Lucy-Anne Richardson has completed a photo shoot for her horror film poster. She selects an image of the actress with her hands to her chest, highlighting the silver ring. She edits the image in Photoshop, making it larger and deleting the background. She further edits the image, making adjustments to levels to lighten and darken areas as well as highlight the ring. She also uses tools to remove imperfections from the actress's skin and smudge her mascara. She adds a black background and uses lines over the image to create an eerie effect. She adds the title and tagline in white and red fonts respectively. Production credits and the release date are added at the bottom in black and red.

1. Lucy-Anne Richardson A2 Media
Development Diary – Poster
I have already completed my photo shoot and now have my
original images stored in a folder on the MAC computers. I firstly
look through each of my images and choose which one I think is
best appropriate for the poster. I chose an image in which the
main actress is wearing a white (connoting innocence and purity)
and is putting her hands up against her chest – highlighting the
silver ring, which will be featured in the trailer - whilst looking
straight on into the camera. It is a mid shot so that you can see
her dress/costume, which will be similar to the one she is wearing
within the trailer. When doing the photo shoot, I tried many
different shots for the poster such as her screaming, her looking
scared etc. but they all looked too over the top and amateur. I
have picked this picture as it looks as if she has been possessed
or is in a daze and because she is looking directly into the
camera, which could make the audience feel uncomfortable. I
also like it because it highlights the silver ring with an orange
stone inside (which will be what starts the strange events within
the trailer).
I then placed this image onto a new page in Photoshop and made
it as large as the page itself (A4) as I want the image to be almost
as large as the poster. I want to delete the background so that I
can insert my own background and effects. I do this by using the
magnetic lasso tool and using the mouse to go around the image I
want to keep. I then copied and pasted it onto another new page.
I can now move it around by the arrow tool and change the sizing
by clicking onto free transform. I am going to keep the size as it is
at the moment until I have inserted the title etc. so I know how the
sizing will look. I now want to edit this image so it looks
professional and hides any imperfections that an actress in a film
may have. I do this by clicking on image and levels, and then
moving the arrows to change the levels such as making the image
lighter or darker as well as other options involving colours. I made
the image lighter so that it was more noticeable as well as
highlighting the ring with the marquee tool, which allowed me to
only manipulate the ring stone rather than the whole picture. The
stone is already bright orange/red but it did not show well in the
picture, by editing this it now stands out and could give the
audience some indication that the ring has some part to play
within the film. I also decided to keep the levels at this point
because it made her mouth lighter than the rest of her face due to
the tape I put over it (as a prop in the photo shoot). This could
portray that she doesn’t have a voice
or it has been taken away which is part
of the storyline.
However, I decided to go back and try
some different ideas with the editing of
the image as I thought it needed to be
darker to be in keeping with the genre.
I used a black and white effect by
going onto image and levels which
allowed me to try different colours etc.
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2. Lucy-Anne Richardson A2 Media
I realised the black and white looked much better and darker, essentially
resulting in a more eerie poster.
I then looked at her imperfections such as spots or small scars on her
forehead. By clicking the spot healing brush tool, I can change the size of
the brush and click on the imperfection and it blends in with her skin
colour.
During the photo shoot, I had already asked the actress
to smudge her mascara so it looks like she is either
upset or has been through a traumatic experience.
However, I have used the smudge tool to create more
mascara marks upon the ones she already has.
I then focused on the background of the poster, which
is currently white. I don’t want it to be over the top or colourful, as it does
not suit my genre or storyline. From doing research and looking at other posters, I found that the
majority of horror/supernatural film posters are dark and
eerie. From looking at different film posters, the majority
of posters – that are within this genre and portraying
similar stories – use dark, black background with a
simple image.
I had previously thought that I should place another
image of trees in a forest on top and change the opacity
as an idea. I did this by going to my original images and
finding an image of the forest and placed it on top of the
image already on the page. I then moved the opacity up
and down on the right hand side of the Photoshop page
where the layers are. However, once I tried this, it did not
look as effective as I thought it would. I then went back to my original
idea with a plain black background. When I did the mock up design of
the poster, I had a similar idea to place an image and change the
opacity. I found an image online when I was researching different films
and came across an image from Paranormal Activity when they use a
video order and get lines on the screen (which makes it look as if it is
an old film). I want to use this as it could mean that someone
is watching you which links to my storyline. I used the line tool
to create three lines going through her face and went to the
layer selection on the right hand side of Photoshop, in order to
change the setting such as drop shadow etc. as well as
lowering the opacity which I believe created an effective image
overall. It also made the red ring stand out even further,
especially as the red will tie in with the red I am going to use
for some of the text. Looking at the mock up design I had
previously done, I saw the text that I used and decided I
wanted to keep it almost exactly the same as it suited the
poster. I found out what font I previously used which is Trajan
Pro and inserted the title which I wanted to be white as it will
stand out most
against the black
background and the
tag line red as it
connotes blood and
danger.
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3. Lucy-Anne Richardson A2 Media
I then focused on the billing block, which
is the credits that are typically at the
bottom of a poster; they are also shown in
the trailer. This includes the actors’
names, who it was directed by, written by
etc. as well as production companies - which in
this case will be my own production company
Dreadshed. I wanted it to be a black colour as it
is against the white costume of the stress. I feel
they should not be the centre of attention, more
like an extra, which is used for information and
advertisement. The image and the title should be
the main focus, however I wanted to stick to
these traditional conventions so I included it. I
had seen on The Possession poster that they
had the release date underneath the billing block
in a bright red. I thought this was very effective as
the release date is also an important component
within the poster. Also the red connotes danger
and blood so I decided to incorporate this. At the
beginning of the billing block, I have included
‘Lionsgate and Dreadshed present’ so I thought I
could use their logos on each side of the release date to add a
level of professionalism and also advertisement for the
companies. I have created the Dreadshed logo myself on
Photoshop, however instead of copying the Lionsgate logo, I
decided just to write it in a text box, as it is not my image to use.
Many film posters have their own website but I used
‘facebook.com/theswarmmovie’ which I have noticed some
films use. I found this easy to remember so the audience would
also.
Since creating the magazine front cover, I have
come up with some different ideas such as making
her eyes slightly red to link in with her ring. It is the same
process as the ring, however you use the marquee tool to
select her eye instead and click onto image and colour
balance.
I also really liked the smokey background effect, which I
created on the magazine front cover. I did the exact same
process by creating a new layer, filter, render and clouds.
I selected a black colour pen so it would be the same as
the background and erased a few sections. Once I
lowered the opacity and made sure the layer was behind
the original image of the actress, it created a smokey
background.
I moved the ‘based on a true story’ line down to sit on top
of the billing block as it was previously sat in the middle of
her forehead which did not look professional or
believable.
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