Analysis of film posters

Film posters have a very small amount of time to get the message across. They can be printed on the side of a bus, the walls of a metro system or even plastered on a building. Even with film posters being printed in a very large amount of places in todays society, they still only engage us for a fraction of a second. There are thousands of different posters, and each one is fighting for our attention. To make up for this, graphic designers have two goals when creating a poster for a film; to be striking so that people will look at them for as long as possible, and to tell us as much as they possibly can about the film in that split second of our undivided attention. As every poster is fighting against all the others at the same time, this is the only way to make theirs stand out.

There are millions of pounds spent on some films to get them well advertised. This allows them to create powerful, striking posters, and display them in a lot more places than a film with a lower budget for posters. "Star Wars: The Attack Of The Clones" had a $25,000,000 budget for adverting alone. The OCR Media Studies for AS textbook claims films often have "50 per cent going on promotion as opposed to what you actually see on screen". Due to so much money going into advertising, posters are designed incredibly carefully.

I will be looking posters from two different thriller films, "Phone Booth" and "Panic Room" and analysing them to find out how companies advertise a film for a certain audience.

Panic Room

"Panic Room" is a film where a woman and her daughter are locked in the panic room of their house, while three criminals need something which is trapped in with them. How much of this is clear from the poster? For starters, "PANIC ROOM", is also the name of the film, and is written in a clear, red font, with a slight italicisation to give the words an edge, and the slight tilt does successfully add some suspense to the font. It is also worth noting that in a lot of films, the title of the film is very spread out, often spanning the width of the page. In this, the words are tightly packed into a perfect parallelogram, which relates to the film, in which the main characters are trapped in a small room.
This effect is also shown on the main part of the advert. two thirds of the advert are filled completely in black. This could easily be seen as a complete waste of space, as there is no point paying for space for a large advert if the intention is to make it smaller with a border. However, in this poster, there is a point, as the black walls of the image symbolise the walls of the room they are trapped in. Notice how the face of the protagonist is cut off at the sides, which symbolises that she is under immense pressure; where the silhouette of one of the antagonists is right in the middle of the image, to show dominance, and that he has a large amount of space either side of him. This shows that he has the upper hand. Also notice that he is above the protagonist, essentially standing on top of her. This adds to the claustrophobic effect of the walls closing in; the man has got the vertical covered too, which adds even more tension to the scene. It could also be interpreted differently; while there are walls to either side and below the main character, there is a space above her nearly to the edge of the poster, far more room than there is to any other side. This shows that the antagonist is blocking the path to a potential escape - notice how he is standing in front of a door, which supports this. Another point is that only the main actor's name is written in large letters at the top of the image, to suggest that she is alone, because her daughter plays a far smaller and less important part, and needs protecting far more than the lead character.
Going back to the bright red of the text - notice how it is the brightest part of the advert, while everything else is faded out, which draws attention to the text, which, as the title of the film, is possibly the most important part of the advert. The washed-out colours used in there rest of the advert show that the film is going to be a dark, negative film, which is a thriller signifier. The effect used makes the image look 'dead', as the protagonist could be dead in the image - there is enough evidence to suggest that she is, on her side on the floor, with very little colour in her face. The film would look too bright and cheerful if there were clearer, brighter colours, which is not an effect often used in thrillers. To show this, I have manipulated the image to show what it would look like. As you can see, the image looks far more alive, but it looks wrong in terms of that the image is not meant to look action-packed or exiting, as none of the characters are moving and that the film is quite slow moving, with far more emphasis on tension than action.

Phone Booth

"Phone Booth" is also a single-location thriller, but varies in several ways to "Panic Room", and this is shown clearly in the differences in the two posters. Where "Panic Room", poster is full of empty spaces, "Phone Booth's" poster is packed full of images and words; full of colour. This makes the poster, and therefore the film, seem much more lively and exiting, whereas "Panic Room's" poster makes the film look dull and saturated. The poster employs several methods to ensure that the film seems thrilling and exiting, and these same techniques help to catch a potential customer's eye. One of these such methods is the tilted camera angles used in nearly every part of the poster, such as the main image of Colin Farrell in the phone booth and the text, namely the title and credits, which are written at a very large angle to the horizontal. Tilting the camera is an effect used in many films, especially thrillers, and are very engaging when used properly, and can create a twisted, disconcerting effect. In this case, the effect makes the poster more energetic, and sets the mood, complementing other parts of the poster, and helping them stand out. However, there are parts which do not use the tilted camera, and these are very bold and important, so that they stand apart from the rest of the advert, signaling them as important. The two parts which do not use the angled shot are the slogan and the lead actor's name. The name stands apart from the advert because he is not a part of the film - his character is; and therefore is not a part of the advert.
The slogan is the other piece of horizontal text, and is written in bold, capitals and in red to show that it is a very important piece of the advert, and therefore it is likely to be read by the audience. It reads "YOUR LIFE IS ON THE LINE", which is a pun, which suggests that the film is fun and full of entertainment. It is written in bold and in capital letters, making the text stand out and seem important, so it is one of the first distinctive things about the advert that the audience will see, and therefore is more likely to remember, which is what the advert aims to do in the first place. The colour of the text is also important, as it is in red, which has several connotations, such as blood and danger, which is what the creators wanted the audience to think of the film from a first glance. The colour red also contrasts the blues used in a lot of the advert, which makes the two stand apart, complementing each other, and added to the effect of the text and the images.
The main part of the advert shows the main character in a phone booth, with a bullet in the side of the booth; with three people on the other side of the booth. The main character has a scared pose, which tells the reader that he is afraid of something. Combine this with the title of the film and that he is holding a phone, we presume the phone is related. In a short amount of time, we learn a large amount about the film. The bullet hole in the window adds to this effect, and makes the mise-en-scene a far more tense environment, but it also uses the same concept that the doorway created in the poster for "Panic Room", which is a way out. Colin Farrell's character is trapped in a phone booth, and a close up camera makes the space seem smaller, enclosing the character tightly. There is no door to be seen, and three shocked figures watch from outside the booth. The bullet hole is his only way out, suggesting that the only way out is to be shot (which does prove to be true, which only strengthens this idea, although this is unknown to an observer who has not seen the film, which is the target audience).