Case Studies- Film Poster

Here are my case studies for my fiml posters final draft of all three pieces:

In this poster you can see the main characters on the top of the cover, the girl in the middle her image being the biggest implying that she is the most important and is the main person in the film. Also the way the characters are laid out indicates that these people behind her are her friends/followers and she’s in charge. Also the cover has a contrast of black and white showing the good in the white and the bad in the black background. From the film poster you could also say that the film may start of being good and it’s portraying an ordinary, typical teenager life however as the film goes on it starts to go bad and dark. The lighting has been purposely done like this to show this. The shot for the top half of the poster is a medium shot of all the characters and you can see they all look fine and in power. Whereas the images below are all close ups this is quite powerful because the audience can instantly see the emotions of the characters in these images are much different to the one on top. I think the characters used in this are very typical of what you would see in a high school. You have the leader of the pack (the girl in the middle)and then the people/followers that surround her Also all the characters have that messy cool look with the way they wear their uniform, showing that they are rebellious. I think this was done because then it links with the targeted audience. By portraying the characters like this they are communicating with the audience and giving them something to relate to. The body language compared to the image on top highlights the difference between the two. One shows them looking cool and the other showing teenagers as zombies and out of control. I think that the image on top has been to some extent airbrushed. I say this because it’s to indicate that there is nothing wrong with them they are normal, like all the other teenagers. However the images below them aren’t airbrushed. I say this because first of all they are both stilled images from the film so to some extent you don’t really want to change it, so it looks different when people watch it. And secondly because in these images they’re all zombies there really is no need for the airbrush. They’re supposed to look ugly and messed up because of what they are portraying. The representation of them from the film poster indicates that this is a teen horror, however due to the writing of the word “eat” in the title; it looks immature and childish indicating to the audience that there is a sense of humour in this film.  Even with the images of the zombie teens at the bottom of the poster it screams out cliché, and reminds me of the horror comedy “Shaun of the Dead”. The text placement on this poster is quite straight forward. However I think the way the title has been put in the middle as if cutting in between the good and bad as if trying to separate the two things, gives it a good edge. It emphasises the whole Good and Bad theme. So in a way I do think that this is quite conventional because, the whole layout of everything on the poster works well, and is clear to see. Also with the tagline “school’s out…and so are the zombies” also links with the whole poster layout. I say this because it says school is out, and it see the school kids above at the very top, then it says and so are the zombies and you see all the zombie teens at the bottom.  The layout of this film poster is nicely done and gives me good ideas on how subvert this into my own film poster.

In this poster, it’s an establishing shot so everything is in focus and clear to see. The image of the sheep on top of the looks larger, making the sheep seems more powerful than the small inferior people huddled up in the car. This indicates that yes the characters (the people in the car) are the main characters, but the sheep on top of the car is the most important one in this film. Or on whole that the sheep in general are important. Also the body language of the sheep on top of the car is portrayed as wolf with the big moon behind and its posture as if it is howling to the moon, and with its “pack” of sheep surrounding the humans, also seems more convincing that it is portraying a wolf. The body language of the people in the car, due to the way it’s been shot makes them look small and weak, compared to the sheep. I see this as quite ironic because, usually it humans that look stronger and powerful, especially when animals are involved. Humans are considered to be at the top of the food change however here you can evidently see that, it’s not applied in this situation in the film poster. The overall representation of this film poster is that the sheep are on top literally. The title Black Sheep is in my opinion ironic because the sheep are white not black. The word “black” could imply that, not the actual sheep is black but because they are black on the inside, they are pure evil, maybe which is why they are called Black Sheep. The layout of everything on the poster is very central, nothing special about it; it’s a layered one after the other. Also the colour used in this and the way it is portrayed is quite interesting. The way the dark night is spread across the sky and there is only a little bit of light left. It indicates that the darkness is spreading.

In this poster it’s an establishing shot, you can see all the characters and the background setting which looks like inside a house. When you look at the image on the poster all the characters are pale this could imply that they all dead. The way the colour balance of the characters is very eye catching because they skin colour has been bleached out but their hair and clothes colour has been intensified. This to me is seen as weird because only Johnny Depp and the woman in the red dress are dead/vampires. However all the characters could have been bleached out to show that with the dead people around their giving off a “dead” atmosphere therefore the characters look like them as well. Also with Johnny Depp right in the middle of everyone as if dividing them apart makes you think maybe he will cause something in the movie that divided these people apart. Also with him in the middle suggests to the audience that he is the main character in the film and with his dark clothes it makes him stand out of all the other characters in the image whose clothes are a little brighter. The body language of all the characters in this look quite confident or proud in some characters it looks like they are both proud and confident. This could be seen as unusual because you’d think that some of the characters would look nervous, or scared because they have a dead/vampire person walking about. Instead they all sit/stand there as if nothing is going on. The lighting of the poster compliments the title Dark Shadows. It’s quite dark with little light which are coming from the clothes of the characters. The representation of the theme comes across as maybe a little bit of horror but more comedy than scary elements. This piece fits in perfectly with our piece as our short film consists of more comedy those scary elements. The combination of the image and the text on the poster is clearly laid out, they have the main characters name under his image this also shows he is the most important person in the film. Then comes the title and then the promotional status. This layout is very good and as a group we could try and incorporate this in our film poster