Initial Reflections
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I started off writing down my actual reflections before trying to think of what the end product of my refelections would be. I talked to tutors and Katie and Abby to try to get their opinions on my strengths and weaknesses.
After identifying my reflections, I started to think about format. I was a little confused by the brief at first and struggled to come up with something. I think the main reason was how open the brief is that I struggled. I thought about making posters but thought that was a little boring or making a record cover or album box set but I've already made those kind of things personally. I eventually settled on making my own vhs covers for 80's/70's style schlocky horror films. I realise this sounds left field but I do have kind of an explanation. I like adapting and borrowing from already established visual identities, like I did with my Run DMC lyric book where I took the visuals of 80's adidas ads and made them my own. I also like th work of Annie Atkins, a designer for film and other designers like her who make graphic props for films. I explored this a little when I made my fake draft document for the full metal jacket alphabet. I'm a massive movie and physical media fan and enjoy how clunky and visual the vhs tapes were. I also think I can work the things I'm bad at into the titles as horror jokes. I also just think it's a fun format to explore and design for, hopefully all of that makes sense. |
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Steelberg
A big inspiration for this project is the designer Steelberg. On instagram he posts his vhs covers of modern film and tv shows. I really like the level of authenticity he achieves in his work, something that I hope to come across in my own work.
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I started to think of some titles for my fake horror films based around things I'm not so good at such as thumbnails and things I do well and enjoy doing. I started to play around sketching out some titles although these never really got used.
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I started looking at genre specific vhs covers and taking note of the sort of things that cropped up in them a lot, I also used the old goosebumps and fear street book covers as inspiration too.
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I started to play around on photoshop with fonts and making titles for them. I also want to explore the idea of having a summer camp themed movie as I think this is a fun aesthetic to play with.
The Thumbnail Within
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For this cover I wanted to explore my thumbnail problem. I often find it hard to actaully put my ideas down on paper, I find I generate more ideas and outcomes when I'm working on the screen. I understand how thumbnails are helpful I just don't enjjoy doing them or find them easy to come up with. I decided to go with a Stephen King insipired look on this one. I chose a red and dark blue colour scheme as I thought his was fitting. I knew I wanted to use the Benguit font as it's been used in countless Stephen King projects and recognisably on Stranger Things. I added the tag sometimes your first idea is the best as a little joke and drew out the thumbnail sign things on my ipad and added them to the background of my cover. Adding the glow to the text gave it a more stranger things and 80s feel to it too.
For the backcover I drew out thumbnails on an old notebook and then covered it in tomato sauce to make it kind of look like blood. I quite like how you can sort of tell it's sauce as in th old horror films they used sauce or corn syrup instead of fake blood. I looked at a lot of vhs back covers to identify common traits like having a still of the film, the title on the back again and the small print information and barcode on the bottom.
I measured up a vhs cover and used that as a template. I then added all my old aging texture and added small details to it like the fake blockbuster stickers.
For the backcover I drew out thumbnails on an old notebook and then covered it in tomato sauce to make it kind of look like blood. I quite like how you can sort of tell it's sauce as in th old horror films they used sauce or corn syrup instead of fake blood. I looked at a lot of vhs back covers to identify common traits like having a still of the film, the title on the back again and the small print information and barcode on the bottom.
I measured up a vhs cover and used that as a template. I then added all my old aging texture and added small details to it like the fake blockbuster stickers.
Texture From The Deep
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I wanted to reflect on my use of textures in most of my work. I like to add some texture to my work to give it more personality and depth to it, though sometimes I do add too much. I came up with the name Texture From The Deep and had the idea to really texture this one up way too much. Because I knew I wanted this one to look old, I chose to go for a retro creature feature style look. I had already been playing around with the logo for this one early on, referencing Scooby-Doo and Goosebumps with the font style and the green and purple colours. I found a creepy looking photo of a old diver and ran with it, as I was doing the cover I thought that the diver could make a good promotional standee similar to the ones we get in at work when a new film releases. I mocked this up using foamboard.
Found Photo '84
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I decided early on that I wanted to make one of my films set in a summer camp as I think this is a fun aesthetic to play around with, considering films like Friday the 13th, Wet Hot American Summer and Fear Street 1978 for my general look. I also wanted to highlight my use of found photography. Using historical images and found photos is something I enjoy incorporating into my work, so I called this one Found Photo '84 and had it set in the most generic American camp name, Camp Moose Creek. I added the tagline "this summer it's personal" as a double meaning as this summer I want to make more personal work of my own,
I struggled a little with my cover for this one but eventually settled on what I envision to be a camp cabin floor with a bloody axe, the found photo of the campers and a camp counselor card. I made the Pauline McPerm camp counselor card as something that could be a free gift in a tape or just a promotional item. I also created the Camp Moose Creek logo of course using Cooper Black and the yellow and dark green scheme just says American summer camp to me for some reason.
I added the rainbow sides to the spine and cover of the tape as I'd seen this on a lot of tapes and felt like the cover needed something else to make it look more realistic and this gave me it.
I struggled a little with my cover for this one but eventually settled on what I envision to be a camp cabin floor with a bloody axe, the found photo of the campers and a camp counselor card. I made the Pauline McPerm camp counselor card as something that could be a free gift in a tape or just a promotional item. I also created the Camp Moose Creek logo of course using Cooper Black and the yellow and dark green scheme just says American summer camp to me for some reason.
I added the rainbow sides to the spine and cover of the tape as I'd seen this on a lot of tapes and felt like the cover needed something else to make it look more realistic and this gave me it.
Promotional Video
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I decided to make a promotional video/ coming soon video. This started out as just a gif of my titles but turned into a full video. I watched a couple of actual vhs openings and vhs coming soon tapes. I used photoshop to make the actual graphics then windows video editor to actaully cut them all together, which i'd never used before. This came out not so good I thought I'm not that happy with it but I think I learned more about video editing and photoshop animating through trying to do this.
Final Photoshoot
To present my work I decided I wanted to create a 80's style photoshoot. As I was restircted by time and what I could get hold of, I decided to make a section of a spare bedroom into an 80's teen bedroom. The idea was to make it look lived in and a little busy and cluttered. I printed out some horror movie posters that I had referenced in my work and used some of my own posters of films and bands. I also used tapes as props, a record player and a lava lamp I manged to get hold of, you can see my full layout below and some of the better pictures that didn't make the final outcome.
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