My Poster Design for On The Brink
Representations:
Image: Represents the genre of our film e.g. - drama and social realism.
Title: Represents the intensity of the narrative and what audiences should prepare themselves for.
Laurel Leaves: Represents the success of our film influencing audiences to watch and review it.
Colour: Represents the faded vision which John has of his life as he becomes closer and closer to taking his life.
CONVENTIONS USED:
Within my poster design I made sure to imbed many independent poster conventions. This helps me understand the design and reasoning behind these decisions to include these conventions for independent films. Studying many independent short film posters also allowed me to gain understanding with what I need to pursue when coming to my own poster design for On The Brink.
Conventions I used:
- Laurel Leaves for film awards
- Billing block to show credits
- Reviews
- Sponsors
- Company logo
MAIN IMAGE:
I began designing my poster with a vertical design and similar image, however, I felt that this horizontal image fits perfectly to reflect our narrative as we are immediately introduced to our main character 'John'. Shallow depth of field is used purposely to slightly reveal the person behind him; his daughter Rebecca. I believe that this image generates an enigmatic response, this is because this image raises questions about why she is behind him and who is she. Our main actor's facial expression symbolises his character deep in the film where we begin to find out his personal struggles with life and himself. His frown and darkness under the eyes creates frustration and sympathy for John, making audiences wanting to watch the film. When I finally decided I would use this image I had one point that I argued against it. This was whether or not it revealed too much of the narrative, however analysing it thoroughly you cannot notice John is standing on the edge of a cliff and we do not know any context about the girl to the right of him in the background. COLOUR:
When designing the colour of my poster I made sure to keep colour rather than black and white as I feel it would represent this film in too much of a heavy and dark way. Therefore, in photoshop I lowered saturation and hieghtend the brightness to generate a slightly faded effect to the image to create a certain mood. I wanted to generate a mood of spine-chilling feelings, as this faded light colour resembles the chilling and shock value twists that are imbedded in our narrative. If I made this image too contrasted and dark I believe this would have given too much away with the choice of image, therefore designing the faded colour reflects Johns unclear vision of his life, therefore using this colour scheme it contrasts well with the plot of the film which in turn manipulates spectators to create more effective shock and surprise. 
TITLE:
Choosing a fitted font for the image was very challenging and I went through many trial and errors gathering different opinions from various people with different tastes. However, using this font I believe works best as my group have all used the same allowing us to use this for our titling sequence in our final product. The title is clear and bold, expressing the focus of the film 'BRINK', this work holds a lot of context as it connotes how John our main character is on the brink of taking his life. I chose this image with care and thought ahead to titling and positioning, this was important as I needed to allow myself enough room to have clear text and independent poster conventions. The way in which I placed the text it to represent the meaning of the titling. As you can see from the screen shot I have design the text to be towards the right so that there is a drop from the O to the T and then to the B, acting as a cliff in which John is located before he tries to jump off of Beachy Head. INTENTED AUDIENCE:
When looking at my poster design I feel as though I have successfully targeted our intended audience for our film which was 15-25 year olds. The poster expresses many social realism genre elements which I feel will attract people within that age gap to watch our film as they has experienced issues or struggles in their life in which they can relate to the image used. For example, our main character John's facial expression truly extinguishes that he is suffering from some sort of mental health illness, or even just reveals that he is hurt and depressed. These emotions can be transformed in a way of attracting people who have or are experiencing similar moments in their lives. This allows this audience to relate or produce empathy as they may no of someone who wanted to take their life. This poster represents a middle class status through the use of mise en scene micro techniques. John's shirt and jacket creates social assumptions such as it represents his middle class character, however, a deep hidden message from this and the film is that no matter how wealthy he is, money can't help his depression and addiction, indicating that money cannot bring you happiness, only kindness. 
When glancing at my poster draft design, you can gather a certain tone that is expressed. A chilling, cold and eerie tone is felt when analysing the tone. The micro techniques used within the poster including conventions all convey these tones. I personally feel that my poster draft successfully reflects the correct and fitted tone to the narrative we have created.
Overall I am very pleased with my poster draft design for our film On The Brink. There are small things I am not 100% with such as: whether or not the girl in the background gives too much away about the twist in the narrative, but I feel this poster authentically reflects our film in the correct way and will persuade target audiences.
Really outstanding work Emily! Well done!
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