I have chosen to analyse, compare and contrast the film posters for the American film, 'High School Musical' and the British film 'This is England.'
It is immediately apparent simply by glancing at the two posters that they have two very different target audiences. The 'High School Musical' poster is filled with bright, bold, warm colours, along with six gleamingly happy male and female teenagers, as well as the Disney logo, suggesting that this film is aimed at a much younger age group, perhaps male and female sixteen year olds and below. However, in contrast to this, the 'This is England' poster consists of much bleaker colours, dull blues, grey and black, and features a line of mixed aged people standing unhappily against a metal fence. Therefore, I can see that the film poster is targeting a much different older audience, eighteen years and above of both male and female.
Another feature of the 'This is England' poster which makes it significantly different from the 'High School Musical' poster is that the awards that it has won at film festivals is displayed in black across the top. This suggests that 'This is England' was produced using a completely different institution, budget and marketing strategy to 'High School Musical,' which being an established American Studio, high-budget film would never bother with film festivals. Therefore, this suggests that 'This is England' may also be aimed at a sophisticated audience who enjoy watching low-budget independant films.
The text on these posters both represent the themes/ main messages of which the films are about really clearly. The American 'High School Musical' poster displays a large, sans-serif yellow font in capital letters, which is covered in lights which resemble the lights which surround an actor's mirror, thus portraying the theme of being on stage, and the 'musical' element of the film. Similarly, the title font on the 'This is England' poster mirrors what the film is about as the three words are written in the three colours of the Union Jack; red, white and blue. Therefore, it reflects the 'England' and shows the audience the themes of the film.
A final difference which I have noticed is that the posters also set the scenes of the different films with the use of the buildings in the 'This is England' poster and the stage and curtains on the 'High School Musical' poster.
In conclusion, from analysing these posters I have learnt the importance of font choice, as it will influence the audience's instant assumption of the theme of our short film. I have also learnt that the subject matter of our short film post card is very important as this will also influence our audience's instant reaction to what they think about our short film, and will decide within a matter of seconds if it is something which they will be interested in or not; thus having an effect on the success of our short film. Finally, I have learnt that with our short film being both British and low-budget, I feel that our film will have more in common with the 'This is England' poster than the American 'High School Musical' poster, and therefore may have similar conventions to it, such as more text on the front, and similar facial expressions.
Analysis of an Exsisting Short-Film Post-Card:
This short film postcard by Rebecca Knapp has many different features in order to target its audience. The front of the postcard (bottom half of the image) uses five different images; one main large image which is the focal point of the post card, positioned to the right, and four smaller square images positioned to the left of the larger one. The images, (two of buildings, two of clouds, and a stamp) appear to be used as enigmas as they don't really give anything away about the short film, and could be representing absolutely anything; thus making the viewer want to watch the short film to find out what this could be.
The front of the postcard also uses text, but only in three places. This is in the form of the title of the short film, 'On a Life's Edge' displayed across the bottom in plain sans-serif white font, the company logo, 'Carlton' in the top left hand corner, and the date '2001' written across the largest image vertically with a low opacity. However, the back of the postcard has much more text as it displays the title of the short film again, company logos again, credits and a short summery of the film.
Similarly, the 'Divine' short film postcard shares many of the conventions which the 'On a Life's Edge' card has: there is very little text on the front of the postcard, one large image on the front, the title displayed in the largest font on the front written in white sans-serif, a blank square for the stamp and credits on the back, and the company logo on the back.
These are successful short film postcards, and so when designing mine, I shall use the conventions which I have analysed.
Why short-films may find it hard to market their films using these strategies and why we might use postcards:
Hollywood films have a much much larger budget to market their films with, and can afford to produce large scale posters and expensive televised commercials, and so being an independant film company with a much smaller budget, short-film companies may benefit more from making a postcard. This is because they are smaller to produce, and are cheaper to distribrute because not only can they be handed out like flyers, but also they can be posted by either the film company or the public sending them to their friends, and so the film is almost advertised by audience word of mouth. Therefore, I feel that producing a postcard is the best option for marketing our short film.
Initial Ideas for my Postcard:
My Postcard Drafts:
Using the conventions of exsisting postcards that I have researched and analysed, these are my first drafts for the postcard.
Draft 1:
I have experimented with using the program Adobe Photoshop CS5 to create a draft sketch of this initial design, as opposed to a hand sketch.
I used the pen tool to create a guide of the hands, and then stroked the path using the pen tool in black. I then created the goal net on another layer and selected inside the hands, to paint using a large, fine brush and added the shading. I also created another layer for the grass and sky background. I used the text tool in a bold, black sans-serif font to add the title of our short film onto the front of the postcard. I chose this font because it is eye-catching, and represents the harshness and importance of the 'status' of the character at risk. I used a different font to write the slogan 'Some things are best kept unsaid...' a white (innocent) and wobbley/ unsure font, with the layer effect of a drop shadow to make it stand out. Finally, I created the company logo 'KLS Productions' By using a different font, along with 4 different layer effects; outer glow, inner glow, drop shadow and a colour overlay.
I have used this subject matter because the holding hands suggests a relationship, but not showing the faces suggests a secretive/ hidden/ concealed relationship. The goal net in the background represents a large part of the main character's life, and the 'football' element which we show quite a lot in our short film as it represents James' masulinity.
Draft 2:
This draft was drawn by hand, so that I could see if this was a more effective and successful way of communicating my ideas. My design of the back of the postcard is the same design which would be used on the back of the above draft.
This design features the main character in our short film, James, standing alone in goal. His shadow is cast in front of him as the sun begins to set in the background (the time of day at which his hidden sexuality is revealed in the last scene) and there are two faded images of Roxanne and Ashley either side of James. This connotes the idea of James being at a 'crossroads' and the theme of the 'love-triangle.' I have chosen to show James in goal because football is a huge part of the character's life, and the reason why he has such a high 'status' amongst his masculine friends.
QR Code:
Within this design, I have also included a square for a QR code for the audience's smart phones to scan, and this will link them directly to the short-film's website. Not only are QR codes very popular at the moment, but they are also a very cheap and effective way of marketing and distribruting our short-film, which is essential for a low-budget Independant company.
Personally, I much prefer this design, as I feel that it has more subtle symbolism of the key ideas explored within our short film, and I also feel that I will be able to use my Photoshop skills more effectively within this design.
This is my final postcard, front and back.
This is my final postcard, front and back.
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