My task was to create a horror campaign this was made up of
a main poster, a teaser poster and a DVD cover. The genre given was horror, so before
starting I had to research posters within this genre. I had to look closely at
the typical codes and conventions of horror used and why. I researched many
posters to give myself a clear understanding of the broad genre of Horror.
Sub-genres are very important so early on I discovered that I would like to use
a psychological sub – genre. I also found out that the main colour used is red
and I wanted to use this within my own poster.
I analysed closely the ‘Saw’ and ‘The Last Exorcism’
posters, to gain a thorough understanding of the codes and conventions. It was typical of both that they appear quite
minimalistic when it comes to the layout and photography. The colour scheme of
the poster is quite clinical, with the prominent use of grey scale
colours. The main colour used in the posters is grey, which shows death
and lifelessness. I discovered early on
that the a main convention of a horror
film poster it the frequent use of red to
represent the horror genre as its closely linked with blood, however the grey
scale tones of both of these posters work just as well making the audience feel
uncomfortable because the poster hints at hostility (unfriendliness). Conventionally,
a horror movie poster has an image of the victim, the villain, or a main key to
the storyline. You can also view and see the institutions involved with the
distribution and production of the film, at the bottom of the front cover
poster. This information is there, in a way for some type of
advertisement of the companies that helped fund the film. Also the cast crews,
directors and main characters are also at the bottom of the cover. This is
because it is important for people to know what celebrities will be in the
film. With having a film star in the film, people will be instantly interested
to go watch the film, just because of the main actor or even the director. In all
of the posters the taglines are enigma codes and do not give too much away ‘The
Last Exorcism’ has used ‘Believe in him.’ and ‘If You Believe in God. You Must
Believe In The Devil.’ And for ‘Saw’ they were ‘Every Piece Has a Puzzle.’ and
‘Every Puzzle has It’s Pieces.’
Typography is essential for an effective poster and also has
to help convey the sub-genre. Capitalisation is used on both of the titles (Saw
and The Last Exorcism) which suggest importance creating a bold effect to
accompany the image above. Plus both
titles look almost handwritten. This makes it look uneven, grunge, dirt and
rough which gives it a haunting feeling; symbolic of the horror genre in
general. The writing is commonly in red
and this is often associated with horror films as it represents blood and
danger. I tried experimenting with my own ideas and the research to design my
own copy (reference 1). Here I used the
font 'vani' which is quite formal and addresses the older audience. I changed
the bottom word to red to fit in with the blood and horror theme. I like the
final typography as it looks effective and conveys the idea of horror and gore.
I used the same font on my next
typography experiment (reference 2) however I do not like this piece as much. I
think the copy is too bland and the focus group agreed by saying “it seems a
bit basic”.
After researching these posters, I decided I would want my
posters to target ages between 15 and 21. This is because all of the horror
posters include a lot of gore and sometimes violence, some of which I may
include in my own work, although this may not appeal too much of the younger or
female audience. Fans of the slasher
films will prefer the gore as that is a main connotation of that genre. I will
display this in some way within my poster as blood is a typical code and
convention which I greatly want to display on my posters. I am aiming at a younger audience that will
come under the category “D” and “E” which are known as ‘working class’ and
‘lowest level of subsistence.’ This is because most of the target audience will
either have no job or will be working on the minimum wage. Also, some may be paying educational fees
which will push them into the lower categories of the social scale. The majority of people who I am aiming my
horror campaign at are still in higher education as they are aged between 16 –
21 years of age. This is when a lot of people attend college or university,
this also means the majority may not have a job and if they do it is likely it
is only a part-time job. With this
information we can assume that they either still live at home or live with
friends. I would like my audience to have an interest and enjoy watching horror
films otherwise it would be a lot harder to meet the needs of my audience. A
lot of my target audience also enjoy using social networking sites, so they
would be able to see my designs both online and about in public. I want to
target both male and female mostly because I don’t want to dramatically cut out
a large amount of publicity and people who are interested in horror films, and mainly
enjoy similar sub-genres.
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