Dark Room: First Cut

Movie Poster Plan

I first started making film poster by designing a plan, and checking through with my team mates to make sure if it was a good idea or not. It took a while to get through with several ideas being thrown away, but eventually I finally got an idea that would stick: The main character would be walking away on a path of polaroid photos, layered over a screaming face that's trapped in the photos. Here was a quick 30-second sketch of what the poster would be like:

With the idea across, I was able to begin developing the poster on Photoshop. First I asked Joe to come stand up and walk away in order to take some pictures of him while he was walking away for the poster. Then using the magic wand tool, I put a silhouette of black over him so he would look mysterious near the far end of the poster.

Once we got the silhouette finished, We could focus on working on the floor of the poster, First we put a gradient tool sort of where the road ends near his knees, and a gradient between a very light grey and a darker grey near the bottom of the screen. Then, I put a "Flat wall texture" from google images into Photoshop and stretched the bottom of it using the perspective function so it stretches out to look like floor. if it does not stretch out far enough, then duplicate the floor layer and inverse it so it looks mirrored, then fuse the two floor layers together. Once you have the floor down, set the texture to "Overlay" and adjust the opacity until it looks right. The perspective tool also works on copies of polaroid photos laid out on the floor (as shown below). Once the polaroid photos are laid down, hide the silhouette of character and the final polaroid photo that drops from his hand, and delete the rest of the black space on the photos by using the magic wand tool and setting it without "Contiguous". Delete the black space and the floor below it to give a blank white space. Then show the character silhouette and dropped photo again. Copy the silhouette and lay it down on the floor using the perspective tool and reduce the opacity to roughly 35%. Below should be the result so far:

Next I found another photo from google images of someone screaming, and put the photo under the floor and polaroid photos layer so it looks like she is trapped inside the photos. Stretch the photo, add a movable blur on the image that goes vertical, and delete any of the image that appears through the top. lastly, colour over the floor and the picture in a dark red in a separate layer, and then set the colour to overlay. Below should be the result:

Next we need some text on this poster to tell audiences who is going to star in the film, as well as what the film is called. For the title, use "century gothic" as the type font and resize the font to 79.24pt. To kern font, highlight it and then hold alt + (left or right) to move individual letters side to side. Because the title "Dark" and "Room" share the same amount of letters in each word, both words do not overlap the character silhouette, and one word goes above another, with their letters being kerned to match the same distance and spacing of one of the words. Add some simple outer glow and drop shadow and the title is finished. Then simply add the names of the people involved at the top of the poster (2 on either side to give 4 people), and below should be the result:

With every poster, there are some necessities that need to go onto it before it is sent to be published. these are the tiny font that goes near the bottom of most posters, an age rating of the film, and the company names which helped to make the film, either by direct influence or as a charity that supports films. The company logos include Spec Shot (us), warp films, the lottery arts council England, the BFI , Dolby Digital and Barnsley 6th form. Finally, the font "Steel Tongs" is an interesting font where the lower case letters are replaced with small writing of different roles that say things like "co-directed by" and "3D modelling by" and "based off the novel by". Higher case letters just include normal letters, so with the combination of these two, I can easily write the very thin font below easily, and that concludes my poster, shown below:



Film Poster Research

Film posters tend to have 9 unique factors that can change how the poster advertises a film, they are the main way films are advertised to the public; outside cinemas and on buses. They have to advertise the film without giving away any of the specific points of the story and they need to be able to advertise its genre without spoiling aspect of the film and its specifics such as death or characters other than the main ones.

Lighting
All films can convey their genre and type of story through lighting and colour palettes, the difference between contrasting bright colours suggest more childish themes and family friendly ideologies. In contrast to this a darker lighting can create a more brooding and more eerie atmosphere that is easily conveyed via its blending colours and lights. These convey very different genres and show you how lighting can affect views of a film. This can be shown in the different film posters below, showing Toy Story and Terminator

Colour
Colour is also a major part of a film poster, this is complimented by the lighting of the poster. It is also used to help present the films themes and ideas. With or without colour (black and white/grey scale) a poster can be shown to emit a mood or feeling in viewers that suggests what the film may be about, the more variations in colour tends to show us an appealing and more younger targeted piece or a more family orientated film. However a film with little colour or a single colour in different shade and tones may suggest thriller or horror as they are known for a limited colour palette. The use of red connotes danger, suspense or murder, or blues and icy greys used to connote a cold chilling feeling such as death or horror. Blacks and browns are also used to further connote this horror element as they are disgusting colours that tend to put off viewers or give them a unusual feeling. This can be shown in contrast of the two "Shutter" and "Inside Out"

Actors, Items and narrative points

In many posters, especially feature length ones, there is an attraction to use the actors within the film, this uses a form of "Star Power" using the actors to attract people to the film, this is because many audiences who enjoy films with big actors in them, start to associate other films with them in as being good, and this is why many film posters are successful in attracting people during the box office weeks. In other views films will use and iconic item or specific that is a plot point of a film that is used to help advertise it and will hopefully be the most memorable part of the film to the generic audience. This could be a battle scene or the flower from "Beauty and The Beast". When a poster includes an actor, the actors tend to have a pose or position that represents their character and role within the film, this is seen in the poster for "Last Vegas"

 

Identifying the Genre and Unique selling points

From a poster, a films genre should be easily identifiable and it should feature items that give it a unique separation from similar films in its genre and class.

For example, actions films tend to feature weapons or fast cars and serious characters, whereas romantic comedies will show many people romantically together with maybe some quirk happening, this itself is in large comparison to comedy in which may feature characters trying to be serious or being made out to be fools. This is shown in the posters for "Deadpool", "Fast and Furious" and "Don't mess with the Zohan".

Poster Idea

After researching an analysing posters that are similar to ours, I have decided to create the idea of poster using black and red to emphasise the thriller aspect of the film. It includes the feature of photos which are a shot from our film whilst also using the silhouette of Joe, being he is our main actor, this is silhouetted to create an air of mystery to story and creating the enigma of who this character may be.
The use of the single colour compliments the shadowy effect, creating a sense of thrill and mystery that suits the film.
The use of the photos also leads to hints at the story with the photos being a plot point to the story, this is similar to the film poster for "Shutter".

It draws inspiration from recent mystery/horror/thrillers such as the static like effects of the recent series of games, the Five Nights at Freddy's, games.

Overall I think this would be a good poster idea however this will be discussed with my fellow group members

Film Poster Analysis

Distributors

The company I have chosen whom would be suitable to distribute our film would be Curzon Artificial Eye.
The company was founded in 1976 by Andi Engel.
in 2006 Artificial eye became part of the Curzon world group which run a chain of 11 cinemas plus 8 joint owned cinemas as well as VOD services and retail DVD distributor "Fusion Media sales".
They release 20 theatrical films and 30 DVD/Blu-Ray titles in the UK per year on many different platforms such as ITunes.
they have made films ranging from budgets of $4- 8 million

There are many short films that artificial eye have released including "A Zed & Two Noughts" as well as "Route Irish" and "The Deep Blue Sea". These are all odd films that are similar to ours in someway, all with their own niche or cult audiences. They are slowly gaining a larger mass of feature length films with its ever increasing library of foreign and local made films.

This shows they have connections to bigger actors two as a few of their films have Willem Dafoe, Tome Hiddleston, Robert Downey Jr and David Attenborough .

The company itself is the distributor of odd foreign language films and art house style films, this suggests that the company is interested in distributing many types of media that are portrayed as art. Due to our film being very niche within its audience, I feel that it would be suitable for them to distribute our film as our film focuses on a weird niche as well as odd and mysterious themes

Film Poster Research

Film posters are one of the foundations when it comes to advertising your movie to the public. They instantly tell what the general theme of the film will be by imagery and text and colour without giving away any sort of spoiler the movie contains.

LIGHTING

• Usually, the theme or age rating of a film can be conveyed by limited colour palettes, contrast and brightness of a cover. If the poster has a lot of dark lighting, whether something is set in a dark room, during the night or just a dark background in general, its intended for more mature audiences, while poster set during the day with bright lighting can convey to more childish and family-friendly audiences. For example, take into account the difference between the cartoony bright atmosphere of the city of Zootopia and it's residence, and the dark, tense and almost scary atmosphere of Shutter Island.

COLOUR

• Colour plays an important role conveying messaging in almost everything we do, such as a theme of a film, the flavour of sweets, or instructions given to us in every day life such as traffic lights. Colour in films then show us about a film's general atmosphere. similar to lighting, if a film cover has a varied colour palette that's appealing to look at, then it's a more family-friendly film. Because of this however, a lot of thriller and horror films use very limited colour palettes, consisting of black, white and a single colour, most commonly red as it gives a feeling of danger and suspense, or blue due to it being a cold and chilling feeling.

ACTORS and ITEMS

• In posters, it's common to have the main character(s) included in the picture. This isn't always the case however, as some might include the main item instead, something that ties the entire story or universe of the story together. For example this could be the rose from Beauty and the Beast, a canyon shot from 127 Hours, or a vehicle like the motorcycle from Akira.

• Posters will always show actors in poses that convey their importance to the film and how they act in it. You can have a common Role Up poster which shows all of the main actors from left to right (e.g. Trainspotting, the Fantastic 4 and The Expendables), An extreme close up shot of someone's face (e.g. Moonlight, The Silence of the Lambs, Salt and Gamer), or distorted to match the theme of the film (e.g. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Cold Souls and The Iron Lady)

The TEASER POSTER

• Teaser posters are the first to be released when a new movie is announced. This poster contains basic information that doesn't indicate much of the plot of the film, but just the name, a date, and some key actors or items.

VIDEO/DVD RELEASE POSTER

• This poster comes out when the film is released on DVD/Video and often has the typical aspects of a film poster, plus short one liners from relevant publications that may or may not include star ratings ranging from 1-5

IDENTIFYING GENRE

• All of the elements that go into a film poster will identify the core genres of said film. An action film will always have some kind of weapon on the screen, a romance may have the two lovers somehow next to each other, a comedy usually includes imagery that both fits and contrasts a particular theme; films like Spy and Hot Fuzz feature comedic characters trying to act serious in contrast with actual serious characters which make a comedic shot.

 

 

Narrative

• Sometimes a film poster can give clues away to the narrative of the film. Is there are particular stance or posture that can tell us something about the character? If not, what about their clothes, props, expression or background? is the poster composed of multiple images like a comic? Is there a key image that looks like it's from the film? All of these questions can be answered from a film poster alone, so it's important that graphic artists for these posters make sure that there isn't any spoilers that could give away the entire film away. One of the best examples of narrative posters is the star wars posters, showing as much as possible without giving away any spoilers:

 

WRITTEN TEXT

• Written text in a film poster can either be the most dominant part of a poster or the least dominant part. They tell people what the name of the film is, a tagline for some insight of the plot of the film, and the font itself can tell you want kind of film it's going to be. A good example of this can be seen in almost every film poster, one of my favourites being Jumanji (1995) explaining the name of a film, the font style is similar to the famous Indiana Jones, as well as African font types, which replicates a theme of adventure in the film, and it's tagline which explains people that play Jumanji get trapped inside it, as well as directly referring to the jungle, where most adventure films take place.

 

UNIQUE SELLING POINTS

• A unique selling point (USP) of a film poster is what causes audiences to flock to the film with intrigue and interest. This can range from a wide selection, from an iconic character being featured, a unique art style being introduced, or having the film be completely crazy that it has a feature in the "being so bad it's good" selection of films (e.g. Sharknado)

 

Thriller Editing

Thrillers rely on post-editing to make the audience more invested in the film. Below are some of the techniques used to keep the audience's attention.

JUMP CUTS

• This is an abrupt transition between two shots where it breaks continuity. They are commonly used in thrillers to convey distortion within a scene, either to reflect on a character's mental state or a supernatural phenomenon. This can also be shown as a character's weakness in an action scene.

ELLIPTICAL EDITING

• This is where time is cut out of the film between shots. Thrillers often do this to keep the films exciting, so they cut out any unnecessary and boring shots. This is to keep the audience engaged when a thrilling scene suddenly appears, and keeps the pacing of the film in a good rate. This keeps the viewer's interests in the film close and becomes more effective to the surprising scenes

PARALLEL EDITING

• Parallel editing is commonly shown in thrillers, to show the audience what two or more characters are doing at the same time in different locations, as their actions usually have high impact on one another. Usually, parallel editing shows the difference between the protagonist and the antagonist, where either one of them doesn't know their impacts on each other, or one of them knows about the other's actions.

GRAPHIC MATCH

• Graphic matches are used to connect two scenes together, which would otherwise be seen as unrelated, and share similar visual properties, either by colour, shape or texture. They can be used in thrillers to emphasise the action within a scene, famously done by the movie Psycho, and A Space Odyssey.

MATCH-ON-ACTION

• These are used in all genres to help keep continuity within the film, especially during action scenes. if a film doesn't use match on action it can confuse the audience and won't have the same effect if match on action was used. In thrillers, it's used to build suspense throughout the scene, engaging the audience.

FAST-PACE AND SLOW-PACED EDITING

• Most thriller films include slow and fast pace editing in their films, effective at creating suspense and tension, as well as drawing out emotion and representing characters. For example, slow-paced editing is used when something big is about to happen, leaving the audience in suspense, most likely making them jump and scare them when it happens. Fast pace on the other hand conveys energy in a scene, either by illustrating energy-dependent like anger or desperation, or a quick argument or fight between characters, and even chase scenes.

FOCUS

• Deep and shallow focuses are also common in films to illustrate to the audience what they are suppose to be looking at during a scene. A shallow focus is when the camera blurs out the background and objects to focus on what is in front of us, such as an object or a person. A deep focus then tells the audience to focus on what's behind.

CONTINUITY

• Continuity is usually maintained throughout the film, with the exception that on some occasions it can be broken (such as a jump cut) to create a specific affect, continuity is maintained by an editing technique called match on action, this makes sure that as shots cut, it follows on from the last shot smoothly. For example, this is more noticeable in fight scenes, when the characters are fighting and the shot cuts to the next, the audience doesn't really focus on the fact that the shot has just cut, this keeps the audience focused on what is going on in the scene. if there is not good continuity (which there isn't done purposely) then it can look odd in a scene which can result in confusing the audience, thus diverting their attention from the scene.

MONTAGE

• Montages are sometimes used in thriller films, this is to show that a series of what is thought to be unrelated items or people, are actually related. An example of a montage is in Hot Fuzz. This shows how the character became a police officer.

TRANSITIONS

• Transitions are used in all films, however how they are used is important for how the scenes are portrayed. The most common transition is a cut, this is used a lot in thrillers to cut between shots and create a tense atmosphere. Wipes, however, are not commonly used in thrillers; when used they tend to be more subtle. Star Wars for example is well known for using a lot of wipes to convey a passage of time. Dissolves can also be used to illustrate graphic matches, parallel editing and the beginning and end of a film.