Film poster

Ancilary task - FILM POSTER

Conventions of a short film poster

• Don’t tend to have the protagonist or any other characters on the poster. If they are, then will have been altered in some way
• Have the title of the short film, the production team, where it’ll be showcased
• There are very experimental. This allows there to be less limits, as they can pretty much do what they want. As there aren’t any limits, then it means that they can be more artistic and be more unique, making them stand out
• Use a small amount of colours, as they can then alter the use of them to help with artistic side to these type of posters
• Though they look very effective, they tend to be quite simple. By just using a couple of pictures, but because of the way that it’s been created it looks a lot more complex than it probably is
• From the simple but effective pictures, there is a clear mood
• They create a stronger impact on the viewer, because they’re experimental, which is clever so it’ll remain in the viewer’s mind

What short film posters influenced my own

With my poster, I wanted the eye to be the focus of the poster. As there’s the expression “the eyes are the window to the soul”, but this contradicts because my protagonist doesn’t know what her soul is. The first poster – Festival Of Short Films – influenced mine, as its only picture is an eye, as I liked the way that the viewer’s eye was instantly drawn to it. This was because of the different bold colours and the eye being broken up. I found it interesting as I thought it was symbolising what might happen in the synopsis or the characters and may also reflect the mood of the short film. After looking at this short film poster, it gave me a lot of ideas as I thought that I could have lots of different words around my eye. There are several different colours for the different parts of the eye. This too influenced mine, as I decided to have the colour red over my eye. I chose this particular colour as it represents lots of different emotions – love, anger, hatred – ones that my protagonist feels about the way her identity is perceived by others.

Gros Coup also influenced my own short film poster, as it combines an object with a face. After looking at this one I thought that I could do something similar. I thought that I could replace the protagonist’s face, so you’d only see the eye against her hair. This would reinforce that it was the focus. It also helped me with definitely deciding to have the eye red. As in this one, the gun is a dark shade of green, making it stand out and the focus of the poster. I wanted to achieve the same with my eye and thought the colour red would do this.

How I made my poster

When creating my poster I originally had several ideas. Originally I was going to have the word ‘identity’ written all over the eye. Once this was created I got feedback about how I could improve it, and was confirmed that it would confuse the audience whether the film was called ‘Acceptance’ or ‘identity.’ From this I started thinking about how I could improve it. We came up with the idea of having quotes from my film, written in different fonts and would be really small so it’d create the appearance of wrinkles. I started looking at short film posters, which is where I got the idea to make the eye red.

When creating my final poster, these are the stages that I took

I got a picture of my protagonist and went into transform to change the scale of the picture. I made the picture bigger by dragging the corners of the photo. I then got the picture of the eye and used the elliptical marquee tool, so it’d become the shape of a circle. By it being this shape I could then replace the face with the picture of the eye later. I then I opened the different quotes and with all them they had a white background, with a grey shadow. I used the magic wand tool to get rid of them. Once I had done that, I positioned the quote where I wanted it to be. I went back into transform and clicked on the rotate tool, so it would fit the shape of the eye. If the rotate tool didn’t always work, then sometimes I used the distort one that allowed me to shape it that little bit more. • After this, I went back into transform and clicked on scale to make them really small. This meant from a distant the quotes would look like wrinkles.

When I had done that with all the different quotes, I then used the brightness and contrast tool on the picture of the eye. This then added depth to the eye by making the pupil really dark, showing how she is hurt and lost about what her soul is like, depending on her finding her identity. After that I went and used the hue/saturation tool to get the colour red all over the eye. I did this because I felt that it would symbolise al the different emotions she is feeling when she is trying to figure out her identity. She loves the identity she has, is angry and frustrated that everyone constantly judges her, and hates the fact that she’s considering conforming to what society wants, to make society happy with her. Also using this tool makes the eye appear like it's bloodshot. This can happen with some people when they get angry or frustrated and through this it shows how frustrated she is.

The different fonts that I used were…
• Kathleenie • Devroye • Goodfish • Ketchup Spaghetti • Asesine • Royal Acidbath • Ducky Cowgrrrl • Hesitant • Catholic School Girl • Airbrush • Dirty Darren • Taberhand • You Are What You Eat • Chica Mono • Print Clearly • Tupachand • Radius • Glamourgirl • Ragg Mopp • Girls Are Weird • Sexsmith • Dance Craze • Heather • Keelhauled • Courier • Arial Unicode • Boomerang • HP Hand • Bittersweet

My own short poster

I think that my poster is quite successful as a whole, as like most short film posters it instantly gets the viewer’s eye which is through the protagonist’s eye that replaces her face. This is symbolically saying how important finding her identity is and she is lost because she cannot find it. By the eye having the colour red enhanced over the eye, it creates the mood of the piece and the type of emotions that might have been covered. It tells the audience how much pain she’s in about trying to find her identity. Also, by having all the different quotes from my script in a small font to make them appear as wrinkles, this shows how crucial it is for her to find out who she is and if she’ll be accepted. Even though the viewer can’t really read what the quotes say, it shows how we can all feel that our worries are embedded on our face for the whole to see and judge us. I think that this part of my film poster is successful, as it’s dealing with something that all people deal with – having their actual selves judged. Through this I think that it’s reaching out to the audience and it creates a sense of reassurance that the poster knows what they might have gone through. Hopefully through this they’d be more inclined to go and see the film. By having the eye as the focus, like I said beforehand, it ties in with the expression “the eyes are the window to the soul.” As she doesn’t know what her soul is, having the eye as the focus, it’s almost like the protagonist is questioning the audience what her identity and soul is. Even though they don’t know what the film is about, it’s almost that she needs to here it from someone, but it doesn’t matter who.

The conventions that I used in my short film poster were…

• The title, who created it and where it can be seen
• Not having the protagonist as the main focus
• Being experimental

I stuck to these particular conventions, as I thought that it was more important for the audience to see the worries that protagonist has which is done through the eye being made the focus by replacing her face. This also shows how I am being different, yet at the same time still trying to attract the audience’s attention. I had the title, who made and where it can be seen as basic information, so the audience would know where it could be seen as it’s on a specific website. With my poster I think that I used these conventions successfully to help aid the success of the poster. Though I am pleased with my poster, I think that if I could make it again, I think that would push the boundaries even more so I’d be more experimental to make my poster stand out and stick within the audience’s mind. As well as being experimental, short film posters are know for being very artistic. I f I had the chance to create my short film poster again, I would try to make it more artistic. That way it would fall more into the short film poster category, as I’d be sticking to a classic short film poster convention.