Flat Plans- Poster

As a group, we decided to all go off and draw our own individual posters, following on from marketing campaigns of there being more than one poster.
Although we won't make all of the posters drawn, it was a good way to explore the different ideas and creations that we have, to create the best product possible. This meant we could also pitch our different posters to our audience and get feedback.

Emily's poster:

For my poster, I thought that a group shot of the main characters would be a good idea, to introduce each and every one of them, this is because it would potentially be a main poster used to advertise the whole film, as opposed to the characterised ones that go a little more in-depth to the narrative. I took inspiration of this type from films like Mean Girls, Drillbit Taylor and Diary of a Whimpy Kid 2.

Looking into the success of these films, it shows that it is a good idea to position all of the main characters on screen, because it draws a lot of attention onto the poster and there appears to be a lot to work with, in terms of positioning and stylings and such.

On the Mean Girls poster, the positioning has the main character on the left, looking over to the secondary characters, in a way of showing dominance, however in the way of looking over is hinting she will be taking advice and assistance off these other characters- to which adds further detail to the narrative.

The positioning of the models in the way of quite strong and bold poses would attract the audience due to the way in which they are empowered and strong. This shows the way in which there could be strong images of the main protagonist in the left, with the other empowerment of others in the corner. This has given me inspiration for my idea having the main characters at one place and the secondary characters a little distant.

On the Drillbit Taylor poster the positioning shows the empowerment of the main character, however the geeks are on either sides, to which suggests they are all on par with each other, with none of them having main "dominance" as such, but have separate story lines that interlink with each other.

The posing of the characters is strong for the narrative, in the way they have managed to clump them together and have them doing different things, instead of it being all in one position of space out, they fit nicely on the page. This is possibly one of the main inspirations for my poster because I have decided to do the closer approach.

On the Diary of a Wimpy Kid poster the long shot shows the pair on par with each other in terms of dominance and power, however it is noticeable by the positioning of not looking at each other that they are not at peace with one another and generally don't get along. The closeness shows however that they will have an overlapping storyline and they will both be featured at similar times.

The posing is the "casually coifed" style, however it is still in a strop. This is probably stereotypical for our idea and for many other teenage films, where teenagers are portrayed as quite grouchy and non-sociable. The standing next to each other is probably one of the main ways in which I have got inspiration for my idea. 

In terms of the costume I took inspiration from stereotypical geeks and the stereotypical popular type, this was after looking into the costume research and characterisations for stereotypes, illustrated in previous posts. This is through looking into characters such as Will (from the Inbetweeners), Richard (The IT Crowd) and Carter (Cinderella Story).

As our narrative is going to be following college students, we will probably have them in these style of school uniform stylings of costume, as above. Looking at this it shows that there should be shirts, ties, blazers, glasses and briefcases. This has been replicated in my idea of costume for the geeky characters of the shirts and ties and things.

Interlinking the ideas of the geeky look and being college level, it won't be a school uniform costume as they are older and be in their own clothes, to which therefore may follow these stylings in terms of having colour, to which I have taken as inspiration for my idea. This is due to the stereotypes that blacks, whites and greys are associated with school uniform (at comprehensive level) and at college there is a greater deal of "non-uniform" to which they then wear colours in a generalisation- illustrated in the college geek below.











On this geek's outfit, there is colour- however it is still bland to which has given me inspiration for my idea of still having lighter colours as opposed to the bright ambitious colours of other character types. I took inspiration on this characterisation mainly for the hairstyle of the character, being quite a greasy comb-over styles of hair- to which is associated with geeks generally.

For the character of the second year, I followed the costume types and characterisations of the boy next door type. From research these types are generally quite casual and down to earth in appearance, however they generally do have a superiority and attractive look to them to which they could be a jock stereotype- but by choice are not. For this characterisation I took inspiration from characters like Flynn (Beaver Falls),  Robbie (Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging) and Simon (The Inbetweeners).

Looking into the costume of this character, I have mimicked the laid back look of the jeans and shirt, because it is something to which would be normal for this character. The colours are mimicking that way in terms of being fairly simple colours and not too "in your face", but still there so as to not be doom and gloom or fitting into any other stereotypes. The hairstyle is mimicked for my design because it has the styled look but still being fairly casual. 

This characterisation of this character also follows the model idea in terms of the attractive level of the clear skin and bright eyes with the fresh looking. The costume is also laid back of what we can see of just a tee shirt and it will presumably be jeans alongside it. This is stereotypical and therefore what I have attempted to put towards for my idea.

Looking at the down to earth look of the characterisation, this character follows in the way in which the character is in clothing that is just natural and not really over done in the way in which it is too much, they look like the "everyday" person that people associate themselves with.

Looking at the pose of this character, I focused on the "Run Fat Boy Run" secondary character.

Despite the gender, obviously, I looked into this secondary character pose, to which I thought myself was a good idea and therefore be used for the poster in the way in which it is a calm and collective pose (reflecting the characterisation) and also the back seat to the production to further enhance the secondary character aspect.


In terms of the font for this poster, I thought that the capital and big bold text would be a good idea to make it be clear and concise for the reader to be able to see. I also thought that in terms of this text being as clear, it would stick in the mind of the reader and they would therefore remember it. For research I looked into Kickass, The Inbetweeners and History Boys.

These films all seemed to be successful and therefore something as a group we should look into, in order to reflect off our idea and therefore make ours look professional. Also, each of these posters have got the bold text, just in different ways and therefore I will reflect off this.

The Kick Ass logo is bold, in capitals and stands out clearly on the page. This font is memorable and therefore easy to read and something that could probably be replicated quite easily. Also on this one there is a lot of different ways in which it could have been placed, this time they chose to put it behind one of the characters. I took inspiration from this one for my capitalised fonts.

For the bold aspect of this poster I have taken inspiration, in terms of how it is a bubble form of writing and therefore quite clear. The bold aspect is something that would be memorable and can also be used in different ways. One of the things I thought was interesting and quirky was the idea of the slant on the word "movie" to which I mimicked for my idea. This would make the most of the space and hopefully would also make it look interesting too.

This font is closely linked to the one of Kick Ass in terms of the capitals and the way in which it is large on the page. I looked into the positioning of each of the words on this text as the pyramid style. This is interesting and gets everything across because it's not only one straight block of text, it is nicely spread.

Looking into all of these I went onto www.dafont.com and looked into different fonts that I could use for the poster, that reflects off the drawn idea.

These three fonts follow the styles of which I was looking into for my poster. Each have the bold, block capital effects and can pursue what I was looking for in the font. Obviously colour can't be judged as yet because on the website they were all in only black, however there can be editing to the colour later at photoshop.


-Emily O'Hara

Jakes Poster

This is a rough drawing of my proposed film poster idea. We will all be making our own posters, which are all different. We did some research into film posters for films that are of a similar genre, which then helped us come up with our posters. Mine in particular was influenced by such posters like,

"You don't mess with the Zohan"

I took the layout of this poster and transferred it into my poster idea. This is because i liked the layout, it is simple and easy to read, however automatically shows the reader/audience that it is a com,eddy, with it's heightened character in a ridiculous position, as well as the use or extreme props, from a feminine hair dryer to a manly gun!

This influenced my idea greatly, therefore not only did i take the layout from this poster, but i also tried to add some of the heightened-style character on the front of it.
The layout is very easy and simple to read, showing the audience the main character, the moved title, a brief piece of info on the narrative, e.g.: 'Lather, Rinse, Save the world'
It gives very straight to the point information to the audience, without over crowding their heads with different cast names displayed all over the place. This makes it a lot easier and more intriguing in my opinion, therefore, i wanted my poster to have the same affect as this one.

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When doing my poster, i had to consider many things, such as character type, font etc.
The above images display what inspired my character drawing/cast on my poster. The above images display what the obvious, stereotypical geek/nerd is like and this is the type of character we want in our movie. Our movie features a lot of heightened reality and stereotypical characters, so i thought it was appropriate to use these images as inspiration to then create my character drawing of an over the top stereotypical 'Geek'
The glasses, bow tie and braces in particular were inspired by these above images, these are props that are very often associated with geeks, therefore i put them on my poster.

I thought the second image in particular had a very good 'Geek' style consume which is where i got my costume idea from as again, those types of clothing with the trousers up extremely high are often most associated with stereotypical geeks which again, is what i wanted to achieve in my poster of the character.

The image above inspired the hair style for my geek character. The side/centre parting is also very often associated with geeks. I did not have to research this to know that, i had even told by many people that the best way to achieve the geek look is to simply put a a parting in the hair and make it look greasy, this is one of the best and most affective ways to make someone look like a geek, which is also a very easy way, therefore not only did it suit the character and drawing, but would also be very easy to create when it comes to 'dressing' our actors up, meaning type casting is not so much of an issue.

-Jake Williams

Thomas' Poster

For my poster, I decided that it would be shot in the studio as I found earlier that many teenage comedy films have the majority of their posters taken in a studio. I chose to include all three main characters as I felt it would be better suited. With these characters being centre focused, this would draw significance to the characters and encourage the audience to take clear notice. Also, the colours that will be used on the poster include white for the background, red for the film title and release date, and black for every other piece of writing including quotes and credits. The characters expressions will be upbeat and happy, this will connote the film's genre very well. I also decided to include a date on my poster to create excitement among the audience which will help encourage them to take notice and watch our film. I displayed the date at the bottom of the poster as it has some significance in attracting audience attention however, I believe there are much more effective factors such as reviews which have more influence on the audience. 

When creating my poster, I developed ideas from other professional products, mainly from the inbetweeners film poster.

(THE INBETWEENERS)

I felt that for our film poster, the inbetweeners film poster would be a great example as this film includes a similar target audience to ours. Also, the films storyline is similar to our groups which therefore makes this poster ideal as inspiration to ours. 

I also looked at other film posters, such as Easy A, The History Boys and Over Her Dead Body as these are also teenage comedy films. 

(EASY A)

From looking at this film poster, it looks very professional and the genre of the film is clearly identified within the film poster. There are many sell lines included on the film poster, which also helps signify the films genre to the audience. I liked the idea of having a blackboard as a background as I felt it works really well with the narrative of the film. However, I decided not to include this in my film poster as I felt it represented more of a younger target audience, I did include the technique of their sell lines but instead included the actors names. Also, this film poster only features one character and I decided to include all three main characters on my film poster. The red font featured on this poster I believe works really well as it clearly stands out and draws the attention of the audience. Therefore, I have decided to incorporate the red font into my product but not the blackboard background.

(THE HISTORY BOYS)

From looking at ths film poster, it shows clear connotations of the type of film and its setting. This is done through mise-en scene, as each character are dressed formally in school uniforms. It also shows the success it has at the 'Tony Awards', this would encourage and attract the audience as success usually gives the film a good response from the audience. This film poster uses clear green writing, this works well with emphasising the film's title and their sell lines to the potential audience, however I believe that red works better due to its connotations of danger which can be associated with the comedy genre. The models featured in this film poster clearly shows that there is a divide among the film characters. This is done by having two characters more up close to the camera than the rest of the cast. I believe that this works well for a comedy film poster, as it shows what the humour is going to be focused on the most. However, our groups film only includes three main protagonists and using other characters I think may not work well as it represents each character to have similar significance to each other and in our film trailer, this is not the case.

(OVER HER DEAD BODY)

I liked the idea of having one of the 'geeks' laying down on their side, therefore I looked at comedy film posters which incorporated this idea into theirs. I did this to get an idea of how to produce this into my own poster and I felt that the film poster for 'Over Her Dead Body' used this technique very effectively. This film poster again shows clear connotations of what the storyline of this film is about. The writing featured on this poster is easily noticeable but blends with the background, therefore making the film poster look professional. The credits featured on this poster are displayed in the middle of the poster, however I prefer the credits being at the bottom of the poster as they aren't really that significant to the film poster and to the audience. There is only one sell line featured on this poster, I believe that having a sell line maximises audience appeal. For my poster, I chose to include a review instead of a sell line as other professional film posters do not contain sell lines at all, an example of this is the film poster from Superbad. I felt that a review was much more appropriate in attracting audience attention as both reivews and sell lines work in similar ways.

- Thomas Pyle