Analyzing Film Posters

the poster must include connotation and anchorage.

connotation - words, sounds and visual images have denotative or literal meanings.

a dictionary may describe a "rose" as a flower, with a thorned stem, having a variety of colors 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 line a red, red rose'.


Anchorage - a picture is worth a thousand words, so the cliche goes. But rarely do pictures appear without some text, (whether spoken or written), which serves to establish or anchor an interpretation.

Newspapers subeditors apply headlines or captions to photographs; documentaries use voice-over in a similar way.

To test the importance of anchorage, try looking at pictures you're thinking of using for your poster with or without accompanying text, and then with different text.


Fish Tank


First

Theres lots of text anchoring the film posters as the picture seems plain.
The girl is representing the film through her costume, make-up and accessories etc.
She is dark compared to everything else
She is looking down (Shes not looking at us, she doesnt want us to know her) - alienation throughout the film
She looks as though she is in a box - isolation
Her costume is cultural sport rather than representing something like ballae etc.
Colour - lots of pink (anchorage) towards the stellar reviews
'buzzes with life' - bee's (the corner stone of life) they hold the eco-system together in many ways.
Live, Love and give as good as you get. - very degenerate and over-used.
Solemn




Second

The lighting on her face
The grain
The hood
The over-saturation - sense of hope
The background estate
She is giant in comparison to the background
The text is orange - gold fish in a fish tank (trapped, going round and round)
Solemn tone








Third

It suits a range of people ('Poignant' and 'Good as you get')
The use of profound instead of deep - would be if it was only towards one group.
Vandalism = brokenness
looking out the window = trapped?









Tone
What tone is being adopted?
In Human communication roughly 70% of the message is through non-verbal communication, 23% is tone and a mere 7% is communication


Register
refers to vocabulary, style and grammar used by speakers and writers according to a certain situation
degrees of formality: bloke, man, guy, gentleman, geezer.


Inter-textual & Inter-medial references
Having many chains of signification in which media texts make references to one another.
Where one media text refers to another it is called "inter-textual"
Finding Nemo "Here's Brucey" vs. The Shinning "Here's Johnny"


Target Audience
Keeping in mind the ideas already mentioned here, who in particular do you think might be intended audience for your media text?
The answer may refer to age, gender, region, class and status, sub-culture, personality type etc.


Demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• awareness of conventions of layout and page design
• awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size
• accurate use of language and register
• the appropriate use of ICT for the task set
• appropriate integration of illustration and text
• framing a shot, using a variety of shot distances as appropriate 
• shooting material appropriate to the task set