Presentation Assignment

For this assignment, i teamed up with Guan You. Basically we were supposed to find two posters (one good, one bad) and comment on them based on what we learnt so far about design principles.'

First, the good poster:



This poster was taken from the movie 'Shutter'. As you can see in the poster, there is an excellent focus to the centre where the focus of the poster is the face of a ghostly figure. You can tell that there is closure even though they didnt really draw out a ghostly face, because they used a collage of photographs to attain the ghostly face. Also, the ghost is slightly emphasized from the right which gives the impression that the ghost is turning to face the viewer, adding a somewhat 3-D effect to it.

Also, the photo also conveys a very scary and ominous feel to it through the usage of sepia and black and white colors. The gloomy pictures that make up the ghostly face also add to the light wispy texture that one usually associates with ghosts or other spiritual things. Furthermore, the choice of colors through the usage sepia tones and light intensity gives a worn out look and is linked to the theme of the movie, 'spirit photography' as they try to create a color similar to photo negatives.

In addition, the layout of the poster is also quite good as the poster draws your attention to the ghostly face first. After that it slowly leads to the title of the movie below before ending off with a mysterious caption.

Ok. Next up is the bad poster :



First, as you can see from the poster, the background is too detailed, making it fight for attention with the main character in the center of the poster. The bad exposure in the background also causes it to be a jarring distraction from the main character in the poster. The poster also gives the wrong feel that it seems more likely to be a poster to save the rainforest or something, instead of being a poster for a horror movie. This is due to its natural colors and style.

The font used for the movie title also seems out of place and not harmonious with both the girl and the background. Furthermore, the girl who is supposed to be the killer does not convey any sense of agression or sign of being a murderer. This is even after symbols from other horror movies like the hockey mask from the Friday the 13th series and the claws from the Nightmare on Elm Street series are used.