Designs for Thriller Film Poster: Killer Next Door

These are the three drafts which I have designed for my film poster. From these three I will chose a final design which I will then create on photoshop.

Final Magazine Design

This is my finished magazine cover for 'Killer Next Door'. I have followed many conventions of a conventional magazine design in order to keep my product as close to a real media text as possible. I have kept brand synergy between the three products in terms of colour scheme, the fonts and locations as well as the female protagonist who is featured on all three products. With all of this in mind I believe my film magazine displayed many traits of a conventional film magazine as well as conveying and sticking to the genre of thriller/horror. 

Film Magazine Photoshop Design Process

To start the photoshop design process, I needed to select a picture from the photoshop which i done with my model/actor in the studio.I settled on a mid shot of the female protagonist this is because I wanted her to be the centre and face of 'killer next door'. I chose the victim of the film to be the face magazine (as well as the poster and film) because I wanted the audience to associate with the venerable female character and keep the 'killer' of the film a mystery as to add to the tension of the trailer. Her costume suggests a struggle with the ripped and dirty t-shirt.

First I imported the photo into a blank photoshop document. I need to cut put the image and remove the model from the background which she was photographed on. To do this, I used the polygon lasso tool, this enabled for a clean, precise, accurate and professional outcome. The edges of the pictures were therefore smooth and looked seamless when placed onto the photoshop document. 

Next, I added a background. I took this picture in the woods on location when filming for my trailer. I wanted the background to relate directly back to the trailer in order to enhance the brand synergy of the three products. In order to make the background more aesthetically pleasing than just a simple picture imported from my camera, I went ahead and used the blur tool on a large setting and moved the cursor in a downward motion starting at the top of the page and moving the cursor over the background in a repetitive vertical motion. This allowed the green tones of the picture to all merge together and create more of an appealing look to the background. In order to still keep the photograph obvious as to it being the woods, I left the base of the picture unblurred by creating a graduated effect. This mean that the colours at the top 'popped' in a more pleasing minor to frame the models face, yet the bottom of the background was still representative of the wooded area where the trailer's narrative was based. 

To stick to the conventions of a thriller genre, I wanted to darken the whole magazine layout so far (the background and model's features/shadow)because when researching in existing media texts of film posters in the thriller/mystery genre they all had dark, ominous and eerie backgrounds with heavy shadowing on the front cover photograph. I decided to emulate this in my own magazine design as I wanted to convey a sense of mystery to the magazine design - this also allowed me to stick to conventions of real media texts. The way I darkened the background and font cover photograph was by selecting the 'contrast' on the photoshop document and lowering it to make the magazine design appear darker. 

After I darkened the picture the background was done and I wanted to focus on editing the front cover photo. I used the 'blur' tool to add an airbrushed look to the models face. This gave off a more professional look and an overall smooth look to the design. As I had previously darkened the contrast to add shadows to the design, I wanted to bring a bit of light to the models face as this is where I wanted the audience to be drawn to when initially looking at the magazine. To do this I selected the 'brightness' tool on photoshop and turned it 'up' to bring back some life into the models face. 

In addition to this I also added a Masthead. The name of magazine's masthead was inspired by the idea of marketing a product which was of 'moving image' - therefore the word 'Motion' seemed appropriate to reflect this. I downloaded text from the internet which had a bold and cinematic look to it, I then clicked 'File, Place' and added the text to the photoshop document. Using the 'text tool' I could then move the text around on the screen and make it smaller/larger to ft the positioning of the magazine design.  

I placed the masthead just below the top of the page, leaving room for a puff to be inserted above this. A conventional feature of a mast head is to take up around 1/3 of the page - therefore the masthead on my magazine design reflects this convention by being bold and large. I also added a red 'glowing' effect around the masthead to make it stand out even more. I chose the colour red due to the product being representation of a mystery thriller and therefore red has connotations of blood, danger and death.

I then added a puff above the masthead; a puff is there to boost the ego of the magazine and draw more attention to it's popularity. My puff states that the magazine is 'an innovating insight into the world of moving image'. I made sure to reference the 'moving image' to make it clear to the audience that this magazine was about films. It also helped back up the masthead title of 'Motion' and linked all the text together to create a sense of brand identity. 

Next I added a barcode on the bottom left hand corner - this makes my product come close to looking  like a realistic media text product and it gives off a more professional feel to the magazine as a whole. I then added a few extra film titles which were featured  in the magazine - these specific film's genres were all in the thriller/horror genre, therefore the audience can easily understand that this edition of 'Motion' was specialising in the promotion of thriller films. 

After this, I added the cover line of 'Killer Next Door' in bold red lettering, I also added a 'drop shadow' behind the writing text to make it stand out further. I decided to do the cover line in a different colour and add a drop shadow because this is the name of the film which is being promoted on the front cover so I wanted it to stand out as much as possible. Similarly to the masthead, I also downloaded the font of the cover line from the internet as there was a limited amount of options on the photoshop software I was using, this was restricting toward my genre so I sourced my fonts elsewhere on 'www.1001fonts.com'. The positioning of the cover line was toward the bottom of the page as I did not want it to take away and attention from the cover photograph as both these conventions of the magazine are equally important. 

After the cover line was implemented onto the magazine, I took to adding a price above the barcode, a date, issue number and the web address for the magazine site. Even though these details are small, they are significant in keeping the magazine's layout the same on each new edition of the magazine and it helps to keep the brand identity stable. 

To fill out the space around the main cover line and cover photograph, plugs were the next step in terms of designing my magazine layout. The fonts used on the plugs were sourced from the photoshop software as I didn't need these to be particularly fancy or bold like the masthead and cover line. I used a range of fonts but stuck to the same simple editorial feel for each of the plugs as too much variation would have made the plugs look untidy. I also used a few colours; red, white and black, but again didn't want to overpower the rest of the text. 

Next, I finished placing the plugs either flush left or flush right and worked them around the outline of the female to keep the magazine tidy as I didn't want to overlap the text onto the photograph as I felt this would draw attention away from the female.  This finished of the magazine and tied the colour scheme together. 

This is the final finished copy of the magazine layout where I have stuck to conventional features of a magazine in terms of film as well as sticking to the genre of 'Thriller".

Taking Pictures for Magazine: Lighting and Background

When first setting up the studio lights and background for the magazine photoshoot, I used a white background to start. Due to the nature of keeping of wanting to keep brand synergy through out my three products I needed the actor to be wearing the same clothes she was wearing in the trailer. The white t-shirt blended into the background to much and this would have made it to hard to edit in post production.The lighting in the first picture was also to far away from the actor and there was minimal light to her face which is not effective for creating a good quality photograph. 

To avoid using a white background which blended in with the actors costume, I switch the screen to a black one. The black one allowed for her to be seen much more clearly in her blue and white clothing. However, the lighting here was far to bright and caused many unwanted reflections. These tow pictures show the washed out look the actor has due to the lights not being placed correctly. I had to play around with the lights in order to achieve a successful picture. 

 

Next after I had moved the lights repeatedly to achieve a darker background but still keeping the light hitting the actors face, there was yet again another problem. The actors hair was to dark and therefore it would have been extremely difficult in post production to edit and crop around the hair professionally. Although the lighting was now a success I still had to avoid a black screen and a white screen. 

Finally, I decided to use a dark navy screen to allow for there to be no blended or hidden part of the actor. Her hair was darker than the background and her clothes were now lighter in appearance on the background. This balance between a good background and good lighting meant that i good achieve a high quality photo and it would make post production a lot easier in terms of cropping out. 

Taking Pictures for Magazine: Analysis

In oder to convey the correct magazine feature font cover photograph I had to portray the right angle, framing, lighting and facial expression of my actor; in this case the female protagonist was on the front cover therefore I had to convey a sense of danger and fear on her face. As I had previously already played around with the lighting I knew the type of lighting which worked well for this particular shot (high to mid key lightning). Below are all the shots which made the short list to be the on the front cover of the film magazine. 

Magazine Photoshoot Setup:

In order to have a professional set up and atmosphere to take the feature photograph for the magazine cover, I set up various pieces of equipment to help produce the best quality photos I could.

First of all, I set up the screen (backdrop) which would give a 'flat background' of block colour - in postproduction this would make it significantly easier to manipulate and edit the photo on the magazine layout. Next I set up three soft box lights, from previous camera workshops in AS, I had knowledge of how to set these lights up in a way which would gain me the best quality picture for post production use. The light on the left, placed at a higher angle and slightly forward (usually the main light focused on the models face) is the main light used and can be moved further away/closer to the model in order to convey the correct tone to the photo - less shadow, a brighter cover, more engaging/more shadow, low key lighting connotes a more mysterious and ominous feel. The next light is placed on the background, this backlight helps to put emphasis on the background, therefore lighting the whole photo rather than just the models face - the balance of the lighting means that there is not extreme contrasts between the background and the face of the model, this can lead to over exposure and consequently a less effective photograph. Lastly, The light on the floor, again, is there to help balance the light over the models body, this is not essential if taking shots such as close ups yet for long shots, this can help evenly light the model. 




I broke convention when lighting my model as I used a well lit environment, with little shadow being cast on her face - this can be seen to be brake convention for a magazine advertising a film in the thriller genre. However, I did this because although it is promoting  thriller genre, this particular character is the female protagonist ("the good guy" if talking about Vladimir Props theory of narrative)and therefore I thought it was appropriate for the audience to be able to relate to an more innocent looking character - this lighting help convey the fact that she was the protagonist in the film. If I would have used the antagonist (the "Killer") I would have made drastic changes to the lighting such as using low key lighting thus putting the character in shadow - this would have made it clear that this particular character was one of mystery. There was a reason why I didn't use the male antagonist to promote the film and this was because I wanted his character to be ominous and not stand out - this would add to the surprise element of his being the unsuspecting killer.

Here it is clear that the photo was taken in highly lighting for the reasons I have explained above. 
I did not take the poster photographs in the studio using the lights and backdrop as I wanted the poster to convey a scene in the trailer so as to keep the brand synergy to a maximum - I took the poster picture on location in the "Bath Scene", this picture was taken in low-key lighting and connoted the female protagonist in danger. The contrast between the my two ancillary products shows the before and after of the equilibrium's disruption. Although the two cover photos convey a slightly different feel, by using the same protagonist on both, it is clear it's all part of the same end product.