Subsidiary Task One

For this subsidiary task I needed to create a poster to advertise my documentary. As my documentary was aimed at teens I needed the poster to be fresh, fun and young in order to appeal to them and grab their attention.

Obviously the subject of the documentary is serious issue so I did not want to give the impression that the documentary was therefore a joke so the seriousness of the title sets a good balance.

The main image denoted on the poster is of Ellie Holden; she is one of the main focuses in the documentary. Using her as the face of the documentary sets a familiarity for the viewer, they will be able to make associations between the poster and the documentary when they see her featured in it. The girl denoted in the image is blonde which has the connotation of having fun, this works well with the body language the girl is using. The way her arms are positioned in the air connote dancing and again relate to having fun. This is something all young people like to do and they will therefore find this appealing. The clothes the girl is wearing shows she is young, trendy and fashionable, something most teens can relate to or find attractive. If the girl on the cover were old and dressed in frills the audience would not be able to make a social connection to her and would therefore be put off watching the documentary.

Denoted, as the background colour is a dark black shade. This connotes a sense of mystery that comes with nighttime and also suggests nightlife as a life style.

Denoted around the text used on the poster are torn paper edges. This gives a connotation of messy or edgy. Teenagers can relate to the idea of mess and imperfections so this would appeal to them more than an older target audience.

The title of the documentary reads 'TRASHED DRINKING AND DESTRUCTION' the capital letters connote bold, loudness and shouting. This gives a rebellious look to the text, which is suitable for the target audience. The language used also connotes the idea of rebellion, which can be seen as stylish by many young people.

To create this poster I used Photoshop. I prepared my images and text separately and then used layering to combine them to create the overall outcome. I used features in Photoshop such as cropping, lasso tool, editing brightness and contrast, colour replacement, erasing and cloning.

Please Click Image To Enlarge.