Film poster work - list of things to do

You need to ensure the following have been completed by next Monday 7th November:

• Film poster analysis
• Main poster mock-up/ flatplan
• Teaser poster mock-up/ flatplan
• Target audience profile

10W - Work To Do (Monday 31st October - Friday 4th November)

This week your lessons are with Mr Ford (Monday period 5 & Thursday period 3 ) and Miss Marvin (Tuesday period 2).

By the end of Mr Ford's lesson on Monday you must have completed the preparatory tasks for your film posters and have completed a flat plan for your main poster.

In Miss Marvin's lesson on Tuesday you will finish the flat plan and then ensure your initial research and planning is in your folder.

In Mr Ford's lesson on Thursday you need to complete the work listed on the list of things to do blog post.

You will have homework time to complete the tasks.

10W - Work To Do (24th - 26th October)

This week your lessons are with Miss Marvin (Monday period 1) and Mr Ford (Wednesday period 5)

In Miss Marvin's lesson you will begin the creative process for your film posters. This work must be completed in one lesson. In Mr Ford's lesson you will be moving on to film poster flat plans.

Action Adventure Film Posters - Preparatory Work

Period 1 Monday 24th October

As part of your coursework you will need to design two posters (a teaser poster and a main poster) for an action adventure film (of your own creation) aimed at a teenage audience.

In today's lesson you need to make progress on the following:

• Decide on the sort of action adventure film you will be making the poster for.
• Choose a suitable title for your film.
• Decide on a tagline for your title - on the poster above the tagline is "Welcome to the home of the brave".
• Write a brief plot outline for your film - what happens in the film plot wise.
• Decide on the stars who will appear in your film - ensure they are stars who will appeal to teenagers. Explain why you have chosen them.

You need to aim to finish this in Miss Marvin's Monday's lesson. In Mr Ford's lesson you will move on to your poster flat plans.

Half-term homework: Start a graphic design collection

This is the first design project from Chip Kidd's brilliant book GO: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design.

Over the half-term have a go at this project. How you collate the images is up to you - you can make a scrap book of cut out images or you could do it all in word or publisher or  Photoshop (if you have it).

This is an optional task. If you have ambitions to gain an ATL of a 1 in assessment points then this is the sort of extra work you need to do.

You can buy Chip Kidd's book here.

10W - Work To Do (Monday 10th - Thursday 13th September)

This week your lessons are with Mr Ford (Monday period 5 & Thursday period 3 ) and Miss Marvin (Tuesday period 2).

By the end of Mr Ford's lesson on Monday you must have completed the majority of the analysing movie poster work. All work should be stuck into your exercise book.

In Miss Marvin's lesson on Tuesday you will finish the the questions if necessary and then move on to the extension tasks. 

In Mr Ford's lesson on Thursday you need to complete the work.

All work must be completed in the three lessons.

Analysing Movie Posters

Task:
Select a poster of your choice from the action genre and answer all the questions below.

Posters occupy a space between art and advertising. They have a clear commercial purpose - to promote an event or product - but they also have artistic value. People buy them and hang them on their walls. Museums have whole galleries devoted to poster art. When analysing a poster it is important that you evaluate both how well it fulfils its purpose (i.e. promotion) as well as its aesthetic value.

First steps

• When analysing a poster, you should consider the following broad questions before you start to focus on the details:
• What are the main colours used in the poster? What do they connote? (red is a colour - it connotes danger and passion).
• What symbols are used in the poster? Do you need audience foreknowledge to decode the symbols?
• What are the main figures/objects/background of the poster? Are they represented photographically, graphically, or illustratively?
• Are the messages in the poster primarily visual, verbal, or both?
• Who do you think is the intended audience for the poster?

Given that all movie posters have the same purpose - to get audiences to go see a movie -

• What persuasive techniques are used by the poster?
• Which genre conventions are referred to?
• Is a star used as a USP (Unique Selling Point)?
• Are "expert witnesses" (i.e. critics) quoted?
• What pleasures (gratifications) are promised by the poster?
• How is attention gained (humour, shock, surprise familiar face of a star)?
• How does the tagline work? (humour, pun, alliteration etc?)
• Who are the institutions involved in production?

The poster can also give you important information about the production context of the movie:

• How much does the poster tell you about the institutional context of the movie's production?
• How important is this information on the poster (think about information hierarchies)?
• How important a part of the whole marketing campaign is the poster? Where is the poster placed?
• How expensive was this poster to produce?

Critical Evaluation

Finally, you have to pass judgement on the poster.

• Is it a good poster?
• Does it communicate effectively with the audience?
• Are there any alternative readings which might harm the message of the marketing campaign?
• Is the poster offensive in any way? e.g. negative representation of people or places

Poster Analysis

Analyse  three action adventure film posters in the style of the example below. Include as much information as possible. Add a colour palette chart to your analysis.

10WMS1 - Work To Do (3rd - 5th October)

This week your lessons are with Miss Marvin (Monday period 1) and Mr Ford (Wednesday period 5)

In Miss Marvin's lesson you will conduct preliminary research into film posters. This work must be completed in one lesson. In Mr Ford's lesson you will be moving on to film poster analysis.

Film Posters - Preliminary Research

Today you will be researching ideas for a piece of work-the creation of a poster for an action/adventure film aimed at a teenage audience.

Your task is to find at least twenty different examples of movie posters for action adventure films. Save the images in a folder and add them to a PowerPoint. Make sure they are all clear and of the same size on your page. 

Categorise the posters in two ways:

• posters promoting films for a teenage audience
• posters promoting films for an adult audience

Extension task:

You will notice that some movies have multiple posters. Choose a recent action/ adventure film and find as many posters for that film as you can.