Katt's Blog

I am now looking to add text to my poster. I began by trying to download a custom font to use, but as I wasn’t able to do this I began browsing through the fonts already available on Photoshop. I took a screenshot of the fonts that caught my attention, so I can review them later. The text I was testing the fonts with was ‘Welcome To The’ (and the same all in capitols). I used this text because the title of my film will be ‘Welcome to the Playhouse’, and I intend to have ‘welcome to the’ in a smaller text above the larger, main piece of text reading ‘Playhouse’. I did one row of text in caps and one in mixed case, so I can see which way the font looks best.

Here are the screenshots:

1. I really like the decoration of the capitol letters on this font. I also like that this makes the capitol larger than the lower case text, an effect I was already considering using on the ‘welcome to the’ section.

2. This font looks particularly creepy in upper case. It gives the impression that the text has been ‘slashed’ on, in sharp violent pen strokes.

3. I included this font as the blood-dripping effect is very chilling. However, it looks more mock-horror than genuine horror.

4. This font also has the ‘slashed on’ look of font 2. I like this effect, but I prefer font 2.

5. The ‘Chiller’ font looks good, but it doesn’t look good for the smaller font. I have tried it later for the larger, ‘Playhouse’ text.

In terms of the positioning of the font, I want it to be canted, to give it the connotation that something is wrong (similar to a canted angle with a camera). The upper line (‘welcome to the’) will be small, and sit on top of the lower line (‘playhouse’).

I tried using the ‘Chiller’ font (no.5) for the ‘Playhouse’ text here:  I’m really happy with the way this looks, and I’ll definitely use the Chiller font for this. (The upper line of text will have a different font.) I’m a little concerned that the title is off-centre (so that it stays in the darker area and doesn’t interfere with the faded side.) However, this isn’t a major issue, and as I can’t see an alternative at the moment I’ll leave it where it is.

Here’s a quick test with the upper line as well, to show the intended format:

I’ve decided to use picture no.952 in my poster, as I prefer the hair over the girl’s face.

Next I cleaned up the band of white along the bottom of the floor – this is the result so far:

 I’m happy with the way this has come out, although I may clean it up a little more later. I mostly used the clone tool to keep the streaked, faded effect as much as possible, but I also used the paintbrush tool to get the outline of the legs matched properly (this was made difficult as the bottom of the legs and the white band were a very similar colour).

Now, I have begun to experiment with changing the floor somehow, as I really like the ‘dark’ look of the wall, and the floor looks too light for a horror poster. I have mapped my experiments with the floor (using the Contrast/Brightness tools) in screenshots below:

1. 2. In step 2 I took the darkness down to -100%  this is much better, as it matches the walls more closely. There is also a slight continuation of the girl’s shadow on the floor, which I hadn’t noticed beforehand.

3. In step 3 I played with the contrast of the floor, to further highlight the shadows and scratches on the floor.

I also decided to play with the contrast on the girl, as she is very pale when inverted and the detail on her doesn’t stand out too much. Using the magic wand tool I highlighted her, then played with the Contrast/Brightness tool again. Screenshots are below:

1. In step 1 I set the contrast at +50%, which brought out more details (such as the creases in her clothing) and made her seem more solid and real; and set the darkness at -10% which lessened the glare of the increased contrast.

2. During step 1 I noticed that by increasing the contrast on her hands, they became almost invisible on the black background. To remedy this I deselected her hands and continued to play with the contrast. I kept the darkness at -10% but this time set the contrast at +40% instead of +50%. I found that this didn’t affect how visible the girl was, but meant the colours wouldn’t be as glaring to the eyes, which I didn’t want from the poster. I wanted the contrast change to make the girl stand out, rather than add bright colours (rather than the black-and-white theme I have so far, which matches the horror feel better).

Here’s a proper version of step 1, complete with the darkened hands that are difficult to see and were fixed in step 2:

As the changes to the floor showed a continuation of the shadow, I realised that the shadow on her lower left leg didn’t follow properly. I then fixed this, so that it follows the leg more closely and matches up with the continuation on the floor. That is here:

I also played around with changing the contrast on the girl’s shadow, shown here:  However, aside from creating a dark line around the inside of the shadow this doesn’t seem to make much different. Therefore, I will stick to the previous edit I made.

Next step is to add titles, release dates, etc on top of this version of the picture, which will serve at the background.