The main purpose of a film poster is to draw the target audience in by using key iconography that gives the audience an idea of what genre the film is. The way this can be done is by using general coeds and conventions, for example, the dark and cold colour pallete, the evil facial expression on the main image, the size and font of the text used.

I chose to have my film poster landscape, like the poster for the film ‘Insidious’, because I felt that some of the features on the Insidious poster were very effective in grabbing the attention of the audience and also it was very clear as to what genre the film belonged to. Another reason why I chose to use the poster from Insidious was because the sub-genre (psychologyical horror) had similarities with the sub-genre of our horror film trailer.

The main image on the Insidious poster is undoubtedly the biggest attention grabber on the whole poster, due to the positioning being right in the centre of the poster so it will be the first thing the audience will see. I thought this was a very good idea and I also positioned my main image in the centre to make sure it was the first thing the audience saw. Also, the mid shot of the main image in the Insidious poster is very effective in showing the body language as well as the facial expression/features.

The scratched out eyes on the character would generate questions in the minds of the audience such as; why they have been scratched out?, or whether if his eyes are only like this in the poster or in the actual movie as well. I had no intentions to do something freaky to the eyes of my character because it wouldn’t have fit into our story line, so instead, I instructed my model to place a evil/sneaky expression on their face, an expression that suggests that the character is giving a sneaky smile because they have plots of revenge on their mind. Her head is slightly tilted downwards but her eyes are still looking up and this gives a cold feeling because there is a serious look on the face of the character.

I used a mid-shot of my model for my horror film poster and the reason for this is because it was really effective in showing the body language of the character as well as the facial expression. I had to cut out the ouline of my model’s body from the original photograph I had taken because the background on it was not suitable for a horror film poster, so instead I decided to place the outline of my character onto a bloack background and this created a sense of uncertainty as the audience were unaware of what could be lurking in the back so they are left asking questions. Also, by placing the image on a black background I effectively increased the importance of the image and therefore the audience will be drawn into it and it will be the first thing they notice.

I used a tool called the ‘burn’ tool on PhotoShop to darken the edges of the model’s outline to make the image blend into the dark background and this worked well because in the end it seemed as if the character was actually standing in the dark. This tool was also useful in darkening the tone of the character’s hair to give it a rough look and to make is blend in with all the other dark colours around it. One more area where I used this tool is on the character’s forehead where you can see some sort of bruise, which was actually done by using the ‘burn’ tool to make her look like an unsettled character.

I got the model to give a sneaky/evil facial expression, one which would suggest that the character had plots of revenge on their mind and I feel that the model has successfully generated the exact expression that I wanted. Her head is slightly tilted downwards but her eyes are looking straight back at us, and this creates a sense of fear into the minds of the audience, as well as generating a sense of connection with the character due to the direct eye contact. It feels as if the character is angry at the audience.

The sneaky smile/grin on her face makes the audience assume that she has some sort of a revenge planned for her victims, so she is giving an evil smile and happily grinning because she knows that it will make the victims suffer.

I decided to place the title of our film, ‘DEACTIVATE’ , exactly underneath the face of the character on my poster and made sure it was the biggest piece of text on the poster, but the second most biggest feature on there, after the main image to make sure the title of the film didn’t divert the attention of the audience away from the main image. I used a very simple font for the title of the film because this adds a calm and creepy feel to the poster and goes well with the psychological horror sub-genre of our film trailer. I didn’t think it was appropriate to use a font which was distorted in some way or had some blood splatted on it because that would go against our sub-genre and make it seem like our film was in the slasher/thriller sub-genre instead of a psychological horror. I made the first and last letter of the word DEACTIVATE significantly larger that the other letters in the middle because it made the word stand out and therefore would be more effective in grabbing the attention of the audience. I chose to use the colour grey for the title of my film because this added to the already cold and creepy feeling to the poster and also because the colour grey is often associated with dull and gloomy moods and is also said to be an unlucky colour, so this fits in well with the horror genre as the colour brings bad luck to the victims.

Almost every film poster features a tagline for the film and it’s something short and snappy to make it stick in the minds of the audience as well as to make them think about the film and what it could be based upon, which will hopefully lead them to want to watch the film.

Our tagline is an important element of our horror film trailer as it clearly indicates what the sug-genre of the our horror film is. I decided to make the words ‘online’, ‘on’ – ‘line’ in blue as a reference to the theme of the social networking site Facebook and I felt this was effective in creating a feel of connection for the audience as most of them have access to the social networking site and use it frequently, so if they know that Facebook plays a significant part in this film they will want to go and watch it because it’s something their life has in common with the film.

I purposely placed the tag line underneath the title of the film so that the audience will read the title ‘DEACTIVATE’ and then when they read the tag line and make reference to Facebook, they’ll realise that Facebook actually has a functioned called ‘deactivate’ which is used to delete friends from your profile, so this could be a clue as to how the victims in the film are murdered and therefore this creates enigma in the minds of the audience so they’ll have to watch the film if they want to find out what actually happens.

The billing block is something that features in almost every film poster so the viewers can have knowledge about the actors, producers, director etc if they want to know who was involved in making the film.

I followed the common trend of making the important names of companies and people bigger than the other words so the viewers can clearly pick out the big company names and the names of important cast and crew members of the film. Once again, I used a simple font for the words in the billing block to keep it within the calm feel of the whole poster and I made the text white to make it clearly visible over the dark background, so the viewers can easily read the names of people and see what their role was.

I have also included the release date for the film and i placed it in the edge by itself to give it some significance and also to make it easy for the viewers to spot it.

There are also logos of the film companies which were involved in the making of the film and these are placed at the bottom of the poster because they aren’t of much importance but they need to be there.

The colour scheme for my horror film poster is grey, black, white and blue. The reason I chose the colour grey for the title of my film is because it created a calm but creepy feel to the poster because the colour grey is often associated with dull moods and bad luck, which is what the victims in our film trailer are going to be experiencing. I chose the colour black for the background of the poster because it created suspense for the viewers as they guess what could be lurking in the darkness and this creates an element of fear in the viewer’s minds. Another reason I used the colour black for the background is so that all the attention is focused on the main image and the texts under it, so the viewers could see the information that they need to know and not get distracted by other things in the background which would have happened if I hadn’t used a blank black background.

In comparison to real media products, my poster has many of the commonly used conventions in film posters such as; the title, tag line, billing block, main image etc. And like on many horror film posters, the main image on my poster is effective in promoting the horror genre as it is very creepy looking and suggests to the viewers that the character featured on my poster has a revenge plan plotted in her mind. The image reflects the psychological horror sub-genre of our film so the audience know partially what to expect when they watch the film.

My poster does however, go against some of the conventions of existing horror film posters, for example, unlike the Insidious poster, the location of our film is not revealed in my poster so the viewers don’t know where all the action/murders will take place and this will be an element of suspense for them because they would have to wait to watch the actual film to find out and see the location.

I strongly feel that my poster is very effective in leaving the viewers asking all sorts of interesting questions about the film because I have including just the right amount of information on my poster to generate interest in their minds but not too much so that not everything is revealed and left a suspense. For example, the look on her face that suggests that she might have a revenge plan will hook in the audience but leave them wondering what the plan could be.