A2 Media Studies

1. ILLICIT OBSESSION:
THE NEW THEATRICAL
POSTER
Georgina Gilbey
A2 Media Studies

2. ORIGINAL IMAGES USED
Character: Anon Character: Connor Character: Connor Character: Alice
Sources
Photographs of Tia Briers (Anon), Ryan Gilbey (Connor),
Reannah McNee (Alice), Dominika Malina (Eve),
Georgina Gilbey (George): My own photoshoot
Drugs and white powder: Google Images

3. ORIGINAL IMAGES USED
Sources
Photographs of Tia Briers (Anon), Ryan Gilbey (Connor),
Reannah McNee (Alice), Dominika Malina (Eve),
Georgina Gilbey (George): My own photoshoot
Drugs and white powder: Google Images
Character: George

4. 1 – BUILDING A LAYOUT
The first step was to decide on a layout for the
poster. I wanted a layout that was a lot
different from my previous. I considered a
pyramid technique, but then thought of having
the antagonist dominating the poster on one
side, with the four protagonists on the left,
smaller in scale and overlapped with each
other. I thought this would be most effective as
it instantly communicates each characters role
to the audience and establishes a hierarchy in
terms of relevance to the plot.

5. 2 – POSITIONING
THE CHARACTERS
This is the poster with all of the
characters arranged. The scale of
them wasn’t definite at this point
as I knew I’d need room for my
title, tagline, etc, but at this stage
all characters had been cut out
from their photographs, rough
pixels smoothed over, and I had
started adding the smoke, an
element from the old poster that I
wanted to keep as it’s an
interesting, intriguing visual and
relates to the theme of them being
druggies.

6. 3 – ADDING TEXT
After I had finished adding
smoke effects and re-sized the
characters a bit to make space,
I added some basic lines of text
so I could gauge the layout and
how everything would be
positioned. I opted to have the
tagline at the top and the title
at the bottom, the opposite of
my old poster. I also changed
the font to the one used in our
trailer’s title card, Courier
New, so it is synergetic. At the
bottom, I copy & pasted the
small text credits from my old
poster as this didn’t need re-
doing.

7. 4 –
TEXT EFFECTS
Next, I added text
effects to make them
stand out. I used ‘bevel
& emboss’ and a ‘drop
shadow’ for all text and
then used a red colour
overlay on the word
‘cull’ for dramatic effect
and to connote blood, as
this film is about a
serial killer.

8. 5 – SIZING &
MORE SMOKE
Here, I re-sized the tagline
to make ‘cull’ stand out even
more and made sure the title
was in a bigger size font to
the tagline, as this is
conventional. I also added
some grey smoke with a low
opacity behind the tagline
for extra visual interest. I
considered adding more
smoke for the title, but then
had a better idea…

9. 6 – EXTRA
IMAGES
…I added extra images
positioned behind the title: a
stack of pills and a small pile of
white powder (suggestive of
cocaine). I thought this went
really well with the druggie
theme and made it even clearer
to the audience, as it also
implies adult themes and so
will now likely appeal more to
young adults and above. It’s
also quite enigmatic and
encourages the audience to find
out more.

10. 7 – SIMPLE TOUCH-UPS
Finally, all I had left
to do was erase the
cocaine where you
could see it on the
pills previously (due
to the low opacities
of both) to neaten it
up and blur the
edges of the pills to
smooth any rough
pixels.

11. THE FINAL POSTER
Conclusion
To conclude, I am much happier with this poster than my old
one. I think it is a lot more effective, communicates the
theme more efficiently (showing familiar iconography such
as the pills and cocaine which connote addiction and
obsession) and will appeal to my target audience because
there are a lot more features on the poster to engage them.
I think including the character George has helped in terms of
the layout and upon reflection, not having her on the old
poster was a bad decision because she is quite significant in
the plot.
Additionally, I think changing the photograph of Eve has
improved it by a significant amount because the photo itself
is a lot more well-focused and the pose fits well for her
character. I also chose for all protagonists to be looking away
from the camera/viewer (to signify their submissiveness and
helplessness) and Anon to be staring directly forwards
(clearly establishing him as the antagonist who drives the
narrative forward; he dominates the poster). Overall, I think
this poster re-do has been successful.