We are now looking at starting our first ancillary text, the film poster.
After looking at different films posters and analysing them, we know what the conventions are of a typical film poster, and how we should produce ours.
First we need to know what content we want to have on the poster and after looking at a few we thought that the best way to protray a horror film genre is to have not a lot of detail and only one main image of a key character from the film. So either Lucy or the killer, we decided that because we want our film to focus mainly on Lucy because she is the main character and it is her story. We wanted to show that this isn't just a random person being attacked and it isn't just an element of chance, there is a reason why these people are coming after her.
So unlike films such as The Strangers, where they justify why they are being attacked merely being because they were just 'at home' which I believe to be an actual line from the film, the reason behind this terror which is being inflicted on Lucy is down to her past.
We also want to leave as much mystery behind the poster as we can, so not showing the killer and just his hand around Lucy's mouth will create a quite sinister feel to the poster.
The poster portrays Lucy completely as the victim, and sets up the character well as we wanted to have the film focusing on Lucy’s story rather than just a random person being attacked as there is more to that, there are reasons behind this attack rather than just a element of chance where the victim happens to fall under the killers actions. So having her as the main subject in both the poster and the trailer and not showing the killer takes attention away from him and onto her.
From our analysis of film posters here Hannah devised a draft for our poster by extracting the most common traits of the posters we analyzed these were:
- Taglines
- Centered lighting
- Title of film on a dark background
Different Fonts
The font that we use on the poster will primarily run through the same throughout all our different tasks, to creat continuity and professionalism. As the background will be black the title of the film therefore will be placed on a dark background so it 'pops' out of the image and we will be looking at the best colour schemes for the Title so this effect is pulled through more. In addition to this the tagline will also have the same effect, as you can see on our drawn draft we haven't thought of a tagline yet but will have one by the next draft. As well as the title of the film being on a dark background we also want it to have some sort of effect on it, what we specifically want we're not sure yet and we're going to see what we come up with when we create the poster on photoshop and edit the photos we are going to take for the poster.
ADD FONTS
Lighting
The two posters that we wanted our poster to be similar to the Babysitter and Scream. To relate to these two posters and centered lighting we decided to have Rosie's face in full view with the lighting straight on her. The background will be completely black so the lighting is centered.
The detail in the poster isn't reflected in this particular draft however, we do want Rosie's face to be dirty and 'worn out', as if she has been fighting to get away and we've captured a still shot from her struggle. To relate to this we then would have to have her face/expression as terrified and the kidnappers hands dirty as well. We want the kidnappers hand to look dirty and worn so it gives the film a more menacing and vicious feel. To really represent that the kidnapper is in a cult and relate it to the title of the film we decided that he will have a rosary running through his fingers to denote his allegiance to the cult.
We plan to take the photos for the poster tomorrow at Lucy's house in a pitch black room, this is so we can play with the lighting to the best effect and not have to worry about cutting out the image and then placing it on a black background. If we have take them in a darkened out room it will look more realistic and professional.
