After analysing three film posters from the films The Others, Jeepers Creepers and Scream I have realised a lot of the codes and conventions that are used to successfully portray a horror film. The similarities with all of the posters are that they are quite simple; they all contain only one main image that is the focus point of the posters. The audience can immediately recognise the genre of the film by just looking at the main image. They do not contain a lot of text and I think this is because of the kind of places that film posters are advertised. They are shown at bus stops, phone boxes and on billboards. As they are in places like this when people see them they may not have a lot of time to read a lot of text so they are kept simple and to the point. The text that is included is the title of the film usually in a clear eye catching text as this will be the most important aspect of the poster.
The films institutions are always advertised on the poster and usually are situated at the bottom of the page along with the production details. They are put at the bottom so that they do not distract the viewer as they look at the poster but because they at the bottom they will be the last thing that the viewer sees so that it will be the last thing they see when looking at the poster. In all of the posters I looked at they included a short tagline or piece of text that helped to give a brief idea of what the film might be about. I think this is an important aspect of the poster because it intrigues the viewer and makes them more interested because it makes them wonder what the plot of the film will be about. Actor’s names were advertised on the majority of the posters I looked at, this is because they were famous and well known actors and actresses and this might entice the viewer to watch the film because they may think that the film might be good because they are in it. The film poster where no actors names where shown was Jeepers Creepers. I think this is because at the time when the film was made the actors in the film were not well known so their names were not shown.
Another similarity between the posters is that they all successfully portrayed their target audience and who the film was aimed at could be easily recognised by just glancing at the poster. None of them contained very bright colours because they wanted to show a scary, dark representation of the film. I analysed The Others so that I could look at a psychological horror, Jeepers Creepers so that I could look at a thriller with a monster and Scream so that I could see a film poster that involved a murder mystery. Although all these kind of horror come under the same genre, there sub genres are quite different. I found with The Others because it was a psychological horror the main image was not as scary as the other posters although combined with the other features of the poster like the tagline and dark background it does portray a spooky representation and makes the viewer wonder what will happen in the film because it is not as predictable as the other posters. The main image on the Jeepers Creepers film poster is the scariest because it shows a strange monster, this intrigues the viewer but they know what the film will be about. The main image on the Scream poster is quite shocking and eye catching because the eyes of the girl follow you wherever you look. Although combined with the tagline at the top of the page I think too much is given away because it is made clear to the viewer what the film will be about and could be made to look predictable.
I will mainly use The Others film poster for inspiration for my own film poster because the film that I am hoping to create a teaser trailer for is a psychological horror. I also like the style of The Others film poster because it is not predictable what will happen in the main film because not a lot is given away although the poster still represents spookiness and interests the viewer.
No comments:
Post a Comment