Initial Research Into Film Posters - Jess

 

Titanic

In this poster the image of a couple dominates one third of the poster and is placed at the top. The ship takes up the rest of the poster and this is shot at a low angle which makes it point up to the couple, directing the viewer’s eye. Low angles are usually used to show how important or grand that something is, so they are using this shot to show how the boat has significance. The title is positioned at the bottom to make the white lettering standout against the black background of the bottom of the boat, and also if put anywhere else would distract the way the ship points from directing the viewer to the main image.

The image of the couple embracing immediately indicates that this is a love story. The couple are blending into the sky in dream-like way. The ship looks classical which suggests that this film is based in historic time periods, but with the image and text working together, the viewer understands what the film will be about, as it is a famous and world known story.

The ship in the poster is dark and in shadow which reflects the sad story line of the ship crashing, but on the other hand everything apart from the ship is light. The blue sky and the pastel colours of the couple give a positive atmosphere. This contrast reflects the story line.

 The font of all the text on the poster is classical and smart, reflecting the time period that the film is set in; the sentence below the title explains the relationship between the two characters. There is also some other information about the directors previous films, to familiarize the viewer with his style of film.



 

 

Back to the Future

In this poster you immediately see the light pouring out of the object on your left, which appears to be a car. Most would guess it is a time machine by reading the tag line (and the title) but most likely they wouldn't know this without extra information.

The fire along at Marty's feet has connotations of danger, referencing an action based plot however the actual scene and the use of almost 'other-worldly' lighting - the deep blues melting into orange definitely signifies a sci-fi theme.

The font of the title is colourful and noticeably bold. This eradicates the possibility of the film being of the horror/ thriller genre due to those particular types of films often having very dark and gothic styled fonts.

Finally you can catch elements of the comedy in the film by the body language Marty is using on the poster. He appears to be looking at his watch in a somewhat comedic fashion. Which may influence the viewer not to take the film to seriously and also widens the range of audience age as this means that the film could also appeal to a younger audience as well as adults.



 

 

Letters to Juliet

The majority of the information this poster gives is in very small font at the bottom of the poster however it relies on the viewer to have previous knowledge of who Juliet is (from Shakespeare) to gather that it is a love story.

The key image on the poster is split into two parts, one is the woman holding the story in her hands, the part underneath her are an older couple holding hands in what appears to be a romantic vineyard type setting. The background of the picture includes blue sky and trees which frames the lady’s face. This makes us focus on her on this poster and shows that she has importance in the film as well as the proposed story line. The vineyard setting and the autumn like palette of the poster suggest that that film is set in a European country.

 The images on the poster have realistic qualities as the woman looks like she is standing in front of a painting and holding an envelope. This immediately rules out any unfamiliar qualities to the film such as sci-fi etc. The text colour individually draws your eyes to the priorities of the poster. I think that the title is the priority as they are relying on the viewer to associate the film with a love story with the assumption that the viewer would know who Juliet is. Also the tag line of the film as a rhetorical question makes the audience think about the story line of the film. This may suggest that the characters have to make some kinds of important decisions involving around the tag line question.

 



 

Teaser and Theatrical Posters

 

 

 

There are two different types of posters to advertise a film, a teaser and a theatrical. A teaser poser is an early promotional film poster, containing a basic image or design without revealing too much information such as the plot, theme, and characters. The purpose is to incite awareness and generate hype for the film. This may include a single image and a tag line or just a character poster which would just introduce the audience to the characters and what they may be like. These posters are usually used because the story already has a fan base that the production company try to appeal to from a different media such as a novel, TV programme or comic strip. Or it could also be a sequel to an already successful film. The only written information that could appear on these posters would be something like ‘coming soon’ or a production company logo. Twilight is a good example of a film that used teaser posters to create a fan base for the films. You can see above that the films are advertised initially with character posters in a distinctive style. These do not really give away much information about the film, but because the books are so well known, the audience will know what characters will appear and be looking out for the next character, and this generates an interest in itself. Having poster 'sets' also appeals to collectors.

On the other hand, some films will have a teaser trailer but most will have a theatrical poster which is also used to advertise the film. The text on film posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. It may also include a tag line, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, etc. They follow the same themes, colour palettes and visual styles as the teaser posters if they have equivalents so that they can be easily linked. Full theatrical posters also come out much closer to the release date to the film than any other poster made. This type of poster could be seen as a sort of ‘finale’ as it is has everything on it, however this is usually just because this is when everything have been finalised, such as the release date and all the credits. In the Twilight theatrical poster it took the two character posters used a teaser posters previously and put the two characters together to show the relationship between them and also added a tag line ‘nothing will be the same’ on it as well as all the additional information.