Blackout Film Poster

Evaluation

I am overall very pleased with this poster and I think that my research definitely helped me make it look realistic. I included all of the relevant and conventional information; the title, credited the main cast, crew and production team, the film studio, tagline, release date and a hashtag to link the film to social media in order to generate hype. This is especially significant as my audience is young adults who are typically more into social networking.

I tried to link the poster to the film as much as possible, using a still from early on in the film (revealing few spoilers, however there is some subtle foreshadowing) and using the same typography (Futura font in retro style) from the opening sequence of the film. There are also lots of references to the genre of film noir in an attempt to attract a secondary audience of film noir fans (who are generally older). These include the cigarette and smoke, blood splatter behind Kevin and Violet's red lips. I divided the poster into two and made the half showing Violet black and white, another link to classic noir iconography. The filter also enhanced the shadows behind her and made her look more sinister, matching the idea of her being a femme fatale. The side showing Kevin matches the colour palette of the film, with low saturation and lots of dark, muted colours giving a depressing effect.

The main issue I have with my poster is the photograph itself. I had a limited number photos that were high enough quality to use and although this was the best one, it shows Violet smiling as opposed to the classic femme fatale who is normally pouting or looking smug in a position of power. It initially made the poster look more like a romantic comedy than a film noir, so I tried to edit the photo as much as possible to try and hide this.I tried photoshopping another pair of lips on however they looked noticeably false. I tried making the photo darker and increasing the contrast between black and white so the shadows made her look more villainous, which was slightly better. I made her eye makeup thicker and darker, giving the illusion that her eyes were more narrowed with suspicion, which was more effective.

Overall I think this poster would be successful and looks realistic. In real life, this would be placed strategically around places where a significant proportion of the target audience would see it- for example in cities, in underground stations, bus stops or billboards near where they would spend their free time, such as a shopping centre or cinema.