Theatrical Poster Final

This is the finalised and completed version of our theatrical poster for our horror film, Durlock, designed by Jo Woolley. After a couple of weeks of hard work we finally managed to achieve the design that worked best with our trailer and magazine cover.

The poster has ‘Twisted Carousel Productions Present’ written across the top letting the audience see that the creators of well known horror films have produced a new film, which should hopefully make them want to go and watch it.

The colours used on our poster consist of eerie and dirty colours, which suggest that the film is quite dark and that it could perhaps include dated footage, relating to an earlier background story. The colours work well as they are quite cold and the rated stars as well as information at the bottom being a blood red colour look good on a black background as they stand out but not so that they draw attention away from the title and main imagery.

The image of Elsie that has been placed in the bottom centre of the poster is very effective as it personalises the poster, relating it more to the horror film rather than just being an image with Durlock written in it. Where Elsie is featured so much throughout the trailer and with her being the antagonist, I think having her ghostly figure staring at the person viewing the poster increases the paranormal vibe that we are hoping to create.

Also, it helps the audience to connect the film with the magazine cover and theatrical poster as they all feature Elsie’s character on them, which promotes the film as it increases the publicity of it.

I think by adding in the logos of different productions helps make the poster look more professional as it contains professional features, especially with the five star ratings which increases the realism of it as it creates the idea that is has been viewed and rated by top magazines and film critics. 

Theatrical Poster Progress

This first image that I have edited I did on a website called Pic Monkey which allowed me to play around with the colours, saturation, temperature and shadows within the picture, as well as the brightness of it which enabled me to create a dusky, uninviting and paranormal setting. I designed it so that the picture itself was quite dark, which would then highlight the character of Elsie on top of the rest of the scenery, enhancing the importance of her character in the film. I then started to play around with the font by adding the release date of the film to the poster, using one of our selected fonts from earlier on in our research, 'Special Elite'. I chose to make the font a grubby white to match the colour of the sky so that it would be eye catching when being looked at by it's audience, and i thought it would look good standing out on a black background. 

After playing around with the brightness and shadowy effects on the picture, I decided that this murky dim effect would best suit the genre of the film promoting it more to the audience as it is eery to look at and should draw viewers in. I moved the date to the bottom right hand corner so that the title of the film would be central to the poster and stand out over everything else, having the title a lighter grey than the date so that the image is not too plain or boring. I decided that having 'Twisted Carousel Productions Presents' in a blood red would work well as it brings colour to the poster but makes it look gory and unpleasant, suiting the horror theme. I imported the title from a previous poster that we had designed, which is why it has a white box around it, unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to delete the white box as I have been using a website called PicMonkey to create this.

The title font is different to what I have used for the date so that it doesn't all blend together and instead looms above everything else featured on the poster. I decided to delete the imported title and recreate it using Roman Antique as the font. I think this works better as it looks older like it could have been printed from a typewriter, fitting the time scale of which the film is set. The colour of the title here is a lighter grey once again but we have decided that its not distressing enough for this type of movie.

This is my most recently edited version of our theatrical trailer and once again I have changed the colour of the title font to make it darker and tedious rather than the colour of Casper the Friendly Ghost - not the message we are going for. However i am not fully content with this as I think it combines too much with the colour of the date and we want it to fully attract the viewer's eye. 

Inspecting the image, I have noticed that part of the tree branch is poking out onto the character of Elsie, making it look like the has been hung. Now, due to not actually telling the audience how Elsie died, I think this could create suspicion as to what happened after the disappearance of the Durlock family, working well with our theme and plot. 

Also, I think that the title would look better if it was lifted so that it is closer to the introduction of it so that there are not gaps of the same distance between them.

I have been playing around with the colour of the font again and have decided that a whiter colour would actually look better on the poster rather than a darker colour as it is more eye catching to look at.

This is a screengrab from the current editing that we are doing on Photoshop on our theatrical poster. We decided that we didn't like how the release date was designed and placed on the poster and so cloned a dark patch of the background and coloured over it so that when I redesign it I can place it in the centre and decrease the size of the text so that the the title of the film stands out over everything else.  We also put an effect on the title to make it spookier and more ghostly to fit with the theme of our horror film (supernatural and paranormal). 

To increase the intensity of our theatrical poster, we inserted the image of Elsie and added a faded effect to conform to the conventions and themes of our chosen genre, and to highlight the fact that Elsie is a spirit haunting those who live in Durlock House. This allows the audience to recognise that this particular is a horror which would lure our specified target audience in. 

Props

We discovered this image on Google images as we wanted to base our plot on a realistic family, we decided this photograph would be perfect to use as it portrays a family in the specific time era we are basing our Horror plot (early 1900's). We also decided to use this photograph as a prop in our Horror Trailer as it would clearly show the audience specific information to build up the atmosphere of Horror, we decided to use this photograph by leaving it in the box found in the attic that Elsie once occupied. To make the image appear more fearful, we scratched the faces of the people in the photograph apart from Elsie (middle of image between parents) to make it seem as though Elsie was jealous and full of hate, we also decided to burn the edges of the image to make it seem more authentic and aged. Again the use of scratches and burning connotes anger, pain, danger and abnormality which works well with the psychological element of our Horror Genre.

Teaser Poster

We decided to create a variation of different posters to promote our film as much as possible. We took several images during a filming session that could be used as a poster. We came up with the idea of releasing more than one teaser poster, as we took a few pictures of the main 'ghost' Elsie stood directly in front of the camera, gradually getting closer (see images below). We decided to use these images as a teaser as they show the feared Elsie getting closer to the camera, and therefore closer to the audience, if we were to actually release the film and all promotion media then we would release each teaser poster as the time got closer to the date of the film screening. 

The idea of a teaser poster is to subtly present and attract the target audience with the film, without giving full information to the audience that would be shown in the film trailer. So we decided to play on this and withdraw as much information from the audience as possible, as the idea of not knowing would entice and create a curious effect on our audience, hopefully convincing them to watch the film trailer (and eventually the film). Also the plot of our Horror film plays on the fear of the unknown, therefore a subtle yet effective approach to a teaser poster would be appropriate. 

These images show the character Elsie getting closer to the camera, we will edit and adjust these to create the desired effect suitable for a subtle teaser poster.

 Basing our ideas on The Conjuring poster, where a scratched effect was used, we decided to overlay a texture on top of the main image of our poster. The plot of our story mentions that the feared (Elsie) used to scratch the walls of the attic, therefore using a scratched texture seemed appropriate and keeping within the theme of our Horror story. Scratches also connote fear and pain, reflecting the atmosphere of our storyline.

 We overlaid the scratch texture in Microsoft Word by placing the texture image on top of the main image, then making the texture transparent to achieve the desired effect.

We then inserted the image into Photoshop where we adjusted the exposure and contrast of the image to tone down any saturation colours and to define the scratches and make them more noticeable.

Due to our chosen font (De Walpergen Pica) only being available on www.picmonkey.com we had to insert the text on the website used for editing photos. We added the title of the film, Durlock plus a subtle hint to the audience 'It is coming'. This can be interpreted in many different ways, 'it' as in Elsie, the main feared ghost of our plot, this hints to the audience that she is not referred to as a person but as a mysterious non human, playing on the fear of the unknown. This also references the plot of our story as Elsie was not treated as a person but as a thing that no one knew about, therefore addressing her again as the unknown. 'It is coming' also means that the actual film is coming out soon, therefore capturing the attention of our target audience. The small teaser catchphrase also keeps the theme of this poster as it suggests that 'it' (Elsie) is slowly moving closer to the camera and the audience, creating an illusion of fear which is our desired effect for the audience. We also blurred and faded the text on the poster to give off a sense of mystery and withdrawing information, making the general image seem distorted and subtle, which is what our target audience said appealed to them in a Horror genre.

Storyline/Plot - detailed

1902

In the very early 1900's, a wealthy couple called Mr and Mrs Durlock built a house on the top of Ports Down Hill and moved in with their five children, Elsie, Edwin, Clara, Patricia and James. As the years passed, the Durlock's eldest daughter, Elsie, abruptly developed mental health problems and no one could work out why. Having someone with a mental illness within the family back in the Victorian times was seen as shameful and so a lot of families would either admit family members to an asylum or banish them into the attic or cellar because they were seen as being a child of the devil. In this case, the Durlocks locked Elsie away in the attic at the age of just 9 years old. Her parents didn't understand her illness and neither did she, Elsie was always excluded within family activities for being 'odd' and so felt isolated as well as unloved compared to the rest of her siblings.

Her parents would take her up food and water once a day but without making any conversation as they no longer saw her as their daughter. Her siblings were forbidden to enter the attic and other family members or friends were told that Elsie had been sent away to a posh boarding school because her behaviour was not as it should be. 

The only furniture in the attic for Elsie's comfort was a wooden chair, an old wooden toy box with a family photo inside as well as her music box. There was no chamber pot so she had to go to toilet in the corner of the attic, causing her to become ill due to the horrendous smell and lack of hygiene. 

Years passed and at the age of 16, Elsie killed herself and after this there are no further records of the Durlock family. 

Present

The Paige family weren't the first to move into Durlock House. Numerous families had lived there previously but within a month they would move out without any explanation, not that this worried the Paiges. There was Mr and Mrs Paige, with their 16 year old daughter Anna and 8 year old son Alex. Mr and Mrs Paige worked late hours and so Anna and Alex were quite often alone in the house. Anna found it very difficult to settle in due to her father's job forcing them to move every few years, and so she didn't really have any friends. She was very protective of Alex as she was frequently babysitting him and they had a very close relationship. 

One day whilst her parents were at work, Anna decided to explore the house to see what she could find, and she came across a trap door that led to a dark, unused attic that contained only a chair and a wooden box. 

Since discovering the attic and these objects, as well as the music box, Anna has noticed differences in Alex's behaviour. He will suddenly become distant and angry if Anna ever tried to interact with him, it didn't make any sense.

As weeks passed, more strange things were happening at Durlock House, but only ever when Mr and Mrs Paige were absent. Loud thudding was heard from upstairs and then sudden padding of footsteps would be heard beside Anna, as well as a cold gush of air. It wasn't this that frightened Anna, but the actions of Alex. Since entering that attic, something in the house had changed. Something in the house, and something in Alex...

Canon Motor Zoom 8 EEE (Super 8 video camera)

 

This is the Super 8 video camera that we will be using as a prop throughout our trailer as well as using some recorded footage from it. It will be what the protagonist uses when she is exploring the attic after hearing unexplainable noises when home alone. We are hoping that the footage from this particular camera will have an eery and dark affect on the trailer, increasing the feeling of horror and mystery during it.

These are examples of us taking a photo with the digital camera looking through the Super 8 video camera lense so that we could get an idea of how the footage would turn out. As you can see, the photograph is a lot darker and more blurred, but this will hopefully create the atmosphere that we are looking to invent in the attic. This being spooky, cold, undisturbed, forgotten, unwelcoming, eery etc. 

Super 8 Camera Prezi

PhotoSnack Slideshow