Some Ideas

So, I’ve been thinking of what goal I am striving for with this thesis. And while I have definitely learned some things from making movie posters for objects, and doing the studies of the proportions of posters, I feel that I’ve sort of lost a sense of direction with it. And it’s not bad to have done them, and I feel as though I will probably continue with them, but also I want to direct my thesis into a more solid direction.

When I first started out, I wasn’t quite sure what my thesis was going to be on besides movie posters. And from there I wanted to “reinvent the movie poster” and work on breaking from the trends of movie posters and make them more unique. In creating movie posters for the objects, I learned that movie posters can be interesting, but usually there has to be a common theme or “trend” in some sense, otherwise the poster doesn’t read as a particular genre or as a movie poster at all. Which is something I find interesting.

Then I had tossed the idea of interactive movie posters around. And I’m really liking this direction. From this, I have two paths I could go down, and to be completely honest I probably will experiment with both.

The first being experimentation with creating interactivity in posters using techniques that pop-up books use. For example, having tabs that would flip up and reveal other things, or having tabs you can pull causing some sort of other part to move or something. There’s a wide range of possibilities of things that could happen, and I feel like it would be interesting to try this out. Also, in the real world, it wouldn’t be too unpractical because pop-up books can be produced for sale, so I would imagine posters would be able to be as well.

And the second path is to go completely digital. Which is also very interesting. I’ve been looking into some of the digital interactive movie posters that already have been created, and many of them rely on being online or being on screens in the movie theater. I would want to experiment with it being an app you could use in collaboration with paper posters as well. Similar things have been done, apps that use augmented reality on movie posters to give you the option to watch the trailer or to buy tickets, but the one I would want to make would have different features. I think it would be interesting if when you used the app, something on the poster would move or change or become interactive, and that also by using the app on posters you would be rewarded in some way; could be with points that add up to get you a free movie pass or snack, or perhaps a special coupon.

So currently I’ve been looking into this second path (though, I will be looking into the first one soon as well, just waiting on a book to arrive) and here are my notes/thoughts so far (also, I’m thinking of having an article on digital interactive movie posters for the one to show the class):

Augmented reality app for movie posters

• Hover phone over the poster and it plays something, characters moving or talking or etc. Something you can interact with (like interactive floor games)
• Recognize actor’s faces?
• Point system, get some many and win something? Get coupon for movie tix or?
• Would need the physical poster to work. Could possibly view some content later on (when not with the poster anymore) so long as you got the poster when you were there in person.
• This would keep the need for paper posters and also make it more accessible for people. For example, if people own movie posters they could use it at home, unlike with the screens are the theater “playing” movie posters on them, which couldn’t be a household object for most (maybe some day in the future, but certainly not now). All they need is a smart phone and a poster.
• Would get more people engaged, especially with new posters being released when movies come out. Plus the reward system.
• Possibly could rate movies after seeing them, and it gives you recommendations or would tell you if it thinks you would like a movie when you use the app on the poster.
• Because it would be an app, it wouldn’t be an “overload” of technology, as some think having all digital movie posters on screens in theaters would do, since it would be a choice to use the app. It’s optional, you don’t need to do it to see the poster.

Also, here's a few examples of online interactive movie posters:

Insurgent
(Turn the characters in a 3D space)

Moonrise Kingdom
(click thumbnails of photos to "Meet the Character")