My construction of the poster begins now. I feel like I have been informed enough by my own research into conventions and the subversions of these conventions to create a desired effect. Before I even begin to start my photography, I thought it would be best to draft out some initial ideas as to how I imagine my poster looking. Similar to how I made storyboards for my short film, the flat plans are a visual reference point that will help me to determine the types of camera shots and lighting I may need when I go and take the photographs.
My initial illustration was a fairly straightforward and conventional poster plan. I adopted a minimalist approach when it came to the typography, limiting it to a title, tagline and release date. The tagline I have come up with; 'The line between grief and guilt is not black and white' is a very forthcoming statement that elaborates on the title. The reference to the blurred line between 'black and white' justifies the 'shades' of the title. From a visual perspective I wanted to keep it basic. It includes my two main protagonists standing back to back, but their body postures differ dramatically to emphasise the 'grief' and 'guilt' mentioned in the tagline.
I drew the Father looking down with his hands in his pockets, appearing quite reserved and uncomfortable. I wanted this to reflect the guilt he feels for running over Dylan's brother, and looking down emphasises his regret but I also thought it could symbolise looking downwards in mourning. Dylan on the other hand is holding a gun (in order to imply his violent intentions) and looking upwards, showing his grief. I wanted one of the characters to look up and the other to look down, creating visual contrasts on the poster that imitate their contrasts in the film. Dylan looking upwards is reminiscent of the shot in my short film where he looks to the sky, almost in a moment of spiritual communication with his dead brother. Standing back to back is a deliberate position to mimic how the characters don't actually make eye contact until the very end of the short film, thus showing their disconnect from one another but also how they are connected through the road accident.
The text is aligned in a very central position, and I thought that the simplicity of this layout helped to keep the focus strictly on the image. Despite the fact that I like the symbolic implications of this plan, to me it comes across as a little rigid and a bit too much like a book cover.
This second attempt becomes even more basic from a visual perspective, framing the protagonists at a mid shot rather than a long shot has the effect of making the audience engage more with the characters' emotions and facial expressions than their overall body posture (like in my first illustration). I also like the angle at which I positioned the characters, with the Father concealed behind Dylan rather than the two of them sharing the spotlight. I prefer this stance because in my narrative Dylan is the central role and so it makes more sense for him to have more prominence in the poster. I also like the similar disconnect between the two characters as they look in different directions and view things differently.
I have played about with the text here as well, changing my release date from a numerical display to an unspecific 'coming soon', which I feel may add a certain intensity to the build up of the release. Additionally I have written the names of the two actors underneath the title (as is quite common) but I am unsure on whether I will keep this as a substitute of the tagline.
My third flat plan is more of an expansion of the second. I thought that I'd left too much space in the image and so I wanted this illustration to utilise more of the poster. As a result I have combined my first image and second image, showing more of the characters but keeping them in the same position, placing Dylan in the foreground. The concealed gun hints at the violent undertones of the film whilst the Father's hands in his pockets establishes his uncertainty. One noticeable difference here is the substitution of both a tagline and the actor's names in favour of two simple but meaningful words. I have taken the words 'grief' and 'guilt' from my tagline and applied them to each of the characters, making the audience aware of their motivations. Dylan is driven by grief, while the Father is driven by guilt and a desire to redeem himself. I like how the characters accurately personify these emotions, but I don't like how the words address them as labels. I think it could work better when the terms are subtly embedded in the tagline. Nevertheless I like the image in terms of scale and the subtext hinting at the film.
This fourth poster, in my mind, is a culmination of the three ideas which have preceded in this post. As you can see in the image, I have shown even more of the characters, and this was a conscious decision due to the fact that I have moved the title and so there would be too much empty space above. Therefore I have filled the poster up with the characters, giving them an imposing and memorable scale. Absent from this drawing is the gun, and this is because I felt that it was too obvious to have an object of violence in the image. Like when I trimmed a shot of the gun in my actual film to avoid being too obvious and direct, I feel that the conflict is already hinted at by the stances of the characters and the implication of the tagline. Therefore a gun defeats the subtlety of the other features and diminishes their impact.
Also, I have changed the release date back to numbers. This is because it is a simple way to add variety, changing the written text of 'coming soon' to numerics is logical to avoid using too much text on the page. Putting the title and tagline in the middle of the page gives it a central focus and gives the picture more depth by framing the characters behind.
These slightly varying posters are going to form the ground basis of my photography, and I hope that I can capture images which work efficiently and won't require too much digital manipulation, mainly because I think that the most successful posters are the ones that rely on the simplicity of their one image.
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