Before the creation of the poster began, some ideas had already been finalised and some were still in debate. The title 'Burgess Field' had already been decided as well as the main image that would be used in the piece (the image displayed on the left). With the blood on the face of the model, the use of red text was discussed as well as the potential use of blood coming through the text. Also, white was agreed as a focus text colour as it strongly contrasts to the black background and would connect to the face of the girl.
When creating a poster there is always the initial debate of format: portrait or landscape
.As many commercial film posters are produced in the portrait format, it was decided to start the process using this idea. Initially it was decided to see what it was like to produce the poster with out the chosen image to see if the title and text could represent the ideas, plot and ideologies of our film individually. Therefore, the focus of this piece is solely the text and in particular the title. In a Warner Brother's style, introduced at the top of the poster are the production references and attributes. I think that this worked very well as the style of the text is highly similar to the text font used in all DVD covers and film posters. Also, even through it is at the top of the page, the font style used does not make it the main focus of the poster, which was the intention. A relevant review from the newspaper 'The Times' was created and was printed in white text and accompanied by five red stars. I think the combination o these two colours is effective and creates a sense of continuity through the poster as the title has the previously discussed idea of blood running through the text. Amy managed to do this through the use of layering in Photoshop.
It was then decided to add the chosen image to the poster to see if the text worked effectively on top of it or if the text would work better on top of a black background. The opacity of the image was reduced from 100% to 50% which makes the image more transparent and appear darker as it is on top of a black background, making the contrast between the white text greater and therefore it stands out more effectively. The blood behind the title font was also removed so that the viewer was now distracted from the image in the background.
In order to add the blood into the title again, the background image was copied and then moved slightly across to the left and down to create a shadow about the original image. This also made the image appear less clear and transformed it to be a background rather than a focus. Then it was possible to add the blood back into the title as the clarity of the blood contrasted with the blur and bad yet intended focus of the image behind.
It was felt that the first two attempts didn't work in their own right as effectively as we had planned. So, we decided to add the blood to only the bottom half of the title to prevent the amount of the colour red being too over whelming and the title being lost. Secondly, the original form of the image was revived which was more defined. This was the most successful design so far.
As the last design was more successful and met our expectations to some extent with the addition of blood in half of the title on top of the clearer, original image, we decided to fill the entire title with blood again and put it on top of the same image. Although it was first feared to be too over whelming to combine both the full text design and the clear background, it turned out to be the most effective and striking design. It was felt that this was the best portrait format design completed.
We then went on to explore the idea of using the landscape format. It was intended that not much else would change: the same text, title and image would be used and only their design may be altered. Initially the image was mirrored to be on the left hand side and the text on the right so that the photo almost leads your eye to the text and introduces expectation in to the viewers mind. The image was edited with the gradient tool to make the top left appear lighter than the bottom right, as if the face is fading into the background.
The level of gradient was then decreased so that the image appeared lighter and brighter on the poster whilst subtly having the same effect. This looked more striking than the image in the previous design and complimented the text more. This was definitely an improvement as both the text and the image stood out from the background and grabbed the attention of the viewer faster.
As the brighter image was preferred over the darker one in the first two landscape poster designs, the gradient effect was removed all together so that the image held it's original state. This was definitely the right thing to do as the image has more shocking and scary connotations which is what we wanted to achieve in the poster design as our film fits into the horror genre. The blood on the face is emphasised in this brighter state which works well with the blood in the title of the text.
Simply out of curiosity, we tired reversing the previous mirroring effect on the image so that it was on the originally intended right hand side of the poster. I think this worked a lot better as in this format, the image supports the primarily important text on the left hand side as the image follows the text. In the other format the image introduced the text which didn't allow the information to be received first by the viewer. We also tried shadowing the text: red behind 'burgess' and grey behind 'field'. this was quite effective but not as sharp as the original text with no shadowing. Further development was needed at this stage to decide which version was best.
As tried in the portrait designed, the image was then double layered and the top image moved slightly to make the image appear more blurry so that it would blend more into the background and draw more attention to the text. It was felt that again, the clearer image was more effective in producing the intended contrast between image, background and text. The shadow behind the text remained at this point but was was thought of as looking unprofessional, therefore further text editing was needed.
The image was returned to it's previously successful, clearer state. At this pint we decided that this representation of the image was final. The text was still an issue to be debated. To see if adding more colour would be effective, the 'top line of the title 'burgess' was edited to have a red fill and the blood was running only through the bottom line 'field'. Although the red worked aesthetically and complimented the blood on the face of the girl, it was felt to be too stronger image and that too much focus was on that line within the title.
Continuing with editing the text whilst feeling that the previous design was too striking and wanting to keep the red element, I chose to remove all colour from the main title and fill the tag line in red which was added in the previous design to aid the poster in enticing the audience into watching the film. Whilst it was agreed that the tag line was a permanent feature and that the title looked significantly better in white than in the previous design, we thought that the use of the colour red in the text wasn't quite right.
As we couldn't get the poster to reach the expectation we had developed through editing the text, the lay out was changed to see if it was in fact that which needed changing. However, with the face on the left side of the text but not mirrored, the image does not blend into the text and create an aesthetically pleasing design. The line down the centre of the face is very apparent and more of a distraction of the purpose of the poster than an effective feature of the design.
As the trial of layout did not work in terms of fitting in to our vision, we returned to the previous layout. The image remain the same and was finalised. The positioning of the newspaper review, the tag-line, the title and the production attributes were also finalised. In this design we took the red element out of the text all together. The tag-line was filled in a dull yellow colour so that it didn't contrast to the title text too much but stood behind it enough for the focus of the viewer to be mainly on the title.
This design re-introduces the blood in the title text. Finally we felt that all of the elements with in the poster: the positioning of the text, the layout of the image and the poster its self, the effects used on the image and the colours used in the text; were all right. The amount of red is correct and the blood in the title was definitely the best option. We felt that the portrait version looked too unprofessional and that this landscape design is more commercial. This design is our final design.
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