"The Deprived" First poster draft

 FIRST DRAFT OF POSTER

As part of the main task of producing our own Film Trailer, we were also asked to construct another form of advertisement, a poster. This above is my first draft, of which I will be adding to, as feedback from peers and teachers have given me pointers in ways I can improve my work to make it even better. Along with The poster I wrote a full analysis of it which you see below.

"THE DEPRIVED"

MOVIE POSTER ANALYSIS

The motion picture title "The Deprived" could mean a multitude of things, but when combined with the font and the rest of the poster, it becomes more apparent that it is referring to the character as "deprived" What is he deprived of? This alone begins to raise questions relating to the film, such as; Why are these characters or a character being described as deprived? Or, what has happened to result in them being deprived? The font of the title directly relates to the meaning behind it, as it is a decaying, almost rusted font. This could symbolize the decaying or decay of humanity or civilization. It could even be taken as deep as saying that the degrading of the title could mimic that of the characters state or mental health.

The code of enigma is further added to when looking into some of the key images, or most important art featured in the poster. The central piece is the figure standing facing away from the camera. In his hand is a picture of two boys, who these boys are and why he is clutching their photo are more questions raised by this image, adding to the mystery of the piece and the possibility of a potential viewers interest being peeked. looking into the details of the figure, or, mise en scene, the viewer starts to build a better understanding of the possible narratives or themes the movie could contain. The costume of the character, whom we presume is male, due to his posture and clothing, is ragged and damaged. Dirt, armature stitching and blood covers his faded coat and hooded top, this tells us that he has been involved in violence and is potentially living rough, due to the condition of his clothes and person, as we see blood running down his hand onto the faded crumple picture.

Further analysis of the blood shows it dripping down over the picture, and it seems as if it is almost separating the two boys from each other. The blood could represent their segregation through death, or just something of an evil nature. Again more questions to add to the code of enigma. Also on the character is a rucksack, help together by string and duck tape, this shows how resourceful the person has to be, maybe due to his position, which is unknown. Along with the bag he holds a wooden baseball bat in the side holdall, again relating to the themes of violence. Such a blunt instrument gives a sense of brutality, it is not as quick or demanding of any skill to wield, which could suggest the character as aggressive and maybe even brutal in his acts. 

Other key images include the newspaper on the floor, and the man-made pole and rubbish bin overturned on the road. The newspaper, although taking up little space in the bottom right hand corner of the page is significant in the sense that it gives more background information to the narrative "RIOTS HIT CITIES" and "Death count Rising" But this insight again seems to raise more questions than it can answer, and so again the code of enigma grows. In the other section of the poster we can see an electricity pole with wires wires dangling and the pole itself sitting unevenly to the ground. Up the sides we see vines growing, the same can be seen on the ground around the rubbish on the road. This could give us a key insight into a possible theme of the movie. Nature fighting back, as it is growing over the man made objects.

In terms of the posters iconography, the only aspects I can see as iconic are the use of blood on the character and the decaying objects like the pole. The blood maybe linking to the horror or thriller themes in the story and the decaying environment seen in genres such as apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, which would explain the characters mise en scene as being so damaged and decayed.

The character is positioned so that we can only see his one side, his head and left arm are completely cut out of shot, creating a further era of mystery, what could he be holding, if anything, in his other hand? And more importantly who the character is, and whether he is one of the boys in the picture or if he is unrelated. His posture seems relaxed as he lightly hold the piece of paper, although his condition would suggest otherwise. Maybe he is under some mental trauma? Or his motivation, to possibly find one of the boys in the photo is gone.

The tag line "When they come, will you run? Or fight?" This directly asks the viewer a question. What would you do in his position, would you be more reserve or aggressive? Another aspect adding to the code of enigma, the tagline suggests that there is something to run from "they come" and that an option would be to run, implying that they, or, it, is dangerous. This poster gives the impression that its audience is towards the older end of the spectrum, 18 - 25 years. The poster gives a very negative them, and I find is similar to that of "The Road" which itself is a film that contains some disturbing images. Its unique selling point I believe is its main characters, usually there is a dominant male and a more vulnerable young girl or male. In this the story is surrounding two similar ages males in their late teens, but with the difference of contrasting morals instead of sex or dominance.

FEEDBACK

Teacher: Positives// - I managed to create a memorable image, that will help the view to remember and think about my poster, with effective connotations.

- I created an effective film title and a font to go along with it, that is effective in reflecting the narrative of the film.

Negatives, things to improve// - The positioning of the tag line, within the title is hard to distinguish, so re-position this to a place that is more effective.

- To allow the audience to relate to the character, show maybe the back of his head to get more of a sense of age and identity. Or maybe place other items that suggest youth ( Idea, badges of bands or sayings on his bag ) making him seem more vulnerable.

- Must add Billing Block into the poster, along with Multi-media platforms, Twitter, Facebook etc. which will tend to the target audience that is younger adults.

- Another problem I found was that the telegraph pole in the background might be hard to create or find, whereas a decaying building may be easier to find and may even be more effective.

Peers: Summary// - I received similar comments from my classmates, that I need to include the billing block etc. But mostly positive feedback from everyone.

All in all I was pleased with the way I created my poster and the end product, I believe that if I take all the feedback and apply it to the poster I will definitely receive even better results from it. So I will be updating soon, a new version of my poster, with added content that I received from my feedback.