Sketch of my DVD sleeve.

Sketch of my DVD poster.

Poster analysis (5)

Poster analysis (4)

Poster analysis (3)

Poster analysis (2)

Poster mindmap.

Poster analysis (1)

Smoothing skin on Photoshop.

In the media, nearly every photo has been manipulated in some way. For example, pictures of models have been edited so that they appear more beautiful than they are in reality. The cause of this manipulation gives teenage girls the idea that there are people out there that really look like that, which leads to them having low self esteem.

For this piece of work, I had to remove blemishes and make it look like this girl had a smooth complexion. This is commonly used within magazines and advertising. 

< The original picture

< Edited picture

To achieve this look on the lower picture, I had to select the "spot healing brush tool" and click on all of the freckles and spots that she had. After that, I had to decrease the brush diameter so that it fitted over each spot. To get rid of each spot, you only need to click on it once, repeat this until all of the spots are done. After I had done this, I clicked on "Layer" and then onto "duplicate layer". Once I did this, a dialog box appeared, I left the default settings and clicked ok. After this, I clicked on "Filter" -> "Blur" -> "smart blur" from the menu and left the settings as they were. Once that was done, I selected the top layer and clicked on "Add Layer Mask" from the layers palette. Then from the toolbox, I selected the brush tool, changed the colour to black and went over the background, her hair, clothes, eyes, eyebrows, mouth and also the edge of her nose to give it a sharper look.

Analysing DVD covers.

For this piece of work, I had to analyse a DVD cover as practice for analysing 5 on my own.

Analysis of 5 film posters.

 For this piece of work, I had to analyse 5 adverts and what each bit on the posters implied.

Evaluation.

For my evaluation, I am going to go into detail about why I chose every feature that appears on my DVD poster and sleeve.

Proposal: We also produced a proposal which helped with choosing a title for our films, choosing the genre, deciding what audience it would be targeted at, the summary and content, the summary of the style and also the legal and ethical issues. We did this so that we wouldn’t lose focus on what our ideas were able, and also to guide us into designing them. The original idea within my proposal was that it would be an action film about two gangs, after more research I changed it to a horror film about a girl. I feel that this idea has achieved better than my original idea would because I was able to edit different objects into my poster and sleeve. On the other hand, with my first idea I wouldn’t have been able to do that because everything I needed to be in there, could be fitted into the photograph; for example, the cars could be fitted in there instead have being edited on. I have achieved better with my second idea because I was able to edit a pair of eyes into the night sky to give an eerie feeling to the poster and sleeve.

Layout: The poster is used to attract the attention of the viewers by using intriguing imagery but not being too obvious with it. For example, the eyes in the sky move over the page like they follow you. This gives the viewers the impression that the film will be spooky. When I took the photo, I deliberately took it so that there would be an empty place in the sky for something to be inserted.

For the layout on the DVD sleeve, it uses half of the design of the poster but it has been developed through the blurb, photos of the scenes and also the special features. For example, one of the pictures on the back of the DVD sleeve is a warehouse in colour, and the other is of a house that is in black and white. The use of the Dolby digital plus logo, the DVD logo and also the 18 certificates prevents my idea from being copyrighted.

Font: We explored different fonts and titles using a website called dafont.com. We did this so we had a better understanding about why a certain font is used for that specific poster and sleeve, this also helped us with choosing which fonts would be suitable to go on our own posters and sleeves. The font I chose to use is from the horror section. I chose this specific font because it matches the eerie feel that the advert gives you. I chose white for the colour of the font because it stands out from the rest of the poster, whereas if it was in any other colour, the audience wouldn’t be able to make out the writing properly.

People: I chose for there to be only one person one the poster and sleeve because it gives the viewers the impression that she is a lonely individual; her being alone gives the idea that she is vulnerable and also a victim targeted by the villain, which is a demon who’s eyes are in the sky. I specifically placed them above the person because it makes the viewers think that the threat is coming from above.

The body language of the person is protected, like she is guarding herself from something that could be darker than the eyes.

Language: Using “Another Average Day” as the title, it implies that the victim seeing the eyes in the sky makes her day normal, as she is used to seeing them, but on days that she doesn’t see them, that’s unusual as it has been like that all through her life.

Inserting the quote “best movie of the year!” from the Times gives the effect that it’s more realistic and that it must be a good film to watch as it was given 4 stars.

Technical details: I used the Dolby digital plus, the DVD and the 18 certificates to give a more realistic effect for the viewers and also for legal requirements.

Research: To start off the project of creating our own DVD poster and sleeve, we needed to do research and come up with our own ideas through brainstorming. We looked at codes and conventions of different text types and subject genre. For example, we analysed different DVD posters and went into detail about how each genre works. This was so we would know what we all needed to do to produce a poster and sleeve of a high standard.

Story synopsis: We wrote a story synopsis, which helped us give our films a background story, which also helped us write the blurb on the back on the sleeves.

Paper designs: Some students like to make paper designs of what they would like their poster and sleeves to look like, I preferred to design straight on the computer because as I started it, I get more ideas that make it better, whereas if I was doing a paper design, I would struggle to come up with better ideas. 

Skills acquisition: In order to be able to create our sleeves and posters, we had to learn a range of transferable skills and techniques through a series of tasks using CS6 applications. We created an illustrated portrait using illustrator, photo manipulation to create a "perfect" mode in Photoshop and designing a poster in Photoshop. We used these transferable skills when making our designs in Photoshop or illustrator.


For my proposal, I had a completely different idea than what my finished product is. My first idea was for my film to be an action one about gangs, but when I started to design, I came up with another idea for a horror film and decided to go with that, as I thought it was the better idea.

The second idea has been achieved and is how I wanted it to turn out. This was with the help if my friend who is on the poster and sleeve.

My poster and sleeve could be improved, the layout of the writing looks cramped at the bottom and the font could be changed into one that looks more like a horror font. Some of the colours could be made a bit brighter so that they would stand out.

My poster is a lot different to the one I researched, which was Guardians of the Galaxy. As this film is and action, adventure and also sci-fi, mine is completely different with a horror style. On the Guardians of the Galaxy poster, bright colours have been used, for example, the colour of the girls skin, which is green, is bright so that it would catch the audience's eye, whereas on mine, mostly dark colours have been used to give it that eerie look.

Effectiveness

The purpose of a DVD sleeve is to make the DVD appeal to the audience who it is targeted for. If the cover looks too immature, some people wouldn't watch the film because they would think that it wouldn't be very good.

For my DVD poster and sleeve, I asked my friend to stand on the field whilst I took a picture. The picture was taken in the day so I put a night sky into the background to make it freakier. This was so that no part of the poster had a blank space. If a part of a DVD sleeve has a blank space, for example, before I put the eyes into the sky, it looked to plain, but after putting them in, it gave my poster and sleeve character, I also put them there because in the film, the main character has hallucinations, and the eyes are the main things that she sees.

Sources of information

For me to be able to create the DVD poster and sleeve, we analysed different movie posters like the Guardians of the Galaxy. We looked at what audience the film was targeted to, the context of the poster, the purpose of the DVD sleeve and also the similarities and differences. As well as this, we also looked at different fonts to understand which ones would be suitable to go on our own posters and DVD sleeves.

Production process

        <- DVD sleeve

       

     <- DVD poster