2013 Post 38- Film Poster Feedback

I gained feedback on my film poster from young adults aged 18+, below I have summarised their responses into key areas for me to address:

Likes:

• illustration with reality
• how well the drama is portrayed
• the mysterious effect
• the font style

Dislike:

• unclear what the drawing represents
• the writing is hard to read
• image looked too rough and depressing

To improve:

• smooth title edges to appear clearer and fit better with the image
• make the image darker for more mystery
• change the size of the drawing to fit other character better

2013 Post 37A- Summary of film poster

From my research into Drama film posters, I believe I have followed conventions fairly well and gained tips and inspiration from good film posters.

I made the title bigger and bolder than the other text and in a central position to catch the eye, whilst the colour scheme is muted and toned down, which can be seen in many drama film posters to reflect the solemn tone.

Awarded Best Drama film poster 2012 I gained inspiration to use a creative, bold title font and softer colours toned down

The main image shows our film's main character, he appears lonely and serious in an empty landscape to reveal the genre's serious mood, and the text font is sophisticated and sharp to reflect this.

I used a vast landscape to set the realism and themes of isolation typically seen in Drama films, and my text style is also subdued yet effective to state key information

 The unique selling point of my film poster would be the illustration of one of the characters, it is starkly surreal against the realistic image and the white contrasts against the muted colours to immediately draw the viewer's attention. This un-realistic image is designed to reflect the loss of memories which is a key aspect of our short film, by having it positioned beside the boy, I hope to convey the main character's inner confliction determining what is real and what is not, as well as represent the key scene of the film where everything goes wrong.

2013 Post 37- Final Poster Idea

After gaining feedback on my four rough designs for my film poster, I decided on one to use as a base so that I could develop on it with my illustrations.

Number 1 was the favoured poster, as the character was facing away from the viewer which was mysterious and did not give anything away of the film. The text was clear and creative, the quote was also intriguing and just caught the viewer's attention more than the other designs.
Number 2 was not clear enough to the viewer, and the main image was not effective at capturing their interest as it was described as 'unappealing'. The meaning of the film was not portrayed clearly enough through the visuals, which is also what let design 3 and 4 down.

Thus, using this design as a base I developed it by taking a picture of the scene and editing it on Photoshop, including other elements of my poster drawings for a rough idea. I wanted the title to stand out so I made it 3D, and the other text was created in a hazy-like font to mimic the fading of the written tagline, which reflects the loss of memories in the film. The cast credits were taken from an existing film poster and edited to appear faded and fit with the pale text colour scheme.

I gained additional feedback on this rough design to inform my final product, this included the idea of changing the layout of my poster to portrait, as film posters today usually are portrait so that the main image can be used on the DVD release of the film. This was the first adjustment I made, I think it helps give a sense of order to my poster, I can put the most eye-catching pieces in the centre and frame them with the other information for a balance.
I was not entirely satisfied with the rough design's text style and colours, so I changed these to create a darker tone to the poster that was visually striking for the viewer.

By using part illustration and part Photoshop to create this final poster below, I connote the main theme of our short film, 'memory loss', as the illustration details what is not real and the main photo is of reality. I believe this is very disorientating and strange for the viewer; effects that I want to reflect in our short film, and will thus engage them enough so that they desire to watch our project.

 

 



2013 Post 36- Rough Poster Designs

Following the film poster conventions of a title, tagline, iconic image and additional information,  I came up with four rough designs for our short film's poster.
For each main image I used scenes from the film to immediately draw the viewer in to the action, and a large, bold font style for the title that would easily stand out. I think that the drama genre is fairly clear from my designs, as the character identities are unknown and the situations that they are in present a sense of seriousness or suffering. As well as this the taglines are short but leave an impact on the viewer, placed at the top of the poster as many drama film posters do.

2013 Post 35- Poster annotation

My annotation of 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' film poster

'From Russia With Love' annotated poster I used as a reference

2013 Post 34- What makes a good film poster

Marketing can be just as crucial to a film’s success as the production processes; good marketing through media like film posters may often help a film achieve recognition just by catching the public’s interest which is why they are very important. Below I have created some tips for me to follow in order for my film poster to grab an audience’s attention:

1.       Grab audience’s attention- Don’t design a poster for art, their purpose is to sell tickets so creating a piece of art for decoration will not be effective. Have a large title that immediately conveys to the viewer the genre and overall tone, many indie films have small font that is difficult to read.

 

‘400 Blows’ too much text of varying sizes, the poster appears too complicated

‘X’ 1992, Black and white symbol is very eye-catching, little text to balance out large font size

 

 

 

 

2.       Iconography- Having an image tell the viewer the themes and plot of the film without directly telling them. Image must convey central idea, problem or conflict of film, not necessarily all your actors and locations. Don’t use too many colours, film posters are designed to catch the eye and then create a sense of intrigue, with too many colours it will begin to look like an art-piece.

‘Lincoln’ iconography conveys drama genre, black and white image of famous American President.

‘Sssssss’ The bright colours and font suggest comedy but the image suggests horror, the genre is mostly unclear to the viewer and the sizing of the images in unrealistic.

 

 

 

3.       Incentive- Putting the viewer in the middle of a scene from the film creates tension and an incentive to see film to find out more. It is unwise to feature characters on a poster unless they are film actors, the viewer will not care unless they are recognisable. For well-known stars, directors or producers, often film poster designers don’t need to emphasise their involvement as current fans of them will already know and new fans will not be as interested.

The King’s Speech’ has too many well-known actors in one small space, overcrowded and it is not clear who the focus is supposed to be on so the viewer is put off.

 ‘About Cherry’ An image of an attractive woman, using sex appeal and intrigue by not revealing her face.

 

 

 

 

 

4.       Bold/Unique Style- Having a bold/unique artistic style which is consistent with all film promotional items. Stick to film poster conventions, especially those pertaining to our genre, there is a certain layout that notifies the viewer that it is a film poster and not an advert selling something else.

‘Tooth Fairy’ The tagline completely takes over the whole poster, making it unclear as to the title of the film. The main image is also very small and not clear, making the poster bare, with many empty spaces.

‘The Odd Life Of Timothy Green’ The title itself is unique with a distinctive font style the mirrors the main image. The text and iconography work together to balance out poster and blank space is not noticeable. 

 

 

5.       High resolution- All images should be in high resolution as film posters are large. Generally film poster designs are used for the DVD release cover, meaning that the design can’t be too complicated otherwise it won’t be clear to the viewer. In the past illustrations were more common than the photographs used in today’s age.

‘The Frost Witch’ A made-up film and poster by Nathan Brown, he uses a very clear image of a girl’s face, emphasised through Photoshop that immediately pleases the eye to view all the tiny details.

   ‘Corky Romano’ The face cut-out appears amateur-like, and is lit too brightly in a way that is unflattering for the whole colour scheme, the viewer would rather look away.

 

I found a lot of my information from this website which has helpful tips on making successful film posters: http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2012/11/how-to-design-a-movie-poster-%E2%80%93-top-ten-tips-to-grab-the-eye-of-a-sales-agent-distributor-or-audience-member.html

And this website was where I found the stunning 'The Frost Witch' poster, and instructions on how to make one similar using Photoshop which I will definitely keep in mind: http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2012/11/how-to-design-a-movie-poster-%E2%80%93-top-ten-tips-to-grab-the-eye-of-a-sales-agent-distributor-or-audience-member.html

2013 Post 33- Posters specific to my genre

Audiences need to understand the genre of a film through the film poster in order to know whether they would be interested in seeing it or not.  If it is not clear to the audience, the film may lose potential consumers. For example, ‘Nacho Libre’ is clearly a comedy film as the poster is very colourful, the font is loud and the character is posed and appears in a very funny manner.

Below I have analysed some drama film posters to see what conventions and styles of this genre I can incorporate into our short film’s poster.

‘Suicide City: Whos That Knocking At My Door’  and ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ both feature a large image of a man’s expression as a central focus. The audience can assume that they are the main characters, and that the film is serious due to their grim expressions. The Titles and text feature at the bottom of the posters so there is no clutter around the faces, but there are small amounts of text on the characters, such as the tagline on the man’s glasses for ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.

The audience can identify that ‘Suicide City: Whos That Knocking At My Door’ is a drama film, not only by the sombre expression, but the Title is black and leaves a dramatic impact. There is blood on the character’s body and his glasses are broken, suggesting pain, suffering and violence which are all common themes within drama films.

‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s’ character appears in code which alludes to the espionage theme, this code also crumbles at the edges suggesting that something will go wrong, and there will be an unexpected turn of events conventional of drama films. Additionally there is a target on the blood red chess piece in the title, hinting at potential character deaths or threats to add a sense of drama for the audience.

 

These two drama film posters feature a very similar vertical image to draw in their audience. It is an unusual perspective that immediately adds drama, since the scenes are unbalanced the audience do not feel secure and there are no character faces with which they can identify with to feel reassured.

Both titles and texts are white to stand out from the backgrounds and fit within the colour schemes, although ‘Super 8’s’ font is bold and dramatic whereas ‘The Captain’s is thin and emotionally engaging with the audience.

‘Super 8’s’ poster is dark-toned; there is a thunderous sky and black silhouette of a landscape pertaining to key events in the film’s narrative. These are very ominous and notify the audience of the dramatic genre, although the overall film remains a mystery as the poster only reveals a title, date and the important cast-members, who are well-known and capture the audience’s attention.

Immediately, ‘The Captain’s’ poster lets the audience know that it is of the drama genre as there is a trashed and burning car contrasting with the beautiful blue sky. This is chaos and beauty intertwined; the two key elements to any drama film. The character is dressed in a navy captains uniform therefore the audience realises that they are ‘the Captain’, the main focus of the film, and he is holding his head in his hands and hunched over connoting grief and sadness that are usually seen in the drama genre. The fact that he is sitting atop the wrecked car directly links him to a tragic event, one that disturbs the peace symbolised by the picturesque sky, and so the audience is encouraged to sympathise with them as drama films tend to do.

 

 

Taken from this website

The majority of these drama film posters include a central character, one that the audience is encouraged to identify with through their expression, which also reveals the tone of the film. Most of the posters contain sombre colours like black and white to reflect the genre mood, and the titles are innovative and eye-catching. This is similar to film posters of the past, such as ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ 1959 and ‘Raging Bull’ 1980, although the colours of these appear dated, drama film posters do not appear to have evolved significantly as key conventions have been maintained with the rapid growth of digital technology.