Film Poster

  Before improvements                                                          After Improvements

                                        

Creating my Film Poster

First, I brainstormed some ideas of what I could put on the front of my film poster. I took into consideration the storyline that our trailer has, the female protagonist being stalked by a mystery man to the audience and I automatically wanted the female protagonist on the front cover with an element of being stalked. I researched other film posters that were about somebody getting stalked but I did not like any of the posters as half of them contained the face of the stalker and this is what I wanted to avoid. I wanted to avoid the stalker's face being shown as I want to leave the audience guessing what the stalker is going to look like. Having a stalker in my poster is a archetype of the genre horror as stalkers are are associated with the horror genre. 

Next, I took photographs of the stalker and the female protagonist to showcase that the two main characters are going to be on the poster. This will show the audience who the two main characters are going to be in the storyline but also brings in the element of mystery about the hooded stalker character in the background.  I decided to use a mid shot for the poster as it shows the audience the action in the poster and shows the audience what they should expect from the trailer. I decided to put the blur effect on the female protagonist to give the illusion that she is does not know what is going on and she does not know what is following her. The blurred effect makes the stalker character in focus and shows the audience that he is the focal point. I decided that this is going to be the focal point of the image as it catches the audience's attention and makes the audience question what relevance this character has to the storyline and makes them feel sympathy for the female protagonist as she is the target in the storyline.

I used the same costume from the trailer on the female protagonist as the costume is meaningful to the character, such as the blood red scarf and the blonde hair which represents the innocence of the character. The red of the scarf on the female protagonist highlights her as a target for the stalker which shows the audience she is going to be in some kind of danger in the trailer. The colour red has the connotations of blood and death which is a trope from the genre Horror. This builds up suspense as the audience will want to find out why she is the target and what is going to happen to the female protagonist.

I then decided I was going to use the same costume on the stalker on the poster the same as the stalker has in the trailer so that the audience will be able to recognise this and relate the poster to the trailer. The dark black hooded clothing and the use of low key lighting surrounding the character represents that the character is going to be a villain as the colour black connotes power and mystery and this is what I was trying to represent from this character. The character has power over the female protagonist as she is unaware of what he is going to do and the character is mysterious as the audience do not know what the stalker character looks like. This is a trope of the genre Horror as black costumes are generally used to highlight the villains in horror films. 

This is a Barthes Engima code called the Hermeneutic Code.The Hermeneutic Code is when part of the storyline is shown (in this case, the part of the storyline that is shown is a hooded character) but is not fully explained (the audience do not know what the hooded characters identity is or why this character is following the female protagonist). This leaves the audience thinking the reasoning behind the mysterious character and why the character has not been shown. The audience will then need to watch the film to see the mysterious character which is a way of drawing the audience's attention and making them watch the film to see the mystery unravel. 


I decided to use three different fonts in my poster. The first font is the one at the very top of the page which is the tag line. "Have you ever known something's there, but not known what?". This phrase is going to be used in our trailer to tell the audience that the female protagonist is being followed but she doesn't know what is following her.  This is use of direct address as it is asking the audience a rhetorical question which is used not to make the audience answer the question but to make the audience think about the question. Direct address is also used to make an audience relationship with the poster and makes the audience feel like they are involved in the storyline. The style of font looks like it has been hand written which links in with our trailer as in our trailer, there will be somebody drawing very roughly on paper which suggests to the audience whoever is writing in the trailer is writing the same message on the poster. 

The next font I have used is for the title of our film "Displacement". This font was used due to the audience feedback I received from my questionnaire about fonts. This font is a very ghoulish font as it has a blood dripping effect which is a trope of the genre of Horror as blood connotes death. I have used anchorage in my poster. As our film is called "Displacement" I have moved the title to the left which is telling the audience that the title has been positioned to the left as it is not centred. This leaves the audience thinking why the text isn't centred and makes them think of the link between the displaced text and the film title "Displacement". 

The last use of fonts is in the credit block. A credit block has been used as this is used on every film poster and a credit block will make my poster look more realistic and professional to the audience.  I have used block text in the credit block to show the audience that this part of the poster is giving credit to those in the film and does not have a direct link with the storyline of the film. The text shows the audience things such as the intertexual references such as the website address of the film so that the audience can go and research the website to more information about the film. The intertexual references can let the audience find out more about the film and see hidden clips that are not in the trailer. 

The representation that I wanted to portray in this poster of the young female protagonist in this poster is that she is vulnerable and that she is going to be the victim in the storyline. Having a female protagonist is very stereotypical as stereotypically, females are always used in horror movies as the victim. This is a good way to draw the audience's attention as it shows the audience the main female protagonist and makes the audience want to know what is going to happen and how she is going to react to the situations that she is going to be in.