Film Poster Changes

Today I worked a lot on my film poster, changing around a few things. Through this there are four different variations of my poster which I will soon receive some audience feedback on - it is always useful to experiment and then to see what works the best. Below shows these four posters. The one in the bottom right is the most recent, fully developed and my personal favourite, although I want to get feedback from my audience before making any decisions.

Film Poster developed - (order: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right)

Poster 1: Top Left
This was my original idea, although something about it didn't seem to look right. I felt like the billing block was in the wrong location, despite looking good in a similar position on a (500) Days of Summer Poster I analysed. I also didn't think the positioning of the title looked right, and thought it was a little too small. As well as this I also wanted to play around with the background a little more. Originally I had wanted it to be a yellowy colour to make it look older and a little vintage. However, my short film didn't really end up being of this nature.

Poster 2: Top Right
Due to the issues of poster 1, I decided to experiment with a different background - creased paper. I feel that it makes the key image (the sketch) look more like is has actually been sketched on to the paper. It also goes with the theme in the film of the boy redrawing and being frustrated, like he has screwed up the paper. The background is also a little more representative of the film as plain paper of this kind is used, the original background isn't actually used in the film so in many ways it gives a misleading impression. I also swapped around the billing block with the date and tagline which I feel makes it look much more tidy and conventional. As well as this I moved the quotations down so they didn't look so parallel with the actors names, as well as rearranging the title. I wasn't too sure about the 'three-line' arrangement of the title in my previous poster design so thought I would try moving it all into one line and enlarging it. I preferred this a lot more, but it did mean there was a bigger gap in the middle of my poster, which made it seem as though there was something missing.

Poster 3: Bottom Left
After playing about a little with the positioning of the title, I decided to compromise between the three-line title which simply didn't look right, and the one-line title which left a vast gap in the middle of the poster, through deciding on a two-line positioning! Through increasing the size of the title also, I was able to close the blank gap in order for the poster to look fuller without the messiness of having to use another image to fill up space (for example). As well as this, I also moved my tagline directly under my title, enlarging that too. I was really pleased with the tagline I came up with and a lot of my peers suggested that it was too good/important to be in a small font and placed at the bottom end of the poster as it originally was. Additionally, I also changed the way the release date was written, from the numerical 10-10-12 to 10 December 2012, which I feel looks a bit less 'harsh' (a lot of large blockbuster films have the date written numerically for a dramatic effect, which I don't need).

Poster 4: Bottom Right
For my final (for now) draft of my film poster, I added a coffee/tea stain to the background to make it look as though the paper is more than a background, but actual paper that has been drawn on. This indicates that a lot of time has been spent of the sketch, perhaps as a hobby, as the sketcher has obviously been having a drink - I feel that this shows my film as relaxed and not to be taken too seriously, as well as being relatable to. To add the coffee stain I simply found an image from the internet, which I dragged into Photoshop and clicked the 'multiply' tool to select the image I wanted, deleting the white background. I then used the 'blending tool' to blend the stain into the image more to make it look less harsh and bright, and more realistic, as though the stain has dried into the paper. I feel that the coffee stain allows for the background to be interpreted as paper, and not simply a background, adding to the 'sketching theme' of my film.

Ideas I didn't pursue
There are a few ideas I talked about prior to producing my poster which I have ended up not pursuing for various reasons. For example, originally I wanted the top of the poster to be 'binded' so that the background looked like paper in a binded notebook. However, although I still maintain that it's a good idea, it's not really very representative of my film, where plain sheets of paper are used, not a notepad. Although this would not matter too much, I think I prefer the 'creased' paper look as a background, as it insinuates that the character draws and throws away some ideas (although this is seen with a fresh piece of paper in the film, not actually screwing it up). As well as this, I also talked about having a photograph of a pencil on my poster, positioned to look like it had just drawn the key image of the sketch. However, I feel like mixing photographs with the sketch will take away from the feel of the poster, and may be difficult to achieve without looking tacky or unprofessional as multi-methods approaches often can be. I feel like the coffee/tea stain adds a quirky touch too which could be seen as a more subtle replacement of the pencil.