Slaughter Party Trailer

Final Magazine Draft

Final Poster Draft

Second Magazine Draft

This second draft is significantly different from my original block plan. The biggest difference is the type of image I decided to use whilst creating this draft of the magazine. My research of existing magazine covers showed me how the convention is to have a singular person on the cover in a powerful stance, which I decided to use using the antagonist of the trailer. I also decided to challenge convention by positioning this image on the right side of the frame so as to allow significant space on the left of the frame for the subheadings. Another change I made was to add a special promotional line at the top reading 'Horror Edition' as I felt that this would attract an audience that enjoys horror films and wishes to read about past and upcoming products. I decided to use alternating white and red for the article subheadings as red connotes blood and the white stands out against the two darker colours, especially the black background. I kept the title of the trailer at the bottom of the page as I felt this was the most practical place to position it, I have also seen this done on the covers of many issues of Empire.

Image for Magazine Cover

This was the image I was initially going to use for my magazine cover however, as I began to edit the image in Photoshop I realised that this image was unsuitable for the magazine for a number of reasons. Firstly, the top of the model's head has been cut off which was due to my positioning of the camera, this meant that I would have to cover this with a large piece of text on the magazine, however there was a risk of the top of the head still showing, which I did not want to take. Another issue with this image was the wardrobe of the model. I plan to keep a sense of continuity throughout the trailer and ancillary tasks which is why I cannot use this image as the model is not wearing the same outfit as she does in the trailer. This may confuse the viewers of both the magazine and trailer as they may not make a connection between the two pieces, A final reason why I did not use this image is because it is missing a key piece of iconography. I had planned to have the model holding a knife, which is why her hands are positioned the way they are, however due to health and safety I could not bring a knife to the place where the image was being taken, so I had planned to add a knife in to the correct position in the editing process. However, I found the final image (right) to lack a sense of realism and to me, the image seemed obviously and poorly edited.



I decided that the best option was to do a re-shoot for my magazine front cover image. I feel that this image is much more successful and definitely usable compared to the other image. There are to key improvments to this image which now make it appropirate to use on on my magazine. The first is the wardrobe of the model which now matches what her character wears in the trailer and therefore achieves the sense of continuty I wanted to achieve. The other key improvement is the fact that the knife, the key iconography, is now featured in the image and not added in post-production. The fact that the image was taken featuring the knife means that it achieves both realism and will now conform to the conventions of other magazine cover images,

Block plan of Magazine

This first plan of my magazine cover shows how I plan to compose my image/s and the font and style of the title of the film. I plan to have an image of the antagonist in the centre of the frame with smaller images of the four protagonists surrounding the bigger image as if the protagonists are shadowing the antagonist. I have kept the red Empire masthead as the majority of Empire issues feature this red logo as its boldness and colour stand out from the rest of the cover, this shows that I have an understanding of the conventions used in popular media magazines. I have placed the title of the film Slaughter Party at the bottom of the cover as this allows some overlapping of the text and image so that the image would not be obscured but so the text was still visible to the audience.

Film Magazine Research and Analysis

From analysing these three different film magazine covers I can safely say that I have identified the most common tropes to be seen within them, The most common trope is the half body or three quarter body shot of the actress on the cover. This type of shot allows the viewer to clearly identify the actress and subsequently the film that she is promoting by featuring on the cover. The majority of the covers I have analysed have a head on angle to the actress apart from the one featuring Margot Robbie in which she poses at a slightly side on angle which defies the conventions of the common film magazine. Another convention I have noticed is that the covers all follow a colour scheme that is set by what the actress is wearing, This continued colour scheme throughout the cover helps to give it a continuous flow. A final convention that I have noticed throughout these magazines is the fact that their actor's head covers some area of the magazine's masthead. This is a concious decision by the editors as they are aware of the popularity of their magazine and therefore they do not need to compromise the size of their main image as it is assumed that their magazine is popular and well known enough that not all of the title needs to be legible.

Credit Block for Poster

This is the credit block that will feature on the poster for my trailer Slaughter Party. I downloaded the template from this website which allowed me to change the details so they were relevant to the information and details for my trailer and the whole film. I am going to place the credit block at the bottom of my poster as this will not distract the viewer from the main focus of the poster,

Poster Image

This is the image I am going to use for my poster ancillary task. From my research of existing horror posters I have divided to base mine on the poster for The Purge (2013) as I feel that this type of minimalistic poster is the most effective in drawing the audience to the film and also in creating word of moth due to the simplicity and ambiguity of the poster. I have attempted to replicate the image featured in The Purge poster by positioning my model to the right of the frame so as to leave room for the title of the film. Although I now feel that the model could have been positioned on the very edge of the frame this is very easily edited as I can crop this side of the image in Photoshop which will then create the same effect of the image in the poster above.

First Poster Draft

This is a very simple first attempt at my trailer poster. I really like the concept of this poster and especially how the title of the film is placed within the blood as this gives the poster and overall trailer a more graphic element as there is no human presence in the trailer. However this poster is missing some key elements that are commonly seen on all types of film posters such as a credit block and tag line for promotional purposes. I would place the tag line at the top of the frame as this would not ditract the viewer from the main feature in the centre of the frame and I would place the credit block at the bottom of the poster for the same reason and also because credit blocks are very small and usually unreadable which requires very little space. I would create these elements in a white colour as this would differentiate this information from the rid film title.

Horror Movie Poster Research and Analysis

From analysis existing horror movie poster I have observed what is seen as conventions in the movie posters themselves. One of the most prominent conventions I have noticed is the composition of the poster and how the main feature of the poster is placed in the centre of the frame. This is to ensure that this element of the poster is what draws the audience to view it. Subsequently I have also noticed that horror movie colours use a very monochromatic colour scheme as using bright, vibrant colours would contrast with the genre of horror and maybe confuse the audience about the intentions of the film itself. Another convention of horror movie posters is that text is seen in a white font as to stand out against the darker background and to create a lasting image in the viewers head. One last convention I have seen when researching already existing horror movie posters is that they show the face or a version of the identity of either the protagonist or antagonist and this is to tease to the audience as to what to expect from the film, however in the majority of horror posters the identity of the featured face is in some way warped or disfigured as to allude to the events and atmosphere of the film in question.