Initial Ideas for my film poster

The mind map demonstrates the different aspects to consider when creating a film poster: the genre of the film, the theme demonstrated throughout the film, the title, the possible images that may feature and the overall presentation. The genre explored within my short was a documentary based on teenagers with realistic feel; considering this, I thought that a teenager, or multiple teenagers, should feature on my poster as the main focus as they are at the centre of my short film. Linking to this is the theme of my short which consists of encouraging teenagers to enjoy their youth and experience of growing up instead of wishing it away by exploring the terrible and enjoyable aspects of teenage life. From this, I believe my poster should consist of displaying both sides of growing up to emphasise the message of my film. The title also plays an extremely important part of the poster and should stand out so the audience are drawn to it. The title 'The Best Years of Your Life?' encourages the audience to question which years were the best, which may further encourage them to reminisce about their teenage years, again linking to the main focus of the film and the poster. An equally important feature of the poster are the images used, which should link to the film but should not be screen grabs taken from the film itself. When filming, I took the opportunity to take photos of the scenes that presented me as that would save me valuable time if I did not have to reconstruct the scenes in order to take appropriate photos. By taking photos of the scenes similar to those in my film, when my audience watch the film they will automatically connect it to the poster, emphasising the strong links between the two opposed to advertising for something that will not appear in my short. When brainstorming over how the best way would be to present my poster, I came up with the following ideas: a series of teaser posters with one central image (similar to that of the Les Mis poster campaign) that all link towards the main plot line, a shadowing effect where the main image is made up of other images demonstrating the main features of the film, a collage to combine all the main aspects that relate to the short, a collage within a shape, similar to the shadowing effect, but completely consuming the outline opposed to just being transparent over it and a typography poster where the words typically associated to a teenager are combined to create an object that plays a role in almost every teenager's life. I aim to create sample posters for my favourite ideas from the mind map above and then finally decide which poster I feel is the most effective in advertising my short film and I will continuously refer back to my mind map of initial ideas whilst researching, planning and creating my final poster campaign for my short film as inspiration.