Ancillary 1

Poster Codes and Conventions

Introduction

Introduction found in presentation

Conclusion
Conclusion found in presentation


Poster Genre Research

Introduction
In this task, I am to find out common themes with movie posters that share a common genre. In this case, I will be looking at drama posters, and then applying what I found to my movie poster if I deem it to be appropriate. At the end of this task, I will know what is conventional for a drama movie poster.

Conclusion
This research has allowed me to clearly see what are the common themes when it comes to drama movie posters. Having three posters put together has allowed me to see that a general common theme is serif font, and more formal looking darker colours. It will certainly influence my final design.


Composition 

Introduction
Introduction found in presentation

Conclusion
Conclusion found in presentation


Target Audience Research

Introduction
It's important to do some target audience research before creating a poster, because it gives you a very clear idea on what direction to take in order to be the most effective when it comes to drawing the audience in. For example, if the majority of people say the most effective way of catching their eye is the titles, I will put emphasis on the titles in my poster design.

The survey

Results

• A vast majority of those who answered were under 18 (8/9), which may seem unbalanced, but works because that age is primarily in our target audience range
• 5 participants were female, and 4 were male, which makes it as balanced as possible considering an odd number of people participated
• When asked where movie posters have their attention for the longest period of time, it was very scattered. 1 answered street billboards, 2 answered online, 3 answered online, and 3 answered on transport. This shows that it's not necessarily important where the posters are placed, though online may have a priority due to the connection with the Internet and the younger generation - our target audience.
• The participants were then asked what is the most eye-catching aspect of a poster for them. There were two distinct answers from this that popped up the most: characters and colours. It shows that if we get the colours right and the characters striking, we can have a very attractive poster.
• When asked on what they'd expect to see from a drama poster, the answers were once again fairly varied. One of the most common answers was characters, and dramatic scenes, which means it would be good to have the characters showing a lot of emotion on the poster.

Conclusion

Now that I have gathered this information from a selected group of people who are in my target audience range, I have a clearer understanding of what I need to include for my poster in order for it to be a successful product. Without this target audience research, this work would be a guess on what the audience desires, which can have potentially bad effects.


Ideas Mind Map

Draft Layout

Introduction
Doing a draft layout will allow me to brainstorm and then compare my ideas for the potential poster for my film. If this task wasn't carried out, there would be a risk of being too close-minded with my idea, and therefore not exploring more abstract themes that could potentially give me more marks.

This is the more conventional poster idea of mine. It uses the Z layout of a poster, which in this case gets the audience to read the tagline, then scan down the pictures, and then read the title of the movie as well as all the actor names and credits. It highlights the good and bad side of the film (and thus the dilemma), but I might not use it because the idea is a bit too cliché,

This is a more simple idea for a poster, but also the more abstract idea at the same time. It features the circular layout as a means of grabbing the audiences' attention to the main character. In the character's eyes, there will be the devil in the reflection of one, and his girlfriend in the reflection of the other - therefore living up to the Dilemma title of the movie. This will be a harder and more technical poster to achieve, and may prove too time consuming,

Conclusion

Now that I have drawn out a few ideas, it has allowed me to clearly point out the pros and cons of each side, and therefore make a much more informed decision to choose the right poster to produce. As of now, I believe setting a challenge for myself will be a very good thing, but I will have to remain very aware of how time consuming it is.


House Style

Introduction
This task allows me to lay down all the different possibilities I can have when it comes to creating my poster. By putting the fonts and colour choices together side by side, I can then make a more reliable decision when it comes to choosing what style I want. This is similar to drawing the two poster ideas side by side in order to make the right choice.

Conclusion
Putting the fonts and colours together has allowed me to further secure what direction I want to take with my poster. It has allowed me to group together the colours which I think compliment each other well, and bring down the fonts I want to use to a final few. This task being done means that I shouldn't be spending as much time deciding on petty things.



Ancillary Production Diary & Image Manipulation 

Photos were shot on 8th December for the poster that would be promoting our teaser trailer. The photos were shot with a Nikon DSLR camera, under normal lighting conditions. Here is how the main image came out:

As you can see, the lighting conditions proved to make the picture quality sub-par. Though to a certain degree some of it could perhaps be fixed with Photoshop, I felt it wouldn't be good enough to accept these compromises and finish with a mediocre poster. New pictures were taken, and here was the result:

Details in this picture are captured far better in this new picture, with more studio-esque lighting to make colour alteration easier. There are also now no glasses, mainly so that I can go ahead with my desired effect of putting the reflection of characters on his eyes. Though it could potentially be done with his glasses on, I had to bear in mind the time limit I have with completing this task, and therefore I felt I made the right decision there. The two pictures of the other two characters were low quality and suffered the same issue as the first image, but since these were to be shrunk down and made translucent, I felt it was not necessary to retake the pictures.

The first task was to make a rough cut out of Connor's head - the part of the picture that will be used in the poster. This was then further refined with the Quick Selection tool, and then using feathering and smoothing to allow it to effortlessly blend in with any background.

It was then time to experiment with Photoshop in order to come up with a background I find attractive, but at the same time fits in with the genre and message of the movie. I first started  by introducing a simple gradient background, and then applying the Clouds under Filter>Render>Clouds. This was a case of fine tuning with the levels (pictured) until I found what I wanted.

I then applied some lighting effects to add more of a sinister mood to the poster, and therefore allowing it to match the dark themes in the story of the film. I encountered a big issue with these lighting effects, where a small portion of the picture would not have the effects applied to it. I went as far as restarting with Connor's face all over again, but the problems prevailed. The solution was to export everything without the lighting effects as a JPEG, and then apply the lighting effects on top of that. It did work, but even to this day, I am unsure why these lighting effect issues prevailed, since they have always worked in the past for me before.

The spot patching tool was applied to Connor so that he had the conventional airbrushed look of a person posing for a poster. However, it required constant attention so that I wouldn't go overboard and make it look too unnatural. 

It is also worth noting that I changed the background from the blue hue to mainly black with a small textured effect, to highlight the more sinister effect more clearly. I also believe it provides a cleaner, more visually appealing poster.

The brightness of Connor was significantly toned down, so that he would match well with the darker background and not stick out in an unappealing way. The lighting effects are not present in this screenshot, because they were temporarily removed while a fix was waiting to be discovered. 

It was then time to do the eye effect, which would be the main attraction of my poster. It would feature the character's girlfriend (who wants him to continue being a good person for his family), and the Devil in the other eye (who wants him to do the bad deeds) - therefore creating the dilemma. This was done by cutting out the background from each character, refining the edges, bringing them on to the main poster, shrinking them down to eye size, and then turning the opacity down to around 30% for each eye in order for it to look more like a reflection rather than just two pictures placed on the eye. In a more subtle move, the Devil was placed on the darker side of Connor's face,

It was then time to head into InDesign to add the text that posters needed to make them conventional and recognisable. Text was mainly typed out on PowerPoint, because it gave me the most ease of use when it came to creating the text I wanted. However, all of the placement was carried out on InDesign, to ensure I have complete control of how I want it to be formatted. 

Final Product

I've generally gone for a very clean and simple look to my poster, so as to not distract the audience away from the main image. Though there technically only is one main image, it tells a very powerful story due to the good and bad characters in either eye - complimenting the Dilemma name. The image itself makes this poster naturally a circular composition, with the big image catching the audience's eyes. The audience will easily be able to find the connection with the title and the two characters in the main character's eyes. 

I've gone against convention in some aspects by not including a credits list, instead opting for a more simplistic approach with the actor's names along the top as an eye-catcher. I did this for two reasons: firstly so I could break away from convention to a certain extent, and therefore introduce individuality to the poster, and secondly because I personally felt there wasn't anywhere suitable for the credits to be. In a vast majority of movie posters, the credits lie at the bottom, but for me this would spoil the main image. Some may argue that it's a compromise, but I would say it helps show off the individuality and the simplistic nature of the poster.