Photo Manipulation 1

This is the original image before I carried out any editing. It is a photo of  house I took in my village and I used it because I thought it would relate well with my original poster poster that I created which was titled 'That House at the End'.

Some horror posters are black & white due to the conventional setting of horror films being set at night, this and the fact that the house in the photo lacks much colour anyway is the reason that I chose to create a black & white effect. I did this by going to Image > Adjustments > Black & White.

To make the black & white effect a bit more prominent and dramatic, I used the 'Brightness/Contrast' tool to increase the contrast of the whole image. This creates a stronger contrast between the black colouring and the white colouring of the overall image.

To create a more of a horror feel, I used an image that I had taken of tree bark, shown in the above screenshot, then overlaid it on top of the image of the house. I chose to use the image of the image of tree bark to do so because the gaps in the bark look like cracks in a wall or any other surface; and these crack are often present in some horror posters. The few bits of moss seen on the bark will later appear like rot or mould which, from looking at the teaser poster for 'Drag Me To Hell' and other horror posters, is often seen in horror posters.

The next step was to decrease the opacity of the tree bark layer so that it would appear more like cracks rather than bark. This was simply done by lowering the slider of the 'Opacity' tool. Doing this will allow the texture of the bark to be visible on top of the image of the house, while the house remains the most prominent  subject in the image.

In this step I used the gradient tool to create a 'Black to Background' gradient which allows me to create  black gradient in the direction that I apply it. Gradients are often used in horror posters so that image does not fill the whole screen and it also ties with the setting of night that is often used in horror films; or you could argue that the gradient is specifically black to represent the fear of the unknown but again this leads back to nigh and fear of the dark. In the screenshot above you can see that I have already applied a gradient in the bottom left hand corner and you can see me applying the gradient in the top right hand corner (the visible line).

The image above is the final image that I created. Overall I feel that the image follows a horror theme, however I feel as if the house that I chose to photograph was not scary enough and, if I choose to pursue the title of 'That House at the End', I will search for a more appropriate house.

Online Questionaire

The images below are screenshots of my online survey. This is a link to the survey:

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=ucsfwssr76xjcjr165253

Paper Version Questionnaire

The questionnaire above will help me with deciding what to include in my horror poster and DVD cover. The questions will help me decide things such as the type of narrative to use for the film and what to call my film.

Below I have written how each question will help with creating the poster and DVD cover:

Questions 1 to 3 - The gender, age and occupation of the participant will help me figure out my 

demographic. This will then better advise me on what type of people prefer certain things in horror films, I can then see what my target audience (which will be mostly students, the main audience for horror films) prefer to see in horror films.

Question 4 - This question will help with the design and layout of my poster. This is because I will be able to see which advertising medium is most popular and create my poster based on that idea. For example, if the Billboard was the most popular advertising medium them I would focus on making the title and release date very clear so that it would be easy for the audience to read it of a big billboard.

Question 5 - This question will help with how visceral my poster and narrative should by seeing what is most popular. Creating the poster based around the most popular answer will ensure a bigger audience. I have also included a space to cater for those who prefer no gore at all in horror films which asks what they would prefer to see, which the answer may be something like a more psychological based horror film.

Question 6 - In this question I have included a choice of three films each from different horror sub-genres: supernatural, slasher and torture. I thought this may be a better approach than directly asking the participant what their favourite sub-genre of horror was because they may not know the terms such as 'slasher' or 'torture' horror films. The three films I have chosen seem to be the most popular film franchises of today's audience's which is why I included them. I have also included the option of 'none' rather than asking what their favourite horror film is because I have included a similar question later on.

Question 7 - This question will indicate whether the time of year, in terms of seasons, have an affect on when the participant goes to see a film. This will give me an indication on what time of year to use as the release date for my film poster. Previous research suggests that around winter is a autumn/winter is a good time to release horror films but I thought I would use the opportunity of primary research to see if this is indeed a good time to release a film.

Question 8 - I included this question to see whether the use of a website or social networking page on a film poster is actually effective and whether that many audience members actually use them. If the results of this question return saying that websites aren't very popular for films then I may decide to not include it on my poster.

Question 9 - This question will certainly help with the type of narrative I want to use for my horror film. For my first poster, I used a human murderer with a knife, which would come under 'a psycho killer', however research may suggest that using a different monster/killer in my horror film may be more effective or popular with my target audience. I have also included a space where the participant can write a different antagonist that they would prefer to see if they do not choose any of the options that I included.

Question 10 - This question, again, will help me with deciding the type of narrative to include in my horror film. For my previous poster, I used an abandoned house as the setting but, again, this may prove not as popular as other settings with my target audience. I have also included a space where they can write another setting that they fin more 'scary' than the options that I included.

Question 11 - This question will give me an overview of what my demographics favourite horror films are. This will give me an indication of what sub-genre would be good to use and I will also be able to look up the various films that they have mentioned and maybe include some elements from the most popular films.

Question 12 - On this question I included two ideas for horror films that I could potentially use for the main sub-genre's of horror (supernatural, slasher and torture). This will give me a clear indication on what title to use depending on what sub-genre I decide to ensue, which may be influenced by the previous questions in the questionnaire.

Drag Me To Hell: Teaser Poster

Typography 1

 The above screenshot shows the finished title with the gradient, burn and drop shadow effects.

A drop shadow is basically a shadow that lies behind the text. Clicking he 'Drop Shadow...' button from the previous screenshot brings up the window shown above. In this window I can change the angle and the distance that the shadow appears from the text. The 'Drop Shadow' effect will make the text stand out more on the poster. Shadows are also a convention of horror, often used to indirectly show the audience the 'monster', originating from 'Nosferatu' (1922).

 The next thing that I did was create a drop shadow behind the text. I did this using the 'Add a layer style' button located underneath the layers palette, which brings up the above menu.

 The above screenshot shows my text after I have used the burn tool on the text. I used this effect because it leads to a dirty/grubby look which is often used in horror posters, this is mainly to do with the Gothic theme it presents.

 The above screenshot shows a close-up of part of my text. You can clearly see where I have used the burn tool on the bottom of the 'E' in 'End'. The more times you click over certain parts of the text with the 'Burn Tool' the darker it gets, and the fewer times you click only creates a slight darken.

 The next thing that I did was 'Burn' the text using the 'Burn Tool' shown above. The burn tool darkens areas of images (and text).

 The above screenshot shows the gradient in use on he text. As you can see, the darker shade of red blends in with the lighter shade of red.

 With the editing window open, I then clicked 'Gradient Overlay'. 'Gradient Overlay' is different to using just a solid colour to colour in the text, instead a gradient will blend two colours together. I chose to use two similar shades of red for my gradient because red is a very typical colour used in horror, especially in the sub-genres of 'slasher' and 'goreno' that often use it to represent blood and gore.

 I was then able to edit my text. What I wanted to do first was to change the colour of the text. To do so, I right-clicked to text layer and then clicked 'Blending Options' which is shown above. This brings up  a window shown in the next screenshot.

 As I have used multiple text boxes to create the title,it would be difficult to edit each piece of text separately  To overcome this I have to conjoin all of the separate pieces of text. I did this by selecting all pieces of text using the layers panel on the right-hand side, then right-clicking them to reveal the menu above. Then I clicked 'Convert to Smart Object' to create the single block of text for editing. 

 This is what the image looked like when I finished typing out the text. As you can see, I used different sizes of text in the image because I have found that horror posters often do this. The font that I used for the text was 'AR JULIAN'.

 The first thing I do in Photoshop is select the 'Horizontal Type Tool', this allows me to insert text, ie title, into the image. I do this by creating a text box with this tool and typing what I want into the text box.

Campaign Research: 'Sinister' Main Campaign Poster

Campaign Research: 'Sinister' Teaser Poster

Horror Poster: Inspiration

This 'Friday the 13th' poster was the main inspiration for my poster. You can see some similar elements between the two posters such as the fog, trees and the murderer being in the centre of the poster.

Horror Poster: Resources

I used this image of a knife and made it look like the murderer was holding it by also making it look like a silhouette by darkening the image.

 This image of an American country house was used as the setting for my poster. I chose a classic American style house because it is often used in horror films to represent the 'American Dream'.

This tree silhouette was used for the multiple trees in my poster. Instead of using a multitude of different trees, I just edited this tree to look like different trees.

I used this image of Michael Myers as the silhouette in my poster. I mirrored the image so that you could see two hands on the silhouette.

The photo of the sky was used for the background. I darkened it for a more horror feel.

Horror Poster

Created using Adobe Photoshop CS6