Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (kieron)

Having researched the conventions of horror posters design I have learnt that they mostly follow a specific style. They are normally portrait in layout with a very dark or black background, with the subject coming out of the dark. The title and film information is usually white and or red and placed at the bottom of the page. Some of these conventions I decided to use because I think they are effective and some I decided to change and develop to make my poster different.

Image

In my research of horror poster design I discovered the killer is not usually included in the poster but it is normally a scared looking person/character (mainly female) from the film and looking directly at the viewer either asking for help or trying to frighten them. The subject is frequently placed in the middle of the poster but not all is shown of them.

In my poster I decided to include the killers face because I wanted to present to the audience a vision of who they would encounter in the film, and also have the killer viewing the audience in a menacing way instead of a victim calling to the viewers for help. The idea is that the character is looking through the lens and seeing the killer; this image also gives the viewer an idea of the themes and content of the film.

The traditional lighting in horror posters is very dark, it will usually show a bit of the subject e.g. if it’s a person it will show half of their face to not reveal much. Professional movie posters will often have their subject lit from one direction so as to create a dramatic shadow effect, highlighting the evilness of the killer or the desperation of the victim. I decided to follow the convention of lighting my subject from the top right to create the dramatic effect and make the killer look even more sinister.

I took the role as photographer and with my group we decided we wanted a landscape photo with the subject offset from the centre so that I could use the out of focus space to place the text. I decided to make the focal point the lens with the background being out of focus so I could mirror the killers face into the lens. I chose a female model to follow the convention of most horror posters and I placed her in a dead end like she is about to be killed.

I had to find a setting that would give the impression of an enclosed space so I looked through the college building to find an appropriate setting and came across a cupboard which fitted the criteria of being dark and creepy looking. The only props I needed was an SLR camera, the first problem I encountered was that the camera I had, had a small lens which wouldn’t of worked for my image, so I had to get a new one with a wide angle lens so there was enough space to Photoshop the killer in to it.

As I only needed a close up head shot of the camera and my model, she didn’t need to wear a particular costume

Layout

The conventional layout of a horror movie poster would be dark image with the subject in the middle and the text at the bottom, the tagline is generally placed with the title at the bottom but can be placed at the top.

Most of the posters that I researched had a portrait format for their layout but we decided not to follow that convention but challenge it by making ours a landscape format, making it useful for billboards and posters outside the cinema.

I placed the main body of the text to the lower left hand corner and the title of the film in the upper left hand corner, because although most of the text is at the bottom of the poster, I still wanted it offset from the centre, to be unconventional like the poster for the film ‘The Crazies’.

Typography/font

The conventional font used in the credits on the horror poster is ‘Steel Tong’, this is used for all movie posters; I kept to this convention and used ‘Steel Tong’. The title and tagline is normally in a font that relates to the movie e.g. in the poster for the film ‘Mirrors’ one of the R’s is mirrored the same also goes for the film ‘Rec’, here the designer has used the recording symbol used on video recording equipment. I took this convention and choose a text that related to my film, the title is ‘3:15’ so the most obvious font to use was a digital clock style font called ‘Liquid Crystal’. I was able to find this easily on ‘Dafont.com’.

Colour

In the professional horror posters that I researched the majority of them consisted of the same colour scheme. They would have a dark or black background with usually red text. The colours that are most common are blood red and toxic bright green, and sometimes a night vision effect will be used as well.

Often the colour is used to create an atmosphere that is cold and ominous, for example the photo used in the poster for the film ‘The Crazies’ is a steely cold grey which suggest a mental hospital or psychopathic feeling. The darkness of the posters is often highlighted with the white of the subject.

I used these conventions for my image, first off I placed a cold blue filter over my photo to create a cold unwelcoming atmosphere, then I darkened the edges of my photo to add to the hostile setting, keeping the central image of my model lighter so people could see my killer.

I used a white font that would stand out against the background as is the convention in horror posters and I added a red glow to the title, which matched the red on the killers face and kept to the colour scheme.