1. ANALYSIS AND DECONSTRUCTION OF MY HORROR MOVIE POSTER

2. The inspiration from my magazine came from the Insidious horror movie poster. I really
like the layout of this poster and I felt that the sub genre of the insidious poster linked
with the sub-genre of my horror trailer. I really liked the idea of having one of the main
protagonists as the main focus of the poster but looking directly at the viewers to grab
their attention. I also liked the idea of having the eyes of the character different to
normal. The eyes of the character in the insidious poster look like smashed glass and i
wanted to edit my eyes to an orange colour to make them look more scary for the
audience to look at. Although the background of the insidious poster reveals some of
the location, i didn’t feel this necessary to add to my poster because the main
character is captivating enough to draw the reader’s in straight away and also it leaves
a sense of mystery not having the location included.

3. MAIN IMAGE
Above is the original After adjusting the overall general
photograph I took of one of colour of my image, I then decided
the protagonists of our to use the colour tool to edit the
eyes of my character. I zoomed in
horror trailer and I used this
really far so that I could be really
image as the main focus for detailed when colouring her eyes
my poster. I told her to pose Using Photoshop, I decided to edit the and then I made the white part of
contrast, brightness and exposure of my her eye brighter so that her eyes
with an evil, creepy look photograph to give it more of a horror stand out and then coloured the
staring directly at the look and to fit it to the sub-genre of our main part of the eye from black to
audience, yet because of horror trailer. I decided to make the orange but leaving the pupils
image a lot darker so that it seems much black. I did this because I feel that
the age of the actress, it more dark and scary adding to the the eyes are an important, factor
also gives the image an psychological factors of our trailer and it of my image to draw the readers
innocent edge to it also adds to the colour scheme of my in and if they feel that they are
furthermore drawing the poster which is black, white and orange. being stared at then they will
Along with adjusting the become more freaked out and
viewers in because it will brightness, contrast and exposure, I also scared thus leading them to want
leave them questioning used the burn tool to emphasize the to watch the film because being
what this little girl has done. dark smudges underneath her eyes to scared is a key factor as well as key
make her look more tired and troubled. enjoyment of horror movies.

4. After editing the main image of my poster, I then
moved on to adding in the title of my horror movie. I
felt that the title was also a key aspect of the poster
because this is what the viewers are going to need to
know when they want to go and watch our film. It has
to be able to stick in their heads so that when they
chat about it with family or friends they can then
share what it is called with them, hopefully promoting
it. I placed the title of our film directly in the bottom
centre of my poster in rather large, capital writing.
The font is white and is placed on the black
background therefore leading it to be very noticeable.
Also the fact that it is directly in the centre means
that it will be one of the first things that the viewers
will see.
After adding in the title, I thought it would be good to
follow one of the main conventions of horror posters and
add in the tagline and the promoting line as most
posters include these. I feel that our tagline is one of the
most important elements of our horror movie trailer
because it really emphasizes the sub genre and is also
relevant to many people’s lives thus drawing the readers
in. Because one of the key aspects of our trailer is the
modern day use of social media, then our tagline will
scare the readers because they will feel that something
bad is going to happen to them because they are
expressing their lives ‘online’ through social network
sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I decided to place
this at the top of the poster in the centre because this is
one of the first places the viewers will look at when
looking at this poster because the majority of people
tend to read from top to bottom.

5. The next thing I added to my poster was the billing block. The
vast majority of film posters have these on them so that the
viewers can know extra details of actors, producers etc if they
really want to. It’s always there for them to look at if they want
to. However, I have placed this directly at the bottom of the
poster underneath the title but in very small font. The reason
that the font is so small is because it is not something that the
viewers will necessarily remember and it won’t necessarily draw
them into want to watch the film. However it is important to
have it there just in case they do want to know.
Afterwards, I inserted the release date of the film. This is
slightly larger than the billing block just because it’s more
something that the viewers will want to know rather
than wanting to know the editors or casting directors of
the film etc. It is also placed at the bottom of the poster
because I don’t feel that it is of most importance.
In addition, I then added in the logos of the film
companies and distribution companies at the bottom of
the billing block. I also placed these at the bottom of my
poster because I feel the level of importance isn’t as great
as other aspects of my poster, yet it needs to be included
to inform the viewers of the companies behind the film.

6. Finally, after adding all the text and most important features of my horror movie poster, I
then eventually decided that the text didn’t seem to stand out enough. So in the end I
decided to edit my text and add an outline and an outer glow to the text. I feel that this
really made it stand out of the page and add emphasis to the poster and lead the viewers
to want to read the text even more. I could really see the difference it made and I also
noticed that every other poster edits the text and adds effects to it to make it stand out
more as we can see in the insidious poster where I got my inspiration from. Also, the I’s in
the tagline have been made a different colour from the rest of the tagline bringing it to
stand out even more. And also so that the viewers can feel included because they will feel
like it relates to them personally because of the vast use of the word ‘I’.

7. Colour scheme
The colour scheme of my poster is black, white and bright orange. The reason I chose this
colour scheme is because not only do I want my poster to stand out but I feel that these colours
represent the horror theme. The black contrasts with the white, and the bright orange just adds
in a bit of colour to make the poster much more interesting and intriguing for the viewers to
look at. The main image is black and white, adding an eerie effect but also bringing in elements
of the past, which is one of the main focuses of our horror movie. The promotion line ‘From the
makers of Paranormal Activity’ is mainly in bright orange to contrast it from the rest of the
poster, because this is an important thing for the viewers to know so that they know that the
people who made ‘Deactivate’ have previously made successful horror movies before leading
them to want to watch it more.
Comparing it to real media products
My poster has many connotations of previous real media products such as what is included. For
example, the title, tagline, billing block, release date etc. These are all things that are on the
majority, included in most posters. Also, the image is very creepy and scary much like the
images in many other posters. This is to promote the horror genre and to draw the viewers in to
want to watch the film because of it’s terror and suspense. Much like many other posters, the
image is always focussed on the horror sub-genre of the film so that the viewers know what to
expect. My poster however goes against the stereotypical features of many posters such as the
insidious poster because of the fact that the location isn’t revealed. In many posters, the
product reveals a glimpse of the location in the film, however in my poster the focus is just on
the character and the location is a secret and is not of most importance to draw the viewer in
to the film. I feel that my poster is simple yet effective and doesn’t reveal too much of the film
leaving ambiguity in the viewers head (one of the connotations of psychological horror sub-
genre)