Certification

We found it was best suitable for our teaser trailer to have a certificate of 15, due to the following BBFC certification guidelines:

Suitable only for 15 years and over

No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.

Thanks to the BBFC, we were able to make sure our teaser trailer was suitable for a 15 certificate.

Poster - Completed

We then added text to our poster and came up with a completed design:

We went for the image with the lips and eyes pixelated as we felt it was more striking and creepier than just his eyes being pixelated. We had the title at the top, and then just the portrait shot of the protagonist on a black background. We felt this was the most effective and simple way to attract our target audience. This also makes the text stand out, due to the luminous green colour. We chose this colour as it features heavily in some games, such as Call of Duty, so serves as an intertextual reference. We then included our slogan or tagline, "Some live to play. Others play to live" along with the date of our release. We then had the text at the bottom in a smaller size, with the credits about producers and directors etc. This was because it is a code and convention of film posters, so we needed it on ours.

Poster pictures - Further development

Following discussion on our poster image, we decided to keep it simple. We decided to pixelate the actor's features such as his eyes and his lips.

We at first just pixelated his eyes:

We felt this was really effective as it was simple and slightly creepy at the same time.

We then pixelated both his eyes and lips:

We felt this was also effective and more striking than the first image so we've chosen this to be our final poster image.

Poster Images - Pixelated

We decided to then pixelate his face on it's own to see if it was good enough to be our poster image on it's own. These show the different levels of pixelation that we experimented with. We then unanimously decided that it wasn't good enough and it wasn't clear that it was connected to our film. 

Initial Poster Image

This was our first idea for our poster. It was influenced by the Gamer poster, with the face of the actor, and the face of the game avatar being transposed so that you could only see the actor's key features. This was acheived with a square type brush, so that it gave the impression of being pixelated.

Opinion was initially divided over this image, but all felt that it needed to be much clearer that it was a game avatar, to ensure that our intended audience was attracted to the film.  

Typography

We decided to use the site http://www.dafont.com/ to find our font as it has much more varied fonts compared to the standard ones on programmes such as Word and Paint.

We decided on the font 'Terminator' which we felt had a game-like feel and was reminsicent of retro-games such as Pacman and Space Invaders but also had the modern feel of games such as Call of Duty and Halo.

Poster One

This is just a quick poster that we made for our teaser trailer. This is for us to practice making posters and to help us decide what we would like our final poster to look like.

We found the Xbox controller image on Google and layered it onto a black background and removed the image's background so we were left with just the hands and controller. There were a few slogans or taglines we were considering but we went for "Who's controlling who?" as it hints at the theme of our teaser trailer.

The font was one on Photoshop and it isn't very suitable for our film so this is something we know to develop at a later point. The text includes the title, release date, tag line and the name of our actor.

Lara Croft

The Lara Croft film plots are not directly based around a game, however the whole premise and character of Lara is based on the Tomb Raider video games. The games were first developed in 1996 and more than ten games have been released. Two films have been released as part of the franchise which is unusual as the games are usually based around films. Films usually release their own official games as part of their merchandise however it is very rare that a film is based around an existing video game.

Initial Typography Ideas

Here are some text ideas we had for our film poster and general typography. We got them from http://www.dafont.com/ and these are only intitial ideas as we are unsure whether or not we can convert them to the exact colour and style that we like.

Poster Deconstruction - Mum & Dad