Further Poster Research - Brendon

 

Total Recall (2012)

 

This poster is fairly busy with the main image taking much of the space available on the poster. Although the main image takes up most of the space in the poster, the colours used in the main image and the background are very similar. The use of dark colours like the dark brown, shades of grey and the black all help to make the picture seem grown up and slick and reflect the theme of the movie itself which is a dark thriller. The way the shattering building morphs into the main character’s head also suggests that he is in danger. A hero against a destroyed city is a classic superhero pose.

There is little text on the poster which leads us to believe that it was a late release in a teaser campaign or an early release in the full campaign as the text does give the audience a season in which the movie will be released but not a specific date.

 

The title of the movie is large and centrally placed at the bottom of the poster drawing the audience/viewers eye to it and also letting them know exactly what movie this poster is advertising. The last piece of text seen on this poster is the catch phrase used, What is real? This will clearly be a key tagline across the campaign.  This is placed dead centre of the poster, and on top of the actual main image. This leads the viewer to see it immediately and provides a complex for them leaving them wanting to know the answer and how the movie will portray this.

The main thing I have taken from this poster is the need for an effective background that helps convey the narrative. In this case, the background is in graphic style while the actor seems more real, cleverly backing up the tagline. We are not sure what we are seeing.

 

 

The Amazing Spiderman

The composition of this poster is extremely interesting. The main image is placed to the right of the poster as the character is looking over the city (the background) Whilst his head is placed so that it looks like he is almost looking behind him at the audience/viewer but he may just be looking at the city itself. His face is lit so we get a clear sense of who he is and can identify the actor. The city/background image plays a large part in this poster and is allocated more than half the posters space. This may be because the audience is meant to recognize the city that the movie is set in straight away or to emphasize where exactly the movie is set. The actor’s position above it  gives him status and power and makes us assume that he is looking out at a city he feels belongs to him and will protect at all costs. The poster does not display much text and has no specific date leading the viewer to believe this poster was released early in the teaser campaign. The only inkling towards a date is the words “coming soon”. Although this is an early poster the poster states that it will be released in 3D which means that this is important to the production company and this is how they perceive is the best way to watch their film. The other text shown is the main catch phrase which is placed centrally to the whole picture, and it sparks interest in the viewer due to the mystery behind the words.

We know that our tagline will be important, especially as we think it might not be short and snappy but might be three separate phrases that will be used as intertitles in the trailer as well as on the poster. It's interesting here that it doesn;t stand out that well against the background. George also noticed a tagline in quite small font in his research, so although we are not seeing this as a convention, we won't make choices based only on making thigs stand out. Clearly the producers expect the main image to do the work of catching attention and the interested audience to then take the time needed to read the rest.