Poster Research and Planning

Photo Shoot Plan- Poster Image

Location - The house used in the trailer for university students (Molly's house)

Possible pictures - creepy female serial killer, 4 students altogether showing their stock characters, shot of an eye through slit in the door, shot of hand around the door

Props/Costume - makeup of the serial killer and a white sheet, stock character costumes for a drama queen, nerd, the Goth, and the cool dude, contact lenses for the serial killer?, makeup to make a hand looked dirty and bruised

Equipment - portable light, tripod, Sony AX 58 Digital Camera

Possible problems - dimming the light in order to give it a gloomy look instead of a clinical one.

Conventions of Horror Posters

• Release date
• Dark colour theme, especially black and red
• Use of one large image to stand out to the audience
• Captions and Taglines

If somebody is a complete horror film junkie, they will collect horror magazines as a hobby or addiction. They may be seen as old fashioned or beaten by the internet, however people will collect them therefore never going out of business.




Shot List for Poster

This image is of the three female characters, and portray their stereotypes quite well. I liked the fact it was a medium shot, however it was landscape which made it hard to put onto a poster.



This image was brilliant for a poster. It portrays the characters well in a long shot, however it is almost like a low angle shot to show height and power in the shot. This breaks the conventions of a horror film as the women are normally portrayed as weak. This will mostly likely be the image I choose for my poster image. 

I have seen posters before use images like a house, and I thought I could do a lot with it. The main setting on our trailer will give a good clue to what the film is about. The ghost in the window is also a hidden message and gives it a twist. This is a wide shot/establishing shot to represent the setting well. 

Posters are common for having scary images on them, which is what attracts the audience. However this image wouldn't be the easiest to edit, and I don't think it is scary enough compared to the other shots I have taken. This is a long/medium shot to show most of the ghost. I wasn't too keen on this idea as horror films are not meant to give too much away. 

This is a good medium close up of the ghost. It doesn't give too much away and can come across as scary, especially with my editing skills.

Pre Production Survey

I decided that I had enough responses to put my trailer to practise, so I moved onto a question for a horror poster. Horror posters are found mainly in bus shelters, cinemas, and pin boards. For my poster to stand out, I wanted to ask what was the first thing people noticed about a horror poster. The answers I received were mixed, almost equal which gave me the impression that I had to have at least 3 things on my poster for it to be noticeable. So I will focus on sticking to a dark colour palette of black, grey, and red. A scary image is also what people like about posters, and say its the main thing that make it scary. The image on a poster portrays a genre really well, and so it would be a logic idea to try and develop a spooky image. And the font wasn't a major thing to concentrate on, however it does add a horror feel to it's look. I will look into practising with fonts later on.