Rough film poster attempt

My film poster will be created using the picture editing software Photoshop. I have never used this program before so I thought it would be a good idea to have a go on it to familiarise myself rather than waiting until we need to produce the poster. Once I opened the program it was clear I had made a sensible decision. Photoshop, I discovered, might as well be written in a different language. It could take some time for me to get to grips with it.

Luckily, I had a friend on hand to provide me with some rough instructions. After a while I kind of got the hang of it and managed to mock up this poster.

I used a photo I took of Jacob using my iPhone and put it into Photoshop. Looking back the photo was bad quality: it is the wrong size meaning I can't now get this poster to A4 without it being blurry. Also Jacob's right eye appears to be wandering off in it's own direction. I definitely need to re-take it. After removing the background and replacing it with plain white I found this thought bubble shape and applied it to the picture using a new layer. This ensured I didn't accidentally alter the previous image.

 I moved the bottom two clouds of the thought bubble by isolating them from the main cloud. Here I also added the thicker shaded outline to the clouds and also the texture. I though it was important to add the texture to differentiate it from the plain white background. This may however be something I change before the final version of my poster.

The next thing I did was add the title of the film to the speech bubble. I knew from my research of existing film posters that this should be the largest text on the page as it is most important to the audience. This will not be the final font, it is just serving it's purpose now. I couldn't quite figure out how to download the fonts I wanted into the program. I will try again at a later day, for now this font is fine. 

At the minute my poster still holds the same layout as my preliminary sketch and my drawn draft. 

Next I exchanged the 'o' in 'coffee' for the red heart, this introduces the romantic aspect in a very clear way. The actors names are in red, furthering the connotations of love. I have also added a tagline, review, release date and billing block. All are typical conventions of film posters. Along with these I have added the directors name at the top of the poster. This isn't always present on film posters so it was up to me whether to include it.

Here I have the finished first draft of my film poster. I am really pleased with my efforts, especially as I have no previous experience of Photoshop. This simple poster took me nearly an hour and a half, hopefully next time I will have retained what I have learnt and be able to work more effectively. 

 

What I'd do differently next time:

• Use a copy of Lord Of The Rings in the photo a that is the book featured in the film. It doesn't really matter but attention to detail never hurts. 
• Use a proper photo - As I mentioned this was taken with a phone thus I can't get the image full sized without it blurring  I will also use a white background to take the photo so I don't need to remove it. This way I will void any strange looking edges around the photo where the background has been removed. 
• I need to remind myself what is featured in a billing block and use the conventional font. 
• I might change the texture of the cloud, it doesn't look overly 'cloud like'.
• I need to test out some different fonts to see what works best.