On The Screen ii
For this project i will be looking at movies posters and creating my own based on the title 'Breathing Space'.
3 movie poster task:
For our first task we were asked to annotate three movie posters. I wanted to pick ones that were quite different form each other to give myself a variety to think about. I chose the movies Dirty Dancing, Lady Bird and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
I really like the composition of all three of the posters above. I like the idea of focusing on the main character(s). The lighting in these images aren't too extreme either, being fairly minimalistic to focus on what is trying to be shown through the poster/teaser. You also get a taste for the character's personalities this way, helping you relate slightly even before watching the movie.
I done some more annotations on other movie posters to get more of an idea what people do for posters.
The Art Of The Film Poster
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-art-of-the-film-poster
https://www.openculture.com/2020/12/the-art-of-movie-posters.html
Film posters have been used for years to grab the audiences eye with the main intention: "watch this film." Before modern day film making came to be as it is now, film posters were simply discarded after use. However, now people collect them, request actors to sign them to increase value. This gives more meaning to the art of a film poster as if people love it, they'll want to keep it forever. I have personally collected limited edition posters that specific cinemas were doing for new released movies and have them to this day hoping to one day have them signed by the actors involved in the movie.
From simply looking at a variety of movie posters and from personal experience, i gathered that movie posters can be whatever you want them to be. They don't have to include loads and loads of detail, sometimes very minimalistic such as 'West Side Story' and 'American Beauty' as shown above. This method of movie poster art intrigues the audience and wants them to delve in deeper, maybe search for the trailer to get better insight into what the movie is like.
Colin Marshal, writer of the article 'The Art of Movie Posters' (linked above) stated "movie posters are subject to trend and fashion". Such as 80s/90s movies have a more minimalistic feel to them while 21st century movies are a lot more detail heavy (Ex. below)
The Role of a Retoucher/Composite Artist
https://picsera.com/what-is-photo-retouching/
https://www.fatchett.com/blog/2014/05/do-you-know-the-difference-between-editing-and-retouching/
"Photo Retouching is the process of altering an image to prepare it for its final presentation"
It's important to note retouching and editing are two different things that are quite commonly and easily confused, both terms being heavily used in the photographic industry.
Editing means fixing the exposure/brightness if the image, adding contrast etc.
While retouching could involve removing a person/item, adjusting the skin tone, or in some cases completely changing the background of an image.
The role of a retoucher would be to assist the photographer in somewhat 'perfecting the images'. They would do things like remove blemishes or spots, fly-away hairs; or smooth the skin of a model, adjust the colours of hair/clothing etc. Technical things possibly not accessible to someone maybe without photoshop.
More often than not, the process of retouching is down to the client. Take weddings as an example, some couples may want to preserve the candid and natural aspects of the images and in that case may only require some editing.
However, some client's might not be opposed to some basic retouching if it meant the images were of high quality. As aforementioned, it's down to the client's preference/needs.
'BREATHING SPACE'
This is the title we got given to inspire our movie. my initial thoughts were as seen below:
I would like to develop these ideas further into storyboards to get a real feel for them before deciding on a final plot/idea.
Movie Inspirations
First rough idea:
I asked people what genre of movie they thought 'Breathing Space' would be and the majority said thriller/horror. So i decided to take an indie approach to that genre in something i am interested in.
My movie will be set before our modern day. I feel the aesthetic of everything form the 80s/90s is more fitting for an indie movie but not limited too. After doing further research into killers i also noticed a lot of the famous ones were around this time as well.
For my idea of the serial killer i wanted to do something similar to the movie 'My Friend Dahmer'. I like the concept/idea of following the individual become the famous killer they are and to see what led them to be that way. The tagline for this movie is 'This is the story, before that story'
This whole idea drew me in right away, i knew i wanted to incorporate it into my own plot somehow. I also took a lot of inspiration from Jeffrey Dahmer himself when creating the killer of 'Breathing Space'
I also looked a lot at 'The Visit' for inspiration for the thriller side of it. IN the movie, the killers aren't known to be killers in the beginning but are suspected immediately due to the lead-ups from the posters. This is the sort of suspense i would imagine would be in my movie.
Pen Tool Practice
In class we worked on using the pen tool to cut out difficult shapes. I worked on some on a worksheet and filled them with a different colour after to show i completed it.
Poster Creation Task:
As a practice for our teaser posters, we experimented with creating our own posters for a film that is already out.
I chose the movie 'Soul' because i really like the blue tones and love the movie myself so knew i could make something from it. I had a vision in my head while thinking about this task, knowing i wanted to include clips from the movie itself to get a taste of what it includes and the main protagonist (who the movie is all about).
I decided on a gradient background to keep the blue hue theme throughout the poster.
Initial Pre-Vis
I know roughly what i WANT to do, but with covid being a limitation still it is difficult to find models that work well.
Tests
I took some photos to get an idea of what kind of style and lighting i wanted for my teaser poster. This worked well, but i feel with the right facilities i could do a lot better for this stage of the project. I hope to book a studio space to get some more images for each poster so they're the top quality i need.
After my formative assessment i received feedback on how i could improve my teaser poster, here are the results:
I decided on removing the hand with the tie as it ended up getting in the way. Based on what i've seen also teaser posters are supposed to be minimalist.
I'd like to have a darker background but i'm not sure how to achieve that as the invert tool doesn't work without me having to cut out the hand to properly fit the silhouette.
I added a dark gradient to the background to darken it slightly but still keep the poster the way it was before. I like the gradient as it adds mystery to the poster.
CHARACTER POSTER PRACTICE
In class we experimented with taking a picture of a separate background and another image and merge them together like we would with a character poster. I decided to use an image i already had as well as an image i took of a blue wall in my house.
I added a gradient to give it more effect and changed the text blending mode to overlay to fit the background better.
FIRST CHARACTER POSTER DRAFT
I decided to make the character poster of the killer instead as i didn't have access to a female model at this point in time to photograph.
I used a pre-made forest image to get the feel of what i wanted to achieve in this poster due to the wooded area being where this character lives. However, i will be capturing my own image of a wooded area.
IMPROVED CHARCATER POSTER
Here is my updated version of my character poster. I have taken the wooded area image myself and feel it may work/look better than the test/draft image. I also changed the left double expo image to an image where the model is facing the camera to create a good contrast of the somewhat double-life he leads.
I added noise to the background image to make it seem more killer like.
Key Art poster practice
I tried two versions of the layer masking technique we learnt today so i could properly get the hang of it and remember it by doing the two a few hours apart.
I really enjoy multiple exposure images and will definitely be looking into doing this for my final key art poster as a follow up from the character poster's double expo.
I'd like to do something like this for my key art poster. Now that i know how i will attempt it and see how it goes.
KEY ART DRAFT
Here is the first draft of my key art poster. i'm not 100% on it at the moment as the models i would want i don't have access to. The table sketch at the bottom will be a taxidermy table from a friend that does it as a hobby, since the character shown also does that i felt it could work well.
Here is the final key art poster with the taxidermy i mentioned before. I decided against having it at the bottom and on a table as it looked better at the top.
I also increased the size of the subject's face so it's clear he's the main focus of the movie and everything else is contributing to the movie.
FINAL POSTERS
ANALYSIS
What went well?
- composing the posters
- adapting around the lack of models
- getting images that work
What didn't go well?
- lighting packed up
- finding the perfect text colour
- trying to add differences in all of the posters
What would i do better next time?
- secure models sooner
- have a backup lighting source
- consider things that could go wrong before shooting
