Goal: To have a self sufficient class of film students who feel empowered to create films on their own, without constant instruction.

Audience: High school students, grades 10th through 12th with varying degrees of experience in reporting and video editing.

Message: Students can take responsibility for their own film projects.

The image from my original design lacked connection to actual students. I decided to use my captive audience of students as subjects and set up a shoot in the studio. After looking at the final product, it occurred to me to change the text as well to something more personal, moving away from a description of what we do in class, to one of what students imagine making a film is like. The result speaks to individual ideas and helps the audience feel empowered to make their own films.

Although the previous design helped convey the idea that making a film is a personal journey that one must do on his/her own, I still felt I needed to show some of the resources available in the class to get my audience started. The next version shows those tools rather than describing them like the first did. By showing their peers making movie, I hope to engender a feeling of empowerment in my audience. Sort of an “if they can do it so can I”.

The next iteration serves to provide more contrast between the very personal, almost private aspect of the filmmaker’s vision above and the public, nut-and-bolts tools of the bottom. This hopefully serves to say that everybody uses the tools on the bottom, they are no big deal so just start testing them out. What is really important is your vision and you already have that, so what are you waiting for?

The next slide was a stab at a more dynamic, bold version to grab the attention of the audience. I like it but felt that it took away from the intimate, personal quality the subdued black and white one conveys. A big part of my goal and message is that my audience can do this on their own so I decided to go a different route.

The next one adds the iconic embellishment of the filmstrip edges to add contrast as well as tying in with the filmmaking motif. In the end I decided that film strip on top and bottom was too overwhelming so I reduced it to just the bottom.

One last experiment with color and a different image. Here I have used another iconic film image, the clapper board. I really like this one because it is very dynamic and catches the eye. I can see using it in another part of the campaign, although I would definitely lose the pink background.

So here’s the final product.I simplified back to a previous form of the poster and cleaned up the alignment quite a bit. The row of pictures across the bottom had been bugging me ever since I added the filmstrip edges so I added the curve and played with the perspective of each picture to make it look more like an unwinding film strip.