"Academy of Yom" Final Poster Finished!

Hey, I just finished our final movie poster, the one that will be at our premiere and on the cover of our DVD. Lemme know what you think.
Drag and Drop

 

I would recommend feathering the edges a bit. Other than that the composition is fine.

 

Yeah, feathering is kind of a pain. I still haven't quite figured it out yet. I'm still gonna tweak it before it goes on the DVD covers, but I just wanted to get a feel of what people think of it.

 

Another lightsaber battle flick.

Man, wish the rest of us had thought of that.

 

Is there some plugin you could use to make it look like a painting? I know my dad used to have a Mac program called Painter. Among other things it could turn pictures into paintings. You could even select your painting style, right down to different artists.

"Look! Van Gogh painted me!"

 

Semaj, you have no idea. There is like 1 2-minute fight in this whole 45 minute film. Very little story has been released. Just like books and covers, you can't judge a fanfilm by it's poster.

EDIT: It's about a Jedi Academy, THAT'S why there's so many lightsabers in the poster. The guy in the top left is the head of the Academy, and his saber doesn't even come off his belt in the film.

 

I've seen the trailer, and quite a few production stills for this film, and the principal actors all look really good (i.e. they don't look like a bunch of mates who have agreed to be in the film) but from the poster that's exactly what this film does look like.

The pictures in the 'characters' section of your site look far better than most of the ones chosen for the poster. Is there any chance of getting the principals together to take some decent pictures of them, specifically for the poster? (says I - who didn't do this either for my DS poster, and just cobbled a load of stuff together as well)

The group of four in the foreground looks okay, but they are totally dominated by the guy with the green sabre, and the guy with the goatie (sp?) in the background. I assume that the foreground people are the heroes - from what I have figured out from the other material - and they almost look it, but the background characters tend to dominated the composition to much. If the Jedi Master doesn't use his sabre throughout the movie, then don't have a picture of him using the sabre in the poster, since all this does is makes him totally dominate the poster.

I just think it's a missed trick here, since you have a cast of actors who actually look half decent, it's a shame not to show them in the best light you can.

This all probably sounds a little harsh, which is it's meant to - honest - it's just that the actually design/photography on the actual site is really pretty good, and the poster could easily be the same high standard.

 

Another lightsaber battle flick.

Man, wish the rest of us had thought of that.

::sings:: Every party needs a dickhead comment; that's why we invited you. Dickhead commeeeeent, dickhead commeeeent.

Seriously, what POSSIBLE point did that comment serve, James? And where exactly do you get off being the one to make such a comment? You couldn't even escape Jedi in the non-Jedi film genre's poster child, Rogue. This *screamed* "If you don't have anything nice to say, shut your pie hole."

Good lord.

Anyway, on the film itself:

"Lightsaber battles" aside, you seem to have a decent new thread going. We've seen very few NJO era fan films, and although your take on Dantooine and the existence of a second academy isn't in line with the continuity we're all familiar with, that's something that fan creators haven't really needed to worry about if they haven't wanted to, so I'm looking forward to seeing your take on the era.

And, I have to ask: How old is Amanda Burford? She looks dead-up like the girl I was dating before I moved to Atlanta, but we always said she looked younger than she was anyway. She'd flip if she saw Burford's image on that site.

 

Thanks for the CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, JBK, spoo, Daft, and Nathan. I know the poster does kind of look "busy," and I will do some tweaking to it. I just wanted to know what I can do to make it look better.

Daft: The guy with the green saber is the head of the Academy, so I wanted him to be kind of large in the background. I was looking for something Qui-Gonish from the Episode I poster, but this was the only pic he had offhand, since we haven't been able to get together for a while. It will be changed.

Also, the guy with the goatee is a VERY important character, and the events of this film revolve around him. The four foreground characters are the ones who are supposed to calm everything the heck down.

Having to do with the "lighting," all of these are snapshots from the video camera, since none of us has a digital camera worth two pieces of bantha poop. I don't know HOW the original pictures on the site of the "main 4" got to be such high quality, but I will be asking the director about that for when I re-do this.

Nathan: Just out of curiousity, how is it "not in line" with the continuity? I know the Vong took Dantooine, but I'm not sure exactly what happened. The idea of a Dantooine academy is something I've had in my head for the past 5 years, so I'm really, REALLY hoping that the old Rebel base, or the planet itself, was not destroyed. Otherwise, it's time for a very difficult re-write.

Also, Amanda, who is actually my real-life girlfriend, is 16.

EDIT: Our first Teaser poster looks like this (Drag and drop again). Is something simple like this better? I think the pictures of me and Diz need to be changed, though. I'm just hoping to achieve something similar to the "real" movie posters.

 

16, ey? I'll tell Kimberly. She's 22. MUWAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

As for the continuity: Dantooine is described in Dark Tide and doesn't seem like it has the "feel" of anything we can capture on Earth, except maybe subsaharran Africa or Asian tundra. The main thing was just that there's never been a second Jedi Academy for Luke's Jedi Order, on Dantooine or otherwise. There have just been the Yavin IV academy, Coruscant compound, and the sanctuary in the Maw.

Then again, who knows where they might put their base now that Yavin IV's been captured and the entire New Republic government has been moved to Mon Calamari. ::shrug::

 

The area we're using is purely dry and dead grass. So there's rarely anything green outside the academy except for some oak trees.

And Joe, remind me to give you the poster with my touches. IMO it looks better

And what the scraw is with that guy? Just because the poster has some lightsabers it's automatically stereotyped as a pure saber battle movie? It's Star Wars and the galaxy has Jedi in them. This movie is about a Young Jedi Academy. The Academy of Yom. SOMEONE needs to open their mind a little...

Oh, and if anyone was thinking that this may give some kind of hint that the movie's coming out soon, well you're wrong....sadly and tragically you're wrong.

 

Just to clarify, this isn't Luke's Jedi Academy. Since (according to my own made-up post-NJO timeline) Luke has his hands full with other duties (rebuilding his own academy, etc) one of his former students, Cloud Yomveil (Academy of Yom! Get it?), has started his own Jedi Academy in order to train more Jedi. Luke is nowhere in the picture. He's mentioned about twice in the film.

 

FREAKIN' GEOCITIES

 

Couldn't agree with you more JediTAC.

Sithcloak

P.S. I've heard that you like to review scripts, movies, trailers etc. If your interested in reviewing a script selection just post in my most recent thread.

 

FINALLY! THE ALMIGHTY TAC HAS POSTED IN ONE OF MY THREADS!!!!!

Whew. Sorry, I've just always wanted Tac to rip apart something I did. Try back in an hour.

EDIT: Worked fine for me... you dragged and dropped, right?

 

Doh! Me and my friends wanted to make a fanfilm where we were in some type of Jedi school. Now I can't do that without stealing your idea. Dang it.

 

Sure you can. You won't be stealing our idea. We're not the only Jedi academy movie (ahem, Jedi Academy, anyone?). Do what you want. You won't be stepping on our toes.

 

...just as long as it's not named Academy of Slom and you have a student who's a master at the saber and is left handed, has a red blade, and named Pattes Rhymsod.

Other than that it's coo I guess...heh, hey, maybe if you ask Joe really nicely he'll let you use refrences to the AoY

Hehe, Rhymsod...oh I kill myself...

 

Okay, attempt #2 here...
Drag and drop because Geocities sucks

Switched a couple pictures, Matt did some color correction, and overall I think the compositing is better.

 

I dunno...
It's just not artistically composed... I mean, each individual image still seems like an individual image. Overall it just doesn't seem to come together.


Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix this - find a graphic design artist.

Creating a composite poster is very hard - I've tried sketching them out and it's very difficult to balance & focus without having too much dead space or being too busy.

 

See, I'm going for something kind of like the TPM and AOTC posters... actually, it's turning out more like the A New Hope poster. Anyway, they're all seperate pictures, and look that way. The only difference is that the TPM and AOTC posters have a hugh-jass lens flare in the background.

If anyone out there wants to take a crack at this, let me know.

 

The thing is, that those poster don't look like a bunch of seperate pictures - they look like a composite.
Composites are hard.

I think having everything over a plain black background is hurting you, there's nothing to tie all of the images together. It's just dead space.

 

Edit, is timing out, maybe this will work:

EDIT:
So here's my suggestion. Forget the computer, the pictures, and everything you've worked on thus far.
Get a pad of paper, and start drawing. If you can't draw, then just use shapes to represent bodies and heads.
Keep working on that until everything is balanced, arrange, and looks good.

Then, gather up your people, and take the pictures you need in the appropriate lighting (don't mix indoors with outdoors, etc)
Then, just use the pictures you took as a tool to construct the image you're after.

 

Heh, I DID that already. That's how I got the idea for this one.

If what we need is a background, next film date I'll get one of the "academy," and then try it out on the poster.

Thanks for the input, spoo. It is greatly appreciated.

 

This attempt is better. But it lacks something very important : a precise focal point. Think about where you want the eye to be attracted to at first sight.
Also -and this will help you define a focal point- play with the opacity of some of the elements. I'm thinking the head of the academy here. That would make him more of a father figure. If you keep him up there, that is.
To have feathered edges, create a black layer, under your main layer. Then add a mask layer to your main layer. Using a feathered brush, draw black around the various elements.
And now that the old picture of the teacher is gone (even though this one is better), I find the other two (guy with the goatee and asian girl) too prominent up there. Even if, as you said, they are key characters in your film.
Also, the guy on the left is showing his back... which makes him a little useless... But I understand you have to put all of your friends in there

Maybe try setting some kind of symetry. Organize your compostion around an axis.