Short film poster - First draft and feedback

For my ancillaries I decided to make a short film poster and magazine article. I began first by making the poster and made a first draft to then receive feedback on. After having done some research into film posters I found the ones I liked the most to be very simplistic in style - examples being the Whiplash and Fight Club posters. These posters generally had a neutral, single colour backdrop, with an image relevant to the film - often the lead character - overlaid in the centre and then framed with the film title. They then had smaller titles with additional information such as actors and the director at the top and bottom. I think this simplistic style is really effective as it puts clear focus on the important aspects of the film, and the viewer is not being bombarded with an excessive amount of information and images, which also fits with the simple concept idea of my short film.

Above is the first draft of my idea for  my short film poster, it follows all of the things I previously mentioned liking about other film posters. The backdrop is a simple, singular colour which is not too striking, the main content is only a picture of the orange - my lead character - and the title of the film, which I have used to partially underline the photo. I have then put other additional titles in smaller font at the top and bottom of the poster, which works to balance the content. I finally added some additional white shapes, this to fill the empty space as I felt there was too much of it, and it also partially resembles ice, which helps to further support the cold and lonely atmosphere surrounding the character of the orange.

To add another layer of depth to my film poster and to make it slightly more interesting, I used Photoshop to create a 3D effect over the title of the film. This was relatively simple to achieve by using the 3D text manipulation tools in Photoshop, but I found the outcome to be extremely effective. The drop shadow under the text really helps to add depth to the title and makes it stand out on the poster. 

Feedback on the first draft of my short film poster:

Above is a copy of the feedback sheet I created and handed around to several people in the interest of gaining their opinion on what they thought of my short film poster.

Overall the feedback was very positive, people liked the simplistic style and thought it worked well with the concept of my short film. People also liked the 3D text effect but it was suggested that I could change the colour to be a slightly lighter grey, as currently black is a strong contrast with the colour palette of the rest of the poster. It was also suggested to me that I should do more to make the white ice shapes more clear as currently it is not immediately apparent as to what they are. The most significant constructive feedback I received was to take a better photo of the orange, as the one I am currently using is slightly blurry and out of focus. To ensure I get a better photo of the Orange I intend to use a better quality camera and set it up on a tripod to ensure it's completely in focus, and also I'm going to put it in front of a white sheet to make selecting just the orange much easier and this should also help to sharpen the edges.