2013 Post 33- Posters specific to my genre

Audiences need to understand the genre of a film through the film poster in order to know whether they would be interested in seeing it or not.  If it is not clear to the audience, the film may lose potential consumers. For example, ‘Nacho Libre’ is clearly a comedy film as the poster is very colourful, the font is loud and the character is posed and appears in a very funny manner.

Below I have analysed some drama film posters to see what conventions and styles of this genre I can incorporate into our short film’s poster.

‘Suicide City: Whos That Knocking At My Door’  and ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ both feature a large image of a man’s expression as a central focus. The audience can assume that they are the main characters, and that the film is serious due to their grim expressions. The Titles and text feature at the bottom of the posters so there is no clutter around the faces, but there are small amounts of text on the characters, such as the tagline on the man’s glasses for ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’.

The audience can identify that ‘Suicide City: Whos That Knocking At My Door’ is a drama film, not only by the sombre expression, but the Title is black and leaves a dramatic impact. There is blood on the character’s body and his glasses are broken, suggesting pain, suffering and violence which are all common themes within drama films.

‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s’ character appears in code which alludes to the espionage theme, this code also crumbles at the edges suggesting that something will go wrong, and there will be an unexpected turn of events conventional of drama films. Additionally there is a target on the blood red chess piece in the title, hinting at potential character deaths or threats to add a sense of drama for the audience.

 

These two drama film posters feature a very similar vertical image to draw in their audience. It is an unusual perspective that immediately adds drama, since the scenes are unbalanced the audience do not feel secure and there are no character faces with which they can identify with to feel reassured.

Both titles and texts are white to stand out from the backgrounds and fit within the colour schemes, although ‘Super 8’s’ font is bold and dramatic whereas ‘The Captain’s is thin and emotionally engaging with the audience.

‘Super 8’s’ poster is dark-toned; there is a thunderous sky and black silhouette of a landscape pertaining to key events in the film’s narrative. These are very ominous and notify the audience of the dramatic genre, although the overall film remains a mystery as the poster only reveals a title, date and the important cast-members, who are well-known and capture the audience’s attention.

Immediately, ‘The Captain’s’ poster lets the audience know that it is of the drama genre as there is a trashed and burning car contrasting with the beautiful blue sky. This is chaos and beauty intertwined; the two key elements to any drama film. The character is dressed in a navy captains uniform therefore the audience realises that they are ‘the Captain’, the main focus of the film, and he is holding his head in his hands and hunched over connoting grief and sadness that are usually seen in the drama genre. The fact that he is sitting atop the wrecked car directly links him to a tragic event, one that disturbs the peace symbolised by the picturesque sky, and so the audience is encouraged to sympathise with them as drama films tend to do.

 

 

Taken from this website

The majority of these drama film posters include a central character, one that the audience is encouraged to identify with through their expression, which also reveals the tone of the film. Most of the posters contain sombre colours like black and white to reflect the genre mood, and the titles are innovative and eye-catching. This is similar to film posters of the past, such as ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ 1959 and ‘Raging Bull’ 1980, although the colours of these appear dated, drama film posters do not appear to have evolved significantly as key conventions have been maintained with the rapid growth of digital technology.