Thumbnail (Research and Development)

 This is the thumbnail for our crime documentary, it is made by Bams 12A

The software that I used would be paint.net as it includes simple features such as removing the background easily from images, being able to have a wide variety of fonts that can be used for our thumbnail and etc. 

RESEARCH THUMBNAIL 

Overall overview of most crime documentary within Netflix

The crime documentary thumbnails mostly stick to the conventions that crime genre has such as mugshot looking type and dark colors especially the red colors as it represents danger, crime, and violence. This would help us attract our target audience and what would be expected inside of the documentary. Based from the overall view on the image on Netflix's crime documentary search most of the thumbnails show the prepetrator's face or vintage and polaroid type pictures, this gives off a sense of tension and seriousness, so thus the audience would expect real and possible disturbing crimes. 

Here are two examples of the thumbnails that interests us:         

 

This is our start to our thumbnail...

More information is that when I started to use paint.net again and due to because that paint.net didn't have enough of the effects I had so the downside was that each time I had an idea to make the actors have more meaning towards them I had to switch back and forth to my editing software (Vegas Pro 18) to edit the photo and input back into paint.net. So this was technically the rough buildup of making the thumbnail.

Step 1

I masked out the paper overlay to match hazel's picture

Step 2

I delete the left part of hazel to fit rain into the other side of the picture to let it look like it is connected and it would fit our thumbnail like "Making a Murderer"

Step 3

I resized rain's image to fit into the thumbnail as previously it was too large and it wouldn't fit the thumbnail and make the thumbnail look stretched and compressed, which is not wanted in a thumbnail.

Step 4

I added vignette to the image to show that there is some sort of dark side on Hazel and give it that eerie feeling towards Hazel.

Step 5

I added the black and white filter on Hazel and gives off a gloomy mood towards him.

Step 6

I added the left side of Hazel again to be able to mask Rain onto the thumbnail and this is the result I got from doing so...

Result

I asked feedback from my team members and the teacher and due to the bad "ripped paper" overlay, I had to change the paper aswell as conform to other thumbnails such as the "What Jennifer Did" thumbnail from Netflix. The feedback that was given was that :

- The paper layer was too thick 

- It doesn't show the emotions of the two characters easily 

- The images were disproportionate

- The mouth and the clothing should match with each other so it looks like its connected

I took the feedback for the thumbnail and this is the final result...

THUMBNAIL :

The “ripped paper” effect down the middle suggests the different sides of people that could relate to the documentary as the audience would expect that the crime was caused by those two people. It also connotates that the left side which is Rain, the rich kid shows trophies and awards which is academic achievement, he is also seen using a light brown jacket this gives off that elegant vibe to him and the gold trophies behind implies that rich friend more. The right side which shows Hazel is in a deep red and shadowy filter this connotates violence, anger or possibly even obsession as Hazel was considered in the documentary to be fairly obsessed with getting valedictorian and studying. This contrasts heavily with the left side showing that it was bright and celebratory to imply that there was a cost or dark truth behind the success of becoming a valedictorian. We also decided to put the “N” (Netflix) logo to suggest this is a presented like a documentary so the audience would expect a serious and intense, story rather than something lighthearted. Thus, the viewers that would see the thumbnail would be led to feel curiosity, tension. Which hints that behind that polished image of a high achiever has a side of him that is evil.

TYPOGRAPHY :

For the typography, I used “British Green” font for the word VALEDICTORIAN on the thumbnail as it is often associated with formality and prestige which for the looks of Rain shows he comes from a wealthy family. This choice for the typeface reinforces the connotations for academic exellence and seriousness which fits the title of valedictorian. The title is also written in all caps, giving it that bold, commanding and powerful tone to the audience which could lead them to thinking like “ why is valedictorian that important to them both?”,  “what conflicts did it cause? “.  

The typography is also large which immediately draws the audience’s eye to the title before the details of the image, also the placement being a bit to the bottom left visually reinforces the conflict between the two people shown.

This is our crime documentary's thumbnail but inputted into the Netflix library to see how it would match with the other documentaries.