DESIGN REPORT FOR CREATING A HORROR FILM POSTER
Lianne Winter
Type:
I first started researching type by looking at current horror film titles such as Psycho and Saw to see what font types they were using to portray the horror genre and their movie type. I also used a font type website called www.dafont.com to look at different styles of horror fonts. As the brief required a Saul Bass style I included the type font used in his work called 'Hitchcock'.
After this we did an activity which required us to add an appropriate font to a phrase. For example, 'The good, the bad and the ugly.' For that phrase I choose to use a western/cowboy font as that phrase was commonly used in western movies. This activity allowed us to gain the skill of adding appropriately styled fonts to specific phrases.
To begin my development I watched my chosen movie; Cloverfield and decided what type of horror film it was. As it's a military based film I wanted my font to be in that style. I then went onto doing some rough hand drawn type font ideas for my movie title. Next I went onto www.dafont.com and collected appropriate fonts which matched the style of my chosen film. I then went onto annotating each font by saying what i liked and didn't like about it and how well it would suit my film. All the fonts i picked out were similar in the way that they were square-like and blocky.
For my development i wanted to play around with different ideas so I did a few experiments with the scanner. I printed out a few title ideas and then put them in the scanner but instead of keeping the paper still for a sharp scan i moved it about to create a hand rendered warp. I had to do this a couple of times to get a finishing outcome which i was happy with because it was a bit trail and error. The finishing outcomes are displayed on my blog.
The final outcome for my type font was to be done digitally using www.dafont.com as i saw some really great fonts on their which suited my film perfectly. I decided to use two different fonts for my poster. The first one; Cargo Bay which is used for 'Cloverfield' and the second one called BigNoodleTilting for the movie quote and release date. The reason why i used two different fonts was because i wanted the film title; Cloverfield to stand out and be the first thing you read when looking at my poster. I also used two different type font sizes as again i wanted the title to be the first thing read by the viewer.
Colour:
For my colour research i created a mood board showing all the colours used in the film Cloverfield. These colours included turquoises, dark greens and black. This film is good to relate to Saul Bass's style because there is a small colour palette used. Although Bass uses mainly primary colours. To show influence to Bass i experimented with six different colour choices which included primary colours and colours relating to the film. These colours were; orange, turquoise, red, dark blue, yellow and pink. I only wanted to use one colour in my poster to portray Bass's minimalistic style.
To pick out the chosen colour for my final poster i asked my family and friends to take part in a tally chart to help me choose the colour which most suited my film and looked good within my poster. The colour chosen was dark green/turquoise.
Visuals
Before even exploring ideas to do for my poster i watched the film and did a few rough pencil sketches throughout the duration of the film. I then went onto doing a few mood-boards. I did one mood board based on the location; New York and some main settings for example Manhattan bridge and the Statue of Liberty. I also did another mood board showing key props with in the film such as the camcorder and helicopters etc. I didn't do a mood board for a monster because i wanted to keep that unknown because you don't actually know or see the monster in the movie.
After getting an idea of some visuals for my poster i started to do a few thumbnail ideas for my poster. These are displayed on my blog. I wanted to keep the poster minimalistic as i wanted to show influences of Bass's work. I wanted to use the idea of silhouettes.
I picked the idea of having the New York Skyline and an image of a parasite which gets portrayed in the film as they come of the monster/unknown creature. I choose this idea as it does not give too much away and is minimalistic. I then went
onto Illustrator and played around with different layouts for my visuals. I decided to have the parasite cut into the skyline.
Layout
After choosing my poster design i already knew which layout to have as it looked best and i didn't explore any more ways. I wanted to viewers eye to go down the page. So the viewer would learn from looking at the poster that the film takes place in New York and involved parasites in some way. Not portraying much in the poster i think attracts the viewer to watch and find out what the films about.
I put the film title before the film quote and release date because i want the title to be read first then the quote next etc.
Style
As the brief asked us to use Saul Bass's style i tried to keep everything on this poster very minimalistic and simple.
I used the fact that Bass's used a small colour palette in his work.
Although i looked at using Bass's style i don't think it would be suitable for my film and the horror genre in general. I feel like my type font is suitable and simple enough to relate to Bass.
Effectiveness & Other
I feel that my poster is very effective responding to the brief as i have created a Saul Bass inspired horror poster using Adobe Illustrator.
Overall, i am very happy with the finishing results.
At the beginning of this small project i did not know many skills in Abode Illustrator but have come out with small techniques i can use in future projects.
