media

1. How I am Creating
Meaning for the Audience
Print Product - Poster

2. Creating Meaning
for the Audience
Film posters are very important as a technique for film marketing The
purpose in a film poster is to promote the film and begin to entice the
audience to view the films whilst informing them that it exists and tease
information towards the films narrative. Film marketing material is
designed to glamorise, inform and explain the genre of the film to
encourage audiences to watch the film - in turn creating profit for media
producers.
Film posters must communicate important messages about the film, for
example - actors that might star in the film, the narrative, the genre, the
release date and awards the film may have won as all of these things
work to market the film.

3. Poster design, research and creating meaning
In the example, the poster is designed to mainly feature a
large central image of the actors - this is because the
designers used the actors to create meaning for the
audience. Brad Pitt and Robert Redford mean something to
the audience, they are famous, trust worthy and relate to
the genre that is suggested by the title of ‘Spy Game’. The
actors are known for big successful Hollywood
blockbusters - the use of their image creates meaning for
the audience that this film ‘Spy Game’ will be good to go
and watch. The designers use of props - Brad Pitt’s
sunglasses create meaning - they suggest his character is a
cool guy and link to the audiences knowledge of his roles
like this before - this helps existing fans of Brad Pitt to be
encouraged to view this film because of the messages the
image helps to communicates to the audience. The use of
the black and white tone creates meaning, it suggests that
this could be a serious film or maybe set in the past.

4. My plans for creating meaning
for the Audience
This is the sketch of my film poster. I am planning it out
to make sure I include techniques of design that help to
create meaning for the audience. My sketches also help
to show my journey of production from these initial
ideas to my final design. I have many sketches of the
different parts of my poster I am developing.
I am using mystery - an enigma code (Barthes Theory of
the enigma code) as a marketing tool. This is my big
selling point of my short film product and I wanted the
branding across my products to create the same sense
of mystery for the audience. I am creating this mystery
by using lots of dark tones and colour. My main
character is presented in lots of shadows. This gives a
clue to his personality in the film and links to my
narrative.

5. Elements that create meaning
This version of my poster does not show my tag line as it
was a first draft but you can see here how I plan to
position my central images, use typography within the
design and feature the release date - all to communicate
meaning and messages about my film. The typography is
striking, bold, bright and is designed to make sure the
audience remember the name. Even though my main
character is unknown, I have designed it as if he was well
known. This use of the image would help the audience to
identify him and help create trust in my product and
encourage his fans to view my film.
I also have used my production company name to create
brand identity - this logo is used across all of my 3
products.

6. Creating Meaning
for the Audience
This is my digital design about mid way through my
final design. I have the production company name I
thought about using on here - I changed this as a
later date to Legendary Pictures as I thought the
name suited my products better. At this stage of
design, I have used the typography as shown in the
sketch and my making the car headlights in the
poster even brighter I have tried to help the text
stand out more - this should of communicated the
message to the audience that the title and meaning
behind it - is important. The date is written at the
bottom of the poster so it is the last thing the
audience sees - this creates meaning in the sense it
lets the audience know when the film is coming
out. The film festival quote communities meaning
that the film is award winning and has been
successful and that audiences should go and view
the film.

7. Designing to
create meaning
This shows the photograph I used as my
central image. I directed my actor to have a
specific mysterious expression and look away
from the camera to create mystery and help
the audience feel the meaning of enigma. I
shot in black and white as it helped me to get
think about lighting whilst I was shooting
and design the composition to help me think
about meaning and the way the audience
would view the images.
I have chosen to use a long shot in the final
design because it communicates the meaning
that the movie is all about this character.