Teaching Teens poster

I have been playing around on Photoshop with an image of Brad (our main character) that i took a few weeks ago. After doing lots of research on many other Channel 4 style documentary posters, i took a photo of Brad sitting central on the school stage looking out over the hall filled with set up desks in preparation for exams. I took the photo from behind, giving the impression that Brad was looking out into the big wide world and to emphasize that this particular episode is going to be about him and his day to day struggle with school life. I also composed the image in a way which immediately shows the audience that this particular character who is very distinctive in terms of his behaviour, and to emphasize his feelings of being singled out from the rest of his class and being alone. I feel this image will work really well and meet the conventions of the other posters because i discovered many of the real documentary posters i came across contain a very simple image, with little text on too. Many posters only contain the 4 symbol, the title and either a brief description of the programme or just the date and time it is going to be broad casted.


Whilst searching around on the Channel 4 website, i came across this extremely detailed and information filled guide which helped me to ensure my poster would fit in with their desired conventions. http://www.channel4.com/about_c4/styleguide/downloads/C4StyleGuide1.1.pdf


Opening up my original image in photoshop, i started adding my elements of a Channel 4 poster. I photoshopped on my channel 4 symbol which was taken off Google images, and added the coloured blocks which my text will be layered on top of.

Here is the original photo.

and here is a preview of my documentary poster so far.

However, after reading further through the Channel 4 Identity Style Guide, i discovered that it is very often a channel places their logo at the bottom right of a poster. Due to this, Channel 4 always place their 4 logo in a distinctive centre right position, which is unique to the channel and instantly recognisable. Therefore, i had to move my 4 logo to a centre right position in order to make it fit the conventions of Channel 4 posters. Going back to my image in photoshop, moving the position of the 4 logo made it appear somewhat cluttered, where the busyness of the central area of the image reduced the boldness of the sign, making it almost difficult to see at all. Knowing i needed my 4 logo to stand out, however still be positioned central and on the right, meant i needed to re think my poster. I decided to try and create a spotlight effect on the image, making the surroundings of brad darker to create space where my logo will be recognised and i also decided this may further emphasize what i wanted to audience to feel about Brad when they see the poster. In photoshop, i went to the Filter tab at the top, went down the list to Render and clicked on Lighting Effects. This opened up a box where i was able to fiddle around with a spotlight style effect. Here is a screen shot of what creating this effect looked like on my screen. 

After a few alterations of my logo and colour blocks, due to the black spotlight effect outline and both the logo and the colour blocks now blended in, here is my second idea for my documentary poster. 

Although i like this idea for a poster, i am unsure of whether it is the best it could be. I decided to experiment along the same lines of this poster but with the use of a black and white image, with a central focus on brad in the same way but in black and white instead. I duplicated the image layer and changed one into black and white. Using the eraser tool, i used a soft brush with a low opacity to erase the centre of the image, revealing the colour underneath. I then changed the logo and colour blocks back to black. Here is what it looked like.

I then decided my first draft of the poster was my favourite, where the spotlight effect is focusing on brad and the whole image is in colour.