POSTER -In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real products?

The film poster I designed for “One Way Road” has many conventions from which I have found from my research into film posters. The conventions used all have a purpose with developed and challenging features to attract and entice an audience into purchasing my poster, the conventions I used are; Main image, film title, actors names, slogan, star ratings, billing block rule of thirds and colour scheme. I then added media convergence to my second design (Facebook link and Twitter hash tag).

MAIN IMAGE/DIRECT MODE OF ADDRESS/RULE OF THIRDS

When I first designed my film poster I took many photographs so I could then decide on an effective main image. 

After experimenting with four different images, this is the image I wanted for my final piece. 

One convention that my poster challenges is direct mode of address. From my research I 

identified that many film posters main image use this convention to attract and entice their audience with direct eye contact for communication. In both examples to the left and right, direct mode of address is used to communicate with the audience for "SAFE HOUSE" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". 

My film posters main image challenges this convention, as it is non-existent. Out of the range of photographs, I felt that this image would work perfectly with this genre, as the image clearly represents that the main character is “turning his back on his past and overcoming that for his future” which informs the audience of what the storyline could possibly be about without giving too much away. 

From my research I discovered that many main images for film posters use photographs/images taken of characters from certain scenes in a film, however I found that I was attracted to the film posters with more artistic features and creativity such as the posters for "Black Swan", "Let Me in" and "The dark Knight".

Because of this I developed the convention of using creativity within my film poster and edited my image using a filter named “Posterize” to give my main image a pop art effect, using an online photo editor called "fotoflexer". 

One convention that I have used effectively that is visible to an audience is the rule of thirds. Within the bottom third I have inserted my film title, followed by the slogan, star rating, and billing block. I haven’t challenged the positioning of these conventions because I feel that the eye is automatically drawn towards the center image, the eyes working their way down towards the bottom third where the main bulk of conventions are found and then up into the top third.

TEXT/TITLE/ACTORS NAMES/SLOGAN/BILLING BLOCK

The film title is found within the bottom third. My reasoning for writing my film title in the font “You Are Loved” created by Kimberly Geswein is because of its urban design with graffiti and distressed like design .  http://www.dafont.com/you-are-loved.font The font is also san serif therefore the audience could easily read this font.

Due to the fact the genre of my film is a crime/sport/drama about a young person being brought up from a tough background who leads on to achieve something in life I feel that the urban flare was necessary to describe the genre and struggle to the audience. It was also inspired by the font used for "Coach Carter", another sports/drama. 

From my research into positioning of actors names on film posters I discovered that many posters use the top corners to insert the names of the main actors, as seen in the examples on your left and right. I decided to use this convention as the purpose of this allows the text to not interfere with the main image and from the rule of thirds theory, the actors names is the last thing that the audience would see, therefore if the audience can familiarise themselves with actors they are generally more interested in.

When I was first designing my film posters I didn’t originally insert a slogan due to the fact I didn’t feel that the poster needed one. However, after completing my final design I felt there was room for improvement and felt that the poster was a little bare. To insert something which has an impact on the audience is what I wanted, so I carried out some more research and decided I found slogans quite intriguing, for example Inceptions film poster consists of the slogan “Your mind is the scene of the crime”. After analysing that particular film poster I realised that the slogan was the convention that drew me in to it. Before finalising my poster my slogan was originally “Follow the path you desire”. When I looked at my poster I didn’t feel like my slogan was attracting and enticing my audience so I asked my fellow classmates and they agreed with me completely. After looking into my film poster and storyline itself I came up with “Die today, live tomorrow”. This was the slogan that caught my attention and I felt that this slogan worked completely to fit my films storyline, therefore I did not challenge this convention in the end as my ideas changed and developed and I felt that my slogan added power and strength to my poster.

Another convention, which will be found on my film poster and many others, is the billing block. The billing block is like the blurb of the film poster, informing the audience of participants of the creation of the film such as; director, producers, distribution company, editors etc. I have not challenged this convention in any way at all as its simplicity of its layout presents the actual image of a film poster, separating them from looking like book covers or photographs etc. 

COLOUR SCHEME AND LAYOUT

After doing some research on film posters I decided to look into certain genres, character identities and colour schemes. My research showed me that many films consisting of heroic characters or inspirational characters have a very similar colour scheme, positing and layout. As you can see from the montage below, found from http://imgur.com/gallery/jrmWj there are very distinct similarities. First of all, as you can see there isn't much of a physical appearance/identity shown of the main characters due to the positing (back to the audience, lack of direct mode of address). I got the impression that many of these film posters use this convention as the character or the film itself has something to hide. I decided to develop this convention and use it with my own film poster as my character also has something that he wishes not to share, his heartbreaking past.

I also discovered from this poster montage that the posters use very similar colours, for example; Harry Potter, Batman, Inception and The Watchmen all use strong blues. I was really enticed by these film posters due to their colour schemes as I felt the the darkness was portrayed by using blacks and navy blues however, the bright and attractive blues drew me in to look further and gives the impression to expect more than darkness from this film and that there is a positive and a light to it. I felt that this colour scheme was perfect for portraying my film as the darkness represents my characters distraught past/background and the powerful, bright blues would represent the achievements and obstacles my character has to overcome, which is why I used this final colour scheme for my final film poster.

Above was my first final design however I was not fully satisfied when it came to audience feedback, therefore I added some extra conventions. I looked into more modern conventions and discovered website links and Twitter hash tags. I decided these were the conventions I wished to use to attract all audiences and allow them to gain extra knowledge of the film using their own research and media convergence. I stuck to my colour theme and used a light blue shade to add my link and hash tag, www.facebook/OWR.com and #OneWayRoad. I am fully satisfied with this convention and didn't challenge the new feature in any way. And lastly, I decided my poster needed a slight hint of colour, so I changed the colour of the star rating to yellow. I chose the colour yellow as it went perfectly with my poster for its appearance and I also discovered that the colour went well through my research and found the poster for "The Watchmen".

Above is my final poster design and I am completely happy with it. I am satisfied the with overall layout, design and overall presentation.