EVALUATION - Analysis of Poster

When we got the poster task we all decided that a lot of research would be important for us to get the best result possible. We therefore evaluated a number of posters of different genres so we could learn about the generic conventions.

We started by finding a photo, because of the time constrictions we decided to use a photo from the social networking site Facebook. We had a number of photos to choose from, we decided on our final photo as we liked his facial expression. As this photo was from Facebook it had a low quality, this meant when working on it on Photoshop it was very small. We cut the photo to just below his shoulders as we thought a close up image would be more intimidating. We also zoomed into the image as his facial expression would not have had the same impact if it was further away.

We wanted one side of the character's face to be in shadow, we achieved this by using the burn tool, dodge tool and smudge tool. Although we have never used these tools before we found them to be very effective when used correctly. We also darkened one side of the background (using the gradient tool) in order to emphasise this effect. We experimented with a number of different backgrounds before finding the one which all four of us were happy with.

We then added in the names of the actors and actresses in the top right and left hand corners. However, we then decided to move Raf's name down to the bottom left hand side as we could not keep it the size we wanted where it was. Although this did not come out the way we wanted we still think it looks very effective as it mirrors the way the characters are not on the same level. We printed his name on the light side and hers on the dark in order to have the colour of the text mirroring the characters disposition. We chose to have the surname of the actors in capital letters and in a different font so as to make them stand out, and we found that all the posters which we evaluated were edited like this as it is the actors surname which is remembered.

We chose to show the tagline right below the title so as to lead the audience into the narrative of the film. We thought it was important for our poster to feature a tagline as the majority of the posters which we analysed featured one. We spent a long time perfecting our tag line but we finally narrowed it down to four...

"Walking the knife's edge"

"Lock. Your. Door."

"Stop. You die. Move. He'll see you."

"learn your limits."

We liked the full stop effect of the "Lock. Your. Door." line and so we decided to edit this effect into the tagline which originally read "Stop, you die, move, he'll see you." We chose to display the tagline in white to reflect the nature of the female character in the plot-line, we also thought it stood out dramatically against the dark background.

We searched google images for credits as, again, it is a generic convention of a film poster. We specifically chose one which was white on black, mirroring the contrast of the characters natures and keeping in theme with the rest of the poster. We chose to fade the writing into black at the foot of the poster to show how the narrative holds dark secrets and the shadows conceal its mystery.

The release date is shown just below the credits in order to keep it separate from the title at the are already linked by their colour. We chose to just show the year it is released rather than a specific date as we though this would leave more mystery in relation to the film.

We have shown the knife as a background to the title to represent the violent narrative of the film, we also made it glow in order to make it standout against the dark background and emphasise its significance.

The title "Runaway" is displayed in a mismatched handwritten font to show the typical thriller genre. We spent a long time selecting the perfect shade of blood red and the exact font which we had visualised for our poster plan. We then positioned the title in the correct place on the knife in order to make the mind relate it with a blood-covered knife which we had originally planned to include, the red also signifies danger.

The main problem which we encountered when editing this poster together was the size of the image we had planned to use. We overcame this by using a print screen of the image when zoomed in on Photoshop to post on the blog, and the effect didn't turn out too bad.

RACH, LUCY, NIKKI and DALE.