Research for Radio Trailer

Radio Trailer Research

Planning for Radio Trailer: Mindmap

Distributing a Short Film

This photograph is a display of our short film poster on a local bus stop. Our poster could also be advertised on bill boards, outside a cinema and in many other places which are easily accessible and viewed by the general public as this is our the main bulk of our target audience being anyone above the age limit of 12, who enjoys horror films as this is what could be expected from such a poster. The idea of placing it on a bus stop would target our younger audience type well as these are the demographic of people who would be around bus stops, waiting for the bus.  

Final Film Poster

This is the final film poster for our short film 'The Set Up' which has developed from the first draft significantly. I received feedback from an independent source about our film poster and found that the text font used was not compelling to the viewer and deterred the mysterious aspect i was trying to portray. Once i had found this out i set about researching film posters in more depth specifically paying attention to text; its positioning, size and font. After reviewing poster's in the industry further and considering the specified genre of 'horror' i decided that alterations could be made to give my advertisement a more professional look.   

It was also found that the image used for the first draft did not convey the supposed fear of the protagonist. I explored horror poster's which used close ups of the protagonist to gain inspiration of ways in which the facial expression of the character could portray the genre.

Short Film Poster Idea for 'The Set-Up'

After the research that me and my partner had done for our film poster, we set out looking for ideas for a focal point. After previously deciding that dark colours and a brighter red would be good for displaying the horror theme through the front cover, we also used white for text allowing the text to be seen on the darker background. Conventions of a film poster were used which we found on posters through research including credits, age rating, the date of release, a tag line and the title, not forgetting the main image indicating the plot of the film.

The image displays the end of one of the final scenes whereby the protagonist is grabbed from behind by a gloved mystery figure unaware that he will shortly be presented with a 'Surprise' party. This original sketch of the poster displayed a medium shot and an outline of the mystery figure. We felt that this close up shot would build more suspicion as to the events of the film and the close up on his face allows us to see the fear in his eyes and his general facial expression.  This ideal poster has been created combining some of our original sketch elements this with real horror posters i have researched of accredited films from the last five years (recent).

Images of protagonist for Film Poster

Images for Film Poster

From the very beginning of our reserach into a poster for our film we had decided to use our protagonist as the focal point. To explore both mine and my partners idea of medium shots and close ups we shot both to use trial and elimination of the best idea after progressive editing had taken place. I took pictures of Sachin against a green backdrop in order to have a block colour which would allow easier editing.
After taking these images and looking back upon them after uploading them, i realised that a more asthetically pleasing photo could have been acheived with better lighting from above, this being the case mainly for the medium shots.
However, the close ups worked well with the darkness looking representative of the dark surroundings and seemed as if a scene from the film rather than a cleverly placed image of the protagonist infront of a shadowy figure.

The Set-Up (The First Draft of Film Poster)

The Set-Up (First Draft of Film Poster)

This first draft of our potential film poster does not yet include the focal image of the protagonist but outlines the colour scheme much like presented in the earlier sketch. It uses black as a dark colour representing the dark and negative mood of a horror film and the red to contrast as a bright colour yet also representative of the genre relating to violence and danger. I found creating the film poster to be a lot more difficult than i first thought as from my research of horror film posters, an indication of the events that occur in the film are used to entice the viewer to come and watch the final film. The main point of our plot is concerning the build up to the 'Surprise' party and allows the audience to think about the way in which horror codes and conventions have lead them into a false assumption of the genre and possibly a wrong interpretation of what is to come as the film progresses. By including the element of the 'Surprise' in our front cover however would have ruined the build up to this part and therefore i needed to create these signs through different advertising points e.g. The symbolic colours of red and dark greens and black.

Sketch of our Film Poster

Sketch of Poster

The image above is my partners sketch for our film poster idea and shows the close up shot with a glove covering the protagonists mouth to look as if he is approaching from behind. This shot plays on the typical horror convention which we have explored throughout our film, whereby the main character is unaware.