Progression of Poster

RESEARCH:

I first looked into surreal photography and thriller posters for inspiration. I aimed to create an artistic poster with an element of shock factor to allow our film to stand out. I decided to use the standard positioning which is used with many thriller posters as it would also allow direct mode of address. 

PRODUCTION OF POSTER IMAGE: 

To begin I chose an image with direct mode of address to allow the fourth wall to be broke via my poster and lure the audience in more. I then cropped this image to a poster size and used the smudge tool on Photoshop to remove the face of the image. However I felt this was now too bare and then decided to re-edit the image keeping certain features.

The idea behind this comes from how the viewers face is reflected by the plastic casing film posters are normally placed in and as Reflection is more likely to be shown in an art house cinema where smaller sized poster advertising is used, the viewers reflection should align with the image merging the two together making the film instantly more personal. I believe this style of poster will largely appeal to the alternative art house audience and suit our predominantly female target audience.

I also removed the background to allow the poster to become more minimal and striking then edited the contrast to create a more solid defined image which worked extremely well when I added a black and white filter. The black and white filter was used as the film is black and white and this is fluent to that as well as representing the surreal art house theme and drawing further attention to pupil-less bright white eyes.

Cropping the image to the freakish and creepy looking close up came about as an accident when I was experimenting with my image on Photoshop. At first I added a frame (to represent a mirror) which then covered only part of the image cropping it. This cropped image really appealed to me and therefore I decided to use the cropped image and get rid of the frame.

FINAL PRODUCT:

When creating my text layout I decided to flip the text so that the poster could only be read in a mirror, forcing the viewer to therefore look at their own reflection. However I soon realised that this was impractical and decided to then flip only the title and the slogan to keep this idea within my poster and also allow the rest of the poster to be seen.

I placed the slogan across the characters mouth to represent how the doll herself does not speak and continue the questions of who the emotions really are (who the voices are) creating more mystery towards the film.