Film Poster Analysis

I will be analysing two film posters to get a grasp of what im going to be creating. The first film poster i will be looking at is the one of the film "Employee of the month".

The film closeley relates to what i am doing for my trailer and it is a comedy film itself, so it makes a good choice to be one that i can review by pointing out all the key features of a comedy poster. Looking at the poster initally we can see that there is no visible background image of sorts, with films with a specific purpose, such as an action poster, it would usually feature a background image involving something central to the plot, however because most comedy films do not have an intricate plot to entangle the viewer with, it can be kept simple and easy.

We can also notice the inclusion of the main cast on the poster, unlike some films who litter their posters with all the actors and characters they will have in the film (especially if the film uses big name actors and acresses) this film focuses primarily on the main cast and does not break focus from that. This could also be because it has no prequels as such it does not need to give the audience any information about it as they believe it is as revealing as it needs to be by just showing the playful image of the cast on a shopping cart, setting the tone, context and giving away some plot details coupled with the title.

At the bottom of the poster we also see a tag line to give the film a purpose, the tag line is usually used to help reassuree the audience of the filsm purpose with such classic as "just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water" for the film Jaws 2 or "there can be only one" from the highlander film. Those lines give away a little about the films purposes such as thriller or action. This ones tag line is "on october 6th, shift happens" this parodies the line used in most action films when someone must justify a characters death being "shit happens" from this line we can tell that the film is most likely going to be a comedy film.

Putting all these features together makes for a good poster and i will definitly be needing examples like this due to the genre of my poster being a comedy one aswell so i will need to know how to use the white space.

As you can see my second poster to analyse goes outside of my cosen genre, and is the poster of the film Aliens vs Predator. I have chosen to analyse this film poster as it is one of the only ones which can provide a good source for a parody poster which is what i plan on making my poster rather than a generic comedy film poster such as the one above, although i will still need to use similar conventions to the ones used in Employee of the Month.

The one thing that i really want to take from this is its use of the main characters, although they do not have specific names they represent two titans being brought together for a clash to end it all. The way in which they lay out this poster is what appeals to me the most, it brings the two main icons facing one another in an attempt to create tension between the two, this is a similar form to what i wish to do with mine but bring it more focussed towards a comedic tone. The way it brings the two together and fits the title into the middle is the same kind of layout which i want to take from this poster and incorportate into my own. While the previous poster has the comedic value and tones which i want from that one, this one offers an excellent oppertunity to parody a film/scenario which many people have wanted to see for so long, much like Freddy vs Jason or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.