Middle School Media
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Analysing Movie Posters
Posters occupy a space between art and advertising. They have a clear commercial purpose - to promote an event or product - but they also have artistic value. People buy them and hang them on their walls. Museums have whole galleries devoted to poster art. When analysing a poster it is important that you evaluate both how well it fulfils its purpose (ie promotion) as well as its aesthetic value.
First steps
When analysing a poster, you should consider the following broad questions before you start to focus on the details:
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What are the main colors used in the poster? What do they connote?
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What symbols are used in the poster? Do you need audience foreknowledge to decode the symbols?
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What are the main figures/objects/background of the poster? Are they represented photographically, graphically, or illustratively?
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Are the messages in the poster primarily visual, verbal, or both?
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Who do you think is the intended audience for the poster?
Given that all movie posters have the same purpose - to get audiences to go see a movie - what persuasive techniques are used by the poster?
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Which genre conventions are referred to?
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Is a star used as a USP?
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Are "expert witnesses" (ie critics) quoted?
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What pleasures (gratifications) are promised by the poster?
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How is attention gained (humour, shock, surprise familiar face of a star)?
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How does the tagline work? (humour, pun, alliteration etc?)
Institution
The poster can also give you important information about the production context of the movie:
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How much does the poster tell you about the institutional context of the movie's production?
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How important is this information on the poster (think about information hierarchies)?
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How important a part of the whole marketing campaign is the poster? Where is the poster placed?
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How expensive was this poster to produce?
Critical Evaluation
Finally, you have to pass judgement on the poster.
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Is it a good poster?
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Does it communicate effectively with the audience?
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Are there any alternative readings which might harm the message of the marketing campaign?
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Is the poster offensive in any way? e.g. representation
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Codes and Conventions of Film Posters
Film posters are another form of film promotion that tries to draw in their target audience before the film hits the screens. They have an artistic value and a lot of people buy film posters to put them on their walls, such as Audrey Hepburn’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ which is an iconic film poster known by many.
Iconography always make clear on film posters what type of genre the film belongs to, for example, if the film poster includes a weapon, dark lighting and so on, target audiences will be able to recognise the horror genre straight away.
Teaser posters are also used early on in the promotion process which is a poster that reveals an image, and does not reveal a lot of information. Also, if a film features A-List actors/ actresses, they are usually shown off on the teaser posters, without revealing the name of the film, which entices the fans of those celebrities to want to wait and find out the name of the film and when it will be released.
There are often a range of different film posters released just for one film, as it shows different aspects of the film. These posters sometimes may just feature an image, some will feature an image and the name of the film, and sometimes a range of characters are used. Although all the posters are all different, a similarity is always kept the same or feature similar images. A brilliant example for this would be ‘The Twilight Saga, Eclipse’ (below are just four of the many film posters that the ‘Twilight’ film makers have released!)
The image on a film poster will always reflect the narrative of the film that it is promoting.
The image and its background will always take up the entire poster and text will be placed over the visual, without covering up main visual parts of the poster.
Due to the fact that when looking at a film poster, our eyes go from the centre to the top, to the bottom and then side to side, image is always placed in the middle as this is what tends to draw the audience in. The name of the film and tag line is then placed at the top, the second place our eyes go, because it is one of the first places the audience will see. Important text such as the release date, actor’s names and the website is placed at the bottom so the audience will be able to take that information away with them, fresh in their minds as it is the last thing they will see.
Symbiotic links are also a common convention of horror film posters, and film posters in general. These allow audiences to piece together the promotional methods (posters, trailers etc) and allows them to understand and recognise key elements about the film that they are wishing to go and view in the cinema.
It is important that the posters are not overcrowded with information and different images as it is hard to digest and difficult to read.
Studies show that you only have 11 seconds to grab the attention of your audience which may only give them the time to read and digest the title and the tagline. This means that both of these features must me punchy, simple and easy to read and understand.
Most film posters are read from about 8 ft away which means it is crucial to make the text legible.
Taglines are designed to grab attention and to promote the film. Taglines on a film poster must be short, catchy, enticing and memorable. They have to relate to the film in some way, or suggest its genre or tone. In some cases, films have one of more tag line but then some films do not feature any. Tag lines are usually placed somewhere near the title of the film and are written in simple font, both upper and lower case.
