OUGD603 - EP - Film Posters

Curtains
A student-led production

I came across the opportunity to produce a series of film posters for a student-led production at Leeds Beckett film school. As I had undertaken a number of briefs this year that involved producing posters whilst also exploring poster design as part of my CoP essay, I thought I would put myself forward for the job and use the skills I have picked up this year already.

After being chosen as the designer for the posters, I was sent an email that included all I needed to know about the film including the script and the original text the concept is based upon.

My research involved reading through as much of this as possible as well as talking to the students involved. I wanted to get a good understanding of the film including things like tone of voice and colour schemes.

Once I had a strong idea of what the producer and team wanted from the poster designs, I began to produce. 

Secondary research involved looking at existing film posters that were similar to what the film team had in mind for their own posters.

I researched things like typefaces, typesetting and point size so that when I began to design, my own posters would resemble professionally produced ones.

One member of the film team sent me some images that he wanted to use as the main images of the posters. These were still shots from the film that I had to then edit and enhance.

Production

I ended up producing three different poster designs. I was asked to produce one poster that would be seen landscape for certain publicity purposes. Through research, I found the standard typeface used for the credits found at the bottom of the poster. The producer wanted the posters to be simple yet effective with high instant impact. I have tried to achieve this through using bold white text on top of a dark image. The spotlights have then been enhanced and light up the stage that also create a glow around the actresses head.

The other purpose of this format was that it would be used on social media sites such as Facebook to raise awareness of the premier.

I then worked with one member of the crew to produce the next poster shown above. This would be used as the standard film poster outside the cinema. We aimed to keep the style very consistent with the first poster design using strong lighting, dark areas and white text. With this one, I added a glow to the title text to match the glow of the light bulbs.

We then decided to produce a third so that we had a few poster designs to show the producer, hoping that he will like at least one of them.

The posters are being sent to the director today and so I have not had feedback on them yet. However, from my point of view it was a really valuable experience. I have learnt this year that poster design is something I am quite interested in, however I hadn't yet produced posters for an actual client yet. Working with a team of film makers and bringing their film to life through posters was a really rewarding experience. Film posters are seen all over the place and until now I hadn't appreciated them for what they are but after producing my own, I came to realise that they are a huge part of getting publicity for a film and a strong poster design can make a huge difference.