As regards to our ancillary texts we chose to design a poster and the front cover to an Empire magazine, that were both centered around our trailer. Before rushing into creating the design using the software photoshop, I decided to sketch my ideas on paper and annotate them according to colour, positioning of labels and any connotative meanings that I had decided to implement. This way I was able to make changes and go through several ideas before coming to the final conclusion.
I had designed more than one advertising poster to get a rough idea of what I would be working with, I believed the first design wasnt broad enough with the perspective, and the positioning of characters and the tagline could have been altered to create a bigger impact, thus I came to my second and final design, which I was pleased with. The imagine shown below my first design is my final concept for the advertising poster. In my design I came up with the idea of a city scape which represents the idea of there being a long road and the buildings along that road being the obstacles and challenges he has to face. The central image in the poster is the protagonist, facing the horizon head on, with two antagonists facing him, connoting that the character is prepared to take on the challenges ahead, knowing that there may be obstacles that come his way. Finally I used the concept of a sunrise, connoting the idea of there being a light at the end of the tunnel, showing that if he travels this path he will get what he desires in the end. These concepts will act as hints to the plotline and content of the film.
Unforunately due to technical limitations getting photo's of all of these ideas seemed improbable, so my idea developed. We as a group decided that the film would have been based upon a comic book, and the storyline is something which many would imagine to be that of a graphic novel. Thus I decided to draw the design, but keeping the same concept of him reaching a goal, but in a comic book style. Although to add impact I decided to use a photograph that we had previously taken of the main character, which added emphasis.
Above is the final concept for the poster, as you can see its quite similar to my actual sketch during the design proccess, but with a few changes that I think add impact and eye catching. Here we can see the protagonist facing slightly toward us, this again was to create specific impact that caught the audiences eye, arousing their interest. Another difference is a strange glow emitting from the protagonists hand, this not only connotes the idea of a sense of power, but it reveals that this hand plays a specific part in the plot, and may have major importance which again may arouse the interest of the audience. To add to the theme of "freedom" I decided to add birds gliding above the sun rise. I believe this connotes the idea of being free and above everything else, breaking the boundaries and being above everybody else. Towards the end of the production of my poster I decided to make the tagline 'Everything has an end' this idea reinforces the concept of the road, portraying the idea of the protagonist having sheer determination, ready to fight for his freedom.
The image above shows the concept for my Empire magazine design. I decided to pursue the idea of having a military briefing file, with the words 'Top secret' stamped across the file in a similar style to that of a stamp. The colour scheme would be that of an actual folder, making it stand out to the audience, but also connoting the idea of the protagonist having a higher level of importance, again catching the audiences attention. The whole theme of the magazine was centered around the typical military stamp idea, so I decided that the Empire logo itself looked like it had been stamped on, and faded to add specific impact on the cover as a whole, backing up the idea of it being top secret. With the central image, being the protagonist, he was positioned facing the audience, with his nano tech arm concealed behind his back, this connotes the idea of him hiding something, which again reinforces the idea of it being 'Top secret'. In most Empire Magazine posters we can see the central images face is clear and easy to, I decided to distort the face, making it darker, so we cannot figure out his identity, this once again backs up the 'Top secret' idea that I had originally implemented into my design.
The image above shows my final Empire Magazine cover. Everything is similar to my initial design, although I was not able to insert the 'Top secret' stamp because of us not being able to use specific sources due copywriting laws. Also the tagline was altered, this was to add impact, I believed having it short and snappy would be more effective, and aesthetically pleasing than a tagline that consumed alot of space and over threw everything else. The new tagline I believe matches with the theme of the top secret military briefing; 'Fight for your Freedom', this sounding quite similar to phrases used in propaganda during wars. Furthermore through adding several stamping effects to the text, it helped connote the idea, making it quite clear to the audience that the theme was centered around some sort of briefing, due to the colour and manipulation of the lettering. Through these symbols and colours I was able to use previously learned media techniques to successfully reinforce my concept successfully.
Using previous Empire Magazine covers as a reference, I tried to simulate similar conventions of the magazine, upon my own. I positioned the bar code in the corner similarly so it did not intrude with the featured articles, making the text clear and easy to spot. Furthermore I used a similar technique of colour coding which related to the theme of the magazine. For example in the magazine cover shown above, the colours white green and purple are used which portray the concept 0f a clown, and the colours used for the main villain in the featured movie. So to simulate a similar concept I used red, white and black to portray the concept of a military briefing, adding to the aesthetics and creativity of the cover, raising the audiences interest. Similarly I placed featured articles on my cover, and a flash in the corner to again add to the aesthetics and follow the conventions used specifically by the Empire magazine.
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