- The document discusses the film poster the author created for their media product. - They took inspiration from posters of films like "The Blair Witch Project", aiming for a simple yet effective design with a gloomy color scheme and focus on a vulnerable main character. - The poster features a photo of the main character blended into the dark background location to look like she is being dragged into the darkness. - Conventional poster elements like the title, credits, and copyright text were also included to make the poster look professional and realistic.

1. 1. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
-Film poster-

2. Before I even started to research into other film posters I knew what style I
wanted my final product to be like. I love the idea of ‘less is more’ so set out to
create a fairly simple yet effective type of poster. I began to research and look at
designs from films including ‘Eden Lake’. ‘Last House On The Left’ and my
main inspiration for my poster, ‘The Blair Witch Project’. They all contained a
very gloomy, dismal colour scheme with the majority of the poster being very
dark. One of the main characters in my trailer, Cat, who appears on the front of
my poster is one of the four victimized, scared young girls in the woods of
Badgeworth who finds herself to be lost and hunted. I wanted my poster to show
the characters vulnerability, which is why I included the photograph of the
location of my trailer. I put the image of cat in the centre of my poster and
blended her face into the background to perhaps show her character ‘fading
away’ from ever escaping or being found. It looks ad if she is almost being
dragged into the darkness of the twisted trees and branches that surround her. I
like that she is looking up, it makes her look very weak and helpless, the ‘typical’
female victim in a horror film. Her facial expression also adds to this due to her
raised eyebrows, wide eyes and pursed lips. It makes it look as though she is
looking up in desperation and fear. Throughout my trailer, Cat’s personality and
character is very much the dominant one, the decision maker in a way which is
why I chose her to be the face of my poster.
I also added all the conventional aspects of a film poster including a quote from
the actual film, the films title of course, the entertainment company, production
company, the names of the actresses, production, art, photography and music
directors and the director. I also included the copyright and ‘all rights reserved’
text etc. and the films website. I think all of this text makes my poster look all the
more professional and realistic. I am happy with the layout, font colour and
choice of font because I believe it adds to the stylish theme of my poster which is
what I aimed for. I wanted to keep the text to a minimum, just including the
information that was needed. I found from my research into other movie posters
that this was the most effective and tasteful layout to creating a convincing
poster. I chose the title ‘Enigma’ for my film with its meaning of ‘the
unknown’, I thought it added another interesting depth to my film in keeping with
the anonymous whereabouts of the ‘urban legend’ and the mysterious
disappearance of the girls. The title also makes me think of other films such as
‘Paranormal activity’ which has a very similar idea behind its storyline to mine in
the sense of the ‘unseen villain’ in a way.

3. These are a few of the film posters I began researching. They all have very
similar aspects, each shows a extract of the films location and
character/characters. As you can see I took my main inspiration from The Blair
Witch Project. But I liked the idea of the poster showing the characters almost
already in their torment and fear. The Blair Witch Project poster has the main
characters face lit up by what looks like her own torch and gives the feel that
the image is a still from the film, making it even more realistic. The character
looks almost enveloped within the surroundings or the woods, and there is a
faded image of the location at the top of the poster. Paranormal Activity’s
poster again has an image from a still of the film showing the house as the
location, the two main characters and just a faint shadow of the ‘presence’. As in
Eden Lake, the main character is shown dominating the poster with the
dark, gloomy location of the woods behind and the silhouette's of the ‘villains’.
Looking at my poster I think I achieved what I aimed for in the character and
location ‘set up’ or design. I think it shows the typical vulnerable young
girl, lost and in danger.

4. I began to construct my poster
around the inspiration I had gained
from my research. I initially
decided to merge the image of the
face of my character with the
photo I took of my location after
researching The Blair Witch
Project’s poster and how effective
it was. I wanted the face to fade
almost completely into the
background and have almost none
of the hair or jacket visible at the
bottom. This gave me a layout to
start and experiment with and
also an idea of how to start to
position my text. I originally
positioned Cat’s face a little to the
left of the centre, after feedback
on my first draft of my poster, I
realised that this loses her
dominance in a way as her eyes
especially faded into the
background. I then experimented
and found it looked a lot better
with her face in the centre. I
decided to position my text all at
the bottom of the poster ad it
draws no attention away from the
dominant images, and makes my
poster look very conventional and
stylish. As soon as an audience
looks at The Blair Witch Project
poster, they can tell it is a horror
and I hope this is the same with
mine.