Film Poster Construction

This is the final cut of my film poster. I went back to the original design, which I thought was really simple and effective and just made the background a little brighter than it was before, so that it wasn't too dark and gloomy and made the person pictured stand out more than it did before. I'm happy with the outcome I've made, and I think it could pass as a real indie poster.

To try and make something a bit different, I made the image much larger and placed the image over the text (done by cutting and copying). However, this made the white credits barely visible, so I changed them to white, and made them smaller, so that they would all be visible on the white of the subject's collar. This took quite a long time, but after I had made all of these alterations, I decided that I liked it much better how it originally was, when the image was not so close-up and there was more in it. So, I went back to the copy before this was done and I moved the credits around so that they looked sharper and more well-placed. But because it isn't a product made for just me, I asked people who could be part of my target audience which they preferred before I changed back - everyone said they preferred the original one, because it was "more spacious and isolated... more imposing because it looks like it's looking down more... the title fits in better as well".

The next thing I did was cut away my subject from the background, so that I could leave the face very pale and drawn out, whilst making the background darker so that the text can stand out. When I did this, and edited the image to how I wanted it, because I had used the magnetic lassoo tool to cut out my subject's head, it looked as though the image of him had been taken in a different location to the background and pasted on top. At first, I wasn't pleased with this and wanted to change it, but then I looked at it differently and found that I quite liked the "D.I.Y" and rough look that it gave the poster and I decided to keep it.

I also added credits to the bottom of the trailer. I began writing them in the same font as the trailer included, and the same as the title of the poster, however, it didn't look very professional; it looked too bulky and clumsy and not at all like the type on the credits of a traditional film poster. To solve this, I scrolled through the fonts on Photoshop and found one that was a bit more compact and taller, so that the letters looked thinner, making the whole section look a bit more professional. I made the different roles that I was crediting be in a smaller font just like real film posters have, and I placed the institutional logos around the credits, again like a professional film poster. However, it still seemed like there wasn't enough to the poster - like there was something missing.

I made my film poster in Photoshop to A3 dimensions and inserted the title, (in the same font that was included in my trailer), logos and the image I wanted to use. In the flatplans I made, and which I am currently working from, the title was intended to be in black. However, as the two above screenshots show, a black title would have been very hard to read, and this was before I had edited the image to increase the contrast levels, which would have probably made the readability worse. I also asked 10 people from college which colour title they preferred and 8 out of 10 agreed that the white looked much more punchy and effective. So, I decided to use a white title, as it stood out from the background, and I don't think it looks as gloomy as the black, as white could hold connotations of hope, innocence, difference and bleakness; all concepts and ideas related literally to the title of "RISE.", or, if not, they do relate to the concepts in and behind my trailer. When I asked members of my target audience what they initially thought of my poster, I recieved comments such as "the fact that it is in greyscale is very effective... it makes it look sad and intense... it looks bold", which all seemed like I was making a positive start.