Poster Image Creation

Photo-shoot

• I used the lighting studio in order to take the image as I wanted to ensure that I there was only a dark and plain background for the image. The dark backgrounds are common conventions of horror posters as it reduces the light in the images. I also used the plain background in order to remove distraction from the main focus of the image which is the killer and the camera lens. 
• The lights that are supplied were used from different angles to cast shadows across the villain and create darker areas to obscure the audiences view of the killer. When taking the image I took multiple different ways of holding the light including above, bellow and from a side angle of the killer. The lighting was used to help create an enigma into who the villain is and what they look like.
• The image of the antagonist is further distorted through the use of aperture, allowing me to focus on the lens that is closest to the camera and blurring the person in the background. Once again I took different images with his camera facing different ways, however in our final image I used the image of the lens facing directly at the camera as it will allow me to edit the image further in photoshop.

Editing

• Once I had chosen the image I wanted for the final piece I dragged the image into photoshop to edit and manipulate further. Firstly I edited the levels increasing the shadows and deepening the highlights to make the image appear darker and more dramatic. Not only this, I also removed the product name from the camera to remove any distraction as it was bright white text in the centre of the image.

• I then cropped a small amount of the image from the top. This allows me to re-frame the image and select the section in which I want to keep and develop further. I selected the burn tool and 'burnt' around the camera, this effect darkens the areas making it more difficult to see the antagonist in the back of the image. I also used the blurring tool to further distort the image and make the culprit incredibly difficult to see in comparison to the un-edited image.

• Once I had finished this I duplicated the layer in order to have two of the same image layering over one another. On the top layer I selected the lasso select tool and outlined around the inside of the lens. I then used the rubber to remove this section.

• I then completed the same process again with the duplicated layer, however this time I inverted the selected area and removed majority of the image leaving only the lens.

• Next I dragged in the image of the victim in to the poster and placed it below the layer with the hole in the lens. I then places the layer with the lens above this image and reduced it opacity. In doing so it created the effect that she appeared in a reflection in the lens. Creating the final image:

Website Buttons

We created our own buttons to place on to the website down the right side of the site. These will resemble the recommended buttons that usually send different links to other videos that they viewer might also like to see.

• Firstly I took close up images of the recommended for you text bellow the name of the image, however this is the only section that I will be able to retrieve off of YouTube. After selecting these areas I placed them into a new image on Photoshop and used the text tool to create the titles of the videos. We will have links to home, gallery, film and plot, behind the scenes and meet the crew. We selected these names as they were commonly seen on websites that fall under the horror genre.

• Finally I had to add the images to create the ‘thumb nail’ of the video and link. I selected images that would refer to the section that they want to go to, for example for the home page I included an image of an abandoned house. When making the buttons I had to make them individually in order to place them onto the Wix website creation service that we are using for our project.

These were the final results for the buttons:

Practical Poster layout

When creating the poster layout we had to be very specific as to where we placed the information. In order to obtain the idyllic poster we completed a lot of research that we used to style and design our poster. We wanted to conform and subvert to certain conventions depending if they followed our genre.

• Firstly we took into consideration the image for the poster, we took a series of images for our final photo shoot. We experimented with multiple angles to change the lighting, I took images from lower angles and straight on. I took the lower angled images to convey the idea of inferiority as the antagonist would be seen in a higher position. I also looked into the different effects that I could create through framing. The lens will be the main focus point of the image once I have completed the poster in photoshop, this was something I had to take in to consideration as I did not want the lens to be perfectly centred within the image. I used the rule of thirds principle, the eye naturally rests on the top left of an image and slowly follows lines in a 'z' shaped form. Therefore I slightly places the lens of the camera to the right of the image, forcing the audience to look at other details other than the centre.

• Once I had taken the image the location for the title was my next main priority as it is the main aspect in promotion, the common conventions demonstrated that the title is usually located at the top or in the lower half of the image. When looking at our own image we came to the conclusion that the title will most likely have to be bellow the camera lens, this helps to draw the audiences attention down towards the lower half of the poster. Not only this we included a tag line, this was placed on the far right of the image bellow the title, the text is considerably smaller to the title. However this is to help intrigue the audience and to give a small amount of information to the viewer. The tag line "smile for the camera" is also a small form of comedy for the antagonist and shows the he is recording his victims.

• For the billings block we placed it at the bottom centre of the image as this is one of the main conventions of posters that is seen across all genres and is not specific to the slasher horror. We made the text white so that it would be visible to the audience on the dark background, although we didn't want the block of text to be predominant on the poster, Therefore while I was placing the text at the bottom I reduced the size of the text to be as small as possible, not to mention that I changed the opacity slightly to make the text appear less obvious. Though it was a small alteration we noticed this technique to be used in other horror posters to keep the focus on the main subject. Originally we placed the production company details bellow the text. Due to this the text was pushed higher up on the image and therefore covering the poster, after considering different ways in which we could alter this we moved the billings block down and reduced the size of the production companies. In doing this it allowed us to place the images either side of the text.

This is the final product:

Website creation background (IMAGES PLEASE)

In creating the website I used the YouTube layout as my inspiration. In our trailer we have strong links back to sites such as YouTube that allow people to share videos worldwide, the website is linked through the use of the logo in the teaser trailer. I wanted aspects to be shown throughout the entire project as a form of continuity between the trailer and the website.

• Firstly I researched the YouTube layout and documented different features of the site, such as the suggested links and the comments. I wanted to manipulate these sections to be used as a website that is easy to use for a wide audience. Once an initial plan was drawn I used the software of Photoshop to help me create a new website. I took a screen shot of the website to help me scale out the background.

• Secondly I used the select tool to select the areas that I wanted to make plain in order to remove the unnecessarily information.  These areas will be used for own information such as buttons, reviews and the production company. I then ensured to make the search bar larger through using the select tool and using the free transform option given on the system. This allows me to manipulate the image in to different sizes to fit my preference. When editing this section I had to hold down the shift key to make sure that the image didn’t become overly distorted and stretched.

• I had to further edit the background by extending certain areas and reducing the size of the video size. I used the stamping tool to select a certain area and copy it across several sections to ensure that the colour were the same with no darker or lighter sections.

• Next I had to create the reviews for the comment section of the website, in order to do this I wanted to ensure that the style of the text will conform to the usual and popular text seen on the original website. To do this I wanted to take screen shots of the comments that I will create on Youtube so that it followed the perfect style. I did this because it was difficult to recreate the correct typography for the comments in Photoshop as they didn't have a similar text style. I used the google accounts to change the names to have the reviewers name appear in blue to identify that they are the speaker while having their review as the comment under the video. Once I had created all the comments I took extreme close up screen shots of the comments to be able to manipulate them further in photoshop as the original image would have a high amount of pixels reducing the possibility of the images becoming pixelated. Once I had the comments on photoshop I reduced the size of the image to fit the border I created before hand.

• Once I had completed the comment area I needed to make the production company bellow the video to identify that KABmedia was the creator of the film/ teaser trailer. I included the 'profile picture' of the KM with the name next to the image presenting the full name. Again I wanted to use the correct typography to ensure the continuity across the website, therefore I changed the name of our Youtube page to KABmedia and took another extreme close up of the title. After reducing the size in photoshop I was able to layer the name over the top of the background and next  to the KM image to present our production company.

• Finally I wanted to make the website easily linked to the original Youtube site. I went on to a popular YouTubers channel in order to get the like and dislike bar as they had a high quantity of people liking the video. I chose to use a popular channel to convey the idea that our own film/ teaser trailer would be popular. It was placed bellow the video on our website and to the right of the production company.

Creating the title

I went in to photoshop and used the same typography that I used for the previous text within the video as I wanted the text to be continuous. I used the Orator text within photoshop and made the background of the title black to follow the common conversions of the horror genre. The horror genre uses a colour scheme of red, white and black, these are the three colours that I incorporated in to the text.

The typography style that I chose is a modem text as I wanted to subvert the common conventions and not use the serif text. I also wanted to use the YouTube logo once again to link with the production company section, the web page that we are going to create and the poster. We chose to use the logo in place of the ‘e’ in ‘Captured’ and this is the section that I wanted to animate.

I created several copies of the YouTube logo and duplicated the same image so it remained the same size. I then selected each one of the layers and moved it slightly away from the original, I also placed it slightly over the text to distort the image further. I used the selection tool to ensure that the text doesn’t move and only have the logo move slightly. I completed this process for each of the different logos and placing them in different areas. I numbered each layer so it would be able to organise them for when I place them in to final cut pro.

Finally when placing the text in to photoshop I ensured that all the images were the same size and placed the original image in to the section that I wanted the title. I then cut very small sections out of the image and places very short bladed sections of the ‘glitched’ images. This made it appear that the logo is moving while the text stays stationary. Once I was happy with the placement of the text I added the static sound effect again to make it appear as if there was a technical fault with it and that is why it moves.

This is how I spliced together the different images for the tittle