Blog 6 - Poster Research

Because my short film 369 is a horror film, i have decided to research about horror film posters in order to find common codes and conventions in order to use for my poster.

Evaluation of horror posters

• Horror posters generally tend to have a black background or have a large amount of the colour black incorporated into it. This is because black is often seen as a colour that represents evil and night time, both common traits in most horror films

• Horror posters generally tend to use white font, this is because the white font stands out from the commonly used black background, attracting  the viewers eyes and also making it easy to read

• Horror posters generally tend incorporate the colour red in either the font or the picture, this is because the colour red represents blood and gore, a common sight in horror films and can also represent evil when used in certain ways (such as colouring somebodies eyes red)

• Horror posters tag lines usually contain a personal pronoun such as "you", "you're" and "you've" as it gets the reader involved since horror films focus on scaring the audience by making them almost feel they are in the same situations the charaters are in.

• Horror posters tend to use sillouettes and only reveal certain body parts of a character, this so that the viewer can see that there is a mysterious lifeform within the film which is presumable attempting to kill the main character, however you will have to watch the film to find out the identity of the thing and what it does to the main character.

• Actors/Actresses names and tagline and sometimes the film title uses capitals for every letter and a thick bold font as it makes it stand out and easy to read.

• Although the posters i researched and analysed (The exorcist and Tumbok being final release posters and The Echo and The Crazies being teaser posters) mainly contained simple bold font for the title, Tumbok used a type of font in red which represented the seeping of blood, implying that the film will contain gore and gives a clear definition to the person reading it that its a horror film.

• The two final release posters (The Exorcist and Tumbok) both vaguely show the location where  the character will experience the horrific ordeals. Both of the locations are surrounded by darkness showing evil is contained there.



Conclusion

For my poster i will use:

A black background to show the film is horror

Incorporate the colour red into either the font or main picture to show gore is involved

Use white/bold/capitlised font over the black background so that it catches the viewers eyes and makes it easy to read

Feature my experiment or scientist character however do not show their face, making their identity a mystery to the viewer until they watch the film. My current ideas for the poster picture is the scientist behind a sign saying "experiment taking progress"  with blood splattered across the window the sign as on, taken at night time to create a dark atmosphere. Another idea is to show dangerous equipment such as knifes/hammers on a silver tray with the experiments hands covered in blood and bandages with the tagline or experiment numbers splatted in fake blood (tomatoe sauce) in the centre of the tray. Another idea is to have the scientist apperently dead, laying down in blood as the main picture, then above the picture have two eyes looking down at the picture (maybe also have two eyes under the picture looking up). However the third and final idea i have decided to use is the word "HELP" drawn with blood on tiles with scratc marks made by blood surrounded it with also the numbers "369". I decided to use this because the blood and word "help" will symbolize the horror and gore in my movie, but also doesnt give much away about the characters in the film.

Use a font style that gives the impression of horror such as a dripping font coloured in red, representing blood

Use a tagline which features a personal pronoun either (you/you've/you're), my current ideas for the tagline are "If You Was A Creation Would You Show Dedication?" or "And You Thought Frankenstein Was A Nuisance/Rebel/Pain/Mistake". This is because it gives off a little idea about the plot of my film but doesnt give too much away