POSTE

R

HO

W I

S MY P

OSTER R

ELEVANT

TO T

HE C

ON

VENT IO

NS O

F REAL

MED

IA P

ROD

UCTS O

F TH

E

ACT ION

/TH

R I LLER G

ENRE?

This is the poster that I produced as one of my ancillary products. I based the layout, image, typography, colours, and mise en scene on research I carried out on products of the same genre (action/crime/thriller).

Films such as Spring Breakers and Eden Lake share the same conventions as both the storyline and the ancillary products of Wild, exploring themes of coming of age, juvenile delinquency, peer pressure, criminal activity and the focus of the antagonist who disrupts the normality of the protagonist’s.

LAYOUTMy poster follows the rule of the

route of the eye, which is the basis of most conventional film

posters.

The title of the film, Wild, is placed in the top center of the

poster and takes up a large proportion of the top half. This is

the primary optical area as it is the first thing the audience

would look at. This is conventional as it stands out the

most against the rest of the content and therefore is likely to

be the first thing that catches the audiences eye.

The second thing they are likely to look at is the photograph, at

this point their eye line will guide them down, past the slogan

‘every one has a wild side’. Using a slogan enables the film to have

a certain identity or relatable statement which can be used to

promote the film and link the products together.

When analyzing the photograph, the audience will become aware of the main characters featured

in the film which will indicate what it contains. If they find this

enticing, they may read onto look at the names of actors featured,

(which, conventionally would consist of famous, recognizable

names).

The blocking bill, which is placed at the bottom of the page is conventionally placed here as this section usually does not offer any attractive information on the film which would affect the audience.

Under the blocking bill, however, is the release date for the movie which is something interested audiences may want to know. This is placed in it’s own section to isolate it from other distractions. Since it is an area of the poster where most people do not look, having it stand out on it’s own compensates for this and will therefore attract attention anyway. This will also be the last thing the audience will read and so they will remember it. With this information fresh in their mind they may pass the information onto friends or look up the film, which conclusively promotes the film.

My poster also applies to the principle of thirds, which is used to represent how the layout is effective.

The primary optical area contains the start of the film title which is the part of the poster that will initially grab the audiences attention.

The first hotspot covers the head of one of the main characters which means this area is likely to generate attention. The same applies to the hotspot in the top right as that also covers another characters head.

The third hotspot covers the names of the actors. This again is placed here because it would attract the audience and may spark interest if they recognize the names. (In this case, we used only our names but in a real-life situation actors would most probably be recognizable.

This dead area is the space in which has no real meaning and contains no information. They are usually placed on either side of the central area, which also applies to my poster.

The central area usually contains the busiest part of the poster, and in this case it covers the center of the photograph.

The terminal area is the last thing the audience would look at. Often, a poster will portray this area as important, and take advantage of the fact it is the last thing the audience will look at by placing an enticing quote or important date in this area. However, there is also the approach I have taken where it is used as more of a dead area which the audience will not pay attention to.

The photographs pictured on my ancillary product and the real-life product which influenced my work, are both placed in the center of the page. This shows it is conventional as I have based my product on a genuine one.

Photographs are often situated in the center of the page because they are intended to attract the most attention, this is recurring throughout post film posters and magazines.

There is often a short list of the names of the main actors featured in the film on film posters. Much like the Spring Breakers poster, these lists are usually situated in the ‘dead area’ of the main photograph. The purpose of this is to ensure the names stand out against the rest of the poster since these would help entice people into watching the film. This also supports the results from my audience research, as I found out one of the main things that would attract the audience to a film is dependent on whether there are recognizable actors.

In my own poster, I took this into consideration and placed the list in a dead area of the photograph. The fact it is also placed underneath the main focus of the photograph enables the audience to be able to notice it through the route of the eye as well as because of it’s contrast against the black background.

A blocking bill is also a conventional feature of a film poster. This is usually placed at the bottom of the layout where it is not affecting the main features of the poster or distracting the audience. This is not significant in enticing the audience but it is compulsory to present the credits of the film, which is why it is written in extremely small font and doesn’t particularly stand out.I took this into account when producing my poster and placed the blocking bill at the bottom of the poster using an extremely small font size.

I took a mid shot of the three main protagonists for the poster because from my research, I found this was a conventional element of a film poster. The photograph is set in extremely low key lighting with a particularly brighter light shining on them, this highlights that they are the only focus of the photograph but the light also symbolizes their innocence amongst dark, pressurized times which would be presented through the film, and are also apparent in the trailer.

IMAGE

This is a long shot of the skyline of a housing estate where a lot of the film is set. The genre is crime/action, but the film also explores the theme of coming of age, which is usually related to growing up, peer pressure, and home life. For this reason we thought it would be suitable to set our film within the homely environment of the protagonists estate. This emphasizes the ‘evil’ symbolism of the antagonist, who influences juvenile delinquency amongst the protagonists. The setting challenges the conventions of an action film, which are usually set in urban, cityscape environments.

I took this long shot with the intention of overlapping the most successful mid-shot (the stages of each editing point are shown above). By combining the photograph of the protagonists with the photograph of the setting, I am representing the disruption caused by the girls and how they come to ‘overtake’ the estate, which is suggested in the trailer.

I edited the collage using features on Microsoft Word. In order to create the slightly blurred, luminous effect I enhanced the saturation, decreased the contrast and found a ‘paint strokes’ filter which I applied at 5%.I thought this effect was affective because the subtle hints of the bright colours relate to small elements of youths, (girls in particular), such as nightclubs, glow sticks, glow in the dark paint, partying, alcohol, etc. I also thought the colours, combined with the darkness of the empty street, symbolizes the contrast of the innocent, stereotypical pleasures the girls enjoy before the antagonist disrupts the equilibrium and introduces them to a much more harmful, serious idea of ‘fun’.

The main photograph of my product is a mid shot which portrays the three protagonists of my film. In comparison to the Spring Breakers poster, my product portrays conventions because both focus on the main characters in a mid shot of the actors looking into the camera, representing the persona’s of the characters. For example, in my product, the girls look quite lifeless and solemn, because this reflects the very dark story line of the film, yet in the Spring Breakers poster, the girls look happy, careless and quite provocative, which also reflects the storyline of that film.I shot the photograph for my poster in low key lighting, with the main source of light coming from a near by street lamp, which I used to illuminate the faces of the three actors to highlight their expressions.

TYPOGRAPHY

The typography which I used on my poster is similar to the typography used in ‘Eden Lake’. Both films portray violence amongst youths and juvenile delinquency. I found this text on dafont.com, which offers a large range of different text as a pose to Microsoft word. I chose a sans-serif style font which had a slightly distorted edge, this is because the font is often related to crime, blood, and gore, which is a suggested theme in my trailer and is therefore conventional as the connotations relate to the text reflects the themes of the films. The capitalized font also makes it stand out against the poster so people can see what the film is called, also, using this same distinct font throughout all of the promotional packages makes it easy to link them together and recognize that they are linked.

Not only does the typography of my poster relate to Eden Lake, but it is also similar to Spring Breakers. While the font style is similar in that it portrays the same distorted style as Eden Lake, the bright colour used can also be compared to Spring Breakers.The use of the colour reflects the theme of youth and femininity in the protagonists, and in a way I have combined the innocence and stereotype of the typical teenage girl (presented through my protagonist) with the blood-splatter, distorted font which is symbolic of the antagonist, an extremely dark, unstereotypical teenage girl. Spring Breakers also explores these themes of young, innocent girls turning into dark, sinister criminals.

It is conventional for there to be a small list of the main actors featured in the film on a poster. Often, the list is written in two different font types, with half of the name in bold or italic and the other half in normal font. This applies to the Spring Breakers poster and also my own production.

I decided to portray the first names of the actors in a regular, sans-serif italic font written in lowercase lettering, which I found on Microsoft Word. I used a white so the writing stood out against the black. With the last names, I used the same font but made it capitalized and also made it a luminous pink to create an edgy, modern and feminine effect. The use of the two colours contrast against each other, but also the background, to make it look enticing, unique and aesthetically pleasing.

Another conventional feature of a film poster is a release date. This is not a significant part of the poster because it doesn’t attract the audience, it just gives them information on the film if they decide to look into the poster further. For this reason, the font used is not overly bold. However, due to the fact the writing is small it is written in sans-serif font to make it easy to read, and usually contrasts against the background it is placed.

In my production, I used a lowercase, white, sans-serif font combined with pink, luminous capitalized font. This was the same style as my list of actors which shows consistently throughout the color schemes and font styles which makes it easier for the audience to relate the different products when seeing them advertised. There is proof that this is conventional because this also applies to the Spring Breakers poster

Another convention is having the name of the production company shown on the poster. In my poster, I have placed this at the top where it is out of the way and not attracting any attention. This is because this information is not useful in generating interest in the actual movie. For this reason, the writing is very minimalistic, smaller and less noticeable than the release date. In my poster I continued using the same font and colour to continue the theme. I presented the words ‘ELLIA2MEDIA’ in pink to highlight that this is the company. The Spring Breakers poster has also highlighted their company ‘Hero’ by writing it in a different font colour than the word ‘presents’.I wrote ‘presents’ in a white, italic, sans serif font which is the same as the list of actors and the release date.I used a sans-serif font because it would be easier to read than a serif font considering it would appear extremely small on the poster.

The slogan is a common feature of a poster. It’s purpose is to leave a certain message in the audiences mind so that they can relate to the film when they hear it. This, therefore it is quite a significant feature and so the font I used is easy to read, attractive and placed in a position it stands out. I used the same font which features throughout the poster, however I used an effect I found on Microsoft Word which made it look quite wavy, which is also an effect used on the Spring Breakers poster. I also increased the font size of the word ‘Wild’, as well as changing the colour to contrast more with the background, to ensure it stood out amongst the rest of the words.

The typography which I used for the blocking bill is an extremely small (font size 12 – 9), sans serif font which I found on Microsoft Word. I was able to use a writing style from this Programme because it is a very common style which is conventionally used in a blocking bill. There is no need to use a stylistic font because it would be rare for the audience to take notice of it, but it shows the actors names and the names of the people involved in producing the film too.The blocking bill on both the Spring Breakers poster and the Eden Lake poster are very similar to my own, which shows how my product portrays the conventions.

COLOUR The colour of my poster was inportant in portraying the themes and style of my film. My research made it clear that horror films, action films and crime films usually followed a dark colour scheme with low key lighting. With this taken into consideration, I blended the low key lighting of the main photograph with a black background so that the image would blend but also the connote a solumn, sinister feel. In comparison to my product, Eden Lake connotes the same themes, including juvenile deliqneuncy and the horror surrounding youths. I also found that the poster for the film also consisted of mainly blacks, greys and reds.

However, in contrast to Eden Lake, Wild also connotes themes of friendship, femininity, and extremely typical teenage girl activities such as partying and drinking. These are all elements included in Spring Breakers.To portray these themes through colours, I decided to enhance the contrast of the colours in the main image while the dark background remained. This symbolizes the contrast between the typical teenage protagonists and the extremely distressing situations they experience in setting portrayed through low key lighting in the background. I changed the font colours to Pink also, to connote femininity and also reflects certain elements of teenage hobbies, like glow sticks, nightclubs, bright lights, partying etc.Spring Breakers also explores this themes of a typical teenage girl and their poster also portrays the bright luminous colours that mine has. This shows that my colours are conventional to the contents of my trailer.

MISE EN SCENECostumeThe costume that the girls are wearing in the main photograph is portrayed to be their normal, casual clothes. This reflects how the film is based around every-day home life and so the characters would be wearing every-day clothes. This is conventional because the costume worn usually reflects the themes of the film, for example, the Spring Breakers poster portrays the girls in bikini’s and skimpy clothes which reflects the ‘spring break’/ ‘summer time’ setting.

SettingThe setting of the photograph taken is in the estate where the film is shot. As stated before, the film is based on how home-life is affected through peer pressure etc, and so portraying this significant setting through the poster conveys one of the main themes. This is conventional because it gives the audience a feel of where the main action will occur. This portrays conventions because, for example in Eden Lake, the background shows the image of the woods, which suggests the majority of the action will take place in this type of environment.

Lighting In both photographs the lighting is extremely low key as they were both shot at night. I felt this was conventional because action/crime films often contain sinister acts of crime and dismal situations which are connotations of dark colours. Both Eden Lake and Spring Breakers convey these colours in their posters which also supports this. There is one bright light focusing on the girls which came from a near by street lamp. I strategically placed the actors in a position that would capture the light perfectly, making them appear highlighted amongst the gloomy image. This is also symbolic of how their innocence shines through the ‘dark’ times they face in the film.