Media A2 Transition Project

My Chosen Director

• After researching all of the directors on the list we were given, I decided to look at a film directed by Stanley Kubrick.

• Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor born on July 26th 1928 and died on March 7th 1999, aged 70.

• He started out as a photographer in New York City, and taught himself all aspects of film production and directing.

• He was well-known within the film industry for braking new ground in cinematography, including using innovative visual effects and scientific realism in ‘2001: Space Odyssey’ and the use of a steadicam in ‘The Shining’.

• While some of his films were controversial with mixed reviews, such as ‘Paths of Glory’ (1957), ‘Lolita’ (1962) and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971), most of his films were nominated for Oscars, Golden Globes or BAFTAs.

• He is considered one of the ‘great masters’ that America has produced.

My Chosen Film

• I looked at all the films directed by Stanley Kubrick, I decided to use ‘Lolita’.

• Lolita was released in 1962, and was Kubrick’s first attempt at a black comedy. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1955.

• Plot Summary: Humber Humbert, a divorced British professor of French literature, travels to small-town America for a teaching position. He allows himself to be swept into a relationship with Charlotte Haze, his widowed landlady, whom he married in order that he might pursue the woman’s 14 year old flirtatious daughter, Lolita, with whom he has fallen hopelessly in love, but whose affections shall be thwarted by a devious trickster named Clare Quilty.

The Original Poster

Main tag line.Title of film (in a

different font, size and colour to tag line to show the difference between the two).

Red heart shape sunglasses and a red lollipop are both used on the poster image because they are featured throughout the film and help show the personality of the main character.

Film credits including the main actors and actresses, director and producer.

Age certificate for the film

(18 and over).

The original film poster for the 1962 black comedy used one simple extreme close-up of the lead actress Sue Lyon as the title character Lolita. She is wearing her heart shaped sunglasses and eating a lollipop, both of which feature repeatedly throughout the film. The main colour used in the poster is red (glasses, lollipop and lips) which is often associated with danger and danger is a key theme in the film. Because there is no background the red stands out against the pale skin colour.

One of the first things I did after deciding on the film Lolita was to research the original poster or posters used when it was first released. I found that there was one main poster used.

Re-makes of The Film & Their Posters

• Whilst researching the film I learnt that there had been several re-makes. The most well-known of the re-makes is the 1997 version starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain and Melanie Griffith that was directed by Adrian Lyne. I had to take into account the poster used for this film when designing mine.

Cast of the film

Film title

Quotes/reviews

Red heart sunglasses used throughout the film and featured on the original poster.

Two main characters.

Red used on the title/main characters name to suggest danger.

Original Trailer

• I watched the original trailer for Lolita several times once deciding it was the film I wanted to use. The trailer was a clip of continuous short shots of the lead character from the film. The shots used gives the audience an insight into the kind of character she is and her personality. To help me with my poster, I took screenshots of most the scenes used.

Poster IdeasAfter looking at the original posters and trailers used for the film when it was released in 1962, I found some images of things I might want to include in my modern-day version of the poster. A lot of the images are based on scenes used in the 1962 trailer, and most them have the colour red in them somewhere. This is because the original poster included a lot of red, and it is a colour often associated with danger-which is one of the key themes with the film.

First Poster Ideas

• To begin with, I created a few different poster designs (either without images or with images I found on the internet) to see what sort of design/outline I could for the final poster. They started off quite simple, and then by adding things and swapping and changing other things I found a few designs that I liked. This helped me a lot with the creation of a final outline/outlines for my poster.

The main tag line of the film.

The title of the film in a font I found online.

An image I got off google that resembled a scene/image from the original trailer.

Film credits that appear on the majority of modern film posters.

A plain red background because the original poster focuses on the colour red.

This was my first real attempt at creating a film poster, which is why it is very simple and basic. I hadn’t really researched what modern film posters look like or thought much about how it should be laid out. I also didn’t really make use of the photoshop and fireworks programmes available to me which resulted in a boring and simplistic design.

Two of the main cast of the film.

The main tag line of the film in a font I found online.

The main image of red heart-shaped sunglasses that are an iconic part of the film.

Critics reviews/comments about the film that I got off google images.

Film credits.

Awards that the film/cast has won.

After doing a lot more research into current film posters and things that they typically include, I came up with this design. There were some elements of the first poster that I wanted to include, for example the theme of red running throughout the poster and the film credits. As well as this, by researching I found that a lot of modern day film posters don’t actually include any people, just objects that feature heavily in the film. I also found they the majority of them include reviews/comments from film critics, and awards that the film or the cast and crew have been nominated for or won.

Final Designs

• After making a few different mock ups, I came up with two main ideas that I would eventually choose from. I decided that I would either use a close up of my model or a long/full body shot of her lying down. I created one basic design/outline for each idea.

This was the design I was going to use if I decided on a long/full length shot of my model. I arranged all of the text on the poster on the left hand side of the page so that the image could go on the right hand side.

Space for the full length image of my model

Awards won/ nominated for

Main tag line

Acting credits

Quotations from critics

Title of the film

Film credits/billing block

This was the design I was going to use if I decided on a close up photo of my model. It has mostly the same stuff on as the other design I created, but everything is more centred because the image would be placed in the middle of the poster.

Acting credits

Main tag line

Director credits

Film credits/billing block

Age certificate

Quotations from critics

Film title

Photographs

• I took a lot of different types of shots of my model from various different camera angles, but these were the most successful one that I thought were most suitable for the poster.

• I knew that if I used a close up shot I would most likely delete the background, so for these photos I tried to find a plain background.

• For the long shot/full length shot I just used my garden as the background because I knew I could use Photoshop to edit the grass to make it look better.

• One part of the original poster that I wanted to keep was the sunglasses. I couldn’t find any heart shaped sunglasses so instead I just used plain red glasses.

• I told my model what kind of photos I wanted and the personality of the character, and showed her the original posters and trailer. These helped us decide what her make-up, hair and clothes should look like in the picture.

Image EditingOnce I decided on a design and an image, I had to edit them to make them work together properly. I decided to use the design for the close-up but with a full length image. I wanted to use the grass as a background for the poster but I couldn’t stretch the image to make it fit across the whole poster without stretching the model. Instead, I used photoshop to edit another version of the same photo. I used the clone stamp tool to delete part of the model and replace it with grass. This meant that I could simply use 3 separate photos to create the grass background rather than stretching one.

Final Poster