Evaluation

Introduction – For my final major project I decided to create a number of film posters including five character posters and a main poster for an action film and I would also be making an Instagram account for the posters and behind the scenes access. I also decided that the products will be presented on a website as it’s a good place to present a number of posters.

Planning and research – For my planning I started by creating a production schedule to follow, I tried to follow the schedule throughout the project the best I could but some stages required different jobs being done so that changed quite a bit but still kept me on track none the less. Next was sketching out some designs for my posters, so I first made a sketch of what I wanted my character posters to look like as they would all have the same set up but would be different posters and I also created a sketch for the main poster which I changed quite a lot as when it came to editing I got a few other ideas which I thought worked much better and they did. For my primary research I did a questionnaire where I asked some questions about what people would like to see in my products and I got some good feedback which I followed but for some I did some things that I thought of later on during editing. To carry on my primary research I did a second questionnaire where I asked more questions about what to include on my posters and what to call my film, from this I got some really helpful feedback which I ended up using a lot of, for example I asked what to call my film and the one that got the most votes is what I used and I also took advice for things such as the broken glass, the characters layout on the main poster and whether or not to prioritise the logo for the film so overall the primary research was key and it helped a lot. For my secondary research I had a look at a load of different posters that were in the action and comedy genre as that’s what my film was going to be so I had a look at the different posters and what conventions were included in them, I did this this because it would help me when creating my own and give me new ideas that would help my product, I also researched the different colours and fonts for creating these posters which helped me choose the right ones when it came to editing. To further my secondary research I looked at some very similar posters designs and possible poster layouts that I could try to mirror, for example I looked at the poster for trainspotting as I had a similar idea with my poster with the way the characters were set up and there were also five characters so it even more similar, so I took a lot of influence of this research as I’ve adapted some things of these posters into my own work.

Production – To start my production I started creating the character posters by creating the layouts for them by following the sketch I made for it, for this process I had to decide what colours looked best and if the font that I was planning on using worked well. When this was done I needed the character images to carry on so I booked a camera and tripod and used the photography room with the white screen and the studio lighting, in here I set up the tripod and camera into position and got the cast of the film to come and take some photographs, for each character I got them to do a few different poses so I could choose between which ones I thought looked best after so I got all the character posters done and then I got a photo of the cast all together for Instagram, whilst doing this I managed to get a few photos in my phone of behind the scenes and what not, which has been uploaded onto the Instagram account which I also created just before doing the photography and on that account I posted numerous teasers of the cast names and the logo and then I uploaded behind the scenes access as well as the actual posters themselves. After I got the photos I carried on editing so for the character posters I had all the layouts done so I could just edit the character photos and fit them on in place. Then I had to create the main poster which I had a few different ideas for and when it came to editing I decided to create a space where the characters would go and it would have a nickname/characteristic about them. When I finished my posters I uploaded them to my Instagram and also to the website that I had also been creating along the way which has a simple black layout with gold text in each page, on this website I included a home page, a posters page and an about page which has five subpages which are dedicated to each character, on these pages I give a little bio for each one and a picture of them.

Problem solving – One problem I faced was how the posters came out at first as they were blurry and I thought I was going to have to reshoot them and re edit them all over again butI fixed the problem by exporting the product from photoshop instead of saving it and it looks a lot better now. Other than that though I luckily did not face any major problems with my project.

Overall thoughts – Overall I am quite happy with the outcome but if I were to change some things I would probably try and get some more photos of the characters including a full group photo which could be main poster material and I would also like to improve my logo as I didn’t spend too much time on it and as a result it doesn’t look as good as I would like so I would spend more time on that.

Skill development – I believe that I have gained skills in photography the most as it’s the biggest shoot I’ve done yet and I was in full control of everything the whole time so I learned a few things there that I will most likely use in the future and I also have got better on photoshop which I keep improving on and it is something I want to be good at.

Strengths and weaknesses – For my strengths I believe that my editing would be in there as it is something that I have worked on a lot and it’s something I hope to keep improving. A weakness that I have is my photography skills although the only reason I put this in weaknesses is because it is definitely not a strength, I have definitely improved a lot though with it but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Audience feedback – For my audience feedback I carried out a questionnaire regarding different parts of my project asking questions such as what is their favourite part from each product and what they would improve and I got some feedback that I fully agree with, for example on a positive note almost everyone voted that the poster of Kieran’s character was the best of the bunch and this is something I agree with fully as I spent the most time on that one. Another example is on a more negative note that the thing that needed the most improvement was my main poster, I agree with this because although I spent quite a bit of time on it, it just didn’t come out how I wanted it to and I would definitely like to try and go for a different approach with it if I went back. This feedback is spot on as I agree with it all.