POSTER EVALUATION

I photographed the two characters of the same identity, using the same costume to give the sense of similarity between them. I took the photos on a plain background as they were to be cut and added onto a different background. The characters had their head titled downwards in order to create a shadowed face and conceal their full identity, creating enigma making the audience question who they are, and why there are two of them.

For the background, I used the house the film is set in and took the photographs in the evenings while there was a slight darkness to the house. The lights on in the house add an eeriness when the characters cover the other houses, as not all the lights are on and it makes the audience wonder what is going on. The low angle adds importance to the house and makes it seem overpowering and lets the audience know something bad takes place here.

I used photoshop to create my poster, cutting out each character to be able to paste on top of the background to create two half profiles on either side of the poster. I used a landscape format to create double page spread poster, as I feel it works better with the house and the two characters as there is more space longways to create a successful composition, with the centre third being the house and the two outer thirds being filled with the profiles. I used a black and white effect as I feel is neutralises the colour palette making it easier to use an effective colour scheme of black, white and red.

I used the rubber tool to uncover the colours of the windows and the sky in the background of the house to add more dimension and create an effective look to the house to make it stand out. I used a paint tool with a reduced opacity to go over with windows to create a red tint, making it more unnatural and sinister. This intrigues the audience to wonder what is happening in the house, and creates enigma. The two characters create a suggestion of the storyline when combined with the tag line, and makes the audience want to know more from enigma created by the dark profiles with concealed identity, and the sinister house in the background. I used a red text to highlight certain words on the poster, as well as linking to the red in the windows. The highlighted words enforce the dual identity and again make the audience question what is happening. The title is placed at the top of the poster, using the same font and glow effect that I used on the magazine cover. The title of the film links to the image of the house, and further creates questions about the storyline. The tag line is separated into two parts with an ellipse, which leads the viewers eye to each side of the poster, emphasising the two sides of the identity.

My poster follows the conventions of using the house as a sinister and scary setting, and emphasising this in the poster. In “The Last House on the Left” poster, the image is black and white, with a backlit house in the bottom centre of the poster. The lighting makes the house look more mysterious and unnatural, making it the focus of the poster. The colour scheme is black white and red, with the red used to highlight “house” and edited with blood type splatters, connoting murder and violence showing us that it is a slasher film. The use of colour, setting and the sky is similar in my poster, with an effective style of using red to create impact and black and white to create a dark and atmospheric poster.

The similarity between my poster and “House at the End of the Street”'s poster is the use of the house in the background with the character in the foreground at outer third. In the House at the End of the Street poster, the house is used with a unnatural glow of yellow and purple in the sky, and also in the windows of the house. The colour scheme is quite unconventional, as many horror films use reds, browns and blacks for slasher films, and blues,whites and blacks for supernatural horrors. The use of these colours creates an eerie atmosphere and draws the audience in through the contrast of colour. There is also a strong vignette, making the edges of the poster dark, as if there is a small light in a large dark room or area, which is also reflected on the lighting on the girl's face. Her direct eye contact creates a connection with the audience, and we can see the fear in her eyes which shows she is the victim and is probably the last girl. In my poster, there is a similar layout and composition, with the title heading being at the top and the billing block at the bottom, and the attention on the centre and outer thirds where the house and characters are. I feel this layout is quite effective because there is a lot to look at, hinting at the plot however still maintaining enigma.

Form this poster you get a sense of the characters and that there is a dual personality included, and from the iconography of the low bowler hat and the shadowed identity, the audience can identity the villain character type, from the conventional character types in Propp's character theory. Through the iconography of the colour red, we can tell there is danger in the house and in the storyline, making the audience want to know what is going to happen.

I have encoded meaning in the poster by using visual codes such as colour and mise en scene, and textual codes like the juxtaposing title as a it is usually common phrase describing a stereotypical wholesome girl. This is twisted by using it as the title for our horror film, because it links to the girl that is part of the villain's identity who is causing him to kill, as well as the girls who move in next door to the killer who are being followed and stalked by him. Another use of text to encode meaning is through the tag line, which is play on words. I have also made my poster look more conventional and professional by adding a billing block, which contains information about the directors, actors and production companies. This adds a finished look to the poster. I also added a date for the film to be in cinemas, as it is important information that needs to be added to the poster in order to let the audience know when they can see it.