During the creation of my short film, I will need to create a movie poster that will reflect the film that I have created and that will follow the traits of a successful movie poster. When I began to research I looked at this website, which has helped me get a better understanding of the basics when developing a film poster analysis. This website broke the first steps that we should do when analysing a film poster, which mentions looking at the following broad questions:
- What are the main colours or colour schemes used? what does this help you to infer?
- What symbols are used? If the audience see these symbols for the first time will they understand them? Or will they need knowledge prior to seeing the film?
- What are the main characters, objects or background used in this film poster? how are they draw (graphically, photographically or illustratively)? What does this infer to the audience?
- Is the message in the poster left for the audience to infer? Or is it scribed into the poster?
- What do you think is the intended thoughts and feelings from the poster to the audience?
- With the purpose of the movie poster in mind-To get the audience to go and see the film- what examples of other persuasive techniques are used?
- What genre is the poster referring to? Does it follow codes and conventions of this?
- Is the main actor used as the selling point of the film or is it another factor?
- Are there critic quotes used in the poster? How does this make the audience feel?
- Are any gratifications presented in the film poster? If so what are they?
- How is the audience’s attention gained from the film? Is it done in a positive or negative way? Does it create humour for the audience? Or does it leaving them feeling the ending will be sad or depressing?
I then furthered my research surrounding the analysis of a film poster and looked at this PDF, which gave a deeper alternative view on how to make an in-depth analysis, I think that looking at this is also good because it will allow me to gain more understanding about different ways to analysis a film poster and therefore allow me to develop more questions when looking at a film poster.
- How is the title of the text presented? What colour is it in? Is it in bold?
- Are the actors names included on the poster? Are they in bold? Where are they positioned on the poster? Are they on the top of the bottom? Is this used to entice the audience in?
- Is the font legible? Does it fit with what the poster is trying to present? Does the colour match?
This PDF also gave key terms to use when analysing a movie poster, I think that when creating a good in-depth analysis it is important to use key terms so that it comes across both professional and shows that you have a good understanding of analysing a film poster. Here are the key terms I have learnt from this PDF:
- Framing- The positioning of objects, actors, text within the frame of the poster, which will reach a desired effect. For example, a movie poster for an action film will position the main actor in a way that will portray them as attractive, strong and unbeatable.
- Mood- The feeling created by the director’s use of, details, music and cinematography.
- Slogan- A catchy and memorable phase or sentence on a movie poster. An effective slogan should summarise the mood, tone and main idea of the film without giving too much away. It should capture the viewers attention and make them interested in the film.
- Tone- The film makers attitude as reflected through the movie- ironic, serious etc.
Our teacher also presented us with a power point that went through again what we should look for when creating an analysis, questions that we could ask ourselves to cater more detail about the film poster, sub headings that we should look at and think about how the poster has effects on certain aspects of the audiences thoughts and feelings, but also how we could lay out the analysis. She gave us examples and we were told to look at them in depth and try to figure out what would work best of us. So here is an example of a possible film poster layout:
This was one of the examples that was shown to us by our teacher about how we could lay out the analysis that we are to do. This puts the article/ film poster in the centre of the document and then breaks down the information and analysis around the image. They also used a key to further break down the information and make it easier to digest the information and understand the perspectives they are looking at. I think the key of Red of language used in the article and black for the layout of the article is really effective and helps the audience see the different aspects of the analysis. I think that the layout is easy to read and keep up with but I think that I would like to look at a more detailed piece of analysis and therefore I think that selecting images of certain type of the film poster and doing chucks of analysis around that would be better.
This power point differed from the other websites and looked at the language of the film posters and techniques that could be used in that to entice the reader and make them more willing to look more into the film. Some examples of language techniques that could be used are:
- Direct Address
- Rhetorical Questions
- Personification
- Repetition
- Exaggeration
- Internal Rhyme
- Persuasive
- Stative Verbs
Then the power point talked us through how we should look for the posters impact on the audience. This was telling us to look at the design choices and think about why they have been made, then what effect it has on the reader of this poster or article. Then think about if it makes the audience feel:
- Involved/ Makes it feel personal to them
- Gives of a funny, light hearted, sarcastic tone
- If it interests them
- Is it a formal or informal layout?
- Does it excite them
- Make them feel passionate or sad
- Does it intrigue them? Leave them wanting to find out more
Then the power point also went through what we should be looking out for in terms of typography. I think this is important because this can also reflect the style and mood that the poster or article can create. Therefore I did more research surrounding the typography, I found the following factors in my research:
What does the arrangement of type involve? Selecting the type faces, font size, line length, line spacing and letter spacing (Tracking). Also that the typography can influence the the audience based on the style, size and colour.
Is the font Sans Serif or Serif? This font changes with the structure and small flourishes on each character, which makes it look more professional and sophisticated, which the analysis could be used to analysis what effect on the reader this has. Sans Serif is plan and doesn’t have detail on the letters, which could have the opposite effect on the reader, or it could reflect the genre.
Column Width and Tracking? These both reflect the positioning of the words or characters. Tracking is the spacing between the characters, there is ether lose (letters far apart) or tight tracking (letters close together), this could effect the audience by making them feel that the poster looks unprofessional or shabby is lose tracking is used. The width of the column also effects the audiences view, if there is a large column used but it is really wide next to thinner ones then the readers can see that this column is the most important and should have the most information in it.
Georgia McCormick Advanced Media Portfolio 