Movie Poster Analysis Project Look. Look again. Look deeper still.

Movie Poster Analysis Today we’ll be doing an activity together in-class that you’ll eventually do on your own in a presentation. The goal is to push you to analyze an aspect of current cinema – movie posters – and then present that analysis to the class.

The Set-Up Entice you to see the movie What’s the primary purpose(s) of a movie poster? Put some thoughts down on page 23 of your film packet. Inform potential viewers Publicize the movie Entice you to see the movie

The Set-Up Ultimately, the main goal of a movie poster is to entice and/or attract customers. In order to best do that, the poster must make you interested, intrigue you, etc… That’s what we’ll be thinking about today: how do movie posters manipulate us as consumers and how effective are these posters in terms of making us interested in seeing the movie.

A Look Back... Here are some examples of famous movies and interesting movie posters. Think about what makes them effective.

Iconic…and Scary

Creative and Intriguing

Symbolic and Star Power

Direct and Funny

Graphically Intriguing

Words and Images

Minimalistic and Captivating

Some of the Best in Recent Years…

Some of the Best in Recent Years…

Some of the Best in Recent Years…

On the Other Hand…Here are Some Trends That Have Been Overused Time and Again:

In-Class Activity We’ll look at several movie posters and take a step-by-step approach to analyzing the posters, eventually deconstructing the various visual elements.

In-Class Activity Go to page in your film packet and see the step-by- step instructions for analyzing the posters: Step 1: Look at the poster for the first time. Summarize what you’re seeing Describe your initial reaction to the poster as a whole.

In-Class Activity Step 2: Look at the poster again with a more critical eye and make some predictions. What will the plot be centered around? Who is this film being marketed to? What hints as to the film does the poster reveal?

In-Class Activity Step 3: Make some inferences based aesthetics such as: colors camera angles and/or camera distance font style and font size graphics lighting and shading composition and arrangement tagline other elements that you notice Also, note if you’re left with unanswered questions.

In-Class Activity Step 4: Finally, evaluate how effective this poster is for you as a consumer. Judge to what extent it makes you want to see the movie (and explain why/why not).

In-Class Activity Analyze the posters in the step-by-step manner (going from general to deeper/more specific and then eventually making an evaluation). Be organized. Put the title of the movie before your response. Space out your response based on the various steps. You won’t have much time as we’re doing this in class but get as many thoughts/observations down as possible.

Upcoming Films This is all well and good but to truly study the effectiveness of a movie poster, we have to look at posters for movies which have not been released yet. Continue to write down your responses to the following posters in your packet in the step-by-step manner we just did with Cloverfield.

Your Presentation... Every student in the class will present their poster at some point throughout the semester. Most every week, five students will do their presentations. Each presentation should be approximately five minutes long and include a PowerPoint (or a similar presentation program). Each of the presentations will focus on a different poster and the poster has to from a movie which has not yet been released.

Your Presentation... In your presentation, analyze the poster in the manner of what we did the last two days. You should walk the class through your observations, predictions, and analysis and involve the class while you present your thoughts. The poster can be – in your eyes – good or bad, effective or ineffective, intriguing or dull. Just do not pick a poster that you think it’s decent – it will be much easier (and interesting) if you pick a poster that is either good or bad.

A Little Help To find upcoming releases, you may want to go to movieinsider.com Go to “Upcoming” link on the top of the main page and pull it down to “2017 Schedule” Once there, you can go to the various months and several films will be listed on each release date. When you click on the links to the specific films, you will find the movie posters as well. Another good site to explore impawards.com