My Name is John - Poster

For my Professional Practice and FMP modules, I have created a poster for my main project My Name is John. I have had a few ideas for the poster for My Name is John. I wanted it to be quite minimalist as I don't want it to reveal too much about this film, but also generate intrigue. I took inspiration from the Alien, Jaws and this Gravity poster, there are also a lot of unofficial minimalist movie posters that have a similar look and feel to what I have imagined. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11145730/Alien-Ridley-Scott-poster.html

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/movie-posters/

http://www.adoptionlcsw.com/2014/04/gravity-adoption-movie-review.html

Screengrab from Google Images for 'minimalist movie posters'

I have three ideas for the film poster. One could be challenging in photoshop, which is a briefcase with a bit of bowling ball showing inside it. I am going to try and recreate this and update this post when I do. The second and third ideas are quite similar, my next favourite being just a briefcase in the middle of the poster, and the other being a bowling ball. I think I'm going to try all three and see which turns out the best. I am also going to include the name of the film and also the cast list. I was debating whether to include a tag line, if I have any ideas I will update this post.

That last one with the bowling ball looks really bad now I look at home

I experimented with the pictures I found on Google. I struggled to find any that were ajar and that last realistic briefcase just looks awful. I'm unsure about the cartoon one as it looks weird with a real bowling ball. Might try this one again with a cartoon bowling ball. At the moment, the briefcase and the bowling ball on their own look the best, but the more I look at the bowling ball, the more it looks like a shocked face. I need a break.

UPDATE 04.03.18 - I have decided to scrap the bowling ball in the suitcase idea because my photoshop skills just aren't up for it. I have also decided to scrap the minimalist idea with just the suitcase or the bowling ball in the middle of the poster as it just looks amateurish and blank.

I then decided to focus on the background and found three royalty free images; one of an alley, stage and a theatre sign. I experimented with all three and put the suitcase on each one but the scale was wrong and just made it look like the suitcase was floating in mid air.

I also tried putting the suitcase on the side of the street but couldn't get rid of the glow. 2/3 people managed to spot it. I also don't like how it's on the street next to some garbage; it's an important suitcase.

I went back to the minimalist feel I wanted for the poster, and removed the suitcase as it just wasn't working. I used the stage background next which looks a lot better. However it might be too minimal.

I then experimented with my other background of the theatre sign in both black and white and RGB colour. I exported it in colour and thought it looked to clean, so also did it in black and white, but I ended up liking the colour one better anyway! I'm unsure about the main font (been looking for two days now...)

After asking for opinions I have further updated my poster by changing the font to something a bit skinner to match the other writing. Consensus says they prefer the colour poster. I decided to have another experiment using colour splash on Photoshop (following this tutorial) and picking out the colour of the sign, and the rest in black and white. 

Basically I added another black and white layer and started erasing it to reveal the colour underneath.

I really like how this turned out and is my favourite out of all that I have made. This is my final design of my poster.

UPDATE: I really prefer Jack's poster design, but this was my first proper attempt at Photoshop and I think I did well considering my skills are basic. I have learnt a lot and have more skills in Photoshop which supports my individual practice according to LO2 in Professional Practice.