production diary-posters

 Using feedback i was given on my other poster designs i decided to make some new posters of higher quality. the first thing i wanted to do is get some images to use in my posters as this will give me more to work with and it will improve the overall quality of my posters. i went out and found a location to use for the setting for the poster design

the images shown here is the location i chose for my poster, the reason for this is because the location looked narrow and isolated giving it an empty and unnerving feel to it, this location was perfect for my posters as it means it can give my posters a good horror look to it.
With the location for the posters picked we got to work taking the pictures to be used for the posters

unfortunately when it came to the day where me and the main star of my film were to shoot the pictures for the poster he wasn't available, this caused problems as i didn't want to waste valuable time trying to reschedule and putting off days where i could be working just to work around their availability, to get around this i used the twin of said main star to be in the photos as it meant i could save time and while there would be differences it wouldn't be a vastly and noticeably different person

after taking the pictures for the poster i ended up with over a hundred different images for the poster, since i was only looking to make a few drafts for my poster i had to go through all the images and pick out the best few to use for my poster drafts, i wanted to use the most clear looking images that either feature the disc or the phone with the whole premise and plot of the film revolve around the disc and the fact that is has a very amateur vlog with it being recorded on a phone

after going through the 100 pictures i picked the best 5 to possibly use for my posters, i experimented with different looks and styles for the posters, using different camera angles to try and feature both the phone and the disc

this is the first design of the five, it features the disc and the main character, the reason i made the poster with only one character is because it follows the ending of the film with there being one survivor left, this image shows both the main character and the disc as the disc is the main plot point that causes the demise of the characters friends, i decided not to include the phone in this image as i wanted the disc to stand out on its own with it being a key component to the plot

this image features both the disc and the phone, in this image i went for the direction to use the phone camera to make it look like he is documenting the disc like in the film, this shows off both elements of the disc being found and the documentation of the found footage style, i think this poster of the foreshadowing of the finding of the disc looks great as it links up with the plot of the film

this image uses an over the shoulder shot variation of the last image, the thing i like more about this image is how the picture picked up on the phone by the camera makes the image on the phone look corrupted and glitchy, an unintentional yet welcome addition to the image, this shows the disc showing up as corrupt or haunted in the poster if i choose this image to be one of my drafts

this image shows the disc being found and uncovered, this follows the plot of the film without giving anything away, this gives the disc a bit more mystery as to where it was found and why it was found as well as being a good teaser without giving too much away as this poster shows the disc first being found which happens at the beginning of the film rather than the middle as to not give too much away

this image shows all the elements of the film, it has the narrow looking hallway, phone and disc, both being in possession of the main character/final survivor of the film 

i decided to get feedback on all five images and which ever receives the best feedback i will use for my poster

the first image didn't do too well with the feedback 

it received a 50/50 split of 3- which is average and 1- which is awful, comments for this image were- looks a bit too basic, person in the poster is too far away

disc is too small and has some glare so it doesn't look very good

doesn't have much, the person in the image and the disc are too far away

not too much going on in this image, the inclusion of the disc is good but its not that effective

this means due to the feedback i received on this image i will not be using it for any poster drafts as i'm only wanting the images that receive the best feedback as i'm wanting my posters to be as high quality as possible

The second poster received better feedback than the first.

image 2 received a better feedback of 75% good and 25% average, this means i will be considering using this image for my poster with it being given mostly good feedback, the things that were most liked about it was how it displayed the disc and the phone in the image in a more unique manner meaning images like this is the right direction to go in if i want my posters to be as successful as possible.

image 3 received different results, half thought it was good and the other half thought it was just average or bad, as i'm wanting my poster to appeal to everyone i need to choose an image that's positively received by the majority of the people taking the survey

image 4 received similar feedback to image 3, the majority thought it was good and a quarter of those who took the survey thought it was just average, image 4 however didn't receive any negative comments, meaning that image 4 was better received than image 3

image 4 was the best received image as it was given 75% great answers and 25% good, with this image being the agreed upon image by those who took the survey, i will be using this image for my posters as with it being the most liked by those who took the survey it will make the poster more successful

after having the 2 images i was going to use for my posters i got to work on producing the posters 

i opened photoshop and imported the file of the image i was going to use, making sure it was the background layer as that was crucial, it had to be the background layer as it means everything else added to the poster will overlap that image rather than the main image overlapping and hiding everything, once i had ensure that the file i imported would become the background layer i started the new project to edit the image into my first poster design

with the image in the project and set as the background layer i wanted to add more to it, i wanted to add some hands of the ghost haunting the disc, so like before i imported  the file into Photoshop, making sure i didn't replace the main image as the background layer as i wanted the image to overlap the background and not end up hidden by the main image

the image was imported in the correct layer order, the next step was to remove the white border from the image, the way i did that was by selecting the layer, using the image option and selecting the rasterize image option, this enables me to have more options i can use on this particular layer, without doing this i would be unable to proceed with the poster design as i would not be able to get rid of the white box around the image i was using.

after having more options available after rasterizing the layer, i selected the quick tools that had been enabled from doing this and selected the remove background option, ensuring the correct layer was selected as to not remove the background from the wrong image and ensuring that only the white box was being removed from the image

with the background completely removed, the image fit into the rest of the poster, this makes the poster look neater and much more professional after removing the distracting white background, this also allows more manipulation of the image and allows me to do more with the image on its own without the background

the next step to adding the ghost silhouette style hands was to give it a more ghostly look rather than have it just be a solid image, to achieve that look i used different methods, the first method i used was to add a gradient. To do that i selected the gradient option and applied it to the desired layer, making sure the correct layer was selected and changing the gradient colours to fade from black to white on the left hand and went for a fading gray/white on the right hand, i also manipulated the opacity levels of the layer and the gradient to give it a ghostly, partially invisible appearance.

after making sure i was happy with the poster i used the text tool to be able to add the title and slogan, ensuring it was the correct font, colour and making sure i had the slogan added too, to change the size i enabled the transform controls, used the select tool to manipulate the text layers size to be able to both put it in the correct position and size on the poster

For this draft i went for a more simple approach, using the same method as last time i added a ghost following the character in the poster, using the same rasterizing method and removing the background, i also manipulated the opacity to give it a more invisible look, once again using the text tool i added the logo and some credits in the bottom left of the poster and chose a fitting font and text to the poster

for this final poster design i went for a more simple approach, keeping it both simple yet effective, the poster brings attention to itself without giving too much away

to make this poster i used the horizontal text tool, ensuring that the text was of the correct size, colour and font i added my title, i had to make that a brighter colour than the others because the title is going to be the thing that grabs people's attention. i made the slogan for the poster a bit of a darker colour to both stand out from the title and to let the title stand out on its it own. Using the same method and the steel tongs font i added the credits in for my film, most movie posters feature the main cast and crew on a poster so i thought to make mine as professional as possible to go with the same style of credits that match the theme of the poster which is why i chose that particular colour for the credits as well as a date for the film which all existing posters include. Most existing posters also have the logo of the company or companies involved on the poster which is the reason why i added my logo, through using the method of manipulating that particular layers opacity i made the logo visible on the poster without having it be the most outstanding element of the poster.

With three drafts created i decided to get some audience feedback on which poster is liked best and what they either like about it or what i can change about the poster. which ever poster is best liked by the audience will be the draft that is chosen to be my final poster

50/50 of the audience thought the first design was either bad or awful, the things they said they disliked about it was that the ghost brought down the quality of the poster and the main with the poster was the colour and positioning of the billing, most of the comments were telling me that for next time i either need to remove the billing or try to make its position better and make it more clear to see

50/50 of the people that took the survey said that draft 2 was either average or good, the comments were more positive for this design as they liked the use of the ghost hands and the title and slogan font and colour as it made them stand out, comments of improvements for this design included adding a logo to make it look more professional and to add a billing as most movie posters include a billing

100% of people said that design 3 was amazing, the comments said that they liked the professional look of my poster was because of the use of the logo and the positioning of the billing, making it stand out as well as having the use of as release date while keeping the title as the most eye catching part of the poster, no comments were made on how i could improve this design

everyone who took the survey said that draft 3 was their favourite design as its the more professional looking out of the three of them, meaning that due to receiving the best feedback and being chosen by an audience to be the best design, design 3 will be the design used to promote my film