10W - Schedule

You have three lessons to finish your posters.

1. Wednesday 20th Period 3 (Mr Ford)
2. Monday 25th Period 4a (Mr Smith)
3. Thursday 28th (Mr Ford)

You will then have two lessons to complete your evaluation.

1. Friday 29th Period 1 (Mr Ford)
2. Friday 29th Period 4 (Mr Ford)

Poster Evaluation - From The Specification

The production exercise should be supported by an evaluative commentary, reflecting on decisions made and explaining how codes and conventions and media language have been employed to convey messages about representation. As with the comparative analytical assignment, the commentary may be written or submitted as a podcast or a slide presentation such as PowerPoint.

As guidance, the commentary should be around 350–750 words in length; or 5–10 slides if using a PowerPoint style presentation; or around three minutes for a podcast.

In the commentary, the following areas must be covered in whatever form the candidate has chosen:

• an account of the research and planning carried out
• how the production is targeted at a particular target audience
• an explanation of the ways in which media language has been used in the production exercise to communicate representation
• an explanation of the ways in which codes and conventions have been used in the production exercise to communicate representation
• an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses within the finished production.

Year 10WMS1 Schedule (29th February- 23rd March)

Over the next six lessons you need to complete the following:

• Finish the research tasks (here & here)
• Decide on the sort of action adventure film you will be making the poster for
• Choose a suitable title for your film
• Decide on a tagline for your title
• Write a brief plot outline for your film
• Decide on the stars who will appear in your film
• Create hand drawn mock ups of the teaser and full posters
• Create A3 Photoshop documents
• Create layouts
• Add a suitable background image
• Add all text including credits
• Decide on the images that you want to use on your posters
• Complete the audience profiles
• Make moodboards for your target audiences

Make sure you use the mock up to help with your layout.

Use the posters you researched to help with further ideas.

This is also your homework and is posted on Show My Homework.

10YMS1 Schedule (23rd February-8th March)

Over the next five lessons you need to complete the following:

• Create hand drawn mock ups of the teaser and full posters
• Create A3 Photoshop documents
• Create layouts
• Add a suitable background image
• Add all text including credits
• Decide on the images that you want to use on your posters
• Take test shots with your phones and add them to your layouts (full and teaser posters). You will be able to use the studio to take better photos in Mr Ford's lesson (period 5 -  8th March).

Make sure you use the mock up to help with your layout.

Use the posters you researched to help with further ideas.

This is also your homework and is posted on Show My Homework.

Film Poster Research (10WMS1)

Today you will be researching ideas for the next piece of work-the creation of a poster for an action/adventure film aimed at a teenage audience.

Your task is to find at least twenty different examples of movie posters for action adventure films. Save the images in a folder and add them to a PowerPoint. Make sure they are all clear and of the same size on your page. 

Categorise the posters in two ways:

• posters promoting films for a teenage audience
• posters promoting films for an adult audience

Extension task:

You will notice that some movies have multiple posters. Choose a recent action/ adventure film and find as many posters for that film as you can.

Analysing Movie Posters

Task:
Select a poster of your choice from the action genre and answer all the questions below.

Posters occupy a space between art and advertising. They have a clear commercial purpose - to promote an event or product - but they also have artistic value. People buy them and hang them on their walls. Museums have whole galleries devoted to poster art. When analysing a poster it is important that you evaluate both how well it fulfils its purpose (i.e. promotion) as well as its aesthetic value.

First steps

• When analysing a poster, you should consider the following broad questions before you start to focus on the details:
• What are the main colours used in the poster? What do they connote?
• What symbols are used in the poster? Do you need audience foreknowledge to decode the symbols?
• What are the main figures/objects/background of the poster? Are they represented photographically, graphically, or illustratively?
• Are the messages in the poster primarily visual, verbal, or both?
• Who do you think is the intended audience for the poster?

Given that all movie posters have the same purpose - to get audiences to go see a movie -

• What persuasive techniques are used by the poster?
• Which genre conventions are referred to?
• Is a star used as a USP (Unique Selling Point)?
• Are "expert witnesses" (i.e. critics) quoted?
• What pleasures (gratifications) are promised by the poster?
• How is attention gained (humour, shock, surprise familiar face of a star)?
• How does the tagline work? (humour, pun, alliteration etc?)
• Who are the institutions involved in production?

The poster can also give you important information about the production context of the movie:

• How much does the poster tell you about the institutional context of the movie's production?
• How important is this information on the poster (think about information hierarchies)?
• How important a part of the whole marketing campaign is the poster? Where is the poster placed?
• How expensive was this poster to produce?

Critical Evaluation

Finally, you have to pass judgement on the poster.

• Is it a good poster?
• Does it communicate effectively with the audience?
• Are there any alternative readings which might harm the message of the marketing campaign?
• Is the poster offensive in any way? e.g. representation of people or places

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

Getting creative with production

The Brief:

Design two film posters (a teaser poster and a main poster) for an original film idea. 
Your film has to be an action/adventure film that appeals to a teenage target audience.

Poster conventions

What do I need to include on my film poster?

• An eye-catching image or images – often related to characters and the stars in the film or the setting of the film
• The title of the film – carefully constructed in terms of font, colour, size and placement. The title has to suggest the film genre
• A tagline for the film – catchy slogan offering a clue to the genre and main content of the film
• The names of key people connected to the film
• Endorsements from other media productions
• Details of any nominations of awards
• The production blurb – information in tiny print that lists the production and distribution companies

Film Poster and Target Audience Research

Find six posters for each of the two films (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Amazing Spiderman 2)

Annotate one of the posters using the following headings:

• title
• tag line
• billing
• logo
• key image
• website
• release date

Then write about the target audience (who the film is aimed at) for both films. 

Consider the following:

• genre
• actors
• character
• themes

Look at this example for help

Poster Activity 2

Before you get your feedback on your poster you need to begin planning another film poster. You are making one for the other side of the audience. You are making it for the same film.

 That means:

• if your first poster is aimed at a male audience then your next one is aimed at a female audience for the same film
• if your first poster is aimed at a female audience then your next one is aimed at a male audience for the same film

You would be advised to keep a lot of the same features, just make the poster masculine or feminine as necessary.

Draft Poster Evaluation

1. How have you used the conventions of existing film posters in your draft design? 
2. How does your film poster satisfy the action/ fantasy/ teen genre requirements? 
3. How successful do you think your draft is? Give reasons for your answer. 
4. What do you think you will need to change for your final piece of work?
5. What skills have you learned in the design process?

The top 25 movie posters of all time (According to Creative Bloq)

Click on the image above to access 25 movie posters and graphic designer's views on them. Helpful for research and ideas.

Year 10 Schedule

Tuesday 14th
Complete the ideas, ideas, ideas work (lesson and lesson 2)
Finish the ideas work and begin to create a mock up of your poster (lesson 2)

Homework
Complete your research and mock up. Take photos for your poster.

Thursday 16th
Finish the mock up and begin creating the Photoshop draft version. Take photos if necessary.

Friday 17th
Continue working on the Photoshop draft version. Take photos if necessary.

Friday 24th
Complete the draft version of your film poster.