P1

INTRO

Photoshop task 1

Before images:

1. Paint brush
- I used the paint brush to apply strokes with whatever tool I was using. It is a broad tool which I used for most of the other tools. For example, when I put the elephant behind the traffic light post, I had to use the brush tool to add or remove the elephants ear so that it was behind the post.
2. Selection tool
- I used the selection tool to highlight the elephant, and to cut out the background. I used keyboard shortcuts such as 'ALT' to change the mode of the selection tool, either adding or removing the selection line to make it fit perfectly. This was useful as could cut the image of the elephant out as a neat PNG.
3. Layer mask
- I used the elephant cut out mask that I had highlighted so that I could drag it into the busy street image easily.
4. Stamp tool
- I used the stamp tool to get rid of the mud from the elephants foot.

Photoshop task 2

Before images:

1. Quick selection tool

- I highlighted the head of the man and cut it out. Once inverted, I dragged the head onto the other image.

2. Refine edge: Overlay

- I used this to make the head cutout as smooth as possible and as natural looking as possible once moved to the other image. I got rid of some mistakes and managed to smooth out the outer outline.

3. Refine edge brush

- I used this tool to smooth out his beard and hair. This made the hair strands come out, instead of being a straight line cut out.

4. Clone stamp tool

- I used this tool a lot to mainly remove parts of Ed Sheeran's head that was sticking out behind the man's head. I also used this tool to overlay the scalf on the mans neck

5. Dodge and Burn tool

- I used this tool to make the head look more natural, by adding lighter parts to his face, it gave more natural looking effect. I also added shadows on the right side of his face, as the sun was coming from the left. Dodge is for lightening up the image, and burn is for adding shadow.

Photoshop Task 3

Before images:

1. Vector Mask
- I used this to add a gradient overlay to blend the bottom of the couple image smoothly with white.
2. Free transform
- To re-size the image and manipulate it.
3. Gradient tool
- I used this to drag the beach photo into the couple photo, giving it a smooth transition effect. This removed any lines too.
4. Text tool
- I used this tool to add 'Couple Love' to the poster, and changed the colour to dark red with the colour overlay option. Then I resized it with free transform and centred the text.

Task 1

Pre-Production Materials

Research: Film Poster analysis

Poster analysis 1: Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Men Tell No Tales

• Release date is shown in bold at the bottom.
• The film title is in the center, along with the iconic logo in the center.
• This poster uses star billing, with the main stars before the title of the film. 
• Jack Sparrow is in the center of the poster, standing out, as he is the most recognizable star of the Pirates movies.
• The Disney logo is small but noticeable by the title, next to the directors name.
• The name of the Pirates movie, 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' is underneath the main title, catching public attention. 
• All the main actors are all in the poster, with the main villain being the biggest and at the top of the poster. The image used shows he is a villain, and gives the public a better understanding of what the film could be about.
• The actors are sized differently too, with the most important being the biggest and the not-so important being slightly smaller.
• The credits are packed tightly, with every single actor, including the director at the bottom in small writing.
• By the release date, there is more branding, such as IMAX 3D.
• There is no tagline.

Target Audience: In my opinion, the target audience are children or teenagers who have previously enjoyed the Pirates movies, as the poster here is very focused on the main key movie characters, catching a young persons attention. However, the previous Pirates films have been directed at all age ranges.

Poster Analysis 2: Baby Driver

• Title is in bold, stands out.
• The release date is in the corner, standing out with the same text font colour.
• The star billing starts with each key actor labelled from top to bottom. The most important main character actor Ansel Elgort is at the top. Their surnames are slightly larger to emphasis their names.
• The main actors, who are leading characters in the movie, are all in the poster. The main character is the biggest, with the other characters overlaid, getting smaller further down. Also, the way each actor is laid out is almost exactly in order to the star billing.
• The director and writer, Edgar Wright, is in bold, above the title of the movie. 
• The tagline is featured under the movie title.
• Social media trends are at the bottom, with #BabyDriverMovie
• Production companies are shown clearly at the bottom, underneath all of the credits.

Target Audience: The target audience, in my opinion, is aimed at young adults. This is because, unlike the Pirates poster, this poster isn't as overwhelming with the main characters. Therefore, it has a more mature feel to it, with violence implied too. If it was aimed for the younger age range, there would be less writing, and more images.

Task 2

Pre-production materials

Planning: Creating own idea

a)

Poster ideas mind-map

Task 3

Film idea and Mood board

Mood board 1 - Action/Adventure/Thriller/Horror/Sci-Fi

Genre Characteristics

1. Character

- In this mood-board, you can see that the main character is the most significant in my poster. In most of these film posters, it is the main character only. The characters personality could possibly be quite serious and formal, as you can see most of these posters related to my theme of Action, Adventure, Thriller or Sci-Fi are straight faced. I have focused more on the technology side of the character, as I want them to be a good hacker. For example, the 'Mr Robot' poster, top left, is perfect for what I want my character to look like, with the hoodie and text over the face effect. Furthermore, I want my character to look mysterious and smart, like the 'Creative Control' poster where the character is wearing sunglasses with colour reflecting. However, I was also thinking about a 'Racing driver' film style where the character featured is the main driver of the movie, for example, the need for speed poster is ideal for what I was thinking. As for the horror genre, I want my character to look scared with the possible killer behind them, like the bottom left poster. As for the antagonist, I preferably don't want them to be the main part of the poster, but I would like them to be in it, possibly in the background somewhere.

2. Settings

- For the action and adventure genre, I want the colours to be between bright and dark, maybe black and white with one stand out colour, like the Alex Cross poster. For each of these posters, the setting is varied, which is good, but I noticed that most of them have limited colours. I like this look as I want a certain part of my poster to really stand out, for example, in the Baby Driver poster at the bottom, where the reflection is the main focus. After looking at the posters, I realized that the blue tint and black effect works really well. Some of the posters have very vibrant colours, such as the Moonlight poster, which would look really good for the technology hacker type theme. The backgrounds for each of the posters are similar, being quite plain and just one colour, which makes the featuring image stand out well. I like this idea, however, I would preferably like to have some sort of background, maybe a city or something, like the Inception and Watchmen poster. But overall, the setting for each of my genres should preferably be dark but have one main colour part that stands out.

3. Iconography

- Iconography is when the movie poster tells you the main theme without telling the actual story. Using imagery can establish the films plot while looking iconic and can be a good way of catching the audiences attention without giving away too much of the story. Types of iconography are shown in my mood-board, for example, some have text over the main characters face, with a bold text font making it stand out. Some use sex appeal, contrast and setting which all grab the audiences attention. Lots of the movie posters I used here stand out a lot due to the contrast used, some use just one base colour such as red or yellow, which stands out. Furthermore, some of them use just two base colours, such as black and yellow, which is a really good effect as it might be seen as plain, but it results in a really good stand out effect. The text, as I mentioned, is bold and stands out with a basic font used, which once spaced out, works really well, and it works for any poster, so I will aim to use basic font types for my poster. Lastly, certain colours tend to represent the movie's theme well, such as red blood for horror with a black background; the audience instantly knows what the movie's genre is.

4. Themes

- Each poster has their own theme. For example, some have the main character and nothing else, either with a close up or a behind shot. Some of the themes used the big head over another image, which is a good effect that I am thinking about using. However, none of my poster examples use the back to back effect, where two characters stand back to back, like the famous film 'Pretty Woman'. My favourite action movie theme is the black and white effect, as I instantly know it's an action movie poster. As for my poster, I would like to use the high contrast effect, with whatever genre I choose. If it was the sci-fi or thriller genre, I would use a technology type theme with possibly black with a blue tint. Or if I was using the racing driver theme, I would use the cars paintwork as the main part to stand out, like the Need For Speed poster. As you can see I have lots of different ideas that I could use, and the themes in these posters are very helpful in picking my posters overall look.

Mood board 2 - Games/Posters/Magazines/Books/Advertising

This mood-board has lots of images that inspire me. For example, the sun-glasses advertisements gives me a good idea with the main character wearing sunglasses, as this makes them not only look older, but the audience gets a good sense of what the character's personality is like (serious, smart, professional.). Some games I used were Watch Dogs and Tomb Raider, as these were perfect for my themes. For example, Watch Dogs gave me the hacker idea that takes over a city, and I personally find this game has a good unique story and campaign that gave me tonnes of ideas to use. Tomb Raider inspired me to come up with the adventure genre where the character goes exploring. This game is all about exploring and discovering tombs, which was a good element that gave me the determined and motivated adventurer idea. The magazines helped me expand on my ideas with the background I might use, especially the landscape one, and the city skylines too. But the other magazines such as the racing one, gave me an idea where I could have a character who wants to be a racing driver, who is inspired by magazines and TV. But overall, these games, magazines, advertisements etc. have all helped inspire me.

Task 4

Creating a poster using the materials given

Task 5

Poster plans

This is a poster promoting 'Alex Cross'. I really like this design, and I have highlighted the main parts of the poster.

Here is my first layout design. I was inspired by the 'Alex Cross' poster, and this layout is very similar. I want the main character to be either facing away or towards, and to be faded out with an overlay of the city with the villain standing on a building or something else. The colour would be dark with one pop out colour, just like the poster example, because I really like how the title of the film doesn't have to be too big in order for it to stand out. As I explained, the images will be blended over each-other, like the 'Alex Cross' poster above. As this will be related to my hacker story idea, I will base the background in a city such as New York, and the main character will be holding a phone. It will be like the 'Alex Cross' poster but the gun he is holding will be replaced by a phone. There is quite a lot of blank space in this layout, which is why I will most likely do a portrait if I was to use this design. The layout is typical for a poster, with the taglines, actors and reviews all at the bottom, making the film icon image stand out. The credits are at the bottom, as most film posters use this technique, having the most interesting part at the top, and least at the bottom. The font I will use will be very bold for most of the text, apart from the credentials as they will be small, like a film poster. The genre will be clear to the audience, you will be able to tell that it has action involved, as I will maybe have the main villain holding a fake pistol. Furthermore, the simple two tone colours tells this, as most action movies use this effect. But overall this layout is inspired by the 'Alex Cross' poster, and the end result would look very professional and high quality; like a film poster.

This layout focuses more on the tagline, having the text overlay the main character effect. I like this layout as it is unique and it would work really well with an action/thriller genre. The colour would, again, have one dark, and one standing out colour. This would make the main character pop out to the audience. The main image will be the main character, with a black hoodie covering most of his face. I, again, want to focus on having some sort of city in the background, or I could give the main character an effect where the city building blends into his body or something, to give the poster some interest to the audience. The layout here is unique to most movie posters, however all the information is displayed at the bottom, and all of the star ratings are displayed at the top which is a cool effect. I am hoping to blend the main icon image into the blank space, giving a cool looking effect. The font will be bold, and bright to stand out, especially with the tagline, as that is the most significant part of this layout. The font and text will again be bold and big, to really catch the audiences attention. Overall, I really like this design, as it is different to my first design with the main tagline being the most significant part.

10 Potential working titles

1. Vigilante

2. Hack

3. Download

4. The Truth

5. Black & White
6. Network
7. Social Virus
8. Algorithm
9. Hacker
10. Network Protocol

Key words:
Display type - What most movie posters use.

Hierarchy - Order of importance.

Kerning - The space between two characters. 

Leading - Space between two lines.

I chose number one to be the main title, as it is the name of the film and it's a using display type, catching the audiences attention first. Also, the characters are what the audience see first, so they go down from the top and they see the title. I chose the release date as the second part as this is what the audience wants to see, they are most interested in when they can see it. Furthermore, even though the release date is below the credits and actors, it stands out as it's using a white font. I chose the branding of Marvel Studios as the third part because the audience know that brand as it's known for making good films, with the iconic logo they use. I say this because Marvel are focuses on their comic book type movies, therefore the audience would be drawn to their company, even if it is quite small on this poster. For the fourth part, I chose the star billing as it is hard to notice in this poster, the text size is small, and the colour is yellow, making it blend in with the background, however, the audience are still intrigued at who is in the film, therefore being the fourth part of the poster to see in the hierarchy, even if it's at the top. The audience might glance back up at the main characters, seeing the star billing and catching their attention. For the fifth part, I chose the credits due to that being the most unseen part, as it's very hard to read them anyway, as they're only there to give people and companies credit for the film production. Because of this, the audience only glance over this section of the poster; it's common for film posters to do this. As for the sixth and final part seen by the audience, the 3D and IMAX 3D branding is noticed, telling the audience that they can see the movie in 3D. They notice this due to the yellow colour used, next to another font type with the release date also being another colour too.

For the first highlight, it is clearly the film title. This is because of how bright the text is, catching the audiences attention with the font is using display type, along with the black and white action colours. The second highlight is the tagline of the film, as it is also using the same colour as the film title. The third part is highlighted because like the second highlight, it uses the same blue colour to make it stand out from the black and white. The fourth part is the star billing, as the audience wants to know who is starring. The fifth part is the films introduction line, featuring the same director for another successful movie, promoting it to the audience. The sixth highlight is the credits, as in this poster, there is quite a lot of space taken up by the amount of text, making it stand out, but the colour is very dull and nearly blends in with the background. The seventh highlight is the company logos and advertisements, as this is the least interesting and is quite small. The final eighth highlight is the website link, which is unusually small.

Thor Ragnarok Poster Text Fonts

Alex Cross Poster Text Fonts

From these two images where I have taken out the different fonts from both movies, it's clear to see that many movie posters subtly include many different fonts. This is because not only does this make a poster more appealing, but it makes each part stand out, especially for the main film title, as that is a made up font that is designed specifically for the film. The fonts are different for the target audience, for example, the Thor poster has very bold, colourful fonts, clearly for a younger audience to catch their attention. Whereas the Alex Cross poster is black and white, with some blue to clearly aim at older audiences. The films genre reflects on the fonts and colours used too, with the Thor poster being bright, flashy and bright, resembling an action comic book film. The Alex Cross poster is a thriller/action; you can tell by the dull colours and subtly bright text fonts, something another genre such as sci-fi wouldn't use.

Task 6

Pre-production text designs

a)

Photoshop title tutorials

For this image, I followed a YouTube tutorial to create a glitch effect.

Firstly, I used the font 'HACKED' and created three text layers. Then I changed the colour of each of them, and overlaid each one. I had the three at the same height but with different widths on the page, giving a glitch effect. This screenshot below shows the three text colours dragged away from each other.

These are the layers I used, I renamed each one to make it easier for me. The yellow error icons are because I opened the file on a different computer so I don't have the font installed. You can see how I added the Inner Shadow effect on the white text to give it more of a smooth finish.

Link to tutorial: YouTube Video - Glitch Text Effect

For this image below, I didn't follow a YouTube video, instead I took an image of New York, and used the 'CITY SCAPE' font to give a good looking effect.

Task 7 - Colour Scheme

Credit Block draft

Anologous

Complementary

Split Complementary

Tetradic

Triadic

Chosen colour schemes:

Red, blue and yellow: I chose this triadic colour scheme because there aren't many movie posters with this colour scheme, as I'm aiming for a more unique design. These colours will catch the audiences attention due to them being to bright and eye-catching. Furthermore, most movie genres use the triadic colours, such as thriller/action.

Blue and orange: These complementary colours are the most well known colour schemes for movie posters, specifically dramatic movies or action movies. Therefore, I have chosen this colour scheme to match with my genre being action/thriller. The audience also would find these colours aesthetically pleasing to look at as the two colours work well together.

Task 8

Poster test

Before image, taken in the studio:

After image, edited in photoshop:

Second edited image:

In these two posters, I used tint, saturation, overlay and opacity. For the tint, I used a blue and orange effect by increasing the contract and adding in a blue city for the background, or vice versa. I overlaid the city image over the photo I took, and reduced the opacity of the image, resulting in this effect.

Outfit inspiration:

- These two photos inspired me for my outfit because Mr. Robot is about a hacker wearing a black hoodie and the mission impossible poster shows, again, the main character wearing a hoodie. This simple idea inspired me to wear a hoodie for my poster.

My outfit:

My outfit will be a simple plain black hoodie with no logos on it to help me when it comes to editing.