Movie poster research

We have started to look at horror movie posters and magazine covers today because we need to produce one of each ourselves for our film. Doing this research will help us decide what sort of image we would like as our movie poster and also what kind of image would be appropriate for a magazine cover.

On the left is the movie poster for 'The Blair Witch Project' which is probably the nearest thing to our own movie trailer. As you can see it shows a close-up shot of one of the characters looking scared with tears in her eyes. This fits in with their movie because it is all hand held camera so therefore this shot which looks like it has been taken by herself fits.






This is another version of the movie poster for 'The Blair Witch Project'. Although it's different, it is still very effective because it is in a black and white style which looks like an x-ray. Also it is a shot from the ground looking up, which makes everything seems huge and exaggerated. This sort of shot could be good for our movie poster because our end shot of our trailer is a shot from the ground, therefore would tie in with what we have already don


e in our trailer.



On the left is the movie poster for 'Paranormal Activity' which I have looked at quite in depth for my research on existing horror movies. Again, I think the poster is quite effective because it is edited in a way to make it look like CCTV which makes it a bit mysterious and fits with the films narrative and plot because they set up a camera to film their room like a CCTV camera.


I think having people's comments about the film at the top of the poster works well because it makes you want to see it if everyone is praising it. I also think the red and white writing work well against the black background. The colour red has connotations of danger, evil and horror so it definately works with the genre.







On the right is the poster for the film 'Mirrors'. Again, it has used a face which I think is really effective because like I said earlier, it shows emotion and automatically connects with the audience that it is a horror film. Normally, other factors come into the connection with the audience about the genre of the film such as the title etc, however I don't think 'Mirrors' automatically make you think of a scary film. Therefore using the image of the face works really well alongside the title to create the scare factor.



At the moment I really like the first 'Blair Witch Project' poster with the face on it. I think it is simple yet really effective and works well with our movie trailer because its believable and looks realistic. Our trailer is shot using a hand held camera and is supposed to be a sort of documentation of the girls journey that has been found. I also think that using a face, you can show emotion really well which connects with the audience. Using an image of one of the girls in a similar style to the 'Blair Witch Project' poster, would work well and go really well with our trailer.