When
constructing the film poster, Beatrice and I did various sketches of what we thought the film poster should consist of. I already had a clear idea that it would have some
influence from the
Single White Female poster, since I felt that the poster was intriguing and was similar to our target audience. In addition to this, we already had a checklist of information that was needed on the poster, like the
title and billing block which are
essential to all posters.
After
various rough sketches we finished with
two final sketches which we thought were respectablely complex, yet not too crowded.
My sketch is the one to the
left, which solely consists of Sam with the title, tagline and billing block. Bea's sketch is the one to the right, which consists of an
extreme close up of Sam's face, including square-shaped images, which would have been photos of Jasmine and Ana. The
title and
tagline were in the
top left-hand corner. We decided to
choose my sketch idea over hers. Despite, previously saying that we would consider putting as well the victim's face along with the sociopath's face. Beatrice and I decided that we wanted the poster to be focused on Sam only.
After we made the final decision on the sketch we would base the poster on, we had to do a
quick photoshoot of James Eager, who portrays the role of Sam in the film. We did this in the
art studio with a
white backdrop. The reason, we did this so was that when it came to editing the poster and
manipulating the image it would be
easy to remove the white background. I asked James if he could
wear a black jumper so it
blends in with the
background which on the final poster will be
black. Chloe was the person who took the pictures of James with the Canon 750D. When it came to the photoshoot, James and Chloe were efficient with their time by taking various shots and various angles, so that we could see what would look best on the poster.
Bea and I were the
editors of the poster and we did all of our work of the poster using
photoshop, since we felt that this was a
convenient and practical tool, since we could do a variety of effects on Photoshop, such as blurring James' spots from his face,
changing the background from white to black and adding texts onto the image.
Bea and I debated on which
tagline we should use for the poster. We had a total of
4 options which were:
- A photographer's desire to keep everything in focus
- A desire to keep everything in focus
- A photographer's obsession, A girl's fear all begins when he's in focus
- Keep still to be in focus
Bea thought that the tagline
shouldn't be that long and decided that we should use
the second tagline listed above. However,
I preferred the first tagline, since it
incorporates the story into the tagline about how he is a photographer and keeps everything in focus,
referring to a camera being in focus.
We ended up finishing the poster in the lesson with
adding all the necessities of a poster that I listed in the research which was: title, tagline, close up of a face, billing block, cast members names and institutional information. This was definitely
a team effort, by Bea and I being the editors, Chloe being the photographer and James being the subject of the image,
we worked together efficiently.
This is our final product for the film poster:
After various rough sketches we finished with two final sketches which we thought were respectablely complex, yet not too crowded. My sketch is the one to the left, which solely consists of Sam with the title, tagline and billing block. Bea's sketch is the one to the right, which consists of an extreme close up of Sam's face, including square-shaped images, which would have been photos of Jasmine and Ana. The title and tagline were in the top left-hand corner. We decided to choose my sketch idea over hers. Despite, previously saying that we would consider putting as well the victim's face along with the sociopath's face. Beatrice and I decided that we wanted the poster to be focused on Sam only.
After we made the final decision on the sketch we would base the poster on, we had to do a quick photoshoot of James Eager, who portrays the role of Sam in the film. We did this in the art studio with a white backdrop. The reason, we did this so was that when it came to editing the poster and manipulating the image it would be easy to remove the white background. I asked James if he could wear a black jumper so it blends in with the background which on the final poster will be black. Chloe was the person who took the pictures of James with the Canon 750D. When it came to the photoshoot, James and Chloe were efficient with their time by taking various shots and various angles, so that we could see what would look best on the poster.
Bea and I were the editors of the poster and we did all of our work of the poster using photoshop, since we felt that this was a convenient and practical tool, since we could do a variety of effects on Photoshop, such as blurring James' spots from his face, changing the background from white to black and adding texts onto the image.
Chloe and Bea were the editors for the title shot and constructed through photoshop. Since we wanted incorporate our story into the title shot we decided for it not to be blank, like the title shot of Black Swan, where the only thing visible is the title among a black background.
Bea thought of the idea that in the middle of the 'o' in Focus, there could be a camera lens, which refers to how the sociopath in the film is a photographer. Another aspect, which Bea thought up of which would link the title shot to the story was that around the camera, there could be a REC sign, which indicates a recording camera, which again refers to the photographer aspect of the film.
On my Pinterest account, I created a board solely for the research of psychological thriller posters. HERE is a link to that board. The reason I chose to make a board for this was so that the development and construction of the poster would be much easier and I will know what to do. Another reason, why I decided to do detailed research into film posters of this genre was so that I could adapt some aspects so that my film poster could look believable.
There were many posters we looked at ranging from Psycho to Black Swan, however one specifically stood out for me, which was the poster for Single White Female. The Single White Female is the poster we will base ours off of, since it is a psychological thriller and is has a similar target audience, implying that both of the films revolve around young sociopaths. I thought that the poster was intriguing and really makes someone want to watch the film from the sinister look of the sociopath to the victim to the tagline which reads 'Allie's new roommate is about to borrow a few things without asking. Her clothes. Her boyfriend. Her life. Living with a roommate can be murder', I feel that this tagline really captures the story of the film and makes it stand out from others.
Most of the psychological thriller title shots looked quite similar, by simply having the name of the film in the middle and either a black background or a plain background, like in Gone Girl, the view of the sea, which is interesting, but not the sort of intrigue, which our group is trying to accomplish with our title shot. To the right, I made a collage of previous psychological thriller title shots. My honest opinion is that they all look too similar and that they should incorporate the basis of their film into the title shot.
