Poster and sleeve evaluation

For this piece of work, I created a DVD sleeve and poster. I had to take precise steps to ensure the poster and sleeve was professional just like a feature film would be. The made up movie, which I made these pieces for, was called ‘No Pulse’. This was because I felt it related to my genre, which I decided was Horror as it was the genre, which I thought I would have the most ideas for. The aim for this piece of work was to make a DVD sleeve and poster which caught my target audience’s eye and which is effective. I wanted my poster and sleeve to represent the horror genre as much as possible to gain effectiveness.

I think that my sleeve and poster is effective in terms with its intended use. The intended use for the poster was to inform the public of the name and the credits (for example, the main actors, directors etc.) which I included at the bottom third of the poster. I also included the BBFC rating on the bottom right hand side of the poster so it shown which audience I was aiming the film at. It also needed to portray the genre of the film which was horror which I think was effective as both my poster and DVD sleeve were very dark and I used dark colours. I also did it with the pictures where they clearly fall within the horror genre as they are quite dark images and I portrayed it within the facial features. For the DVD sleeve, its intended use was to have information on it, which will help the audience know about the production company etc. It also needed to give a little away about the film within the blurb without giving away too much.

I used inspiration from insidious, the exorcist and the blair witch project. I reviewed these posters so I could use inspiration from them for my poster. I liked how each of them had a focal point in the centre of the screen which was a person so I decided to use a focal point in the centre in the form of a girl but decided to have a full body shot instead of a mid shot or a close up as I thought it looked original and different and as people wont see many posters like this then it may attract them more. Both the blair witch project and insidious had a gloomy background, which I also took inspiration from. I chose to have my background as a hallway and used overlays and effects to make it gloomy and dark to portray the horror genre. Both insidious and the blair witch project were mainly dark colours but used one thing which was red on both of them so I used this in mine in the form of blood on the wall which makes it stand out compared to the dark colours and again portrays the horror theme. In all 3 posters, they had credits, which I included within mine as well. Another factor which I got inspiration from was the fact that all 3 had the names of the film in the bottom third of the page which I did the same with mine.

Before I made the poster and DVD sleeve, I did research and planning. One of the things I had to plan was the model. Stereo-typically, one of the typical horror icons is a dead girl, which I decided to incorporate in my poster and DVD sleeve. I used my friend as a model so it was easier to both have a free time in which we could both do the shots. It was also because she had the right look for the image as she had long dark hair which fitted the horror genre, as it would cover her face a bit and we could make it look messy. This portrayed the horror theme. In terms of clothing, I dressed her in a white long t shirt without pants so it made her look a bit more edgy and rough. I felt as if this symbolised the name of the film which is ‘no pulse’ as it could represent that she has no effort with her appearance as she is dead.

The first step in my process of creating the poster was to create an A4 piece of paper on Photoshop to create the main base of my poster. I then got my background for my poster off google as I couldn’t find a suitable location to take a picture of a gloomy hallway which was accessible. I saved the image as a JPEG and imported it onto the A4 page and free transformed it to make it a suitable size for my poster. I then made adjustments to my image to make it more gloomy. I started by lowering the brightness and then changing the saturation. Next, I changed the colour balance to reduce the brighter colours, which gave off a gloomier appearance.  After this I imported another JPEG of my main image with my model in. I took these pictures at home against a white wall using a DSLR camera to improve the resolution of the image, which makes it look more professional. I used the quick selection tool to select the background of the image and remove it. I then edited the image just like the background to make it more gloomy. The main tool that helped me out was the colour balance and the saturation. It really extracted the bright white out of the image. After this, I added the image with the background removed to the background image I had previously edited. I then used the free transform tool and held down shift so I didn’t stretch the image and make it look un-natural. Finally after looking back at my poster without all the finishing touches, I decided that to make the image more suitable to my theme, I need to extenuate the light which will make that seem brighter but still keep the rest of my image dark and gloomy. I did this using the dodge tool on the background layer and making the size of the brush suitable to the size of the light so it wouldn’t affect any other areas.

The next thing I did was to choose the font for the title. I started off by getting inspiration from other posters that I looked at on Google. After this, I looked on font websites like ‘dafont.com’ and ‘1001fonts.com’. I finally settled on the font ‘DK Face Your Fears’ from dafont.com. I decided on this font because it looked as if the font had been painted on messily and quite heavy handed which seemed very suitable for my target audience and genre. I decided to keep this font in the colour grey as I wanted to ensure the colours on my cover were dark or minimal colours. After doing research on other posters like ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and ‘insidious’, I decided to place my title in the lower third of my poster as it tended to be the one which looked the most professional. I then decided to place the tagline below the title so it would be the second thing you read and it wouldn’t get missed as it is in smaller writing. I used the writing ‘American Typewriter Light’. I got this writing off Photoshop as a default font. I used this font as I thought it looked simple enough to not stand out and overpower the font but to still be noticeable. I also put this in grey, as I wanted it to blend in with the title. Next, I added a credit bar at the very bottom of the page so just by looking at the poster, you can see the directors and main actors which may attract different audiences. For this I used the font ‘steel tongs’. The next thing I decided to do was to add a review at the top of the page, as I wanted the page to look a bit more filled, as it looked empty and plain with no writing in the top third of the page. Using a 5 star review from a well-known newspaper will attract attention if you see the poster on a billboard or online and in similar ways on the sleeve when on a shelf in a shop. The font I used for the review was ‘Tamil MN Regular’. I used this font because it was quite simple and not too ‘in your face’.

The next process was to add a BBFC rating which was 18 and the production company logo. I placed these in the bottom 2 corners of the page quite small so they didn’t over power but big enough to see. I also put these on the spine of the DVD sleeve at he top and bottom and also added the ‘DVD video’ logo at the top of the spine as well. I then added the title to the spine in the same font and colour. I decided to have the colour of the spine and back of my sleeve grey as I wanted there to be a consistent colour scheme to make everything look professional.

The first step on the back of my sleeve was to add the production company logos like blumhouse productions and universal. I also added the Dolby digital plus logo to the back at the bottom and a barcode. Another thing I added was the BBFC rating and the DVD video logo. I placed all these at the bottom of the page to keep all them together so it looks organised and professional. Above this, I placed the website URL of blumhouse productions and a website for the film which I created myself which added professionalism to my sleeve. Above this I added a credits bar, which I originally placed at the bottom of my movie poster. I thought it would look better on the back of my DVD sleeve as that is where all the information is displayed.

I also decided to place images of 2 different scenes from the film in the centre of the back page of the sleeve. This will give the audience an insight into the film. I used my own images of the people in the images but then used the background images from Google, as it would have been too difficult for me to capture the images myself. I captured the picture of the boy in a photo studio with a DSLR. I then removed the white background using Photoshop and then placed it on the background I got from Google. The other image of the same girl as the cover, I took at home against a white wall using a DSLR. It was harder to remove the background of this one compared to the other, as it wasn’t done in a studio against a white sheet. I then did the same steps as the other and put it on the Google background. I then merged layers together and placed the image on the sleeve. I then used the free transform tool and the shift key to make the image the correct size without stretching it out.

The next step was to add more reviews to the back to make the film look more appealing to the audience. I used the same font as the review on the poster to make it consistent. I then put a blurb at the top of the page. I used a simple font so it didn’t distract the viewer from the rest of the sleeve.

I think a good part of the poster and DVD sleeve is the actual image itself of the girl for the poster. I was happy with this image, as I had to do it at home and not in the studio at college. I worked with the lighting I had and changed different effects and tools to make the image darker and gloomier in certain places to achieve the desired effect. I was also happy with the image I captured for the scene image on the back of the sleeve. I was happy with the shadows created by the hair. I decided to take a close up image to increase the intensity of the image. Another thing I think was a good factor of my finished product was the layout of the DVD sleeve cover and poster. I liked how I spaced things out so it wasn’t cluttered but I also made it so it wasn’t too empty and boring. I liked the colour scheme of the writing of my poster as it made it look professional and consistent. I kept the colours dark and suitable to my film genre

I believe that I completed this piece of work to the best of my ability. I think that my work looks professional and organised. I believe that I used all the knowledge of Photoshop I have to achieve this work and gained some knowledge in the process. Before I started this task, I knew a little about Photoshop through doing other tasks within it and watching tutorials on it. Throughout the process, I gained some skills within Photoshop through various factors such as trial and error, tutorials and by watching other people doing their work. I now feel like I am skilled within Photoshop and have gained the skills to be able to do various tasks within it without struggle. 

Although I have gained a lot of skills and now feel comfortable within Photoshop I have had a few setbacks, which I had to overcome. One example of this would be the images, which I took for the poster. These images were taken against a wall in a house rather than a studio. I believe that this made the quality a little poorer, in order to increase the quality and to make removing the background easier, I would of ideally took the images in a studio but it was not accessible with the situation I was in. In order to overcome this setback, I worked with the situation I had and adjusted the lighting in the room using a mixture of natural and artificial lighting to make it as perfect as I could.

If I had to pick bad factors of my poster and DVD sleeve, I would say the fact that I didn’t use my own backgrounds. Due to circumstances and time limits, I was unable to take these myself. One of the reasons was that I didn’t have a suitable place to take the images. Although this is a bad factor, I fell as if I adjusted them and added effects to make it my own and to make it original to my piece of work.

I asked other students for opinions of my work. Overall, the feedback was good and they all said that it looked professional. One of the main things that I got the best feedback on was the image on the front and how well it looks against the background. Another thing was the font used for the title and the colour scheme of it. They all said that it suited my genre well and that it was clear on the genre from looking at the poster and sleeve. The one thing that a few people said I could improve was the positioning of the blurb on the back as it was previously under the reviews. After gaining this feedback, I changed the arrangement of the blurb.

Overall, I am pleased with this piece of work as I feel like I have gained a lot of skills in Photoshop and have improved a lot. I am happy with the overall result and how it turned out and feel like I couldn’t of improved it anymore apart from taking the background images myself. 


Background image- https://seasweetie.wordpress.com/tag/haunted-places/
Background image for back of sleeve-http://galleryhip.com/creepy-house-hallway.html
Background image for back of sleeve-http://pixshark.com/creepy-old-room.htm