ANCILLARY- Poster Analysis 1

As my film is a crime drama short film, I felt it necessary to analyse a short film poster and a crime drama poster to ensure I included conventions from both, making my final piece look as professional as possible. The role of a film poster is to promote the film by connoting the genre and including things likely to attract the target audience. It's important both of these things are done effectively.

This is a more mainstream crime drama poster for a film called Public Enemies. It's set during the Great Depression in America and it follows the storyline of notorious bank robber John Dillinger as he's being pursued by an FBI agent.

The colour palette used is very simple- black and white. This creates a very serious tone for the poster, immediately connoting a serious genre for the film. The whole poster follows this theme for the sake of continuity and professionalism, helping create a brand. in breaks conventions in terms of now blue and red colours, which are used in most crime drama posters as they're the colour of a police siren and therefore have a very close link to the genre. The only bit of colour is on his face, drawing attention to the actor/character. This highlights his relevance to the plot whilst also showing off their large star vehicle.

The main image is of the main character, in this case the villain, which is primarily used for films with large star vehicles (in this case Johnny Depp). This is because their choice of actors can be used as a selling point in their marketing. The facial expression, use of a gun and general look of the male follows Gauntlett's 2002 theory that males in the media still follow traditional stereotypes as they are shown as, "Alpha males who control the action with violence." However this is also following conventions of crime drama posters. Images from a crime drama poster do typically focus on one character, and use a close up, enabling audiences to clearly see the character's facial expression and details from a distance. Not only is this to show off the actor starring in the film, but the facial expression can play a big role in connoting the tone of the film. In this poster the character is looking serious, therefore suggesting its a serious film. This is further emphasised by the shadowing on his face, making his facial features more prominent yet also making him look more dour and stern. This darkness on his face and the darkness of the colour palette both also follow crime drama conventions as bright lighting could lead audiences to mistakenly believe the film is happy and light-hearted. The choice of the villain to be the character on the poster rather than the hero is rather interesting when comparing it to other posters, but with crime dramas it's appropriate to see a variation of heroes and villains being the centre of a film narrative. I personally think that a narrative revolving around the villain is more interesting as a vast majority of films from all genres focus on the hero.

The mise-en-scene is also very effective in connoting the genre for all film posters, making it very important to get right, even if its not the primary focus of the poster. A genre convention of crime dramas is that they're set in busy cities due to the fact crime is more common in areas like that, and so a city skyline or large buildings can commonly be seen in crime drama posters, such as this one. It also straight away informs the audience of the film setting, helping them visualise it when deciding whether or not it's worth watching. Busy cities are also used to attract a wider audience, as being set in the countryside for example will relate to a more niche audience and potentially attract less people as representation is important. The gun prop is another convention, as violence is (obviously) a large part of the crime genre. Any weaponry would be relevant to the genre but as this is an American film, guns are the most common to find on a film poster. The mise-en-scene needs to remain realistic, which it does in this poster too, as part of being a drama means it has to be relatable for the audience to the real world, fully drawing them in. 

The title is large and easy to read, as is the case with all film posters, so that audiences can recognise the film upon a quick glance (remembering some posters are displayed on moving vehicles, so this is vital). The same font is used that was used in the film, DVD cases etc so as to again, create a brand. It follows the same general theme of all film posters, with the title on the bottom just above the credits, making sure the image is the first thing to catch an audience member's eye. This is done because the image is the most effective part of the poster for attracting an audience.