Analysing Film Posters

	The Dark Knight	Avatar
General Analysis What are the main colours used in the poster? What do they connote? What symbols are used in the poster? Do you need audience foreknowledge to decode the symbols?	Black/Dark Blue: bats, night, evil. Orange/Red: explosion, fire, sparks- movement in tunnel. White: lights. We assume the audience already know logos to relate to the film.	Black/Dark Blue: night, mysterious. A new film so the audience does not have any knowledge about it.
What are the main figures/ objects/background of the poster? Are they represented photographically, graphically or illustratively?	The hat represents Batman. Logo is known from comics and previous films. Batman in his vehicle, likely to be a Photoshoped still from the film.	The characters face is the main focus. This looks like it has been created graphically.
Are the messages in the poster primarily visual, verbal or both?	The messages are mainly visual as the picture takes up the whole background and there is not much text. This shows action and is eye-catching.	Primarily visual although the title of the film takes up two thirds of the poster so it clearly stands out and goes with this image.
Who do you think is the intended audience for the poster?	Aimed at men who are into action films and have seen previous films or read the comic books.	Children as it is animated however this picture could be seen as ‘scary’ and looks as though there is a deeper meaning to this film which means it may also attract an elder audience as well.
Persuasive Techniques Which genre conventions are used?	Action: explosions, fast vehicles, urban settings. Almost futuristic.	Looks mysterious and an extreme close up of the face does not reveal the whole story.
What USP’s are used? E.g. a star represented? “expert witness” (i.e. critics) quoted?	Includes famous actors. Shown in IMAX.	The director is from the famous movie “Titanic”.
What pleasures (gratification) are promised by the poster?	Thrills from the action packed film. Tense maybe scared?	Something unique.
How is attention gained (humour, shock, surprise)?	Bright explosions and the vehicle give the image of ‘cool’ equipment being used.	By this interesting blue face of an unknown creature.
What is the tagline? How does it work? (humour, pun, alliteration etc)?	“Why so serious?” Black humour.	Avatar
Production Constraints How much does the poster tell you about the intuitional context of the movie’s production?	Quite a lot. It reveals the genre, the character and an insight into the film.	Not a lot is revealed, only the face of a creature and the film name.
How important is this information on the poster (think about information hierarchies)?	The title is the main focus as the audience need to know straight away what they are looking at for which film. Then the date of release and finally the characters names.	The title is the main focus and then the director is an extra piece of information to convince the audience to watch it.
How important a part of the whole marketing campaign is the poster? Where a re the movie posters placed?	Very to get the film known before being released. The posters would be placed on billboards, bus stops, taxis and in cinemas.	Quite as the film name and face can be recognised by the audience. These would be placed on billboards, bus stops, taxis and in cinemas.
Judging by the quality of the production, how expensive was this poster to produce?	Not a lot. The main cost would have been for the professionals to Photoshop the image.	Not too much, just the cost for the animation to be created.