Final Poster Design - Caroline

This is the final poster design for our film 'Sleep Tight'. In this poster, key conventions of film posters have been included such as the names of the actors in large and bold in order to draw in an audience and also the reviews down the side to show widespread opinion of the film. I have used left justification throughout the poster, apart from on the title which I feel is effective in showing the disorientation of the main character and the unpredicatability of the plot. The kerning between the letters in certain places is unpredicatable and not standardised and this is to create a sense of importance on certain words but also to create the same sense of disorientation that the character expereinces. This is especially noticeable in the tagline.

Decisions that I made in terms of the conventions of this poster are as follows:

The image - I chose the image because I feel that it represents the film well and gives a good indication as to the genre and tone of the film throughout. It is dark, restricts spectator knowledge about the event they are seeing and also casts questions as to why the scene is happening. All these indications will draw an audience to want to answer their questions - by watching our film - so this is an effective image for a film poster that wants to make a profit.

The title - The title reflects the genre again as it is disjointed, unpredictable ad not standardised - just like the main character in his confused state throughout the film. You cannot understand why he is behaving as he is, and so I tried to reflect this in the title by using a font that seems to loom over the viewer, and also imposes strongly against the image as the character imposes on the female character. The diagonal nature shows this also and heightens the sense of danger that we infer from the font. I also wanted the text to seemingly wrap itself around the girl, in order to show that the comment 'sleep tight' is aimed at her, and that she is the victim of the piece but also so it seems to be looming over her, symbolising the danger she is in.

The Actor's Names - I used kerning when it came to these two names because I felt that it made a huge difference in the manner to which they stood out against the background as it is dark, but also because it seperates them from the other text on the poster. I used red becuase of its connotations but also because it linked the names to the other text in red on the poster such as the date and the highlighted words in the tagline.

The Reviews - The reviews were really important because they show the calibre of sources that have enjoyed our film. I chose to use 'Little White Lies' magazine because within the industry they are a trusted source, with a good reputation and so if they say that our short film is good then it is coming from a source that people will trust. I also chose it because I was then able to create a strong link between our poster and our review in that we could have the quote in the review and use it on the poster. The link between different forms of advertising is key because it creates a brand that the audience will recognise and want to get involved in.

The Date - The date of release was a key convention of the film poster that was essential in our design. I chose to place in in the bottom centre in order to draw attention to it and give the film poster a centre piece for the eye to be drawn to. The date of release is a key piece of information because people will always want to know when a film comes out in order to go and watch it therefore the more prominently we display the reslease date the more audience members we will gain, and thus, the more profit we will make.

The Tagline - The tagline was another essential part of our design because it is a key convention of film posters and also because it can sell a film due to the relevance it has to genre and theme. I chose our tagline because I feel it has very strong links to our genre through the mystery it conveys, but also because it shows our theme of sleepless nights. The decision to have "disturbed" and "restless" in red was to highlight them against the other text and background due to the fact that these two words show the theme and genre most poignantly.