My inspiration for my poster came from Atonement, where the title splits the characters. I decided to use this same layout so that Sarah was looking into the past. It is also noticable on my poster that the names of the actors are not present- the reason for this is because I looked at the Letters to Juliet poster as well, and decided to include them in the institutional information section rather than writing them in bold.
For the top section: First of all I cut around the image of Sarah using the magic wand tool, but I was not happy with it as the edges weren't smooth. I brought back the original image, and used the dodge tool to lighten the background. This was easier as the wall she was standing against when I took the photo was white anyway. For the top right hand corner I chose "Render" and then "Clouds", selecting light blue as the colour. I then used the smudge tool to blend it in with the image in the top left-hand corner. For the image of the trees I took it from the Internet then used the magic wand tool to make it smaller and get rid of the sections I did not need. I smudged the edges of this as well. I then decided that Sarah should be looking into a fire, and is this fits in well with our storyline I felt it would work well. The aspect which I like about the smudge tool is that it makes the edges of the images look as though they are smoky, which fits in well with the fire, as well as the fact that Sarah's character is looking into an unknown past- smoke itself is rather disorientating to look into. As shown in my poster screenshots I tried out various colours for the fire, such as blue. Where the trees are in the top left-hand corner I did think about doing a broken heart, making it so that one half dripped down into the fire, but when I tried it it did not work.
For the centre: I chose a rectangle and filled it with the colour black, then smudged the edges to make them look smokey. I used http://www.dafont.com/ for the font for the film title, where I print screened it and then used the magic wand tool to crop out the white that could be seen.
For the bottom section: I took the original image and edited it using Fotoflexer, but as I was not happy with it I brought back the un-edited version again. I cut out some of the background in the photo using the magic wand and quick selection tools. Taking inspiration from the film poster 'Letters to Juliet' I decided that I needed to feature letters on my poster, and as we have now incorporated the fire into our storyline I thought that letters with burnt edges would look even better. Even though the letters in the film survive the fire it does not mean that burning letters cannot be used. Instead I considered the other conventions such as the fact that Sarah looking into her past is like looking at burnt letters because she struggles to make sense of what the letters are telling her. I used the smudge tool to edit the edges of the letters, and smudged Jon and Peter so that they were distorted just like the past is when Sarah decides to look into it. For the date of release and 'Total Film' fonts I chose a bold text so that it follows the conventions of other film posters. I took the image of the five stars from the Internet and used the magic wand tool to crop the background and make it so had just the red stars. I did research into Institutional Information so that I knew what to write, and then put it into a small white font. I also included a BBFC certificate showing that the film has a 12 rating, therefore indicating to those who saw the poster whether they could go and watch it or not. For the certificate I saved the image, dragged from the 'My Pictures' file and then used the magic wand tool to crop the image.
Overall I am pleased with what I have achieved, as I think I have followed the conventions of a promotional poster.
