16:9 Movie Ad Tips

Question

Hello,
I'm a web designer by trade but I've been asked by a friend to create an advertisement that will appear in the rotation of slides that are played before a movie starts.  The only information I have been able to get about image properties is that it should be 16:9 and at least 150DPI.  Are there any other tips anyone might be able to give me as far as layout, background color, or font face size and color selections that will help?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Actually your ads may still look washed out. The cinema may reduce the brightness of the bulb to extend its life and there may be other technical countermeasures to prevent sharp "jumps" and peaks in signals at the electrical level (similar to how in the past there were "broadcast safe colors"), to which a hard b/w contrast is quite succeptible. Also keep in mind that the LCD filters used on digital projectors not necessarily are 100% tight, and a tiny percentage of light always comes through. And yeah, of course the normal room lighting will always contaminate everything. So in light of this, the actual smart thing to do is to build "perceived contrast" as opposed to "real contrast". Try to give some consideration to accentuating edges the smart way. It could look much better, if your carbon fiber BG is just a very dark grey and your letters have a tiny bit of dark glow/ shadow around them, even if it's barely visible. Similarly, add structure to your BG and text by using gradients to mimic light sheen and such. If you know the color of the auditorium, you may even go so far as to figure that in - black will look much darker in red rooms than it will in mostly blue ones due to how it's reflected or absorbed. It's those tiny things.
Mylenium