Magazine Cover & Poster Photoshoot

As I will need the same actors to star in the images on both the magazine cover and the poster, I decided to do both photo shoots together, to ensure the actors were wearing the correct attire, and that I was able to get them all together and finished at once.

The process was fairly simple using a Canon stills camera, I was able to take professional looking photographs of each actor, taking into account the lighting and position of each.

The key to the lighting of the photographs being taken was to ensure that they were illuminated by natural light, this making the images clearer and brighter. For this I decided to go outdoors to take my shots, as well as against white walls next to doors and windows, all the time ensuring natural light was used rather than artificial lighting.

For my magazine cover, I was intent on getting a sideward facing image of the detective, with Ellie and her parents smaller images to the left of him on the page. With this in mind I had to arrange the characters into particular positions-I.e. the detective in a sideways stance, using a long shot  and a mid shot of him to get in the whole pose and the detail where needed, for my magazine cover I shall use the mid-shot of the detective, feeling that this in keeps in with TV Guide magazine conventions better than a whole body shot. For Ellie's parents, I made the actors portray the emotional turmoil they were feeling through their facial expressions and body language. Therefore both actors had very sad, distressed facial expressions, further capturing the emotion the characters would feel in reality and how this soap opera portrays many serious issues. I used mid shots and close ups of the parents to help better portray the emotions to the audiences.

For Ellie, she similarly used the same type of sad and distressed facial expressions, however to capture her innocence she was dressed in a white blouse, connoting innocence and her angelic personality. On some of the shots I told the actor to look almost vacant and upset to keep up the image of her being lost and vulnerable. Again I used mid shots and close ups to best get these emotions.

For the Poster, I took a variety of shots of all of the character's to make sure they would suit any position I wanted them to be in for the final design. In mind I think I shall set my poster out in an upside down triangular way- much emulating the way a torch would project light- with Ellie's face being at the bottom centre, and then each other actors' face becoming bigger and spread out as the triangle goes up. Therefore I mainly used close-up shots for these images, as well as mid shots to ensure I had a variety of images to choose from and that they would fit the final design.