Our first image for the film poster was of Matt walking out of the underpass, we then attempted to edit this by changing it to black and white. We then added 'After Dark' onto it and chose a font that we felt looked right for the style of film we were making, we wanted it to stand out so we put white font in front of a black background. We liked this but we didn't feel the picture was very clear or effective, it didn't necassarily tell the audience much about the film, and it also looked identical to the part in our film when our film title first appears. Although we wanted to make a strong link between our film poster and the film, we felt this was far too similar.
When thinking about what to use as the image of our film poster, we initially wanted not to use a still from the film itself as in professional films this is not common, however due to time constraints we decided this would be the best option for us. As a group we thought of the best shots from our film and decided to screenshot them when rewatching it. From this we found a couple of memorable shots to use that we thought would be effective as a film poster. We asked other class mates what they thought was the most effective, they chose the shot of Matt walking out of the underpass, as a group we personally preferred this image as there was more of a range of lighting as opposed to the shot of Matt walking in the alleyway. We were also conscious of the lack of technological skills that would be shown if we just took a plain still from the film and so this made us think about how we could edit it further to make it more appealing and more technical. We decided we would want the image black and white to look professional.
Our second idea was the less popular image of the bunch, however we still wanted to see what it would look like in black and white as this might have changed our original perception of the image. When we did edit the image into black and white we still didn't feel that the image was appropriate for our final film poster. An earlier point made about the first image was the fact that it didn't give much away and was rather ambiguous, this image we believed fell into this problem even more so we decided against it. Although we didn't use this image it was still a useful exercise and when we did edit the image to black and white we thought it looked like a thriller style poster or in relation to gang crime.
It became clear when we were adjusting the brightness on the editing software that we wanted our poster to be quite dark but then after looking at other posters for drama films, we knew it could be too dark or sinister-looking because it may cause an issue such as false advertising and the audience may watch the film thinking it was a horror or thriller film.
We decided to use the image of Matt busking in the underpass as our main film poster image as it conveyed the busking element of the story and allows the audience to see what the story is about. From this image, they know that the story is about a homeless busker. As a group we knew there were issues with some of the lighting on the poster because Matt looked rather dark, we managed to lighten the picture to resolve this issue. However, there was another issue this time with the graffiti being a bit distracting. We attempted to change the image with more effects. Unfortunately this was not successful.
Once we had our final image decided on and font choice, we decided to split up into two groups. Jordan and Joe carried on finishing the poster; adding text and annotations, whilst Faye and I started and finished the magazine review. We thought splitting up would be the best way to get both tasks done in time, and then just referred to the other group whenever we wanted to check something or update them on a specific aspect.
We all looked at the final poster as a group and added a few extra additions to make it look more professional; for example, the white stars as a rating (which we just googled, copied and pasted them) as well as fake reviews, the company logo, a fake distribution company and a fake website. We thought all of these additions would help make the poster look more professional and effective as these additions are often on the typical film posters that people see. Although the majority of my participation was on the film review and not the film poster, I did however come up with the tagline for the poster.
'Out on your own, who can you trust?' I thought this tagline contained an element of mystery to it not necassarily spoiling the film for the audience but still hints to the audience that something to do with trust and loneliness will occur in the film.