To begin creating my Poster I looked at existing posters. I firstly looked at 'Fish Tank' as it is with in the social realism genre and I wanted to create a poster which showed that it was in the genre. From looking at it I saw that the picture was of the protagonist and whilst showing a lot about the setting and the representation of the people in the film. However, it did not give much about the story away. I could also see that the structure used a lot of reviews and awards to publicise the film, which is something not so evident on other film genre posters. It also has a credit strip, which is usually on a DVD cover but not on the posters. This was another thing I feel I would need to include to ensure that my poster fitted in with the genre. But, as my films opening is a lot about the mystery of my protagonists whereabouts and situation, I did not want to give away this information on the poster. I looked at a poster for 'The Tree of Life', a drama film, the promotional campaign for the film was extremely ambiguous, I liked how it intrigued the audience in to going to see the film because of the mystery, this was something I wanted to copy in the main image I used.
I took this picture to show my protagonist hoovering similarly to the way she does in the first shots of the film. I felt that this picture would work well as you can see the film is about a child due to the size of the hand, but you can also see that it involves cleaning and as such suggests the difficult living situation for the child. However, by creating the ambiguity of the picture it conveys an air of mystery meaning that the audience can create their own conclusions about the film and then create their own conclusions when they see the film as well.
However, whilst I liked the photo most posters are landscape and as such I decided to crop the photo to make it landscape instead of portrait. By doing this though it helped to make the picture more effective as it removed the large space above and below whilst keeping the hoover and the protagonists hand in the picture. But I still kept the space and empty wall to create deeper meaning of the protagonists loneliness.
I then added the film title on to the poster. I made it a simple font but then connected the letters together by moving them in to one another, making them intertwine and lock. But I didn't want to bring the title to the front of the image instead I wanted to ensure that the image was the main image as such I made the title part of the shadow on the back wall. I also felt this created more meaning in the way it echoes the feelings of the protagonist as it shows how she is in the shadows.
I then looked again at the conventions of the social realism posters and found that they included the line 'A Film By ...' above the main title, as such I did this as well and made it again link in to the shadow already existent on the wall. I felt this again added to the style of the poster.
I also saw that the existing posters included the names of the actors in the film and so added these to my poster. I again did this similarly to the other titles to make them an extension of the shadow.
I also saw that a convention of the social realism posters were to include the credit strip on the poster. As such I wanted to do this on the poster and so added it on to the side of the poster, and made it a small part of the poster to ensure that it showed the genre of the film. However, I changed the colour of the writing to make it different to the other titles.
I then added the release date of the film on to the poster as this is a convention of most film posters. Again as I have done with the other titles I placed this as an extension of the shadow, and made the size slightly larger to help make it stand out.
I then wanted to add a tag line for my film. I decided to add this to the top of my poster to make it prominent. To add to this effect, I made it a darker colour and whilst keeping the same effect of extending the shadow, I extended a darker part of the shadow. I also left the font in its original form instead of linking the letters so that it was larger and more clear.
I then wanted to add to another of the conventions in the social realism poster genre, I wanted to include reviews on to the poster. I looked at the social realism posters that were also existent and saw that one of the main ways the films were reviewed was through star ratings as such I decided to do this on mine.
Having put the stars on to the poster I then had to chose the papers and magazines that would have given the reviews. I chose to use the Magazine 'Elle' due to the fact that it would show it is a film accessible to women and families. I then used 'The Guardian' and 'The Times' to show the esteem of the film and how it has been reviewed by educated papers.
I then added another review, but instead a written quote to again add to the prestige of the film. I feel that the poster looks good and fits in the genre as it shows the genre but does not give to much of the story away. I also like the colour scheme being natural making it sophisticated, but also drained of colour adding to the atmosphere of the film.
However, after looking at the poster I decided it would give my film even more prestige if I could get a real quote from someone with in the industry and so got Barrington Robinson a producer for redbag Pictures to watch my film and give a response I then included this on my poster and removed the other fake quotes. I feel this gives my poster more credibility and a less cluttered look which as a result I feel makes my point more concisely.
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