Assignment Bank 2: Film Promotion - Poster Analysis

The typical codes and conventions of  film posters are; eye catching image/images e.g. the stars in the film, the title of the film, a tag line for the film, a catchy slogan, the names of the main people in the film, critic review, giving their comments and the production blurb. The audience expects to find the title, the names of the actors/actresses, a slogan, images of either the key people in the film or the main point of the film.The genre of this film is horror. I figured this out by the name of the film ‘scream’ sort of gives it away, also on the cover there is a image of a young girl that is extremely pale, she is half covering her mouth with her hands as if she has just seen something shocking/scary or if she is in shock, it looks like she is about to scream. Also the images of the other characters in the film are very blank, they hardly have any expression on their faces and they look very serious, it seems like one of them could be the killer/villain. Also they are all wearing black. The main colour on this poster is black; this shows that this film isn’t going to be a happy one as it is very dull coloured.The title has been designed this way because even though it is just plain, it stands out from the background because it is white. Also it is all in capital letters and the letter ‘m’ is slightly different. It has a point, which indicates something shape, such as a knife. So just by changing that one letter it gives you an idea about what the film is going to include. Therefore the audience can suspect that there is going to be a killer/villain and his weapon is going to either be a knife or something sharp.I think that people that enjoy scary, jumpy, frightening, thrilling movies would be interested in going to see this film. This is because you can tell it’s a horror film just by looking at the cover and also in the bottom left corner it says ‘the thrills start soon’ and it also says ‘clever hip and scary’. By using a famous actress on the cover, it engages more people to go and watch the film, and it also attracts attention. The film company that produced this film was ‘dimensional films’, they are an independent company, it was previously a part of ‘Miramax’. The film company placed the posters on billboards, on bus stops, on buses, on television, on other film adverts and also on magazines.