Analysis of Film Posters

Film Posters
Film Posters, all aim to do the same thing; attract people, make people want to see the movie. Therefore the most common attributes to a film poster will be:

• The actors and/or a reoccurring or specific image from the film
• Actor and Actresses names
• Release date
• Production companies involved
• An integral quote from the movie itself

However some movies work slightly differently, usually horror or disaster movies especially. They will release a Poster which has limited information. As an example we can look at Cloverfield, which released just a picture and its date, without any information at all. This intrigued audiences to find more which led to Cloverfields great marketing campaign that kept its audience always wanting to find more. Slowly more and more posters came out with more details about the film, e.g. its name and quote about the film itself.


Film posters are one of the main things used in the distribution process to advertise a film, therefore it is crucial that it works in line with the film. After looking at several film posters, you can see that the type of film is represented in its poster. If you look at action films such as The Matrix and Mission Impossible 2 they both show significant images from the films e.g. guns and fire. This therefore shows the audience the films are action films. Whereas teen classics such as Pretty in Pink and The Girl Next Door show teens with usually anguished facial expressions, this tells the audience that the film will feature distressed teenagers, something teens can relate to. This is important to my film as it will feature a teenage girl who is going through the toughest time of her childhood, its ending. Therefore I could use the actress and ask her to act out how the character is feeling at the films lowest point, which will represent the films theme. However, given the films title; Toast a quirky alternative name, which intrigues the audience, perhaps the Poster should be the same. In conclusion of my problem, three draft posters will be made.


Close Analysis of film posters






Notting Hill was a hit in 1999, written by Richard Curtis and directed by Roger Michell. It was the actors and reputation of Richard Curtis and not the poster which probably sold the film. Therefore though the analysis may find a few conventions of a film poster, it will not display how to distribute a film effectively. I used this poster as like my film it is British, however the similarities stop there. From this poster we get the overall impression that the female is out of reach of the male, as she herself is a large poster. Thus we get the idea of the film. The age of the actors also tells us the main target market for the film. As generally audiences tend to watch films about their own age group. The Poster also shows the title and names of the actors, therefore creating no suspense about the film itself, it is fairly self explanatory that it is a rom-com. Below the title all other actors and members of the main cast and crew as will as distributing companies are listed. Furthermore, we can also see the quote "Can the most famous film star in the world fall for a man on the street?"This right there is telling the audience what the film is about in one sentence. And lastly on the bottom of the poster it states that the film has the same creators as Four Weddings And A Funeral, which also tells the audience, if they liked those films then they may like this one. All in all this is a generic film poster that tells the audience everything they need to know about the film at a glance.


Image was found from


http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/38/NottingHillRobertsGrant.jpg/200px-NottingHillRobertsGrant.jpg


Kidulthood was released in 2006 and was a hit in Britain especially among teenagers. Probably due to its characters audience could easily relate to and bold storyline based around the every day lives of troubled working class London teenagers. Kidulthood was written by Noel Clark and directed by Menhaj Huda The first thing about this poster that stands out is the characters, to put it simply they all appear dangerous. This is due to their angered expressions and largely in part due to the baseball bat held above one characters shoulder in a threatening manner. Secondly is its title which connotes many things; firstly is the obvious play on words and its idea that there is a specific time period when your not a child or adult yet. Put that with the quote "before adulthood comes Kidulthood" and the general storyline of the film is given. The audience can tell it is pre-adulthood teens struggling with gang violence and relationships. Unlike Notting Hill Kidulthood hasn't displayed actors names, perhaps as they are not publicly known yet. This means the actors are not what it selling the film as in Notting Hills case. And lastly is a star rating as well as a quote said about the film, which is clearly a huge selling point, it basically implies the film must be watched. Though my short film is about teenagers, it is actually about a teenager who is of a middle class background and has much less threatening things to worry about, but more daunting things. The pressures of expectations, from teachers, parents and herself. Therefore from this poster I have learnt the value of set design, facial expressions and clothing as they set the theme of the story. Something that both Kidulthood and Notting Hill had was a quote describing the film, which gives the audience an idea of the film in one sentence. I want to do something like this on my poster. As well as a one line review, which could come out of the film review I make for the my film.





This is a poster for Billy Elliot, which was successful in 2000, written by Lee Hall and Directed by Stephen Daldry. The image shows a young boy in a boxing uniform surrounded by ballerinas, though I have seen Billy Elliot and know what it is about, this image is not necessarily very explanatory. Perhaps it is to make the audience want to know more, as the image is more bizarre than those featured above, where the others tell you what it is about this one is more interesting. From the top line above the image once again we can see who the creators are, alike Notting Hill they have the same creators which tells the audience if you liked one of these films you may like this. The title however is much smaller underneath the image, which is quite a contrast to Kidulthood. Conceivably because where Kidulthood had quite an interesting and diverse name, Billy Elliot is just a title, and the image speaks more than the title. You can tell that the poster is for a film being released in the cinemas as "This Fall" is placed at the bottom. And around it all actors, cast and crew are listed, so the audience will know exactly who is in the film and who created and distributed it.


Alive in Joburg, was orignally a short film produced in 2005 by Simon Hansen and Directed by Neill Blomkamp. However, 4 years later after is success was released as a feature film with executive production by Peter Jackson. Which would be fair to say the short film was extremely successful. The Poster (right) is fairly simplistic, showing no names of directors, producers or actors. It is unclear whether the man is even a central character in the production. It is made clear that a city is being invaded by large space ships and the military of some sort have got involved. From the title we are given the location of Johannesburg in South Africa. Therefore the audience is identified, which could be any age, but definitely science fiction fans and possibly South Africans. As the film itself, is a representation of the segregation among black and white people which was so apparent before Nelson Mandela's presidency. The font itself connotes masculinity and sci-fi. The fact that no other information is given e.g. Director name, Producer name and Actor names. This, makes the audience want to find out more.

For our groups film poster, we orignally planned to do full A4 to A3 posters. However, we decided due to budgeting and distribution it would be preferable to make small A5 postcard sized posters. Furthermore, this will alow us to distribute the film by sending the postcards, handing them around at film festivals and so on. Therefore, the posters will not only be cheaper, but easily distributed.
Four example Postcard sized Posters will first be drawn up, as a plan before capturing them with film. The four posters will first be described, then once drawn up, taken into analytical detail.


The first Poster
Will be a kitchen table cloth with a white plate and a piece of toast on it with one small chunk taken out. Though it may be a strange idea the reasons behind it are many; firstly the image will represent a consistent image shown throughout the film. Amelia's breakfast which goes forgotten each day as she rushes to school. The tiny bite taken out of it showing Amelia's weak attempt at looking after herself as well as an overall feel for her weak personality. The slice of Toast also represents the idea of Amelia trying to do too much at once and not getting much out of it.
The Second Poster
This Poster will be a still shot from the movie, it will be Amelia lying in bed with her eyes open and make-up smeared down her face. The image on a postcard will make audiences wonder why she looks distraught as she does. Collected with its title; "Toast" will create mystery about what the films plot is.
The Third Poster
Will be an extreme close up of Amelias face. Like the above poster, Amelia will have make up smeared down her face. This will immediatly set the tone for the short film, telling the audience it is a short drama about a teenage girl. The plotline itself will be kept a mystery untill the review or film itself is released.

To understand how to create the back of a postcard I looked at someone else who had done the same idea previously. The post card I took inspiration from was as below.

This is the first Postcard back I made:

I made the back of my postcard back using Adobe Photoshop. I kept the detail to the minimum, as I wanted to have only the important details on the back. Telling whoever was given the postcard the name and the names of those who created the product. I chose the font 'Pristina' as I wanted the postcard to reflect Amelia. As she is a student of high standards, it would be logical that her handwriting would be extremely neat. Therefore, it is as if she has written the postcards details herself.

However, the postcard seemed too simple and doesn't match with the front, therefore I made another one. This postcard back matches with my UCAS themed poster. By using the font calibri and the same colour scheme (including tinting the background) I created a postcard back that mimics the UCAS website. This postcard back is more in keeping with the theme of Toast, so is the one I am choosing to be my final postcard back.

For my poster I chose to pursue two of my original designs. Deciding that the plate of toast design was too simple and not interesting enough.

The first of my posters is the still shot of Amelia lying in bed. However, to make it more interesting I used the layout of UCAS to create the background. When the target audience (teenagers) sees this they will identify the UCAS background and understand to some extent what the film may be about. To make it more interesting I took, the UCAS logo away and replaced it with the film title Toast. Furthermore, where there is a picture of a man usually in the UCAS picture I replaced it with a picture of Amelia looking with her work. This is the poster I will be using.

The second poster I made, was an extreme close up of Amelia's face after she had been crying. I edited the background by adding piles of books. In research I found that a common poster convention was to have an extreme close up of the central protagonists face. This way the postcard will stand out, which is worth while when entering film fests as the postcards that stand out may be put into the film fest booklet.