Rubber Poster
In this poster we can see a long shot with a tyre rolling down a desert road leaving a pile of mutilated bodies behind it, which tells us the genre of the movie is, horror. There are also police cars chasing after the tyre in the background. The tyre is covered in blood and is coming from the same direction as the dead bodies, so we assume the tyre somehow killed all these people. The tyre is representing the villain in this movie and appears to be the main ‘character’, which is backed up by the title and its promonent position on the poster. There is a lot of blood which tells us how explicit and violent the film will be which gives some indication of the certificate it will be given. The police in the background are made to be the heroes of the story but this poster does not give an introduction to any of the other characters in the movie.
There is a quote from a movie critic along the top of this poster saying “The best killer tyre movie you’ll ever see.” This quote tells us clearly what the film is about if it wasn’t obvious by just looking allowing everybody to understand this advert. It also has an ironic feel as killer tyre films are hardly common. There is a tongue-in-cheek feel to the whole poster. The film title is along the bottom of the poster in block white letters so it stands out on the background. Under the name is the director’s name which will entice audiences who may know of this director. There are more credits along the bottom of the poster, fulfilling institutional and legal requirements.
There is no release date or ‘Coming Soon’ text on this poster, suggesting it is a teaser poster - its purpose is trying to build up the film and make the public excited about it and the actual release date may not be known yet.
Reservoir Dogs
This poster is simply different coloured crayons lined up and falling down left to right. There is a plain brown background so the colours of the crayons stand out better. The crayons have the colours brown, orange, yellow, blue, pink and white; these colours don’t mean anything to you if you have not seen the film and so is a kind of message to the initiated which will make sense after seeing the film. This kind of poster is often aimed at the collector.
Under the main image of the crayons there is the name of the film which is coloured dirty white which stands out on the background but keeps to the style of the poster. On the right of the title are names of actors who are starring in the film along with the name of the director and the film studio. These names are there as popular actors act as a big draw in themselves.
This poster has no release date indicating it is a teaser trailer, this poster is really plain but it creates a lot of mystery because it does not convey a lot about the film and seems very abstract, there is not even a indication of what genre the film might be but the colours and the way it is laid out make the film look sophisticated. The real appeal is in the director, Tarantino, who has an established cult following.
Chronicle
This poster is of a city skyline with human looking figures flying in the sky. The poster is a wide shot tilted at an angle and it has been made to look like an old alien sighting photograph. This style of photograph gives us an idea of the genre, which is sci-fi with a retro feel, which is also indicated in the film title with the old-fashioned term ‘chronicle’. The three people in the sky tell us how many main characters there will be in this film but one of the figures is darker and has the name of the movie almost directly on him which tells us that he is most likely going to be the main character and our way into the story.
The skyline gives us a location of the city. The tag line at the bottom reads ‘what are you capable of?’ Asking a rhetorical question is a good way to get the audience thinking about your film. This line also tells us that it is going to definitely be about extraordinary people, most likely with superpowers of some sort. There is no release date making this a teaser trailer helping to build up the film and its fan base.
Teaser and Theatrical Posters Compared
Teaser posters are posters that are made to start hyping up a movie long before it gets released, normally not containing a lot of information such as the release dates or credits. The teaser poster for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is just a character playing a guitar with the name of the film and tagline. Teaser posters can be different like the District 9 poster which shows a type of hyper-verisimilitude as it looks like sign in the ‘real’ world. The poster says ‘Support Non-Human Rights’ which is a poster that would probably be in the world of the movie but they are using it to advertise the movie.
A theatrical poster is normally released closer to the release date of the film and these posters contain including release date, full credits, images, taglines and more. Most have a clear link with their teaser posters like in Scott Pilgrim’s posters they both have the same characters as a central image, and rely primarily on red and white, although the colour scheme is reversed between the two. The District 9 posters are unusual in that they not really connected in a strong way. The only connection between the two posters is the Sci-Fi theme, but stylistically they look very different and you would not instantly recognise them as being part of the same film campaign. Theatrical posters should convey a lot more about the story and give you a better understanding of aspects such as characters, setting, time period and genre. In the District 9 poster we get a clear Sci-Fi genre set on what looks like earth but not much more than that, suggesting that plot is more important than character in this film. This can be compared with the Scott Pilgrim theatrical poster which does not give a setting but does have a full list of characters, which suggests that the narrative is based on characters and roles rather than plot.
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