Amy Brown – 50508657 Digital Graphics – Task 2

Film poster research

For my film poster, I have decided to choose the horror genre as 2017 was extremely popular for the genre with films such as ‘It’ and ‘Annabelle’ being some of the most highly anticipated films for the year. The conventions of horror are also extremely recognisable and interesting to recreate, which also inspired me to choose the genre. With the research below, I aim to create my own horror film poster with the same high production quality and professionalism.

In this poster for ‘The Conjuring 2’, the mise en scene is used to an advantage to create uncertainty in the audience. A dark and dull colour palette is used with lighter colours in the middle. This contrast and binary opposition opposes the connotations related to both colours. Black is usually related to feelings such as fear, whereas white connotes feelings such as hope. The image breaks the rule of thirds that is typically used and draws attention to the middle of the poster and instead uses the Z-pattern. The main parts of the poster are at the top, middle and bottom, which is where the audience are most likely to scan over, grabbing their attention. The image in the middle shows a shadow standing by a window with a hand over it and unnatural light streaming from the window in front. This creates enigma due to the fact that the audience doesn’t know these two characters, which manipulates the audience into wondering what is going to happen in the film, building up hype and anticipation. The lack of direct address from the character in the window additionally makes the audience anxious as they are unaware of who they are and their relevance to the movie. An extreme long shot is also used to create a sense of mystery as to who the character by the window is and creates tension. This use of the action code as it does not give away the plot but raises questions with the audience. The semantic code is used well in the poster and can link it to different parts of it. Horror film posters usually include a house as a setting, which also has fog added to it in order for the house to look unnatural and strange. This contrasts the usual connotations of a house, as a home is usually linked to safety and comfort and unsettles the audience. The hand holding the necklace with the cross on it also gives us the connotation of religion as the cross is symbolic for Christianity. This gives the audience an idea that the film’s plot is linked to religion in some way. The conventions used in this poster makes it obvious what the genre and target audience of the film is, which would be adults as it is clearly not suited for children. The title of the movie is shown in large text in a colour that stands out against the background, which is the same with the release date of the film. Showing the release date hypes the audience up to see the film and builds up anticipation. The billing block shown also give more detail

Amy Brown – 50508657 Digital Graphics – Task 2

about the film but does not dominate the poster and shows what is truly important to audiences. The tagline ‘From the director of The Conjuring and Insidious’ also gives a way to build up hype, as fans of the director will want to see the film therefore creating a following and can be a main selling point of the film. Conclusively, this poster for ‘The Conjuring 2’ successfully shows off the typical codes and conventions of a horror film poster and is suitable for the movie that it is promoting.

In this poster for ‘Scream’, an extreme close up is used rather than an extreme long shot, which also breaks the rule of thirds that is typically used. The expression on the woman’s face and the direct address makes the audience fear for the woman, using enigma to make them wonder what is going to happen to her. It is also made obvious that she is an important character in the movie. This poster lists the actor’s names which is something ‘The Conjuring 2’ did not use. This is the main selling point of the film as it uses well-known names such as David Arquette and Courteney Cox. The tagline and the title of the film are the most noticeable parts of the poster other than the image. The tagline gives the audience a hint as to what the plot of the film will be, in this case the words ‘love’ and ‘murder’ seem to be the main themes. This binary opposition of words creates another enigma and will make the audience want to know what happens. This is the only subtle giveaway of the plot as the image does not show any hints, so the use of this convention is crucial when trying to get an audience to show interest. The tagline at the bottom of the poster uses tag words such as ‘highly acclaimed’ builds up hype for the poster and will attract a larger audience to see the film. The use of the director’s name as well makes the audience anticipate the film more if they are already a fan of them. This and the use of a list of actors makes up for the fact a release date is not shown on the poster. The mise en scene uses a dark colour palette like the previous poster, again, giving connotations of fear and despair. The high contrasted editing on the image adds to the feeling of suspense to the poster as well. Overall, this poster for ‘Scream’ somewhat twists the usual connotations and stereotypes for a horror movie poster, especially for its time when it was released in 1996. However, it still shows the genre extremely well and is suitable for the film that it is promoting.

In this poster for ‘The Shining’, it subverts the stereotypes of horror movie posters more than ‘Scream’ did. Instead of a darker mise en scene, a more warm, saturated image was chosen from the film itself. This would then become one of the most iconic and quoted scenes from a horror film, which would make the poster instantly recognisable. The image instantly shocks the audience with the enigma code being used, as they are unaware as to what is happening with questions being

Amy Brown – 50508657 Digital Graphics – Task 2

raised. The Z-pattern is also loosely used, but with the image being the main focus of the poster. The simple and minimalist design helps to get the attention of the audience well, A red font was chosen to show the title, with the colour having connotations of love, yet also of violence and blood. This simple choice can easily give away themes of the movie. There was also the choice of not using a tagline or billing block; instead the directors name and the two main actors were listed. Since Stanley Kubrick was especially popular for the time, many fans would’ve wanted to see the film just from his name being listed. Additionally, the film is an adaptation from the book by Stephen King, which would’ve helped with the following of the title. Although the poster strays from stereotypical conventions, it still does a successful job of capturing the horror genre and puts its own spin on it.

Ideas and planning for own poster

I decided to choose the horror genre as it is such a vast genre to look into since it has so many sub-genres and other variations of conventions and connotations. Comparing my original ideas to the final product, it does not look much different. I personally have always liked posters where there is one main subject to focus on and wanted to make mine in the same style. I was unsure at first what the subject would be but decided on a girl with a hand over her mouth or having her put her finger up to her mouth. In the end, I decided in the latter option as the hand over the mouth seemed too cliché.

Luckily, when taking my pictures, I was able to get a picture I liked on the first try. Beforehand, I used certain lighting, angles and camera placements to my advantage to experiment with how the end image would look. The image was taken originally in monochrome but turned out less saturated, contrasted and detailed as I would’ve originally liked. (1) However, it still turned out well enough for me to work with and make slight adjustments to in Photoshop.

Because of the issues stated before, I added more contrast, saturation and shadows to the photo. I decreased the highlights, exposure and brightness as well, and left the black point and brilliance of the picture how it originally was. I wanted the editing to be slightly subtle but enough so there is a noticeable difference between the original and the edited versions. My tattoo was slightly visible at the bottom of the picture, so I cropped that out too when manipulating the image. I didn’t want anything that could even slightly distract the audience from the image, even if it is hardly noticeable to many. (2) This editing made the picture slightly darker and more mysterious which is what I was hoping to achieve.

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Amy Brown – 50508657 Digital Graphics – Task 2

I then started to add poster conventions that are seen on every poster created. With the title font and possible tagline for the film, I was stuck between two as I wanted it to look more creepy and suspenseful yet somewhat elegant rather than directly scary. I used fonts from dafont.com rather than using Photoshop’s default fonts since none of them looked professional enough, nor did they suit the style of the poster.

As seen by future editing, I decided to choose 4 over 3 as it looked less neat and rawer while still keeping it creepy looking. 3 looked less dramatic as well and didn’t seem like a font used within a horror film. I kept the font white so it stands out amongst the black background of the image. While editing the text on the poster, I placed the image on top of a black

background so it looked as if the photo was taken in A4 size. I also added a Paramount logo by making it transparent first with the

Magic Wand tool then adding it in the corner. I also started to type out the billing block with another font found on dafont.com.

After typing out the billing block, I added a small release date at the bottom of the poster

in the same font as the title and changed the position of the film title. I

decided against a tagline as I wanted the film to remain mysterious to the

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Amy Brown – 50508657 Digital Graphics – Task 2

audience. Using the direct address from the character and enigma code to raise questions, I felt as though the main image did a good job with trying to entice an audience.