This is the poster for my film 'Lexus'. Before even researching posters I started to take pilot pictures and sort of mess around with a few ideas I had. I eventually opted for the close up of lips and smoke, since it mimicks my trailer and what would be my film perfectly, especially since the opening shot of my trailer is a girl smoking. I took a few pictures of myself smoking, a few with the cigarette actually in my mouth and a few with just the smoke. I liked the one I ended up using, because of the lip piercing and the thick, white smoke; it gets the idea across quite clearly. It clearly shows the audience that this is a teen film, darker than the rest, with predominant, soul-destroying problems heavily hinted at by the smoke.
Before I started editing, I began to look at other posters. I didn't realise at the time, but the raw photograph I'd taken was landscape, and so I automatically tried to twist it to portrait, but it didn't really fit the image I was going for. I started to research landscape posters, and found that most large posters used in cinema foyers were landscape, and classic films like Trainspotting used landscape over portrait. It always looked better in landscape anyway, at least to my eye!
I then started editing my picture. I made the skin look half-dead, very pale and almost blotchy; like the person's been on a heavy night out. I made the lip-ring alot more present, by highlighting the shine on it, and then made the lips darker in contrast to the metal. Then I started to edit the smoke, using Photoshop's burn tool, which made it look alot more sinister and opaque. I burnt the edges alot more, too, so they blended in with the black background.
I then wondered where to put all the wordy detail. I looked back at the Trainspotting posters and found they had used a rather simple idea of putting a block at the bottom with all the film details in, which I really liked. I started with a maroon-y colour rectangle, and then attacked it all with the burn tool, again. I decided to have the title, 'Lexus' very big and bold, so it's the first thing you see apart from the smoke, and opted to put it in a light pastel pink, in contrast with all the doom and gloom of the picture. I used the burn tool again to blotch it up a bit, and then added the tagline; "it starts in whispers". So, then all I had to do was put in the names at the left. I looked at other posters, just off the bat, of films I've seen and liked, like 'Jennifer's Body', and took things like 'director of photography' and 'costume designer', and used names of my friends and family.
Et voilá...
This is my magazine cover for 'Lexus'. I knew from the start I'd opt for 'Electric Sheep', simply because it's a self-confessed 'deviant' view of cinema, which is the idea I applied to my trailer before I even found what magazine I wanted; it seemed it was perfectly tailored to my film, which is always a plus. I kept the mast head exactly as it is, changing the date to Spring '10, for this year, and then put my picture in replacement of another I'd got from the internet. I decided to use this photograph of me, even though it's very old and not really what I look like now, but it definitely fits because of the stance and the dress-code and particularly the faraway look of worry, or concern, on my face. I edited the picture a little, upping the contrast and making the red hair stand out from the black t-shirt to represent the bloodiness of the storyline, the hate and the betrayal.
I then worked out what I was going to put in the info box on the left. On some of the original posts it has a mini-title and then a small blurb of sorts describing the feel of the film. My favourite 'Electric Sheep' cover I'd found on the internet had "tainted love" as the title, and I decided to keep it as mine, since any love in my film is most definitley tainted at some point or another, (and, it's an awesome song...). I then listed out some of the attributes of my trailer and film, like "fake friends" - basically telling us exactly what and who 'Lexus' is, without really giving any plot away. I then changed the features at the bottom to things I'd made up, like "Cannes super shocker" and "star of British heist flick talks" etc. Then it was just a case of taking the bottom level of the magazine and applying it to mine.
