"The House" film poster project

The House

Research

Horror:



- Conjuring 2: The silhouette of a little child standing on a symmetrical window frame, with rays of light surrounding them creates a supernatural effect around it.

The mysterious, hand, standing to the left of the poster offsets the symmetry, which creates slight discomfort. The hand holding a religious cross, symbolizes that it has religious connections. The shot used is a long shot, which creates a wide frame. The colours used are very low contrast and use blue/green colours expressing a very cold and empty tone.



- The Haunting of Hill House: This poster uses a combination of a close up and an establishing shot. The close up the woman showcases her tears, and cold, chapped and dry lips, which emphasizes her fear of what is next to come. Furthermore, the establishing shot of the house cuts the woman's face in half & covers her eyes, which may imply that the house itself is what makes her scared, and thus cry.

The colors used are very low contrast and use blue/green tints expressing a very cold and empty environment, which may also emphasize fear.



- The Nun: The poster uses a medium close up shot and is combined with two pictures framed exactly the same way. The colours used are mainly black and white, which symbolizes evil and good. The medium close up shot of a beautiful woman dressed in white wearing a cross is seen to slowly disappear with a burning paper effect. It reveals a menacing character with gray lifeless skin, yellow inhuman eyes, dressed in black.

The font used reverses the third letter in “NUN” further implying the contrast or mirror concept. The letter “T” in the word “THE” also uses a religious cross to imply the religious connections.

Romance:



- 500 Days of Summer: Popular actors name at the top.

Collage of hundreds of pictures of the female protagonist make up the large majority of the poster. - This combined with the “500” written in larger font than the rest of the text indicates how these pictures are of the female protagonist throughout the “500 days” they were in a relationship.

Collage of pictures tinted yellow form a picture of the sun while the background is tinted a light blue, which correlates to the title of the movie as the bright yellow sun and blue sky is often associated with the summer season, and in this case indicates that the female MC is named summer, due to the pictures of her seemingly forming the sun in the blue sky.

Male MC is seen engrossed in his sketchbook as he sits on a grassy hill that isn’t real, but instead drawn. Furthermore, since the collage of pictures of the female MC forms the sky, this metaphorically shows how the male MC is given light by the female MC, and how she also gives him inspiration. This could imply that what he is actually drawing, is a portrait of the female MC, due to most shots of her in the collage seeming like pictures that an artist themselves could draw. This then emphasizes how the male MC fell in love with the female MC.


- Beauty and the Beast: Popular actors name at the top.


Girl MC is seen holding a rose as her eyes concentrate on its beauty - It is often seen that roses are usually given to show someones love and affection for another, which could mean the girl is looking at the rose so intensely and with a conflicted look as it was given by someone she cannot be sure about/is not sure she can love.


Both MC’s are positioned facing their backs to each other, which could indicate that they don't see eye to eye & don't share lots in common.


Male MC’s color of face and hair blend in with the background, which could show that this is his “natural” environment, while girl MC’s bright yellow dress contrasts heavily with the dark white and blue background, which could show that she isn't meant to be there.





- La La Land: Popular actors’ names at the top.


Protagonists seen dancing with matching poses. (This emphasizes their similarities and how they fall in love with each other)


Bright colors of character’s shirts contrast with the dark-purple background of the night sky.


The characters are seen gazing at each others faces, which emphasizes how they are caught up in the moment, and at the same time, caught up in each other.

Thriller:



- Stranger Things: The two protagonists are facing face to face with expressions of seriousness, anger, and even pain to show the intensity/rivalry between the 2 MC’s which also shows that there will be a battle between the “hero” and “villain” at the end of the show, and may also be the climax of the story.

The “line” that splits the poster in half at the bottom shows the cast of characters in the real world, andana upside-down world, which could indicate how these different “realms and realities” will play a big part in the show.


- Shutter Island: Very popular actor’s name on top of the title of the movie.


The island is in the middle of the sea which shows that it is a remote and isolated place.


The protagonist holding a match conveys the limited lighting supported with the dark background indicates that the main character has little equipment and resources to survive on the island, and shows he has to get out.


The main tagline at the bottom of the screen - “Some Places Never Let You Go” indicate that the objective of the main character is to try and escape this wretched, almost haunted, island that “won't seem to let him go”, and that the movie will focus on the trials and tribulations the MC has to go through to escape.





- The Gambler: Background of the poster shows one side which is sunny and bright, and one which is dark and at night. This, along with the line “One Man, Two Lives” emphasizes how the man lives a different life in the day time, and another at night (in this case, his night “life” would be the one he lives as a gambler.)


The side characters (Girl and Mob Boss) are seen on the left and right of the MC, in the background of each of his 2 “lives”, which could show how the girl is what gives his life meaning, brightness, and purpose, while his inflictions with gambling 3 the mafia, is what is pulling him down into a dark place in his life.


The money and roulette wheel at the very bottom of the poster further put a spotlight on the main theme of the movie, the MC’s problem with gambling, and how he burns his money in casinos.


Concept Development

Horror: For the poster of The House with the genre of horror, our target audience would be teens-young adults of lower-upper class statues and of any ethnicity. People watching horror movies are usually thrill junkies who want to experience the shocks and jumps of watching a horror movie, or people who want to have a good time with their friends, which is most likely going to be young people. Getting scared and shocked however doesn’t necessarily depend on social class or ethnicity, thus people of any ethnicity and social class may be able to watch and enjoy a horror movie.


The concept of the poster would most likely show the area the movie takes place in, which would most likely be a house, and maybe the main antagonist of the movie (the person/thing that makes the movie scary/creates ‘jumpscares’), the lighting should be dark as well as the color palette of the poster as to create a spooky and scary vibe to connote that the movie is going to be filled with suspenseful moments and fear of what is to come next.


Synopsis: The House is a story of an ordinary suburban family consisting of John, Gwen, (Father & Mother) Peter, and Steph (Son & Daughter) moving into a seemingly ‘normal’ house. No one would’ve expected that this posh house in modern suburbia ends up driving the family to the ground, as we observe first hand how their mental state and family relations falls to pieces as they spend more and more time trying to uncover the secret of what lies inside The House.


First Draft:



Final Poster:


Romance: For the poster of The House with the genre of romance, we would want to set a target audience of teens-young adults, of all ethnicities and from the middle-upper class. This is because the thrills and highs of romance are most often related to our adolescent years, and it’s most likely that teenagers and young adults will relate more to romantic movies compared to small kids or senior citizens. People of the middle-upper class are also more likely to enjoy romantic movies as it is most likely similar to the romantic relationships they have experienced. Meanwhile, all ethnicities are able to enjoy romantic movies as there is little to no difference to the way different races experience love and romance.


For the concept of the design, it would be best to have the 2 main protagonists (love interests) be the main focus of the poster. It would be better to show them center stage, close together, maybe staring at each other or even doing an activity together. This conveys the idea of romance to viewers as having 2 people stare at each other intently shows off their interest for each other, and connotes the idea of a romantic relationship. Furthermore we would want to use a scenic background that shows a romantic “aesthetic”, as it builds a more picturesque and romantic environment. Lighting used should be bright and gleaming instead of gloomy and dark as to create a more happy and uplifting aura.


Synopsis: The House is a story of two star struck lovers, Steven and Emma, who’s trajectories cross paths through what can only be considered an act of fate itself, which leads them into a, at first glance, perfect relationship. The love was passionate, real, and driven by their will to make the relationship work. However, it seems clear to only the audience that what they do to each other, will never last. As time goes on, the home that they've created in each other begins to crack and crumble as they take the covers off their eyes and see the flaws in each other that their love has blinded them from seeing.


First Draft:


Final Poster:

Thriller: For the poster of The House with the genre of thriller, the target audience would most likely be adults-middle aged people of middle-upper social class and of any ethnicity. This is because most thriller films have quite complex plot lines and are usually for more mature audiences. In this case, teens/kids will most likely not be able to fully understand the plots and narratives of a thriller film, and the scenes shown will most likely contain 18+ content. Thus it would be better to target a older and more mature demographic for the thriller genre.


The concept design would use intense close ups/medium close ups of the protaginsts face, with the background or foreground being the main setting of the story. Other narratives may be used in the background of the poster related to the plot of the movie. For example, mature topics like gambling, mafia, crime, etc, may be shown in the background to convey the intensity/thrill that the movie may bring.


Synopsis: While fulfilling his duty as a good samaritan, trying to rescue a baby boy from a seemingly abandoned house, Stanly Grunch (Leonardo Dicaprio) finds himself stranded in a house. The longer he wanders around and spends time inside the house, the more he finds out that the house and his own mind have been working against him


First Draft:

Final poster:

Critical Self-Reflection ( Movie Poster)

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?


Conventions are the desired things that audiences expect to see in the media product. Before making the poster I did a detailed research to find out my generic conventions. Our poster is based on plot and the setting will be in the movie. Instead of doing any experiment we tried to follow the conventions in the narrative. Our genre is ‘thriller-psychology’. The first convention we used is close-up shot in the poster. We use artificial lighting in order to perfect the lighting of ¾ angle to the model we use as the main character. Our poster represents the typical stereotypes and stigma. We showed our character in shabby, gloomy and dark clothes who belong to the lower class. By implementing the mise-en-scene(the editing) and convention we can make sure audiences are willing to dig deeper about the movie soon and the audience may relate to the typical stereotype. In our poster we use the code colour red for our title within a large font size to convey dominance, violence and rage. Also to enhance the audience's first impression about what will happen in the movie. We’re targeting adults-middle aged people of middle-upper social class and of any ethnicity. This is because most thriller films have quite complex plot lines and are usually for more mature audiences. In this case, teens/kids will most likely not be able to fully understand the plots and narratives of a thriller film, and the scenes shown will most likely contain 18+ content. Thus it would be better to target an older and more mature demographic for the thriller genre. All products represent some social issue faced by some group of people. By the following codes and conventions I can make my targeted audience relate to the theme of our movie in the poster media. However we tried to challenge conventions as we don’t include women in our poster.


2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?



In order to engage with our audience, we decided to use social networking applications (twitter and tiktok). Recently Tiktok and Twitter have gained popularity and it was crucial to have an account on Tiktok. In order to spread the audience awareness, Twitter and Tiktok enable the traffic in social-media audiences since people of all ages use it. Twitter has a trending page feature through which people are able to see the trending the latest topic; and what people from all over the world are discussing about. Furthermore there are hashtags through which potential trends can be started. We can utilise the facility like ‘retweet’ and ‘favourite’ to share our company film’s tweets on our own accounts so that our friends and followers can read more about our tweets. Tiktok has the algorithm of showing the audience's preference content since audiences in Tiktok pages allow you to scroll the content if they don’t prefer certain contents. By collecting this kind of data the algorithm will show preferred contents to specific audiences. By this data analysis we are able to promote our movie to specific audiences thus spreading awareness. Tiktok also allows you to sponsor your posts and engage viewers which also helps in marketing certain products in an effective way. On Tiktok you can only post videos; but on Twitter you are able to post photos and links which makes promoting more efficient. But when one person likes or shares something it automatically appears on either their friend’s or follower’s feeds. Some people may get intrigued and share those posts which create a chain reaction thus promoting it even further.This kind of marketing strategy is very cost effective and is sure to work in our favour. This way a huge percentage of the population will have easy access to our film and we will engage the target audiences into viewing our work. We decided to choose Universal pictures under the NBCuniversal Film and Entertainment as the distributor of our media product. As it is one of the well known media institutions in the world who has been in the film industry since 1912. Movies like jurassic world, fast and furious and fifty shades of grey that have been evolving around our society are commonly distributed by this company. Universal picture has wide access to broadcast around every national television channel. I would also showcase our films in the Jakarta Independent Film Festival(JIFF) organized by HF Productions' Indonesian branch, an international production company run by a collective of independent filmmakers, producers, and marketing professionals. It screened both local and international films. This platform can be a stepping stone for new independent filmmakers like us to get our poster movie recognized and distributed. If our poster sparks the interest of the audiences and proves successful in engaging with them, then it will stand a greater chance of a potential movie audience and being distributed by local and international distributors across cinemas. These are the strategies for the distribution of our film as a real media text.


3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?


I would definitely say that my production skills have developed throughout the course. This is because I have learned how to manage and work with new software such as Photoshop and premiere pro which I otherwise would not have used and not been shown to. Also, I feel as though I have become more confident with software such as Photoshop as I now know how to complete other changes in the application like copying a section from one area of the image to then pasting over onto another, which I had to use in both poster and film production. Photoshop has extremely numerous features for image editing software. Some of its powerful tools like photo gradient curve and rendering allow me to not only adjust brightness in pictures but also add special effects. Premier pro also has extremely countless useful features where you can manipulate every scene as you wish. I also learned about cinematography and I am confident that my camera skills have improved since I learned how by capturing moments people can interact with the media product. The camera was the main tool to capture my model for my poster movie. I wasn't even new to photography. I use a mirrorless camera as it is easy to carry and the camera allows you to transfer pictures to your computer device easily.


4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?


For my project, I used a lot of different software. One of the main software that I use is Adobe Photoshop. I used Adobe Photoshop to design our movie poster. Since keeping a journal is important I use Blogger to keep up on my progress during the project to be organized and keep all the work. I also use lots of hardware devices. I use my iPhone and HP spectre laptop. I use my iPhone 12 to communicate and sometimes explore using different settings such as portrait mode for photography. I used my MacBook for making the movie poster in photoshop and also to email myself some of the photos from my phone to drag them to the project. I also utilize some online resources such as different websites to help me with my project. The two main websites that I used were youtube and google search engine to look up articles for inspiration for my poster and for an idea on how to start my critical self-reflection by observing previous students and their products

Storyboard Sketch

Concept: This advert will use the storytelling concept to trigger audiences' emotions so audiences can start to feel empathetic toward the subject in the advert. By this concept, people could easily understand the message especially since the product is targeted at families. The story is about a family who's having dinner together showing how harmony is the family but eventually, the grandpa in the family got a heart attack out of the blue and they need to hospitalize their grandpa Jim as soon as possible. They manage to bring grandpa Jim to the emergency room immediately but unfortunately, they seem to be struggling with the finance and broken at the same time. In the end, the nurse pulls grandpa Jim after he's finally recovering.

Target Audience: The target audience would most likely be family of 30 years above as usually family above 30 years old has to focus on taking care of their grandparents health. 

First/Final Sketch:

Genre Convections in Movie

The genre of Movie: Action

Sub Genre of movie: Superhero action

Genre Convection:

It's shown clearly that the movie is an action since in the opening the main character has the ability to parkour with the spider web. He was wearing the special iconic spiderman suit in the opening while hanging on top of the street lamp. At the beginning of the plot also conveys a conflict to begin the story as most of the movie

Gnere Convection In Magazine

Genre of Magazine: Fashion

Sub Genre of Magazine: Men’s Fashion & Women’s Fashion

2 examples of each sub-genre:

Men’s Fashion - GQ Magazine, Men’s Vogue Magazine



Women’s Fashion - Vogue Magazine, Cosmopolitan




Genre Conventions:

GQ and Men's Vogue appeal to male audiences as stars are always seen wearing fashionable clothing that makes them seem very stylish and good-looking, which may give menn ideas on how to improve their wardrobe/look better in general. The colour palette used also appears more monochrome instead of using outlying and bright colours. This fits the Male Genre Convention as men are usually more attracted to simple grey-white-black colours instead of vibrant neons, pinks, yellows, etc.


Vogue and Cosmopolitan appeal to women audiences due to their bright, vibrant colour palettes, for example bright pink, which tends to attract female readers. Using popular stars like kpop idols also boost readership as women may want to see what their favourite singers and actors are wearing to try and copy their wardrobe and dress better.

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Advert Analysis Media Product

Sequis

https://youtu.be/P1t8Lgd25t0

Media Language: In the beginning, there was a scene of a dad holding his newborn baby and a smooth transition over the camera technique over the object showing the next approximately five years old the newborn has grown up playing with their family. The children were playing sort of miniature house toy and the zoom-in camera shot to the door with a smooth transition to the next scene where the door in toys becomes the real door and the door opened by the graduated child and the property of the graduation hat was thrown and the transition over the sky to show that the child is grown up and has entered a new chapter which a marriage. And there is a transition of a man by changing the hair color tone to the older look to show that Sequis's product can be used for unlimited time.

Audiences: The advert seems to target a more specific type of people in the family of all races and social classes. This type of analogy concept advert allows all ages to understand what the producer is trying to convey. 

Representation: The main character was the baby being held by the father where which represents the dependent group of people. And then the next scene is followed by the grown-up baby shown in the advert also to represent the teenage class. After that, the graduated woman opening the door is shown to represent the adult. In the next scene, it's shown the married couple dancing and there is a transition where the man's hair color is changing from black to white where which is showing that the product can suit all ages.   

Manulife

https://youtu.be/UXoY44V_tF0

Media Language: In the beginning, the cameraman used the medium shot to interview the children about his mother and father. There was this second scene where the child was riding a bicycle with his dad. And the close shot shows that the bicycle's chain is broken. Back to the medium shot to show they are trying to fix the bicycle but they didn't manage to fix the bicycle where his dad trying to be reliable for his kid. Finally, in the third scene, the child and the father bring the bicycle to the garage, and the bicycle is fixed. Then moving to the different big idea where there was a medium close-up shot to show his mother is talented in drawing. One day his mom tried to make the child happy by decorating his room unfortunately she didn't manage to finish the decoration well. Finally, she told someone to come to decorate the child's room nicely. Then moving to the next scene with the same set as the beginning where this time their family is also being interviewed and said  "So Mainstay means always there when needed and knows when to rely on others. Make your dreams and aspirations come true with Manulife". Their target audience is family as the costume for all the actors is simple and casual to show a harmonious and modest family trying to become a mainstay to make sure their family is happy.

Audiences: The target audience for the advert would mainly be families from all classes and all races. This type of interview video and short film concept would easily be understood by people in the independent groups (from age 20 to 40 above). 

Representation: In the beginning, it started with the children's interview interviewing about his dad. The next scene is followed by the son and the father cycling together which represent the family part. Another part to strengthen that this is a family advert there is also the scene where his mom was painting and decorating the room.

Prudential

https://youtu.be/PAkXFO2XPoc

The cinematographer used the point-of-view shots, in the beginning, to convey what the actor is feeling as "the world is shaky" with the help of their acting to slowly faint. Moving to the second scene, the transition fade to white and fade again, where low angle and point of view shots are used to show that the actor is going to be taken to the emergency room from the hospital hallway. The lamp is very bright to convince us that the faint actor is in hospital. In the 3rd scene where pan camera shot is used to show the family picture frame. And the particular scene about their family celebrating their birthday was shown and quickly move back to the hospital scene with a fade transition as the birthday scene tells the faint actor's memories. Onto the second big idea where there was a man giving a cup of coffee where usually uses in lots of movies to make an opening or introduce a new actor. The new actor plays a specific role as a man who helps the father and the faint woman for finishing the hospital bills. Moving on to the third big idea where the high camera angle shows her hands attached to the infuser moving to show that the faint actor gets a second chance to be back to her family. In the final scene where she was facing a mirror in the hospital and finally the last scene her husband pulled her into a wheelchair. Their target audience is also family as the opening scene was started with two couples where facing as they are having a serious talk. There was an emotional scene from the pan camera shot showing the family pictures.

Audiences: The target audience would most likely be the family from all ethnicities and social classes. This type of emotional storytelling concept can be understood and draws empathy from people of all ages so it's possible to be all ages but the main specific target audience is the audience who have families since the background of the main characters in the advert was family.

Representation: The main character where the mother who suddenly fainted and the next scene she was being hospitalized to the emergency room and there were scenes showing her past memories about having the family time. This means that the advert represents the family on large scale