Poster Analysis

As you are approaching filming your short films, it is worth considering what your poster will look like. This is because the best time to shoot pictures for your poster is when you already have your cast in costume and on location.

You MUST NOT create a poster from a screen shot of the production footage. You should carefully consider how your poster will communicate ideas about your film's themes, genre, narrative, characters and style.

Take this poster (click it for higher quality version):

Essentially you should analyse the poster's media langauge to offer an interpretation of how it communicates. The media language consists of: 

Image (shot size, composition, mise en scene, colour correction and effects)

Title (typeface, font size and effects)

Tagline (typeface and font size - also enigmatic relationship to title)

Billing block (institutional info and logos)

Other textual information may include:

Release date

Actor's/Director's/Producer's names

Awards and nominations

Affiliations (eg Quentin Tarantino Presents...)

Quotes/Blurbs (eg "AMAZING!!!" - The Daily Mail)

So in this poster the main image is a big close up of a ceramic human face with a blank (almost dead) expression. It is lying on a tarmac ground, broken, with shards of ceramic scattered about. The realistic human hair gives the image an unsettling atmosphere, and the breakage hints at themes of the fragility of human existance. 

The title 'Still Life' appears in a clean, modern, sans serif font and is relatively small compared to the main image. It appears in white and red, both of which have long-standing cultural significance including connotations such as purity and passion... but in this case, along with the broken human face they call to mind the red and white of blood and bandages signified by symbols such as the red cross or the barber's candy-striped pole.

The tagline, "Not everything appears as it seems" has at least two layers of enigmatic resonance. Firstly as it hints at a deeper meaning behind the broken human face - perhaps this replica is more than it seems - but on on closer examination the word 'appears' might have more than one sense to it. Really, the line ought to read "Not everything IS as it seems". The use of the word "appears" adds an additional ambiguity. Secondly the use of 'Not everything' instead of 'Nothing' suggests some things do 'appear as they seem'.

The billing block is overlaid on a red-tinted background which continues to blood theme.

This analysis could go further to decipher how the combination of all the above communicates ideas of genre and narrative. How the style reflects the style of cinematography of the film. How it appeals to its target audience. Etc.

You should analyse at least two posters before starting to design your own. When you design your own, sketch out two or three potential designs so you know how to pose your actors and how to compose your shots. You should take at least 20 different shots to give you options when it comes to sitting down in front of Photoshop and designing your poster.

Stuck? Nothing to do?... Nonsense, read...

Research type stuff

·         Key concept analysis (prompts on the blog hub)
·         Industry and Audience investigation (prompts on the blog hub)
·         Case study of a short filmmaker (do some research into someone who has made a short film or two)
·         Textual analysis of a short film (camera, editing, sound, mise en scene)
·         Target audience research
·         Target audience profile
·         Major influences  (collection of feature film extracts/short films/art/TV/visual media with discussion of how they might influence your production work).
·         Short film post analysis x2 (use key concepts)
·         Short film magazine article/review analysis x2

Planning/progress type stuff

·         Pitch (made up of treatment, genre/narrative research, target audience research, major influences and any sketches or drafts of key shots and film style).
·         Treatment (the whole idea written down)
·         Step outline (write down the narrative in shot by shot sections – prep for storyboard)
·         Location recce (photos of each location with notes on how they will be used)
·         Storyboard (digital photography – 20-30 panels)
·         Test shots – edited and colour-corrected to experiment with various looks/styles
·         Costume designs (can be photos/downloads)
·         Production schedule
·         Sound design – investigations into soundtracks and sound effects
·         Production notes and up-dates (if relevant – DON’T pad out your number blog posts by writing things like “we wanted to film today but couldn’t coz it was raining, lol”)
·         Paper edit – evidence of correctly logging and naming each clip.  (There will be NO list of clips which looks like this “Untitled clip 001, Untitled clip 002 etc”)
·         Editor’s journal – like the production up-dates, the editor should take occasion screen-shots of their progress and update the blog (for both in the group)
·         Article script
·         Poster photo-shoot
·         Poster drafts (sketches of what your poster will look like)
·         Article layout drafts (ditto)
·         Poster/Article production & post-production updates – EG screen-shots of your Photoshop and InDesign work.
·         LAST POST BEFORE EVALUATION SHOULD BE SHORT FILM FINAL CUT, FINISHED POSTER & FINISHED ARTICLE.