Proposal: Poster

Proposal for Poster (final)

Name of Film: Senseless

Tagline of Film: Everybody has a good and bad side. Mila's bullies unfortunately discover both...

Production Name: TBC
Medium: Print Advert 

Format: Landscape

Target Audience: The audience we aim to target are that of the age of 15+ with the demographics of both category D (semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers), and E (unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers). The reason for this is because of the fact that most of these types of people, students and teenagers in particular, are fans of the horror genre. To add, young adults may be interested in said genre due to rebellious reasons, for example, when a horror movie contains themes which society is against or refrains from mentioning, they will be more likely to watch the movie. In addition, another reason why is because the people around them are giving positive reviews so they feel obliged to watch the film. Therefore, our film will appeal to this niche audience. Our target audience will also be aimed at all genders as we think horror movies appeal to everyone. This is evident in our surveys answered by the public which convey that males and females of all ages are interested in the horror genre. Furthermore, the appropriate psychographic of our audience would be ‘Explorers’ as they will be likely to want to figure things out, which our sub-genre requires. Having said that, we will therefore also have an active audience as they not only need to obtain information passively but also  be actively involved- often unconsciously, in making sense of the ideologies within their personal and social contexts, and thus our film too.  

Content of the advert: Taking inspiration from 'Identity', a movie of the same sub-genre, I believe we are to create a poster of roughly the same colour palette: black, white and red. However, unlike Identity, our poster will be landscape as we, living in London, have noticed through research that poster from here do not tend to be portrait. 

Concept 1:-

In addition, there will be a red background with two identical head silhouettes- one of which will be black and the other white. The white silhouette represents the protagonist's innocent, oblivious side, whereas the black silhouette will represent the pseudo identity that our main character has. This silhouette will be superimposed over the white one to symbolise this identity's sovereignty in the denouement of our film. 

Concept 2:- 

Our main character's head will be centre, half of which will be normal/tinted white, and the other will have a black tint. The normal/white represents her oblivious side, whereas the black tinge represents her dark and evil side. 

Also, the blood red background was chosen so that the audience could recognise our film's genre: horror. To add, regarding typography, due to the short attention span of today's youth, we had decided that the film's title, rating, tagline and hashtag will be present at the bottom of the poster- these are the most necessary things we need on the poster, that our audience will remember and can share with others; the hashtag will enable web 2.0 to be used and ensure our product is known. Speaking of which, the font of our typography will be simple so that most people can understand what it reads if they were, for example, in a hurry, walking past it in the train station. The font I have chosen for the title is ‘KaiTi’. The reason for this is because, not only is it clear, but the slight spaces between the letters represent the close proximity Mila’s paradoxical identities have, in regards to their past as well as the fact that they are one person; our protagonist has compartmentalized her psyche in two as a defensive measure. As a result, this led to creating a malicious identity that’s sole aim is to avenge the antagonist by murdering her past bullies. Hence, our antagonist can switch identities unconsciously, therefore the title will be somewhat distorted too, to symbolise the on edge mindset the antagonist has, and distressed feelings of uneasiness Mila has after flashbacks. Having said that, the title will be black and the distorted text will be multi-coloured with a colour palette including bright red, blue and pink. In other words, our title will repeat transparently in said colours just like how this picture has done but with text instead:

Publishing of the advert: The advert will be published for the audience to access in public and commune places, (which our target audience use every day), such as the train station or on lampposts. Additionally, we have also decided to use web 2.0 for publishing as well because it will be an easy and inexpensive/free way of making our film known fast; viral marketing will be achieved through the following popular sites: Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr (maybe Facebook). The aforementioned websites are densely populated with our target audience that also have easy access to sharing our product's poster. Most of which, especially Tumblr, are also known for their 'edits' and versions of posters which, if successful, our film may have too. Thus, increasing the awareness of our film through web 2.0 and fan edits.

Unique Selling Point: One of our unique selling points is us. The fact that we, too, are young adults like our target audience gives us have the better hand; we as millennials know what people our age are interested in and how they like to be thrilled. To add, the graphics we will use on our poster are not like most horror movies. In other words, most horror films use an extreme close up of an eye, a haunted house or a dark figure with their back turned to show ambiguity. Therefore, we are breaking the conventions as our poster consists of a close-up of a head split in two/two close-ups of the same head yet different identities. This may be considered unconventional and could make the audience question why there is a difference in the close-ups of the same character. Additionally, another part of our poster which is unconventional is our colour palette due to the fact that psychological horrors tend to only use the colours black, red and white, whereas we are using a more diverse range. Furthermore, with inspiration from The Dark Knight Rises (2012) we will also attempt to create a viral marketing scheme. This will be done by including our tagline on the poster shortened as the hashtag: #GoodOrBad. This will be a way for our audience to communicate with each other and share information on popular sites such as Twitter. Moreover, we will also include a secret hyperlink hidden on our posters which will be revealed on Twitter once the hashtag has been used a particular number of times. This will lead to a web page with various article clippings of mysterious random murders that occur in the film. Each article will also have three random letters in bold, making an anagram, which when solved will spell: BAD. This will hopefully enthuse and excite our audience as well as make others interested too.

Competitive market: Our competition is probably Jordan Peele's movie 'Get Out' (2017) as it contains almost everything, such as numerous plot twists which manipulate us to think we know what will occur, that our generation is interested in and very much reflects both current and traditional events and views. Moreover, the fact that the protagonist and most of the main characters starring in this psychological horror are African-American may also be of relevance too. Furthermore, their unique and unconventional concepts such as having their lead not be a ‘final girl’ who begins fairly carefree and fights back just at the right moment, but instead is on edge from the start; from being told he was going to finally meet his girlfriend’s parents then finding out she has refrained from mentioning he is black, to being stopped by a police officer for no reason shows he always has to keep his guard up because of who he is. Hence, the portrayal of how minorities tackle racism on a daily basis through the police scene. To add, Peele also manages to make awkward comedy become sinister, and uses sound and music to his advantage- the chanting voices which open the film are a literal Swahili warning screaming for Chris, the lead, to get out. These alongside other topics mentioned in the film like slavery will also make it hard for our short film to be of the same status and standard. In addition, compared to our poster, their one consists of a cracked piece of glass which seems to have been broken due to a gunshot- as seen in the bottom left of the poster. Also, we can see the main character in each shard but one. This acts as a narrative through stills due to the different emotions each shard connotes and ideologies they convey.