Film poster research and planning

I am researching films that revolve around the reality of the lower socio-economic classes, time set and drugs to see how the reality is shown through imagery and composition of the photograph. The codes and conventions are not my main focus as my film doesn't follow convention as there is no new equilibrium so im not afraid to go against conventions.
This is England is a film that is perfect in creating a different era through the costumes, make up and props as the skin heads, rolled up jeans and the denim composed with the estates and un-educated language and racist views signifies the 80's. This is helpful to me in the composition of my photo as my character represents the 90's in today's time, so both iconography needs to be represented in my photo via costumes, props and surrounding area.

Trainspotting along with other successful films have more than one poster, this itself shows the audience that this film has been successful as they have the money to make multiple posters.
 The main image in the seconds poster is of the main character 'Mark Renton' going through obvious withdrawal, Sweating, messed up body temperature, layered at the bottom of the main image are cropped picture of the rest of the main characters on what seems to be playing cards, numbered by importance in the film the illustrator manages to get across to the audience the personality's of each character through their poses and costume. The images are also in black and white to emphasis the time in which it is set (late 80's) when this film was released in 1996.
The title of the film is in the house style of orange and white in order to make the title recognisable by the public and eventually become iconic. The title itself is very ironic as Trainspotting has absolutely nothing to do with the film, it is a hobby completely contrast to the actual activities in the film such as hard drug use, robbery and sex. These explicit's are mentioned on the poster to explain the 18 age rating and warn the audience as the title of the film could mislead some.

 In small print at the bottom of the poster are the credits including production labels.
At the top of the poster, the most famous quote out of the film is used to draw the audience in as it intruiges them as to what sort of person doesn't want a normal life?

PLANNING OF MY LEMON SHERBET POSTER.

The title 

A great convention of film posters is that the font and title image are extremely iconic to the point where the audience only need to see the font style and know what film it is. Therefore I wanted my title to be just as iconic, so I combined the fact my film is about lemon sherbet and cocaine with my title font, I used icing sugar and flour to create it by using my debit card I manoeuvred it to create the title, i then took a photograph on my iPhone, emailed it to myself, uploaded to photo onto paint and cropped around the writing until no background could be seen, just the rugged, raw ingredients.   

How I constructed my poster

I scanned all of my photographs from my film camera onto my computer, sifting through the photos, experimenting with different looks and positioning of pictures. I originally positioned my photo vertically thinking it was the only way posters should be. But then I remembered that posters on billboards tend to be horizontal, having my poster horizontal also kept the quality of my image as it wasn't stretched, I was able to just transfer my film camera picture to my poster blank template, fitting superbly.

Choice of photograph;

The photo I chose to use as my main flagship main image was this photo as it best shows my photography skills and my ability to combine the rave scene with a still photo of my character. The lights and fire effects represent the blur of the rave scene and the effect it has on her as the blur is taking over the photo, representing the rave blur taking over her life.

Conventions included

Quotes from two well established and respected newspapers are positioned on top of the poster as through my research I found that quotes are very effective in persuading the audience to see it as it is someone else's opinion of the film as trustworthy as a newspaper critic, they wouldn't lie.

I used 'grunge' type fonts that I found on 'font space' to correspond with the nature of the film, so everything connected with the film, even the quotes.

I also included the release date as that is an essential part of information that a poster should include when promoting the film. The font used for this is the same font used as the small print at the bottom, my production company ' Depiction pictures'  owns this font, creating consistent iconography.


The small print at the was positioned at the bottom of the poster to comply with convention

The font style was based on my production company 'Depiction pictures', I didn't want alot of font styles on my poster as I wanted everything to look united. Therefore I WENT AGAINST CONVENTION by using the same font for my small print and release date as my production company. This as a positive consequence creates iconography for my production company, in future films that font will be automatically recognisable to Depiction Pictures.

Production Company 

Definition of depiction : representation in image form, as in a painting or illustration


The whole purpose of Depiction pictures is to represent real life situations through art-films.