I have evaluated the convention of real media film posters and compared mine to those products.

1. Evaluation Question 1 –Film
Poster
Dan Brown

2. When looking at different horror film posters, many look very similar, this works
for many of the films. Film posters follow a set of conventions to make their
product as successful as many others. Some films decide to challenge
conventions to see if they work and if they become more successful compared to
the conventional poster however challenging conventions can be a hit or miss, it
all depends on the audience for the film.
When creating my film poster, I was set on following many, if not all of the
conventions seen on real media texts as it just makes the poster look a lot more
authentic and overall, just a lot better in quality.

3. Slogan
The first thing on my film poster is the slogan at the very top.
I’ve seen this on many other horror film poster and feel that it
works very effectively. The does work, however the slogan of
the film has to be effective for it to work as conventionally
people read from top to bottom, meaning that the first thing
being read on the film poster on the slogan. If the slogan is
poor, doesn’t stand out or doesn’t intrigue the audience, they
won’t carry one reading the poster. I think that having a
spooky slogan that makes the audience ask questions to
themselves at the top is a great and effective way to sell
advertise a film.
From the slogan to the picture on the poster, these horror
poster normally include a big picture of the antagonist or
the protagonist. This is normally a 50/50 split. I have
decided to use the antagonist on my poster as I feel that it
is more effective than using the protagonist, this is
because the antagonist normally looks really scary, and
when glanced at by an audience, maybe commented on.
One of the posters I got inspiration from for this was
‘Friday the 13th . Their poster effectively shows the
antagonist of the film, without giving too much about him
away, as he is masked and really in a dark shadow.
Main Image

4. From the producers of… Title
Unlike real horror film posters I have decided to include a statement
above the film name. I have put ‘From the producers of ‘Never Ending’
and ‘Alone’. Even though this is unconventionally of film posters, I have
kept it, because I feel that it is other way to attract an audience,
increasing the target audience for the film, making it more mainstream.
People who have seen the other films by the producer, and liked them,
would read that, and may go and watch it to see if it is as good as them.
I feel that challenging this conventional would not cause a reduction in
audience interest, if anything, it will increase the amount of people
wanting to see the film. It’s just another way to advertise.
I have followed the conventions when placing the title of the
film. Many horror film posters, have the name of the film
towards the bottom of the poster. Allowing the main picture to
be bigger as that is one of the main attractions to a film. The
title of the films is also almost always bold, so that is does stand
out as the film name compared to the other writing on the
poster. The title of the films also conventionally uses a serif font
as they look creepier than san-serif fonts, although this is
another one which is split, but I have used a serif font, because I
feel that it is more conventional to a horror film.

5. Based on a true story Billing Block
Another thing that I have put is ‘Based on a true story’, I
have done this because people like films which as based off
of real life events, and the plot of this story unrealistic and
could happen to anyone. This statement is not included on
many horror films posters. I feel that because I have added
this to my poster, it is more likely to appeal to an audience.
Underneath of that I gave included a billing block. This is conventional
of almost every film made, as it is used to, almost advertising the jobs
that have been done to create the film and the people who have put
the time and effort into the full creation of the film. One of the most
important credits is the name of the production companies and
distribution companies whom have converged together to create the
film. I think that a billing block is always at the bottom of film posters is
because people whom were involved in the making of the film want
recognition. The billing block always uses the same conventional font as
well, where the job the person did is about half the size to the persons
name.

6. Underneath the billing block, I have indicated that the film is ‘Coming
Soon’, now it is conventionally for almost every film to include the
release date, but I felt that putting coming soon and being
unconventional may keep the audience wondering and looking out to
find the actual release date to the film. This means that they are more
likely to search the film up on a search engine which will mean that
they will be looking more into the film and hopefully getting more
drawn into the film. I have looked at the real media text ‘Final
destination’ who have put the release date on their film poster too.
They have put ‘August’ which is another way to keep audiences
intrigued and looking out for the film.
Release Date Webpage?
It is also conventionally for film posters to have the URL, web
address of their films website at the bottom, I have also
chosen to use this as it gives the audience another way to
look into the films’ plot, who’s in it, a background to the story
etc. This gives the film yet another platform to advertise on
and a platform that is becoming even more popular. I have
again used ‘Final Destination’ who also have a webpages URL
at the bottom of their film poster.

7. Logo’s Colours
On horror film posters, the colour used are conventionally very minimal
and normally darker colour, as they go with the genre more than bright,
elaborate colours. I have chosen to follow this convention as darker
colours make the poster look a lot scarier, it also shows that what’s
going to happen in the film, is likely to happen in the dark, giving
smaller parts of the story away. The dark colours just create a spookier
atmosphere. For this I have looked at the film poster for ‘Alone in the
dark’, which also uses the dark colours and only uses white colouring
for the text and grey for the main picture.
Another thing is the company’s logos which are conventionally
placed at the very bottom of the poster. Which just gives the
companies a little bit more advertising as they are the people
who are putting a lot of money into the creation of the film and
want recognition for that. As the film genre I am doing is horror,
I how noticed that conventionally the logos don’t contain colour
and are black and white. I have decided to follow this
convention as I think it makes sense to still use contrasting
colours.