RESEARCH & PLANNING - Film Poster Planning

For our coursework we have been planning to produce a main poster for our marketing campaign of our trailer for "Runaway".

For this poster we have been carefully researching the aspects of a typical film poster, and taking into consideration which of these will go best with our film trailer and genre etc.

As shown below we have been experimenting with tag lines, typography, images, and the general layout of the poster. However it is also important to consider the content.

For our rough ideas and sketches we have been considering the following...

• Text - will this be linked to the trailer? we have been toying with the idea of using the same typography on our film poster for the tag line as was used in the trailer for the captions, this glowing red font gave a spooky feel to the words and added to the overall illusion of a thriller which we were attempting to convey.
• Images - we have also been considering which images will be used in our poster and also how they will we used in relation to the text that is shown, should the image be linked to the tag line? or should it show a different message? We also need to decide on how much of the narrative we want to reveal, since the poster which we are making is to be displayed during the films showing, we have come to the conclusion that the sense of mystery need only be slight as the plot line will already have been revealed through the trailer.
• Unique selling points - we plan to display the names of the actors clearly at the top of our poster, as shown below, and also the name of the film producer.
• Genre indicators - the conventions of our genre will be clearly represented on our poster through the use of lighting in the image, as we plan to keep the overall effect of the composition very dark, creating doubt and uncertainty as the image will not we bright and clear. We also plan to demonstrate the genre through the tag line. Our target audience is young adults, and this will be shown through the images of the actors shown on the poster, who are around the same age as our target audience.
• Tag line - As well as establishing what our tag line is going to be, we need to decide where it is going to feature on the poster, we have come to the conclusion that it will be situated directly under the title of the film so it is clearly visible and leads on from the title "Runaway", expanding upon the name. We hope the tag line will be effective in causing intrigue and excitement.
• Written information - We will credit the studios and production team at the bottom of the poster, making the text possibly white to stand out against the dark background.
• Use of colour - as mentioned above we plan to keep the overall effect of our poster very dark, however we are planning to use artificial light in the image to create shadows and silhouettes.

Having experimented with the photo-shop package last lesson we feel more confident about editing our poster, and we are looking forward to completing it.

Lucy :)