Evaluation

 Evaluate the creative choices you made in editing your image/s for the poster and explain how
they are influenced by other existing film posters.

For my final film poster, I aimed to showcase the character, Jeremiah’s OCD disorder by unveiling his
inner intrusive thoughts on a front film poster, as well as iconography from my Teen Coming of Age,
“The Thought”. I had to change my short film title which originally “Obsessed with Institution” but now
it’s “The Thought”. I had to change my title because it was too lengthy for my film poster, let alone my
short film.
These abstract surreal images by the photographer Tsoku Maela have influenced the creative choices I
made in the imagery and effects of my film poster. The reason I chose this inspiration to be in my film
poster is because these photographs use metaphorical imagery to display and create awareness for
mental illnesses, that I would love to use for my film poster, as it is about a teenager's mental illness. I
took inspiration of both of these photographs and pieced it together in my official film poster; I erased
the side characters heads and made smoke come of it, symbolising internal war of the mind but the
flames are put out and now what is left is smoke, reflecting how invisible and subtle a mental illness can
be perceived from the outside looking in. This led me to use this concept in my official film poster but
with a little twist; instead of it only coming out the side characters head, it also took over the
background connoting that the character’s illness has took over him and surrounding, seeping into his
daily life. After adding metaphorical imagery to express the main character’s mental health, I knew that I
was missing conventions of a Teen Coming of Age film that my short film had; so, I had to derive
inspiration for my layout of image and its iconography from other Teen Coming of Age film posters. One
of the film posters that caught my eye was “The Perks of being a Wallflower”. The reason why I chose
this specific film poster for my draft was because I love the image layout of the 3 main characters
displayed in the poster, so the audience may get a clear view of how the characters are going to be
perceived in a film. Moreover, the 3 characters wearing high-school clothes, which is a clear depiction to
the audience that the film is a Teen Coming of Age film, so I had to use this concept in my film.

 Evaluate the techniques you used in Photoshop or other editing software to create the final
image to be used. Which tools did you use and why?
While using photoshop to create my poster a variety of techniques but two main ones I will mention
here that I used is the quick selection tool and the blend mode pop up menu, from the layers panel. The
quick selection tool was heavily needed because my leading actor, Martynas Paulauskas who plays
“Jeremiah” in my Teen Coming of Age short film, “The Thought”, could not be in this poster due to a
confidential authorized reason. I decided to use Paulauskas’s supporting actor, Alfie Bannister as a
doppelganger in my film poster as a fill in for “Jeremiah”, Paulauskas’ character. Because they could not
be all together in one photo, I had to take 3 individual photos of my subjects, after this, I had to use the
quick selection tool to remove all my subjects from each photo and deposit them on my film poster
draft. This tool was very effective in removing the required sections of the images I needed. The other
tool that I used was the blend in tool for my cover background of smoke. I tried to look for full lines of
smoke that were similar to Tsoku Maela’s photo but unfortunately, I did not find it, so I chose 2 smoke
images that were quite similar. On Adobe Photoshop I had to duplicate those 2 images many times for it
to cover the whole background and then use the blend in tool to make those images look like their one
piece, with a little bit of colour match to make it realistic.

 Evaluate how you have met the brief of creating an image for a Teen Coming of Age/British
Council Estate poster. Explain how your image/s are suitable for that film genre (refer to
conventions of the film genre) and the intended purpose of a poster – does it reflect the genre
 and narrative of the film? Will it attract audience attention? Have you included all the
conventions of a film poster?

I believe that I have met the brief of a Teen Coming of Age film poster because I have made sure that it
links to my Teen Coming of Age short film by incorporating key iconography that links to the genre,
blending in well with the mental illness topic, which is a crucial issue in teenagers today.
In terms of whether my film poster reflects a Teen Coming of Age poster, I believe it does this
effectively. As you can see my film poster does share the code and conventions with the film posters
“Sierra Burgess is a Loser” and “Tomboy”; we all have direct modes of address, giving the audience
different facial expressions, so that the audience may get a sneak peek on what the characters are going
to be like and the film’s plot, leading them to make a judgement on whether they are they are going to
watch it or not. I am positive that the audience will decide to see my film by just looking at the film
poster because the main character, Jeremiah, shows a numb and depressed facial expression, alluring
teens as they find personal identification in feeling depressed and having a bad mental health. Secondly,
the film poster “Tomboy” and my film poster are similar in not depositing a noun setting behind our
subject characters, but instead, we have used colour symbolism; the blue in the background of the
“Tomboy” film poster reflects and unveils the female character’s personality about how she has male
characteristics, but she is in females clothing reflected in the pink designs on the blue wall. My film
poster’s background is murky grey smoke, which is grey behind the main character, symbolizing that the
character is unhappy and disturbed by his treacherous thoughts that block him being present in his daily
life and his social life with his friends, that is why his friends in the poster do not have no heads because
he is held captive by his mind every day, which increases his loneliness. Therefore, this shows me that
my creative choices on my film posters background were suitable for a Teen Coming of Age and that
other posters have done this technique, to reveal a part of their film’s story. I believe that my film poster
will allure the teen audience because I have created a sub-genre of the Teen Coming of Age genre about
teenagers dealing with mental illnesses in high school displayed in my poster’s metaphorical imagery.
This will cause enigma, leading the audience to be hooked into wanting to see the film because it is
quite different but similar to Teen Coming of Age film posters but relatable to the issues they face today.

 Finally, you need some feedback. The easiest way to do this is to email everyone in the class
your poster with a few questions, asking about the image itself and then the poster. You can
include some of the feedback in your evaluation.

I created a survey for my film poster evaluation and sent it to a small group by email, asking them their
opinion on if my poster fits into the Teen Coming of Age genre and if my poster looks professional for a
film poster. I'm glad to say that the responses I got mirrored my previous observations, the feedback
stated that my film poster reflected a Teen Coming of Age poster and that my imagery effects were
mastered.
Q3, I do agree with the respondent because I am aware that I need to get rid of a tagline and add a
release date on my film poster. I am also aware that the main character’s image is missing from this
evaluation demonstration, this is because my work accidentally got deleted, so I will make all these
changes back at school.