Poster draft.

We decided to make a draft of our film poster so we know what we need to take pictures of when we come to making the real thing. we thought it would be useful to look at too see if the images fit together.

We liked how half the face of the girl is shadowed, and thought that it showed mystery and suspense.

We researched different fonts on dafont.com. We couldn't decide what font we wanted to use because we liked them all, but we decided that after we have taken the photo we would choose it then.

The Gaze.

According to Wikipedia 'the gaze' is "analysing visual culture...that deals with how an audience views the people presented. Simply its just about who is doing the looking. A key feature of the gaze is that the subject of the gaze is not aware of the current viewer. there are many different types of gaze:

• The spectator gaze- this is the type of gaze where the viewer is gazing at an image of a person, animal or object in the text.
• The intra diegetic gaze- the gaze of a person at another in the world of text, often portrayed in a point of view shot.
• The direct or extra diegetic address to the viewer- a person gazing as if he was out of the frame of the text and gazing at the viewer, with certain gestures.
•  The look of the camera- the way the camera appears to look at people photographed.

Advertisements aimed at women use the mirror affect, where the women is encouraged to view themselves as the photographer views the model, therefore by buying the product the model is advertising they think they become more like the model.
As well as theses gazes Marjorie Ferguson found four types of facial expression in the cover photos of British women’s magazines:
1. The chocolate box: this is where women pose with a half/full smile, with their lips not visible. The mood they are trying to achieve with this is a pleasing warm perfection.

2. Invitational: this is where the emphasis on the woman is on the eyes, mouth (slightly smiling), position of head (tilted to one side or looking back at the camera). The mood they are trying to achieve with this is mystery or mischief .



3. Super-smiler: this is a full face, very smiley type of pose with the head thrusted forward and the hair wind swept. The mood is shown as slightly aggressive but innocent and demanding that they look at them.

4. Romantic or sexual: this includes a male and female with the pose of dreamy expression, with heavy lids and unsmiling faces. the mood comes across as sexual or 'available'.


Facial expressions of females in advertisement:

1. Soft/introverted
2. Cool/level
3. Seductive
4. Narcissistic
5. Carefree
6. Kitten like
7. Maternal
8. Practical
9. Comic
10. Catalogue

Facial expressions of males in women's advertisements, theses are similar to the woman's facial expressions:

• carefree
• practical
• seductive
• comic
• catalogue

A female model typically averts her eyes, expressing modesty, patience and a lack of interest in anything else but a male model looks up. His look suggests an interest in something else that the viewer cannot see; it doesn’t suggest any interest in the viewer like they are barely acknowledging the viewer. In the cases where the model is looking up, this always suggests spirituality, he might be there for his face and body to be gazed at, but his mind is on higher things.  Male pin-ups more often than not do not look at the viewer. When they do, what is crucial is the kind of look that it is, something very often determined by the set of the mouth that accompanies it. When the female pin-up returns the viewer’s gaze, it is usually some kind of smile, inviting. The male pin-up simply still stares at the viewer.

Target Audience Research.

We decided to do research into what films our age group preferred. We made a questionnaire of 5 questions and handed it out to 10 boys and girls.

The Results.

The first question was 'what sort of film would you like to see with a group of friends'.



The results showed that the films males and females would like to watch with friends are 'thillers'. This is good because that is our chosen choice of genre for our film. Girls wanted to watch thrillers more than boys so this shows us that our films will have to appeal more to girls than boys.

The second question is 'do you like the hero to be a girl or a boy?' our results showed that both males and females wanted males to be the hero of the film.  The plot of our film doesn't include a hero therefore it doesn't matter too much that our hero is not a boy. 

The third question is 'would you like the main character of the film to be a similar age to yourself?' The response showed that all the females and many of the males wanted the main character to be a similar age to themselves. This is a pleasing response as our main character is the same ages as all the people we asked.

The last question is 'what type of ending would you prefer', a happy ending, sad ending or not expected. Both males and females answered that they wanted a not expected ending. As we are doing a trailer we wouldn't see the ending so it doesn't matter.

Thriller film poster conventions- further research.

This poster of Shutter Island follows the conventions of a thriller movie poster. The background is dark, the mood is serious and the title is red. The things that stand out the most in the poster would be the match Leonardo Dicaprio is holding and the red title. The vibrant colour of the fire contrasts with the darkness of the scene below. The expression on Leonardo Dicaprio face is very serious, almost confused and he is not looking directly into the camera suggesting mystery and foreboding. The image of Leonardo is faded which also suggests mystery or I think it could suggest secrecy, as if he is trying to hide from someone. The image below looks like an island prison, which backs up the title 'Shutter Island'. It looks like it is raining in the image around the island and the waves look quite rough, which aswell could suggest foreboding to the storyline. The title of the film uses the colour red, which is a little unusual because the colour of the title is usually white. The colour red suggests blood, danger and fire. The tag line is short 'someone is watching' which links with the half hidden face of Leonardo Dicaprio. With reference to our film poster trailer I think the 'Shutter Island' film poster is too busy. We were thinking of a simpler image.

The 'Black Swan' film poster is a very simple poster, but it is effective. This poster is not a conventional thriller film poster because of the colour scheme. The whiteness of the background is untypical for a thriller poster because the backgrounds are usually black or dark colours. The white suggests purity and simple. The simplicity of Natalie Portman’s face is effective because the harsh colours of the eyes and face contrast with how pale her skin is. Her eyes are made to look like swan eyes with the shape of the makeup and the eyes. The eyes and lips are red which suggests evil or blood. The poster doesn’t have a tagline but the title is black which contrasts with the white background.

V for Vendetta presentation

Some conventions of a thriller poster.

Me and my group have decided for our movie trailer we are going to do the genre- thriller. We had some trouble at first trying to think of a genre we all wanted to do, we were going to do a tragedy film but we couldn’t decide on the plot. So instead we thought of an idea for a thriller.

We started to research thriller posters so we could list all the similarities in different posters. We noticed that the colour scheme all the posters had was black, blue and red. Most of the film posters are set at night or against a black background- with the exception of a few.

We also noticed that some Thriller film posters have just the main character, the title and the people who are going to star in the film. Take for example the movie poster 'Salt' and '23'. They both have a profile picture of the main person looking serious. They both have the actors name written across the top and in salt there is a watermark across Angelina Jolies face saying 'Salt'. They both also have tag lines. We haven’t completely decided what we are going to have on out movie poster but we do want a picture of the main character and maybe something that will incorporate with our trailers title.

Analysis of film poster

The film 500 Days of Summer is non conventional romantic comedy of a man who falls in love with a girl who doesn’t believe in love. The film consists of a non linear narrative of the 500 hundreds days that the boy-Tom and the girl-Summer spent together, the highs and the lows.

The part of the poster that stands out the most would be the photos and the title. There is a collage of 500 photos of the Summer which links to the title 500 Days of Summer, this could also represents the 500 days Tom and her spent together. However this could show all the things tom remembers about Summer because there are only pictures of her and not really him. There are many different shots of her and different parts of her face which could suggest the slight obsession Tom may have of Summer.

The colours in the poster are blue and yellow.  The yellow is very bright and links in with the title and the theme of summer. The shape behind the title further links towards summer and could symbolize the sun. The blue, that is used in the photos is quite neutral which is unusual for a romantic comedy film because they are usually full of bright vibrant colours, but this could be done to show that it is not a conventional romantic comedy. I researched other rom com posters and found that most of them are of the two love interests in a plain background. This could also link to the fact that the film is not a typical rom com.

The title is a stereotypical aspect to a romantic comedy because it is white. The title is bold and in capitals to draw the audiences eyes to it and also make it stand out in front of the photos.

The drawings at the bottom of the poster shows and the picture of Tom drawing gives indication that drawing is part of his job or is a hobby he likes doing. The font of the actors names and tag lines also suggest its someone’s handwriting which makes the film seem less formal.

The tag line ‘This is not a love story. This is a story about love’ further links to the non conventional aspect to the romantic comedy. The actor’s names appear at the top of the film but are quite small which is unusual for a romantic comedy. This could suggest that the film producers don’t want people to watch the film for the actors but for the message of the film itself.

There is no release date but it does say ‘In theatres this summer' which also links to all the summer aspects to the film. i think the target audience for this poster is men because of all the attractive pictures of Summer in the background and it doesnt look like a stereotypical romantic comedy poster. However it could also appeal to women because of the attractive man in the corner of the poster.