The document summarizes the design process for a movie poster and magazine cover created to promote a psychological horror film called "Delirium." For the poster, an extreme close-up of an eye was used as the background image to create a sense of claustrophobia. Images of a pill and the word "Delirium" were superimposed onto the eye. For the magazine cover, the main character Anna is depicted with blood spatters and the names of other characters superimposed above her head to suggest she is thinking about them and introduce the characters to readers. Both the poster and magazine cover aim to appeal to fans of psychological horror between ages 15-35 through their use of visual elements that emphasize themes of fear,

1. By Cara Watling

2.  For my poster I began with choosing a primary background image.
I chose an extreme close up of one of the main character’s eyes
which adds a sense of claustrophobia/fear of being trapped to
the person who views it. Like the Candyman (1992) poster I
superimposed images onto the eye. For my poster I superimposed
a pill with “D” for “Delirium” scratched (I used a scratch effect
font) onto it. This also shows the viewer the drug influences in
the film and adds institutional context to the poster – in the news
there has been several cases of teenagers taking faulty drug
products.
 I then added a “Texturizer” filter to create a CCTV camera effect
making it seem like she is being watched which disturbs the
audience making it clear that it is a Psychological horror film. I
adjusted the brightness and contrast to create dramatic shadows
above the eye with the darkness connoting mystery and hatred.
The adding of this filter can be seen in Evaluation: Part 3.

3.  The poster also has the generic features that one would expect of
a horror genre poster: a film certificate, production company
logo, billing block, tag line, title and web address. These
combined give the poster a professional appearance whilst the
web address suggests to the audience that it has an internet
presence which they can explore.

4.  My group decided to call the production company “Sophannara”
which is a combination of all of our names. We added horror
features to the logo with a blood splatter and knife to further
clarify that it is a horror film and add a slight sense of danger to
the poster over all.
 Although many of its audience may not pay attention to the
production company who made the film, horror critics and those
who follow auteur theory will probably find this feature
important, following the example of such real-life companies as
“Twisted Pictures” who created Saw as well as many other horror
films.

5.  Secondly, for my magazine cover’s background image I
constructed an image using layers and effects on Photoshop which
has Anna in the centre of the page in a medium close up shot
looking quizzical. There are blood spatters hovering above her
head with Delirium, Sophie and myself superimposed onto them
to suggest to the reader that she is thinking about them. This is
similar to an issue of “Scream” magazine where a man is thinking
deeply with images of characters/people in the background.
 I thought this was appropriate as it introduces all of the
characters to the reader and also tells them that Anna is the main
character whilst the blood splatters suggest gore and body horror
in the film. The magazine “Fangoria” also uses a lot of body
horror and has a similar audience to the “Scream” magazine.
 As with the “Fangoria” cover, Anna is not directly looking at the
camera, suggesting an air of mystery. I also darkened the image of
Anna using the contrast settings to make the image darker and
more dramatic. Also, the blood splatters are a dark red which
connote danger while the background of the main image connotes
dirt/grunge which makes the audience feel gritty.

6. At the top of the magazine is the
where I named the magazine
“Trashed” in a punk style font which I
believe would appeal to the young
demographic of psychological/gory horror fans (15-35 year olds). It’s also
reminiscent of the logo for “The Misfits,” a popular horror punk band who
features on many t-shirt, bags and backpacks around my college. This style
would therefore draw in both mainstreamers and outsiders.
I created a strapline above the masthead, “The Scariest Thing on
Paper”, which tells new audiences who would not be familiar to the
magazine that it is a film industry magazine specifying in horror genre
films. To keep the cover balanced I used both left-justified and right-
justified cover lines which give the reader a preview of what’s inside the
magazine. I also created a sticker-style graphic on Photoshop advertising
“The 50 Scariest Horror Films” with a star border connoting the Hollywood
lifestyle. This can be seen on many magazine covers such as this one:
Other generic features I included are: a barcode, price, issue date,
and main cover line/main film title (Delirium).

7.  I tried to ensure that my poster and magazine cover reflected
the psychological (and partly gory) horror genre of my group’s
trailer by emphasizing the themes and ideologies that we used;
loneliness, fear of being trapped and feeling outside the CDI. In
my poster’s background image I tried to create a sense of
claustrophobia (fear of being trapped) by using an extreme close
up. This coincides with me pushing Anna as the main character
in an iconic anti-hero role as she is turning into “Delirium” and
(in that state) terrorising the other characters. An example of
this in other movies in Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm
Street. In my magazine cover, the background image has Anna
standing on her own thinking of others (loneliness) and used a
punk style font for the masthead to make the magazine less
mainstream (outside the CDI) and more like a fanzine like
“MaximumRockNRoll”.
 I used “Scream” magazine as a style model for my magazine
cover to give me an idea of layout and I believe my magazine
reflects this by appearing less mainstream and aiming at a more
lower class audience than “Empire” or “Total Film.” I have
selected the two issues of “Scream” magazine which influenced
me the most and put them on the right hand side. The top cover
is where I thought about adding film reels as a side bar and
adding images. The bottom cover influenced me by playing with
the opacity settings and inspired me to superimpose images using
layers in photoshop.

8.  I aimed both the magazine and the poster at the psychological
horror audience due to that being the genre of the trailer my
group created. The demographic of this is 55% women and 45%
men between 15 and 35 years old. To reflect this there is only
some influence of body horror to keep the poster to keep it
classier and more women friendly (gore is more favoured by men
than women). However, the trailer is also a 15 certificate for an
18 certificate film (psychological films are usually rated 15), so
the magazine’s cover blood splats broadens out the audience to
fans of gory, low budget horror befitting the horror fanzine style
of my magazine.