a reference point when I draft my posters.
CONVENTIONS OF POSTERS [AS A BASELINE TO REFER BACK TO]:
I used 'The Avengers' (2012) poster which is quite a basic poster that strictly follows all of the conventions, as a baseline for my poster drafting. I drew the outline of some of the characters and setting and included where typically the title, actor's credits, credits, studio logo, tag line and release date is. This is to help me identify if I've got everything included in my poster, although I might for stylistic reasons or because of the nature of our film, leave out some of the conventions included in this mock poster. I then below this, made notes on the poster, indicating what I could do in reference to the different conventions or notes about what the MARVEL avengers poster did, and why and how it'll be different in my poster. For example, we only have two actors in our film and me standing there like a nob in a cape. Therefore we might not need the top row for actors credits like MARVEL does, maybe only two small credits above the title. Also, MARVEL can afford to waste a lot of the space on the poster with credits and to not have a tagline due to their concept already being explained in the solo films.
FIRST DRAFTS:
This is the draft of the character-less poster idea.
Here's the first draft of the singular protagonist poster.
Finally, here's the first draft of the multi-character poster idea.
29/1/18-
I used an old basic empire review to make a baseline for my review to refer back to. It's a negative review for 'Due Date' (2010). I then annotated, in green, how I will adapt this to my review or more detail about all of the codes and conventions of the review. A few things that I will take from this baseline is the one line humorous summary of the film, the film status and the verdict. However, I don't like the layout of this review, I feel like it's really generic, but I'm only going to use it as a baseline anyway, so this is by no means going to be the layout of my review. Although the verdict is good, I don't really like how it's only a three line box shoved at the end. I think it should be a more expanded paragraph or weaved throughout.The film status (in cinemas/coming soon/on DVD/online) is a really professional touch and I will definitely include this. Also the one line summary of the film is amazing and gives the review a light tone that I really like, however, it might force the review to be negative if the one line summary is mocking.
I then drafted the structure of the review and planned the main body of the review using my research above. I decided to do a two page spread, rather than a one page review as I can get more in, in regards to images and the actual bulk of the review.
Here I've incorporated the images that I've chosen. The one at the top is the image of Elijah possessed, this is to draw in my target audience that hunt for a scary horror film, and this is the scariest scene in our film in my opinion. Also included is two images of Elijah and Farrah conversing, this is to show the actors in their normal state and to contrast it with Elijah possessed. With the image on the second page of the spread, I will attempt to do what Empire magazine did with Angelina Jolie's picture in their 'Salt' review below. They make the image almost 3D with her body coming out of the picture. This really makes it look professional, however this might be difficult on Publisher. I thought that the title of the film should be the biggest but not much bigger than the title of review, because while letting the audience know the film I'm reviewing is important, so is letting them know my opinion on the film. I added the 'In Cinemas' at the top, but I might change it to something like 'Available Online' because it's actually not in cinemas. All the information is packed under the title of the review in short without labels of what they are, as they're pretty self explanatory. Followed by a box filled with credits above a large letter starting off the review. To the side of this, is an image of Farrah and Elijah in the kitchen scene, but I thought instead of the picture being simply there, it could appear as if 3D to make it look more interesting. Colour-wise I thought that it could be black and dark red, this compliments the black and white pictures, and the devil, blood and horror nature of the film.
I then highlighted the areas to talk about in the main body of the review.
- Introduction: Why and how its unique, comparison to other films: it's a mix between film x and film y. Include a personal touch/story of how I found the film.
- Positives: Acting, Soundtrack, Seance scene (possession), Direction, Look and Tone (Black and White) and Plot Twist
- Negatives: Bad writing at points, 'foggy' narrative
- Conclusion: Opinion: Do I recommend it and why
I then completed the main body of my review.
2/1/18-
Having drafted the review on paper and the main body on word, it's time to start drafting it on Publisher.
This is my second draft on publisher of the review and third and final overall. In this one I chose to edit out the image of Elijah possessed as I felt that it spoilt the best scene of our film, which is the same reason that I didn't include any shots that were in colour, only black and white. Another reason I did this was because I vastly overestimated the amount of text I could fit into the page, so sacrificing this image wasn't really that big of a deal. With this format and layout I could fit my whole review in.
FINAL DRAFT:
5/1/18-
Now that I've completed the review, I can now crack on with the poster and get that done. Having done the first drafts and asked my Target Audience which one they prefer and taken into account which one would be easiest and look the best done on Photoshop, I started the second draft overall, but the first digital draft. I went with the hand idea, this first draft didn't work, it looked all uneven and the underlying image wasn't very good, the second one was quite good but the photo in the foreground was of bad quality so I made another draft.
Above is my next draft of my poster, I went with the hand design, but changed the lower picture into just a forest road instead of a car and Farrah running, this is because it wouldn't have looked realistic or like they are actually in the poster. I also decided to add in the certificate as it looked kind of bare on the right side, as the production logo was on the left. I also changed the image in the hand from the woods to fire as the lower image was already of the woods and fire is a central theme in the movie, it being about hell, and Farrah being in hell at the end.
I didn't like the background being just plain grey, so I inserted two different backgrounds, one blood stains and one woods, I chose the woods one because it is more appropriate to the film. In the end however I chose a concrete background to allude to the fact that at the end Farrah is trapped in hell by a wall.
FINAL DRAFT:
I changed the background to a more cracked concrete and darker as my final draft.
No comments:
Post a Comment