Movie Poster...

After looking at many movie posters and getting an idea of what to include within it, I started doing my own poster for my trailer/movie. At first I did a rough plan, with all of the conventional features of a poster. I decided not to put too much detail in the plan, as it gives me a rough idea of what to include. I decided to do one main poster, even though most mainstream movies have more than one, I thought I would try and be less conventional.

Before I started my poster, I needed to take a few photos of my main characters/actors who were going to be included in the poster. I had them stand in three different poses and chose a forest background as the forest was going to be a location within my film. In the end I chose the first photo on the right for my poster, the second/middle photo for my magazine cover, and chose not to use the last photo as I felt it didn't look right, and that the first two suited the poster and cover better. 

I chose to do a medium close up as I noticed that most posters use a medium close up, rather than a full body close up, and I thought it looked better and emphasised the closeness between the two characters, and also so that people can recognise them, like they do with mainstream posters and the actors. I will also include their names, the release date, film title, slogan, website, hash-tag, billing block and possibly a star rating. 

I also asked them to wear certain clothing to fit the trailer and genre, I based the outfits on the Twilight and The Host posters as they are the same genre of film as my trailer/film. It shows the type of person my main characters are, and gives the audience an idea of what they are like before watching the trailer. The female characters clothing suggests that she is  someone who is determined, is a fighter and is stylish. For the male character, you can tell that they are also stylish, by their facial expressions, they are focused and serious, and shows that this is a serious film, not a comedy



This was the first version of my poster. I chose to use a black and white colour scheme as I like the contrast between light and dark as it links in with the contrast of my two characters, one being part of the evil 'other' the other being a good person and them falling in love, this is shown through colour representation as White represents purity, light & innocence and Black represents power, evil and mystery. I made the text white to coincide with this idea and to also allow readers to be able to read what is on the poster. I have the actors names at the top corners, again like most movie posters, I have also included a link to my previous film 'LOANSHARK' which is conventional on most posters, as they can advertise to fans their previous works, 'you're a fan of this, you might like this film'. Underneath the film link, I have my film title, I used a glowing effect as I though it looked effective and matched the   theme of my trailer. It also works well with the background and makes it seem less plain. I then have my main image and underneath I have my slogan, I used a back-glow behind the text to give it a ghostly effect and looks like the words have been written in dust. For the billing block I used a condensed font, again I made it white in order for it to be visible against the background, I included the director, actors, executive producer, music producer, screen writer, writer, producer. I tried to keep it quite small and centred, like most movie posters, and underneath I had the date, on this one my date was 'Coming Soon', but I think it's too big, and I couldn't fit anymore information. 


After doing my first, I thought that there were some areas that needed changing. The film title, actors names, film link and slogan were fine, however the billing block I felt needed changing. I used a similar condensed font, same colour, but put less information and made it slightly smaller, I used the font Georgia for the release date which I changed to 'NOVEMBER 2014'. Because I managed to make my billing block smaller, I was able to add in the information that I couldn't fit on my first draft. Since twitter has become more mainstream for movies and film companies, using hash-tags on posters increases audience interaction and also adds media convergence. The hash-tag is #THECHOICE and this allows twitter uses to use this when giving opinions and makes it easier for others to find reviews on the film and others who also like the movie, it brings people closer. I have also added a website as well, again to further the media convergence and to increase audience interaction as most film websites offer exclusives such as exclusive trailers, behind-the-scenes footage, games, social networking, wallpapers etc. After looking back at some posters, I noticed that some had the production company logos on the bottom of the poster, so I decided to use the logo I created in AS for my production company and added that on the bottom of the poster. After I added these final touches, I felt that my poster was a lot. It looks much better, much cleaner and much more professional. 

I will ask people for feedback on which they think is the better version, and why. For my magazine cover, I shall use another image but have it black and white to match my poster. Overall I am happy with my refined poster, it's simple yet effective, it has all of the necessary information, and suits the genre of my trailer. 

Since doing this post, I have made a slight adjustment, and have changed the colour of the text for the slogan as it was difficult to read. 

The final version of my poster after making adjustments due to my audience feedback.