By Nabeela Hamid

TitleThe title needs to be big, bold and memorable.

Age certificate/ classificationThis guides viewers on who the film is suitable for as well as the content that features within the film.

TaglineA tagline is usually featured on a theatrical film poster, this is intended to spark a reaction, but at the same time it should not reveal too much, it’s like selling you film through one quick sentence so it allows the viewers to decide whether they want to go and see the film. It helps emphasise the main point of the film.

AwardsAwards also feature on a theatrical poster, this is a good technique as it advertises the film more, it tells the viewers that the film has won awards which simply means it must be good, or for those critical ones they would go and see it to find out why they won the awards.

Focal imageIconography needs to be shown though the focal image as it helps reveal the genre of the film as well as the narrative. The image also needs to be eye catching.

Release date (exact date/ month/ season)

A release date is also featured on a theatrical film poster, the date is carefully thought about, especially when competition is around or looking at the bigger picture of when children are on holidays, this would be a great time if your target audience is children.

Credit blockA credit block features on a theatrical poster, this is where all the main credits go and tells us who were involved in the making of the short film.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A distinctive transformation is presented in the titles/ font styles, they all are similar and portray the fantasy genre, a sense of magic is sensed through each of the titles. I used these as part of my inspiration when I was

creating my film poster title.

The title needs to be big, bold and memorable.

INKHEART Film poster title has a metallic look, it is quite stylised showing a transformation taking place, magic taking place within the title, this is a typical convention used in fantasy genre film posters. It linked strongly and connotes change reflecting upon two worlds, and comes cross as a magical fairy-tale stylisation. I used this as part of my inspiration, specifically the metallic look, The colour silver has an element of mystery and the fancy writing which connotes the fantasy genre.

The colour gold is used in this poster, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. The colour gold represents illumination, magic and glamorisation. I used this poster as part of my inspiration too, it helped me identify the meaning of colours and helped me decide what colours I would use in my fantasy genre poster. I decided to follow this convention, especially since the gold had strong meanings and representations to what our short film included in terms of themes. Magic was presented, also the fact that light is illuminated at the end of the funnel for Emily as she runs from the subway into the forest, and lastly glamorisation, the drugs were glamourized in the poser appearing a magical fairy dust which I thought incorporated well within the fantasy genre poster. The font in this poster appears as if a change is happening , there is green at the bottom of the word ‘POWERFUL’ and then changes to gold, this could be a connotation pf the two worlds which is another way of presenting magic taking place across two worlds, whereas INKHEART used fancy wavy font.

Narnia film poster is another one I looked at, and helped me identify y the font stylise that were typically used in fantasy genre posters.

(According to the BBFC)

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?Any of the following:• strong violence• frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').• portrayals of sexual activity• strong verbal references to sex• sexual nudity• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence• discriminatory language or behaviour• drug taking

(According to the BBFC)

Can there be strong violence?Yes, at 15 violence may be strong. It should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury, however, and the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.Strong sadistic violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

What about sexual violence?There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence (for example descriptions of rape or sexual assault in a courtroom scene or in victim testimony) but any portrayal depiction of sexual violence must be discreet and justified by context.

What about horror works?At 15 there can be strong threat and horror as long as there is no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat.

I believe it is important to put the classification of the film on the poster. It allows the audience to see the certification and points out what content features at that specific age rating. This specifically was useful for my poster, because even though it is covered a as Fantasy, inspired by the Red Riding Hood Book, it could be mistaken as a Fantasy for children even though its iconography is quite dark people can make mistakes, so I wanted this to be clear to my audience and aware them that it is for a mature audience and points out the sort of content that may feature in this particular short. The classification also help attract ta certain audience directly, without the classification it could attract the wrong audience and could be perceived differently.

Age certificate/ classification

This guides viewers on who the film is suitable for as well as the content that

features within the film.

Summary of film ‘INKHEART’: A young girl discovers her father has an amazing talent to bring characters out of their books and must try to stop a freed villain from destroying them all, with the help of her father, her aunt, and a storybook's hero.

Tagline: ‘EVERY STORY EVER WRITTEN IS JUST WAITING TO BECOME REAL.’

Links to the iconography in the poster.

Shelves of books relates to ‘EVERY STORY WRITTEN’

The books on the shelves remain closed which links to ‘ IS JUST WAITING’

In the foreground is the focal point, and the focal image is the man holding a book that is opened which is the iconography of ‘TO BECOME REAL’.

This shows that once the book is open the story become real, magical gold dust follows up showing what story characters had come out the book into reality.

The amazing thing about a tagline is that it gives you an insight to the film, it relates to the iconography on the poster and this is what I had set out to achieve.

Lets take a look.

Tagline

Summary of ‘Redemption: A Tale Untold’ – A 17 year old girl Emily is going through a terrible phase and cannot seem to find a way out until she bumps into an old friend, she finally thinks there is light at the end of the tunnel and is pressured into taking a drug known as fairy dust which is supposedly takes her into a fantasy world, but its not as it seems, will she make it out?

This tagline strongly links to the iconography on the poster.It appears that Emily is running from a dark, unpleasant world into a fantasy world. However on the top of the poster shows a dark forest with wolves eyes blending in the forest. It appears as if the wolf is watching over Emily making him appear more superior, and the magical arc linking the reality/ fantasy worlds opens parallel to the wolfs mouth. Emily is running straight into the wolf's trap, and it may appear Emily is running into a fantasy/ magical world but in reality she is running into a darker/ sinister world. She is unable to come to her senses as she is high on drugs. So overall as a viewer we instantly make assumptions that Emily is running from a dark world into a fantasy world. Now as a viewer we then move our eyes to the tagline and we read ‘NOT AS IT SEEMS’ we then realise as a viewer our first impression is now the opposite, in fact Emily is running towards an even darker place.

A tagline is usually featured on a theatrical film poster, this is intended to spark a reaction, but at the same time it should not reveal too much, it’s like selling you film through one quick sentence so it allows the viewers to decide whether they want to go and see the film. It helps emphasise the main point of the film.

Emily is dressed up as Red Riding Hood addressing the fantasy genre.

The miniaturisation of her brings Alice In Wonderland to mind when she enters another world, this also address the fantasy side.

Two worlds are featured on many fantasy poster, and is a typical convention in a fantasy poster. I used the following as inspiration – ENCHANTED/ INTO THE WOODS.

The presence of the wolf also comes across as a fantasy.

Horror aspects do feature in our short film, specifically because it us a hybrid genre Fantasy/ Horror. However my assignment was to feature on one particular genre simply because in marketing it helps attract a particular audience whilst other members of my group looked at other genres enabling us to reach a bigger audience, a great technique used when advertising an independent film, simply because is difficult to attract an audience.

The location of a subway is a typical horror location as it has many dark references and connotations as I discussed earlier in this post.

The forest features in little Red Riding Hood as well as in our short film which links strongly to the fantasy genre. Yet It is still an isolated area and in the traditional tale the wolf stalks Red Riding Hood and no help is available. The forest location is also popular in the horror genre and it helped reflect both horror and fantasy, especially since I had presented a morning and night forest.

Focal image

Iconography needs to be shown though the focal image as it helps reveal the genre of the film as well as the narrative. The image also needs to be eye catching.

Release date (exact date/ month/ season)

A release date is featured on a theatrical film poster which my short film poster is. I had specifically thought about the months and October is the month when Halloween takes place, and this short has themes of fantasy and horror which is that season to release a short film like ours. It also is cold and dark in that month which are the themes presented in our short film.

Credit block

A credit block features on a theatrical poster, this is where all the main credits go and tells us who were involved in the making of the short film. This is another convention that I had followed, it allows the poster to look more professional and credits the people on camera as well as of camera. It may not seem important but it is important to those who made it, without them the film wouldn’t be the same, all the poster I looked at had one and I wanted to emulate that theatrical style so I decided to make and apply one.

EXTRAS

WWW.SORRYMISSCREATIVE.COM

@Redemption#Redemption

Production company Logo.I decided to apply the production company logo in my poster firstly because it gives key information about who the film was produced by, as well as it helps viewers identify the logo and they would know other films made by that production company and they can

judge on whether the production company makes good films or not and would help them identify the films production company faster for future productions. It also helps the production company stand out which would then make you a popular production

company like PARAMOUNT/ PIXAR/ UNIVERSAL, ETC. I also applied it because it had featured of nearly all the posters I analysed and looked at

and it helped apply that professional look to the poster, it also makes it personal, and points out exactly who it was made by.

I also applied a hashtag to our short film. Film poster have hashtags and website these days, it allows fans/ audiences to find out more about the film and are able to access sneak previews/ behind the scenes/ trailers. It allows the audience to interact and us to interact with our audience over social media.

Similar posters to my short film poster –Redemption: A Tale Untold

The antagonist is placed on top of

the poster making the appear

superior as they watch over the

protagonist.

Gold font in fancy writing which connotes magic and

the fantasy genre.

Release dates placed at the bottom of the poster.

Credit block beneath the title.

Tagline positioned on top of poster.

Opening revealed in the centre of the woods, similar to the way the forest opens up at the end of the subway in my poster Redemption: A

Tale Untold.

The antagonist is placed on top of the poster.

Release dates placed at the bottom of the poster.

Credit block beneath the title.

Gold font in fancy writing which connotes magic and

the fantasy genre.

Classification.

Distribution/ production company logo.

Distribution/ production company logo.

Quite dark/ gloomy.

Quite dark/ gloomy.

THANK YOU FOR READING.

BY NABEELA HAMID