Re-editing Film Poster

Audience feedback that we received revealed that the positioning of the text at the top of our poster was not conventional, and was a little difficult to read as it seemed random.
Therefore, I have decided to look at social realist film posters in order to discover where this information should be placed.

The first poster I looked at was the one for Shank. This has a central title, with the name of the actors placed just above, the director mention placed next to the title, and the tagline placed at the top of the screen. However, audience feedback implied that the positioning of our tagline - just below the title - was effective

I began my reedit on Photoshop by moving the name of the actors to the top of the poster, as I found that this was conventional of social realist films, as demonstrated below.

In order to do this, I had to select the T icon, which then allowed me to move the text onto one line, with spaces in the middle, and manipulate it to fit at the top of the page while being centralised.

After this, I edited the positioning of the text which stated "A Film by Caitlyn Watson". 

I began by selecting the lasso tool, found in the top left corner, second icon down. This then allowed me to create a box around the text I wanted to manipulate. 

After this, I selected the layer on which this text lies - titled after the text itself, and right clicked to choose 'transform selection'. This then meant that I could choose the first icon in the top left corner, allowing me to move the text.

The initial position I attempted was top and centre, just under the actors names, and staying on two levels. However, this looked clunky, and made it seem as though the director mention was the key part of the poster.

Hence, I moved the text onto one line, and placed it just above the title, while moving the tag line to lie just below the title towards the right, taking inspiration from the poster shown below. This made this section of the poster seem clunky and left a large empty space at the top.

Thus, I moved the text again, keeping it on a single line, but placing it centrally below the actors names, and moved the tag line back to its original position. This used up more of the space, but still left a rather large gap at the top, and so it is likely that we will go back as a group and see what we can change so as to fix this.

Evaluation

Although this re-editing of the poster did improve the overall layout, and we decided as a group that we preferred to have the actor names spread out across the top, we were still unsure on the positioning of the director mention. Therefore, Caitlyn will look at the poster to see if we can eliminate the empty space between the text at the top and the title.

Poster Creation

Following our photoshoot on the 12th December for our poster and website we now had an image suitable for our poster, which we edited using Photoshop. 

Original Photo

Opening the original photo I cut around myself and the grass, then inverted this

I then tried to lessen the opaque on the wall. This didn't noticeably work and I was unsure of how to fix this until a friend with more experience on this software explained to me that if I copied the background then deleted the original background then I could separate the two parts of the image. I did this and was able to split the two sections of poster into different layers. I opaqued the wall to 50%.

Wall With Person On Separate Layer

Following this I inserted the previously saved title of 'Eating Me Up' by opening it as a separate file and dragging it to the file the poster was on. I then resized it and placed it half way down the poster, a convention in social realism films and supporting the golden rule.

Insertion of Title

The tagline we came up with was 'She's dying to be skinny', with the word 'dying' in italics to emphasise it. One problem we came to with this was that the typography this was in should match with what was used on our website. However the typography we currently had on our webpage was not available on photoshop as it was a Google font. This meant we had to find a font that was available both on Wix and Photoshop, but also fitted our genre. We settled on Courier New. I typed our tag line on and inserted it below the title in a size 12 font. 

Adding Tag-line

Following this I used the same font to add in the reviews to the right of the crouched girl. This reads 'Powerful and moving, this tackles the prominent issues of society in a beautiful way'. The words that we decided were the most important are 'powerful', 'moving' and 'beautiful', and we made these two sizes larger in font that the others. I also added 5 stars and 'The Guardian' below this, as this is commonly seen in social realism posters.

Added Review and Directors Credit

I also inserted the actors names at the top of the poster and 'Directed by Caitlyn Watson', as, again this is a common convention. 

Caitlyn made us a Pinterest styled background as is used in the website for the background to go over the wall. I added a layer at the bottom of our layers and inserted this. It was black and white, however it was originally very dark in colour and our writing was hard to read. I overcame this problem by increasing the brightness on the right hand panel, leading to the images all being visible and the text to be able to remain the same. 

With Pinterest Style Background

Finally I inserted the billings block in the grass which Stacey has made for us.

Final Poster

Review Creations

For our film poster, it was decided that I will be the one to create the film reviews. In order to do this, I looked at existing posters and websites and the reviews they have written on them.

 This poster uses one word reviews, consisting of adjectives that paint the film in a very positive light. This compliments their poster well as the large image takes up most of the screen, and the reviews are simple, but make large statements and are to the point. However, as there will be a large amount of blank space on our poster, I do not think we will take inspiration from this poster as such, though the adjectives themselves could be used a larger review option. The reviews for this poster were from Time Out, a free urban magazine with an intended male target audience, which suggests that their target audience is males, and so we could mimic this to appeal to a female audience.

I took a slight inspiration from this and created the review "Visually stunning, a cinematic masterpiece" - I manipulated the adjective 'stunning' to compliment the editing style and the cinematography used in the film, as cinematographies are an important aspect that can aid in the success of the film.

This poster uses star reviews, which we could take inspiration, as this is a simple stylistic techniques that immediately conveys the sense that the film is approved of. Also, it features short reviews, such as "funny, profound and moving" and "Jarvis and Fassbender are outstanding". I will take inspiration from both of these reviews, as the latter praises the actors in the film, and the forming suggests the genre as it reveals a complexity of plot.
Therefore, I have created the review "A tragically accurate portrayal of today's society, and what a gem Bartram is!" The use of "tragically" suggests the tone of the film, and the review reveals the genre. 























This poster only uses one review that reveals the genre, as it states that it is a coming-of-age film, which establishes the target audience as young adults. The use of the intensifier 'best' emphasises the quality at which they are rating the film, and would appeal to a wide audience range.
Taking inspiration from this, I have created the review "One of the most inspiring films I have ever seen - I will definitely be recommending this to everyone I know!" Rather than 'best', I used the intensifier 'most', and I coupled this with "one of" similar to the review in the above poster because although you wish to praise your film, you do not want to come across as arrogant, because this may not appeal to viewers. Also, I included the exclamative as this implies that the person liked the film so much that they believe others will enjoy it too. I chose 'inspiring' as that is the main aim of our film - to inspire others into actively seeking a way to combat eating disorders.

Kidulthood also uses a star rating as well as an actual review. In the review, rule of thirds is used to add emphasis, and the imagery in the metaphor is in the semantic field of violence, and so relates well to the plot and genre of the film. Therefore, for our own reviews, I will consider using language that connotes our topic and genre so as to appeal to the target audience.

In addition to those aforementioned, I have also created the following reviews:
"Heart achingly raw, this is one of those films that stay with you for the rest of your life"

"Powerful and moving, this tackles the prominent issues of society in a beautiful way."

"The depth of feeling manifested in Ellie Bartram's acting is truly amazing."

"An emotional rollercoaster - one I won't be forgetting any time soon! Watson has artfully portrayed the harsh reality of society today, and every young girl should watch this film"

In these reviews I have complimented the main actor and the director, and in each I have implied the genre of the film through my choice of language. Exclamatory sentences are used to created emphasis and to make the reviews more emotive, and the reviews also target the directed audience by referring to them directly.

Evaluation

This deconstruction aided in my creation of the reviews for the website and poster. We have decided that, similar to Fishtanks, we will include star ratings, but only on the reviews on our website, and, as convention generally dictates, we will only have one review on the poster, as the aim of the poster is to appeal to the target audience and provide information, and we believe that too many reviews will take up too much of our poster and could distract from the main image.

Final Scene Poster Inspiration

In this post, I am using pre existing photographs found on google to gain inspiration for the poster I had to create as a prop for our final scene.

I found a variety of images, all of which were hard hitting and clearly portrayed eating disorders. I found that the images all had common traits, such as the use of black and white which not only expresses a depressing and melancholic tone, but also creates a real life representation of how people with eating disorders feel.

One thing I found the pictures all had in common was that they were in black and white. This reflects the tone of the photograph and creates an atmosphere we might want to consider for our own. Also, a large majority of the photographs included measuring tape.

In this first image, the measuring tape is wrapped around the ankles which are standing on scales. The tape being wrapped around her ankles signifies how she is confined by her need to be skinny, and by society's perception of what it means to be 'pretty'. The use of an extreme close up shows anonymity that creates an enigma, and so is something we could also consider for the posters in the ending scene at the eating disorder clinic, as this anonymity emphasised the relatable tone of the poster, and shows that the depicted person to be representative of a group of people, rather than just his/herself.

The next image is a close up that again uses anonymity as it is positioned below the face. The mise-en-scene within the shot of a fork, knife and plate connotes eating disorders and is something we may want to consider within one of our own shots, and the use of the measuring tape as 'food' is symbolic of the hunger and need for these young girls to be skinny and to be accepted by society and its ideals. This mise-en-scene could also be useful in one of the posters for our final scene, as it subtly suggests the topic being discussed.

This last image shows a young girl standing in front of the mirror and looking at her reflection. This could be something we could consider for our own posters, as we could use Photoshop to manipulate the image in the reflection to inaccurately reflect the girl standing in front of it, so as to illustrate the protagonist's warped perceptions of herself. However, this could prove to be difficult as we would have to ensure that the shot was taken at such an angle that the camera would not also be seen in the mirror.

Evaluation
These images have aided us in the decision on the image for our poster. We liked the anonymity used in the images to show how the protagonist represents young girls everywhere, and so we have decided that we will manipulate it so that the majority of the posters used do not depict a face. Also, the posters may be in black and white to reflect the mood/tone of the film. However, upon reflection, we believe these images may not be entirely suitable for the location of our final scene, as it will be filmed in an 'eating disorder clinic', and so our posters should aim to be bright and positive and to suggest recovery. However, I will use these photos as inspiration for the poster I make, though I will manipulate it to be positive.