Report
I worked
alone to create a script, poster and DVD cover for a thriller that was supposed
to be aimed at a teen audience, which would be from the age of 15-20 as my
movie is rated 15. I put a lot of thought into the age rating of my movie and
conducted research to make sure I choose the appropriate rating. My movie is
called “Love –M”, it’s a thriller with sub-genres of romance and friendship
throughout. The romance included is likely to attract more females to watch it,
which is specifically why I tried to make the poster and DVD cover appeal to
both genders.
For my pre-production
I carried out research and looked at many thriller posters and DVD covers to
discover what the key codes and conventions are for the thriller genre, to help
me with my production. It was immediately clear that the colour code for
thrillers is black, white, red and hints of blue. For example, the “Shutter
Island” poster has the conventions of a thriller as it includes a picture of
the protagonist in low lighting, which creates a more mysterious atmosphere.
The title of the movie is in red, and so is the month it is coming out, these
are the only two things in red; this is purposely done as they are important
pieces of information that need to be remembered by the audience. The image of
the island, ties in with the movie title to give the audience a little bit more
information about the storyline. On my poster, the title and “coming soon” are
also the only images in red, as I thought this will catch the audience’s
attention. I also used the idea of the protagonist being in low lighting, as I think
this intrigues
the audience by making it more mysterious which should make them
want to find out more. The poster of “Gone Girl” has a central image of the
protagonist standing backwards, with his head turned toward the side so that
you can’t see his full face. I liked the idea of this as it doesn’t reveal much
to keep the audience curious; therefore I took a picture of the protagonist in
my movie in the same position and put it as the central image of my poster.
The image below is of my first
attempt in creating the poster:
I wanted the central image to be a
silhouette because the audience isn’t supposed to know who the image is of, but
once I created it and saw what it looked like I immediately realised that it
needs to be a real photograph of someone as that would look much better. This
is my final poster:
The images on my poster and DVD cover were created to appeal
to a teen audience of both genders, this was difficult as males and females
often like different genres and have contrasting ideas and preferences. This is
why I didn’t want my production to reveal too much about the movie, I want the
audience to have the freedom to be curious as this should attract them to watch
the movie. My central image is in very low lighting to create a sense of
mystery and secrecy. The background is filled with notes to give the audience a
further insight into the storyline, yet not revealing much at the same time. I
think this will appeal to a teen audience as teens often do pass notes around
to each other, but also some of the messages could be similar to ones that some
teenagers might receive online as part of cyber-bullying or blackmail. This
might make them feel relatable to the movie.
In comparison to other thriller movie posters and DVD covers, “Love –M” follows the typical colour scheme of black, white and red; with the red being specifically used to make all the important information stand out. However, the central image of most thriller posters and DVD covers is a picture of the protagonist; this is seen on the “Black Swan”, “The Guest” and “American Psycho” posters as well as many more.
In spite of this I decided to make my central
image very dark with only a side view of the characters face, as this created a
much more inexplicable style. Furthermore, the fonts used for the title of
movies are usually bold to make it eye catching, as seen in the poster of “Hard
Candy”. But I decided not to follow this feature as I thought it would be more
suitable if my title looked informal and was in a handwriting style, since the
title is what is written at the end of every note in the movie. However the
title is a darker shade of red, which makes it stand out anyway.
The notes on the poster and DVD cover were created by me to make
them appear more realistic. My DVD cover follows the same conventions as other
DVD covers of thrillers; it has a dark colour scheme with just a few images at
the back. When writing my blurb for the back cover of the DVD, I was trying to
make it interesting to make it appeal to a wide audience. The image below is of
my final DVD cover:
Overall my final production of my poster and DVD cover to
“Love –M” had similar key codes and conventions to other thriller posters
because it needs to be clear to the audience what the genre of the movie is. I
think I’ve included all of the features that are needed on posters and DVD
covers to make it look professional. Although, I think if I actually wrote out
the notes in the background and took pictures of them, the poster and DVD cover
would have looked better as they’d appear more realistic. Additionally, I
could’ve taken more interesting images for the back of my DVD cover to attract
people to watch it.
