Film Poster

 Written by Tom Bailey

One of the most important aspects in promoting a new upcoming film is the poster. It is important that it is striking and will draw audiences in and persuade them to consider watching the film. There are several features often included in film posters that will aid in persuading people to watch the actual film. One of these features is the names of the actors/actresses that are in the film, common places for these names to be placed is in the primary and terminal optical areas, the top and bottom of the screen, often with the main characters name at the top. We have replicated this with our poster as well, placing the name 'Clare Fletcher', (the actress who is playing our main character 'Grace') at the top, with the names of the supporting actors and actresses near the bottom, Sam Newsham and Sophie Wooding who play the supporting characters Charlie and Zara. Another feature that commonly features on the posters is the ratings and awards it had received. We chose to use Cannes and Raindance film festival as these are both prestigious film festivals and if a film has won awards at these events audiences will know that the film must be good.

Above is the finished poster for 'Fallen Grace'.

The picture featured in the poster was taken by Emma during the shoot in the basement. We then used the photo to compose a design that we all agreed on, starting with a rough sketch which I designed. Emma was then able to take this sketch and recreate the poster using photoshop cs5. She did this by making a new project within photoshop and made it transparent so the gradient tool could be used to add to the bottom of the postester image when imported into the new project.

The final design was a result of a long period of planning, photo shoots and editing, from an initial rough sketch to the final design.

 The following was written by Emma Taylor

Here you can see the gradient tool has been used on the principal layer which fades to black so that the crucial institutional information can be seen clearly and is effective in displaying this.

Adding the title pt

adding the image

Adding the actors names

The credits featured at the bottom of the poster.

In all film posters, the names of the film makers, actors and production companies are placed on the poster, usually at the bottom of the poster. This was time consuming to replicate, as there are no templates for it, so I had to do the best I could with text fonts and pts. Each individual section is made individually so that words can be placed over each other, such as 'production designer'. I did this so that the film poster could be as close to a professional one as I could make it. In film posters, the role of the film maker is designed to be on two levels in a smaller pt, and the name of the film maker is in a larger font, filling more space.

PRODUCTION     SAQIB YOUNIS
      DESIGNER 

The problem with making this all in one text is that the name is only on one level, so I had to use separate text boxes in order to make it look professional. 

This is the first transparent layer which will have the gradient put onto it, and will be faded to black underneath. This was done so that the principle information of the film eg. the Director, the production companies and social networking sites could be seen. This is seen in professional feature film posters such as 'Shutter Island'.

The first transparent layer

The gradient tool added to the poster

Here the image has been imported into the second transparent layer and the gradient tool has been altered so the fit is clean, and there is enough room for the institutional information. This background layer has then been 'locked' off  (as seen in the image below) so that it cannot be altered or moved. Further layers have then been added to alter the colour (selective colour layer) and another layer for contrast (brightness and contrast layer). This then means that the colours can be altered within the poster to make them more 'thiller like'. i the blue hue saturation was then increased to intensify the coldness of the image to give a thriller like tint, the image was also contrasted to give a more intensified image.

Making new layers

The icon used to add text

An array of fonts were used, colours and pts in my text. The title of 'Fallen Grace' evidently had to stand out and be the largest and boldest text on the poster, so it was made black and pt 60 to help this stand out. Black was an apropiate colour as its connotations are of death and destruction; definitely something to be expected in our film, this also contrasts nicely against the eerie blue grade. The actress' name of our main character was added on the top of our poster, and as she has won awards for acting before, this could potentially help sell the film.

All the fonts available

The gradient tool icon

creating a new project in photoshop

Duplicating the layer so that the gradient can be seen.

The width and height had to be larger than the original, so that when the layers were duplicated, the gradient would still be seen underneath. The first transparent layer would have the black gradient on, and the second layer would hold the image, so the image appears to fade to black.

Our main actress is Clare, so her name had to be a focal attention, with our two other supporting actors being Samuel Newsham and Sophie Wooding whos names also make an appearance on the poster underneath the name of the film in the same font, so it looked neat for continuity. The monochrome contrast follows the theory of binary oppositions, creating conflict and tension which replicates what is seen in the film. It also makes the poster stand out, which is needed in order to raise attention of the film, to sell the product and make money for the production companies. 

 
Here I've added more logos, the production company logos and the Facebook and Twitter promotion logos so that fans of the film can find more details about the film.