Introduction:
Creating the movie posters was a big part of our practical ancillary task. We wanted, as a group to create very authentic and professional looking movie posters to go with our trailer for Precognition. These posters needed to follow the conventions we researched and the plans we made.
Size and Format:
First off, we decided in our planning that we were going to use Adobe's Photoshop software, this is because we have experience in using this photo editing software; using it to create our AS level media portfolio. We first had to design a base that was A4 size, so that we could create something that could be scaled up or down in size when it came to printing. We found that A4 was the perfect size for our posters, as it was the right shape and size that we wanted.
Significant Movie Posters:
As a group during our research and planning, we have looked at many different movie posters and have some significant posters that we have taken ideas and conventions that we would like to apply to our own posters when creating them. These posters have been included below:
All of the above posters have design aspects that we want to include in our movie posters. Here are some of the things have taken into account from these posters:
Both posters for 'The Dark Knight' have city based backgrounds with large buildings in the background, we think that this would be perfect for our own posters.
They all have their own movie title logo's. We have already created our own logo, and want to apply it like the posters above; either at the top of the poster or at the bottom.
We also might include song kind of tag line, like the one at the top of the 'Die Hard' poster.
The second and third posters have credits shown at the bottom of the posters, both in the same style font. This is something we are keen on including.
In the second 'Dark Knight' poster, they include the names of actors/actresses that are starring in the film; their last names are much bigger than their first names. We felt that this was an effective way of showing the stars of the film and want to include this in our posters.
Each poster features one of the main protagonists in the centre, often wielding some kind of weapon. This is something we have thought about including for a while, and feel this would defiantly make an effective movie poster.
The first 'Dark Knight' poster features the back of the main antagonist of the story. We liked this back facing image and would like to include it in one or more of our posters.
Poster 1: Initial Version
Here is the first of our three movie posters we are going to create (below), It obviously isn't finished and eventually we will make a final version of this poster.
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Text, Fonts and Layout:
This poster (above) shows the image and layout we want to use when it comes to creating our final movie posters. At the moment, we are just playing around on Photoshop with different images and texts to see what looks good and what works with our trailer. Obviously, using the recognisable 'Precognition' logo was a priority for us, we knew that we would need this in our poster to make a consistent project. We found that most movie posters placed their movie title along the bottom of poster itself, whilst leaving enough space for credits. We also found that movie posters often had their cast along the top of the poster; they featured actors that would attract audiences to watch the film. Obviously we had no famous actors to include in our film, so we just used the names of people who featured in our trailer or could feature in our fictional film.
The most important thing about this first poster edit is the image we used. We felt that this was one of our best still images, and defiantly wanted to use it as one of our movie posters.
At the moment we are looking to download fonts for our posters. We have noticed that most movie posters use similar fonts for their credits. Taking this into account, we have done some research and we are looking to download a font called 'BeeTwo' or a font called 'Steeltongs'; this is so that we can easily type up some fictional film credits at the bottom of the poster, including logos and trademarks.
Image:
The Image itself has not actually been edited that much. We used a high resolution stills camera to take this image while filming. It was taken under an orange tinted street light, whilst no flash was used; this made for a very effective and interesting image of the main protagonist holding a gun. We also followed through with our planning, having an image of a character with his back to the camera/audience. This makes for a more mysterious and interesting poster that would intrigue viewers. We added a filter, available to us using the Photoshop software, called 'Dark Strokes'. We felt this made the image slightly more edgy and arty looking. We intend to keep this image for the final edit of this poster.
Movie Poster 2: Initial Version
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Image:
Whilst using the same kind of layout as our first poster, we have decided to use this image. The image shows a close up of our protagonists hand holding a gun; we used the same kind of lighting to take this still image as the first image showing a similar shot like this. We like the image itself and we have used a filter to give the poster a kind of edgy look.
Text, Fonts and Layout:
As a group, we like the image itself, but we are thinking about changing the colours slightly, as well as the filter we used. Obviously we are also going to change the text and layout of the text when we get round to finishing the first poster, we want these posters to have pretty much the same layout and fonts.
Movie Poster 3: Initial Version
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Image:
With both of these initial 'pratice' versions of our third poster, we used a slightly different image than that of the first two still photos for the poster. Whilst still using the same theme of having our protagonist holding a gun, whilst only being visible from behind; we have changed the lighting and the angle of this shot. We used a clear shot using the camera's flash, whilst shooting this from a low angle for effect. In this image we included a street light near a wall for a visible lighting effect as well. We took this low angle image by having our protagonist stand on the top of a tall wall, that way me managed to get a shot of the tall buildings above to the right. We decided not to use any filter effects for this image as we found it effective as it was, although we did blacken the top left edge for an 'arty' effect.
Text, Fonts and Layout:
Obviously we haven't changed much on this poster in terms of text, fonts and layout, compared to the previous posters. We have added some credits to the first version, but they are NOT ours; we just wanted to see what they would look like when applied to the posters themselves. We also changed the title logo slightly, by giving it a red letter 'C', we thought we could use this in some way to link to our story. We also added a tag line to the second version of this poster, we felt that it could be interesting and attractive to audiences to give a small tag line from our film. If it were real, it could give clues about the film to somebody who doesn't know a lot about it; it could attract some potential viewers.
Poster 1: Final Version
We have taken note of things we wanted to add/change from the initial mock of of this first poster. Now we have created the final version of our first 'Precognition' movie poster. (Below)
The image we have used is basically the same as the initial version of this poster. As a group we decided to change the font used for the cast at the top of the poster; we found it was effective making the last names slightly bigger than the first. We also downloaded a font called 'steeltongs' to use for the credits at the bottom of the poster. This allowed us to create realistic looking movie credits for the poster that included logos and trademarks. We also added 'coming soon' to the bottom of the poster, we decided not to include a date as usually when teaser trailers/posters are released they don't actually know when the films release will be.
We feel that this poster is very authentic and professional looking; this is the final version of our first poster and has a great finish.
Template
We have decided that using a template would be the easiest way to create a consistent series of movie posters. We need to create two more movie posters that look and feel similar to the first. If we remove the background image from the first poster, we can easily add and change a new image to create a second poster; whilst still leaving behind the title, credits and cast text. This would be a perfect was of creating a series of posters. We could also slightly change some of the text positioning if we need to, this would give each poster a fresh 'look'.
We have now created the movie poster template and i have included a JPEG of this below:
Obviously now we have included finished credits, cast and titles to use for all three movie posters. We can change the colours, and position of any of the text used in the template above easily, using Photoshop.
This will now allow us to create focus on creating two more similar posters that can work with the first as a series of posters. Below are the final versions of the second and third posters:
Movie Poster 2: Final Version
This is the final version of our second poster. We have kept the same image of the gun in the hand of our protagonist, but for the final version we have changed the colour levels, increasing the red in the poster (basically darkening the existing natural orange tint). We found this looked more effective and we wanted this poster to have more of a different look than the first poster, which to start with, it didn't. We have used almost the exact same text template as the first poster, although we changed the colour of the cast list at the top, they are now all in white rather than fading from white to black. This was simply because this allowed us to highlight the cast at the top of the poster. We feel that this poster is now authentic enough to be one of our final posters. It fits in well with the other poster and would work well in this series of three posters. The colours also correspond with movie magazine poster.
Movie Poster 3: Final Version
Again, this is the final version of our third movie poster. It isn't much different from the previous 'inital third poster'. The image is pretty much exactly the same as it was before, but it has been added to the text template we created using the first final poster. We have added the tag line we created, and also changed the colour of the letter 'C' again. We found this to be a fresh change to the three posters in the series, whilst it is still very recognisable.
Conclusion:
We are pleased with all three of these final posters. We have achieved all of the things we set out to do when creating this part of our project. We have successfully created a series of three posters that could be easily recognised as being associated with the same film. The only thing I would like to have done differently, is to be able to create more posters with different characters and settings for our film!
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