Film Poster Research

To accompany our film trailers we are also producing a film poster and a film magazine cover. In order to start this project on a strong foundation we covered initial research of the three media products.

When reflecting on how we were going to produce a film poster my group and I brainstormed for film posters which we thought were really effective and memorable. When analysing them in detail we considered the following questions:

"Why does this film poster stand out?"       "How does the poster target its market?"

            "What is the film's target market?"                     "Who would distribute our film posters?"

These are a few posters which we looked at in great detail, and drew ideas from...

• Sorority Row
• Wrong Turn
• The Blair Witch Project

Sorority Row is a classic example of how a horror film poster is advertised; with the black background, it sets up the theme of darkness which would be running throughout the film and the fact that the events which feature in the film will be happening during night time. The black theme contrasts with the luminosity of the fire and draws the audience's attention to it. Furthermore, the position of the fire is significant, it is placed at both ends of the sorority house and the girls are central to the poster, it tells the audience that the characters are going to be caught in the middle of the chaotic, death fest. In addition, the colour of the fire is matched with the "IN CINEMAS 8 OCT" and this is an advertising technique to draw the film's target audience to the date and in effect, reinforcing the thought of going to see the  film.

Factors such as the close proxemics of the characters and the tagline "Sisters for life... and death" is effective as it is showing that the link between the girls (who have varied personalities) is their eventual demise which is hinted at with the words "and death".In conclusion, I think that there are many elements which work to reinforce the theme of friendship and crime. It is effective in catching my eye and making me want to know more about the film as the girl's expressions do not give a lot away. The white light cast on the heap of girls works really well in addressing who the victims are and the white contrasts the dark background nicely. 

When evaluating this specific supernatural thriller film poster, I think it is very effective how the face of the supernatural being is all but a shadow, it sums up the stance that the characters had throughout the film, that they felt like they were being watched. In addition, the position of the woman - with her back facing the well trodden path visually portrays the title of the film: Wrong Turn. With these two devices the poster has clearly communicated its genre and plot.

The poster has been very clever in that it channels the fact that the film is set out as a documentary, and this is clear in the poster by the mini paragraph and it sounds like a voice over you would hear from a documentary. Furthermore, the use of the colour red for the website and red symbol stands out and links these two factors together - that the symbol is the mark of the blair witch. The line "A year later their footage was found" sparks enough interest the intrigue the film's target audience to go and watch it, this is backed up by the image of the character looking scared and tearful down the camera.