A2 media film poster analysis

A2 Media StudiesAncillary Tasks

1: Film Poster 2a: Film magazine front cover featuring the film

2b: Film magazine review page featuring the film

A2 Media StudiesAnalysing film posters

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

Based on ideas from Media Magazine.

IntroIn your analysis you needto be able to apply a variety of concepts. While widespread use ofMedia Studies terminology is not 100% essential, your ability toemploy key terms such as connotation or anchorage will considerably enhance your work.

a. ConnotationWords, sounds and visual images have denotative or literal meanings. A dictionary definition of ‘rose’ is likely to describe it as a flower, with a thorned stem, having a variety of colours and emitting a pleasant scent.In our culture, however, the rose has a large number of associated meanings, the majority of which connect with ideas of romance: ‘My love is like a red, red rose’. Be prepared to explore these associations or connotations as they arelikely to yield a good deal of insight into the preferred reading of your film poster and magazine cover.

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

b. AnchorageA picture is worth a thousand words, so the cliché goes. But rarelydo pictures appear without some text, (whether spoken or written),which serves to establish or anchor an interpretation.In a newspaper, sub editors will apply headlines or captions to aphotograph; in a documentary, a voiceover may serve a similarfunction.To highlight for yourself the importance of anchorage, trylooking at pictures you’re thinking of using for your poster or magazine cover with, and without, accompanying text, or withDifferent text.

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

d. Intertextual referencesNote any visual or verbal references to other media in the text.

c. Tone and registerWhat tone is being adopted? Remember that in human communication roughly 70% of the message is through non-verbalcommunication, 23% is tone and a mere 7% is through the wordsused.Is the tone humorous, solemn, laddish, coy, sentimental, orwhat?Register refers to the vocabulary, style and grammarused by speakers and writers according to a certain situation.There are thus degrees of formality: bloke, man, guy, gentleman, geezer, dude, blud or ma, mam, mum, mummy, mother, mater.

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

e. Target audienceFrom what you can glean from the ideas already listed, who in particular do you think was the intended audience for yourparticular text? Your answer may refer to age, gender, socioeconomic status, region ornationality, sub-culture or evenpersonality type.If you areexamining a poster, you oughtto consider the context – suchas genre & classification – for anindication of target audience.

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

f. RepresentationConsider the image or portrayal of groups in society. Posters, by dint of limitationsof space, time and the need to make an impact, tend to trade in simplifications.Be prepared to discuss representations of, gender, class, nationality, sexual orientation, youth and age (the elderly, for example,are often depicted negatively, if at all). Close cousins of this are the concepts ideology and values, which refer toideas about the way the world isand ought to be.At their most effective, ideologies assume the status of commonsense, natural explanations of the world.Part of your job is to identify any social assumptions contained in the textsyou are analysing.

1: Film Poster 1: Film Poster

g. Effect and effectivenessTo what extent does the poster achieve its purpose? Distributors will employ a battery of market research techniques to measure the audience and market response – from sales figures, surveys and focus group gatherings. Film producers are likely to mount test screenings to test audience reaction. What is your own response to your poster?

How to read a film (poster)1. Previous credits? one of several film poster conventions used as a form of guarantee and as a means of prompting audience expectations.

2. Positive quote: another movie poster convention is to use quotes from national newspapers with the same or similar demographic or from respected critics. Failing that, anyone who says something positive about the film can be quoted. References to aspects of the film not referenced in the poster can offer more detailed information about plot or character or style e.g. balancing the hardness of a thriller’s title and dominant images in the poster with reference to love or humour?

How to read a film (poster)3. The film’s star: You ought to be alert to the techniques used - technical codes of photography would refer to aspects such as distance (close-up, long shot, and so on), angle, focus, cropping, digital manipulation, use of lighting, and so on; in moving images you may wish refer to editing, mise-en-scène or use of camera. Discuss font style and layout.

4. The title: note position, size, colour and font. As well as demanding recognition, the font may suggest other connotations.

5. Colour saturation: red has connotations of passion, anger,Danger, love – other dominant colours blue, yellow, green etc connote different things depending on context – cold, calm, cowardice, sunshine, nature, jealousy…

How to read a film (poster)6. Certificate 15?: a requirementof the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) indicating that the film will includemoderate violence and swearing. What might an 18 or 12A suggest about content?

7. Costume, props, iconography: further help to establish setting and genre. Gothic horror you’re after? Look for fangs, bats, crucifixes, rats, coffins, black cloaks, fog, dark nights, the moon, and a Victorian or earlier setting…

8 ‘Intertextual references’: any references to films in a similar genre?

9 Credits: another convention of the film poster – what do they tell us about the film?

Exemplar British Film PostersDifferent Genres

Medium to Micro Budget

A2 Media StudiesAncillary Tasks

Brighton Rock (2010)

British Historical Thriller

Tone & Register?Which one do you prefer and why?

Atonement (2007)

British Costume DramaPortrait or landscape? Use of

costume/mise-en-scene?

Eastern Promises (2007)

British Contemporary Urban Thriller

Layout and previous credits.

Submarine (2010)

British Arthouse Comedy

Key art taken from film.

Use of colour and white space

Interesting graphic for title?

Shifty (2009)British Contemporary

Urban ThrillerKey art taken from film.

Use of bold colour helps it stand out in a

crowded market‘Kill Bill’ intertextual link?

Eden Lake (2008)

British Contemporary Horror

Key art taken from film but switched.

Use of colour saturation & positive quotes…

Same image, mise en scene…

Four Lions (2010)

British Contemporary

SatireKey art taken from film but not contextualised.

Exit Through the Gift

Shop (2010)British Postmodern

Satire

Fish Tank (2009)

British Contemporary Social Realism

British and American film posters.

Moon (2009)Science Fiction

Portrait or Landscape? Use of black and white?