Examples, features and conventions of film posters

Sinister:In the poster for the movie ‘Sinister’, he audience are immediately drawn to the young girl who looks to be smearing blood on a wall with the image of a clown. The reason why they have decided to use a child here is because from my research I have found that children are viewed as vulnerable. The use of blood on the wall and the clown on the wall gives the audience a slight idea of what the film is about and what it includes. However in my opinion, the thing that brings most attention to is the title beneath the title ‘Sinister’ it says ‘ Once you see him, nothing can save you’, this title here emphasises the genre of the film and causes tension and a sense of danger because it indicates that there is something extremely dangerous in the film as ‘nothing can save you’ from it, this therefore has the effect of persuading the audience into wanting to watch the film to find out who this dangerous character is. At the top of the poster, it says ‘From the producer of Paranormal activity and Insidious’, this gathers audiences from paranormal activity and insidious to come and see the film.

Sinister Poster Well known films are included to gain audiences from different films to again promote the film

Young girl is used to show sympathy and to also show that she is vulnerable

Short text makes the film sound even more scary and makes audience want to see who this character is who no one can save you from

Girl smears a clowns face from the blood, showing that this film includes a scary clown and blood.

Paranormal Activity 3 AnalysisThe film poster Paranormal activity 3 shows the genre of the film very easily which is a horror, it includes a ghost shadow which emphasises it’s genre. The mise-en-scene of this poster is firstly dark with a slight blue effect to it, this shows that this is possibly being viewed through a camera within the film as it has the date and time in the bottom right corner, this also connotes to the target audience that this is in fact a horror film.

Two children in their beds are shown in the poster with a shadow of a ghost between the both, this shows that the children are vulnerable.

‘Discover how the activity began’ this makes the previous audience from the previous Paranormal activity films want to find out the story behind the films made.

‘it runs in the family’ this suggests that the family are some how linked In with the reason why ghosts have been haunting the family

INSIDIOUS AnalysisThis poster shows very easily its genre, the use of the clouds above the boys head and scary setting behind him shows that this is a horror film. Above the boys head it says from the makers of saw and paranormal activity, these both being very well known films which makes the audience from these 2 films want to come and see the new film as well as others.

The young boys eyes have appeared to have been scratched out, this give the idea of the boy being possessed in the film.

Poster also includes quotes from other people, this attracts people to see the film

‘It’s not the house that’s haunted’, this makes our attention get fully focused on the boy.

The main thing about this front cover is the main image which is a close up of the Scream mask. All attention is pulled towards this image when looking at this front cover

The puff on this front cover has a relationship with the main image used as the Scream mask is used and the font for the word ‘scream’ is white, the same colour as the mask. The font is also in bold which allows the text to pop out of the page to also attract the reader

At the top of the front cover, there is a banner that includes information about what is included in the magazine.

The colours used on this front cover are black, red and white. All three colours have symbolism behind them, the black signifies the evil of the character or their costume. The white represents the colour of the mask, and the red symbolises the blood in the film.

The masthead of this particular front cover is ‘Empire’, the font used makes the text very aesthetically pleasing and draws attention from the audience. What I thought was interesting was that the jokers head is in front of the ‘P’ in ‘Empire’, this , in my opinion, shows that the Joker is superior to the magazine company.The barcode at the bottom left corner is a typical convention used in magazines..

Other articles are also included in the bottom right of the front cover, this gives you a slight insight on what this magazine contains inside.The strapline on this front cover is ‘meet the Joker’, this again attracts the audience to read this magazine because it comes across as this is something exclusive, an opportunity to meet the famous Joker.

The main image used on this front cover is very eye catching, the pose of the joker makes him look very mysterious which has the effect of making the audience wanting to meet the Joker even more.

Poster & Magazine ComparisonOn both poster & magazine covers use similar colours, the colours used here are black and white as they both feature on the two covers, this is known as continuity. The use of black and white makes the cover look plain and simple making it easier for the reader to understand the page. However, a difference that I noticed was that the other colours used such as the orange/yellow for the fire on the poster, doesn’t feature on the magazine front cover. The red used for the masthead ‘Empire’ also does not feature on the poster.

A second similarity that I identified was that the Batman character is on both, this is so that the magazine and poster link together. The difference I saw here was that the poses are not the same therefore they do not really link together.

A third similarity I found was that on both the magazine and poster cover, they both use the same font, this is similar to the first point about continuity.