How to do your second Blog entry

Images-



Upload the images you will be using and justify why you are using them in terms of how they are appropriate to the genre.



Background / Setting - Where is the setting of your poster? Why have you chosen it? Does it help to create the right atmosphere?



Characters / actors- Who have you used and why?



Iconography- What images are you using to show the audience the genre? Why are they appropriate? Do they catch the viewer's attention?



Narrative- What images do you use to give a hint of the plot? What do they communicate semiotically?

Starting Off- How to do your first blog post.

Your first blog post will basically show the ideas that came from your spider diagram.

First you have to decide what format your poster will be in!

Then you have to go over your ideas for your first genre poster. The easiest way to set it out is by using NICS as your starting point;

Narrative- What happens in your film? How will you give a hint of this in the poster? What gratifications will the poster offer potential viewers?

Iconography- What images will you be using to establish the genre / narrative? How are they appropriate to the genre?

Characters - Who will your characters be? How are they typical to the genre? Can you think of other films that use similar characters? WHat actors have you chosen to play your characters and why?

Setting- Where will your film be set? What location will you use for your background? Why is it appropriate for the genre?

14/1/10

Now it’s time for me to add my title as well as the names of stars, tagline and qualifications from expert witnesses, which will be used to sell my film.

For my title I chose “The Monk”. I thought a simple title would be best because the best horror films e.g. The Exorcist, The Thing, The Omen etc. all have simple titles.

After merging all my levels and exporting the image as a jpg I opened my poster in Draw Plus.

I used a blood red colour for the titles and star names to imply the gratification of blood and gore to my target audience. I originally used Amhurst SF for my title and star names because it looked medieval which has associations with monks. However, after a while I decided that it wasn’t serious enough to suit the tone of my film so I switched to Copperplate gothic instead. I added an inner shadow to the text to suggest that the shadow of the monk was falling on the text to give the monk a sense of menace.

my tagline, "What's your confession", gives a hint of the narrative, implying that the Monk kills people who come to confess their sins. By using a rhetorical question it makes the audience think that they might be next.

I also added a quote from Empire magazine as an expert witness to sell the film but noticed that the text was lost in the picture of the candles. I added an outer glow in black to help it stand out and here is the finished result!

11/1/10

My monk isn’t scary enough! My target audience will expect a scary villain from this film and so I need to make some changes to create a character that audiences will be more likely to want to see.

Firstly I used the greyscale effect on the monk and reduced the colours to create a darker image. I then decided that the audience needed to see his face (or just enough of his face to be able to see that he is a scary character). After doing a Google search for ‘scary monk’ I found these two images.

I tried both and ended up using the second one. I extracted the area around the hood and then drew the lines of the hood around the face using the paintbrush tool. I then erased the lines so that it would create the right shape which I could then position over the monk’s hood.

I have also added the 18 certificate which would show my target audience. It would also entice them to watch the film as it would be likely that there would be graphic violence in the film which my target audience might expect.

I also reduced the opacity levels of the last girl and the sheriff even more so that the Monk would stand out and be the clear point of focus for the audience.

8/1/10

I decided that the poster needed more characters to give some sense of the narrative and to show my understanding of typical horror characters. The “last girl” is a typical character in horror films (the victim who ends up defeating the monster). These characters are always attractive young women so I used this picture of Eliza Dushku from the film Wrong Turn. I reduced her opacity and height in relation to the monk to make her look weaker and more like a victim. This helps the monk to look like the dominant character in the film.

Horror films also tend to have a well meaning hero (usually a police officer) who tries and fails to protect the victims. For this I took a picture of Tommy Lee Jones as a Sheriff from No Country For Old Men. Again I reduced his opacity and positioned him below the monk to show that he is less powerful.

I also made the candles slightly bigger so that it looks like the characters are in danger from the flames.

4/1/11

4/1/10

Today I decided that my poster needs to look more obviously like a horror film poster so I added some skulls, which were a typical example of horror iconography and would set the right atmosphere for my poster and give a sense of what might happen in the story (Narrative).

I then moved on to characters. I decided that an evil monk would be the main villain in my horror films and found an appropriate image. I then extracted the monk from the background and finished off the edges with the brush tool in red which I then deleted using the magic wand. This gave the monk a very slight glow around the edges which made him look more scary.

I experimented with different kinds of positioning but in the end decided to have him central as the villain is the main character of a horror film.

1/1/10

Today I began working on my horror genre poster. The format will be a regular one sheet to allow me to use lots of detail and images to help me sell my film.

To begin I thought about NICS (Narrative, Iconography, Characters, Setting). I decided setting would be the most important thing to establish first as it will be the background of my poster. I decided that I wanted my horror film to be about the occult and supernatural which are common themes of horror. With this in mind I selected some appropriate settings for a horror film.

Then when I had chosen the one that I thought would make the right background I started thinking about the iconography of horror. I decided to use some candles to create a creepy atmosphere and a sense of ritual. I positioned these in the foreground so that the audience would clearly be able to see this theme.

Exemplary Poster and Blog

Hello Pumpkins,

Here I will give an example of how I want you to create a diary explaining the decisions you have made creating your poster and justifying them in relation to things like NICS and your target audience etc.

Have fun!!