Textual Analysis Of Horror Poster

The image above is a poster advertising the film ‘Scream 4’, an American slasher horror film which is the fourth instalment in the scream film series. This film was directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson and was distributed by Dimension Films.

The denotation of this poster is a picture of a mask if examined carefully the bottom the knife is shaped sharply into a knife. We are unable to tell the gender of the masked person as we can only see a mask.

The connotations linked with this picture run much deeper than the mentioned denotation. A huge amount of low key lighting is used in the poster which helps to cast the darkness in different aspects in the picture. The dark colour connote death which means that this film is not suitable families including children, the red which used which also connotes blood  also with the knife shaped masked which again enforces that this film is not for children.

The Scream Film series has been going on for 15 years + with the films scream series released in the year 1996. The scream 4 did ok with its critics as it scored a 6.4 rating according to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1262416/  it can easily be identified by the ghost face which is the fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the scream series.

The poster does not reveal too much in depth about the actual film this makes it very hard for people to know who the characters are and which is a technique to attract the audience.

The success of the four scream films is mainly due to the advertising and marketing as they have used clever images and the layout in getting the audience to think what the film is about therefore attracting them to want to watch the film. Am not particular sure what exactly they are doing but am sure it’s good as the film grossed $97,138,686 world wide

Textual Analysis of a Film Poster (INSIDIOUS)

Film title: Insidious

Director: James Wan

Wrter: Legh Whannell

Release date: 29^th Aprl 2011

Synopsis: Insidous is based on a normal American family who have recently moved into a new house, which is fairly old. Their young son has an unknown accident and then falls into a deep coma which cant be explain as there is no explanation to it. The family then start to experience odd and weird event. They then begin to believe that the house is haunted and decide to move to another home which s quite modern and not old like the other house. However, after settling down in their new home the same weird experiences is still happening and getting worse as days go bye. They then decide to seek for help and this help makes them find out that it is not the house that haunted it’s their son. There is only one person to get his son back is the father himself.

The poster has a mixture of key lightening. When you first look at the poster, you actually wouldn’t think that it is a horror film because of the high key lightening that has been used, mainly at the top of the poster around the house. However when you look at it closely, you will then notice a few wrong things about the poster. Even though there has been high key lighting used it doesn’t look bright, but looks quite dull. Also around the poster low key lightening used, which looks smoky and ghostly. This will automatically warn the audience that there is something wrong with the house. The low key lightening does give the poster an effect of mystery. 


When looking at the poster as a whole it has a cold look which will make an affect on the audience and making them have different thoughts about the film, which will make them what to find out more about the film.

There are some symbols that have been used in the poster which some audiences may notice and some may not. Firstly if you look closely on the left hand side of the house on the window, you will be bale to spot a figure and the arm of a body. This may already scare some audiences and may actually tease them to go on and watch the film. Also another symbol used is the eyes of the boy. His eyes have been scribbled out and this will get the audiences thinking why has his eyes been scribbled out? There can be many answers to that question. Again this symbol may influence the audience to watch the film.

The main figure of the poster is the boy who has been placed in the middle of the poster and has no facial expressions. The position of the boy can be seen when using the rule of thirds, which is making the boy the main focus of the poster. This may be representing he fact that this boy may be the main character of the film. Also the title of the film has been placed in the middle of the poster but just under the boys head. The font of the title is quite big and the colour of it makes it stand out.

There is one main genre convention used, which is the eyes of the boy. Since this is a supernatural genre the eyes of the boy works well with the genre.

What may drag attention to this poster is the boy in the middle with his eyes scribbled out. This could easily confuse the audience as to why the eyes off this boy are this way and also the skin of the boy doesn’t really look normal or healthy.

The tagline of this poster is, “From the makers of SAW and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.”  Many people have heard about the movies ‘Saw’ and ‘Paranormal activity’ and know what type of movies they are, especially that these movies where successful in the industry. This will give the audience an idea on what the film will be like, s8ince it is by the same makers of other movies that may have been watched. Also audiences who are fans of ‘Saw’ and ‘paranormal activity, this tagline will interest them to watch the film.

On the poster there is a quote from a known person, “SO SCARY I was whimpering in sheer terror (5star). Collin, The News of the World.” Reading the view of another person could influence audiences to watch the film and also the 5 star rating from this person can also influence others.

I believe that the marketing side of this campaign was successful. The poster was displayed on the internet, on billboards on the windows of movie stores, on buses and even in newspapers. The aim was to advertise this film and to tease the audiences on the upcoming new horror supernatural film.    

I think that this poster is a good poster as it will communicate effectively with certain audiences who are interested in horror films and those who are especially interested in supernatural films. Just the look of the boy on the poster will get audiences thinking, why are the eyes of the boy like this? Is he possessed? Is he a ghost? It is also a good poster because it doesn’t give away a lot about the film which will draw the attention if different audiences and not only the target group.

Textual Analysis of a Film Poster

I chose this poster to analyse because when seen, it straight away looks weird, unusual and frightening. I like this poster as they used a woman’s nose/ mouth as eyes to represent what may be the killer in the film. This is a clever idea as it demonstrates what horror is about (e.g. screaming, last girl). The juxtaposition between the antagonist’s expression and the woman’s fear create an odd expression on the antagonists face and gives the poster a sinister feel.

The mise-en-scene represented in this poster includes:

·         Lighting: The low-key lighting produces a grim atmosphere about the film and the blacked out background may leave someone wondering what lurks behind. The lighting on the face of the main image, shows lighting that could be from the mobile phone. Overall, I think the lighting works well on this poster as it creates an evil feel and somewhat of an optical illusion.

·         NVC (Non-verbal communication): The expression on the antagonists face is quite sly and conniving which shows the characters pleasure from wreaking havoc or fear upon her victims. The antagonists’ lip is slightly curved into a smirk which represents arrogance or sadism which illustrates her enjoyment of the weak.

·         Setting: The setting is unknown but perhaps she may be in a dark room, waiting or watching out for her victims.

·         Props: The prop used in the poster is a mobile phone which links the title of the film “One Missed Call”. This prop is obviously linked to the film and plays an important part in the film. The phone is to the antagonist’s ear and the tag line: “What will it sound like when you die?” shows that she listens to her victims die through the phone, which links back to the NVC and how she revels in pleasure of the weak.

The anchorage of the poster is of red and serif font, which is slightly, fades into the background to create a dreadful atmosphere. The tag line is also in red and serif font. The red font works well with the dark background and both colours complement well with the horror genre. The font isn’t too scary but still creates a good impact on horror poster. The fading letters on the title may suggest the dying victims slowly fading into the darkness.

The composition of the main image is positioned right in the middle to scare the audience, also due to the main image being in the centre, this allows the poster to be eye-catching towards the audience.

Shanice Redwood

Textual Analysis of a Film Poster - A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

As part of our task for media, it is essential for us to analyse movie posters in order to understand how they build hype and entice the audience through conventions used. The poster above is the one used the 2010 remake of the popular horror movie franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street, featuring it’s main antagonist Freddy Krueger.

In the poster, we see a medium close-up of Freddy Krueger, who is clutching his hands and bowing his head which allows his hat to cover half his face. Props used in the poster including Freddy’s hat, his jumper, and his claw, along with make up for his burnt face. There is a great amount of low-key lighting, along with a bright light shining from the background, which helps create an outline around Freddy. There are clearly other sources of light that help illuminate his hands and areas of his face.

The connotations of this poster bare much deeper meaning. One area of mis-en-scene used in the poster that is testament to this is the lighting. As mentioned before, the poster is dominated by low-key lighting, and this gives a depressing, murky mood. This coupled with Freddy bowing his head, allowing his hat to cover his face, builds a great deal of mystery, which gets the audience wondering what he is capable of. There is a bright white light shining from behind, and usually a white light is a sign of hope and peace. And this case however, it could connote a coming of death, and it is said that went people die they go towards a bright white light. Freddy being in front of the light may also connote that he is what stops his victims from having peaceful deaths. There is also minor lighting used to illuminate Freddy’s face, jumper, hands and his claw. The iconic claw is illuminated to the point where (whether it be edited or not) it is actually glistening, which suggest the claw being a sharp, clean weapon, wanting to be used. It is helps to make his claw the main focus of the poster.

There is non-verbal communication present in the poster. Freddy is seen clutching his hands, which is a clear indication that he is preparing to attack. It could also be the case that he is not clutching his hands, rather he is guarding his clawing hand, and leaving one of his claws showing, suggesting he is getting ready to fully reveal his weapon. As mentioned before, the white light suggests coming of death, and it further guides the connotations that Freddy is getting ready to kill.

There is a relation between the colour combination used in the poster, which mainly consists of red, black, and brown. The overall image seems to have a dark-brownish kind of filter, which dims any possible vibrancy that may have come from the green stripes on Freddy’s trademark woolly jumper, leaving the shirt looking mainly red. The filter gives the image a dirty, gritty type of look, which works well with the rough, damaged material of the jumper he is wearing and the texture of his hands and his burnt face.

The other colour used in this poster is red. The colour red is, aside from the jumper, used for the text of the movie’s title. The red used in this poster seems to connote danger and blood, and perhaps lust for blood, as we see Freddy exposing his weapon in preparation to attack his victims. The text is of serif font as it’s edges are sharp, which supports the connotations of the red colour used on the text, as the sharpness of the text and the colour mirrors Freddy using his weapons to kill vicitms. The word ‘Nightmare’ in the title of the movie is a much larger size than the other words in the text, emphasising the nature of the film.

Meeting 2

We have had our second meeting, where we came to the following decisions. Firstly we checked that the deadline had been met for the summer research. Secondly we set ourselves taskts to complete a Textual Analysis of a magazine front cover, a poster and a trailer, which was to be done individually.

What is horror?

The horror genre in the filming industry is a genre intended to provoke the intended audience into experiencing fear or shock by appealing to them emotionally, psychologically, and sometimes physically. Scenes in a horror movie tend to have shock value, or play on the audience’s greatest fears, therefore directly engaging the audience. Themes that are recurring in the horror genre include the idea of evil forces, torture, curses, demons, serial killers, and Satanism, among many others.

Summer Research

The Conventions Of Horror

In most horror films there is a death in the first five minutes of the film and horror films should be scary otherwise the audience would feel cheated in the industry these rules are known as conventions. There are a series of conventions in different horror films which I will now explain

Firstly i will talk about the camera angles and movement. There are a series of camera angles used in the films such as low angle shots, extreme closes up extreme long shots, point of view shot which is all used for different reasons some could be to show the bloody action that happens in a horror film from a close view or from a point of view.

Secondly I will talk about the lighting the lighting mostly used in horror films are low key lighting as most of the action happens in the dark.

Thirdly the sound which plays an important aspect to the horror film Eerie/Scary music, stabs, ambient, contrapuntal, demonic laughs, nursery rhymes, incidental music, sinister music these are all the types of sound that are used in a horror film to build up tension.

Fourthly editing, there is mostly long takes to build up fear and suspense, and sharp cuts are also used.

Examples of conventions in the film scream are

You may not survive the movie if you have sex
You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs
You may not survive the movie if you say “I’ll be right back”
You may not survive the movie if you go out to investigate a strange noise.

A Horror Film Director

James Wan born on the 27th of February 1997, he is Malaysian born Australian producer and also a screenwriter. Wan Is widely known from directing the horror film saw and he directed insidious.


Wan was born in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia of Chinese ethnicity. He was raised in Perth which is in Australia from a young age. He went on to study at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, completing his Bachelor of Arts degree

He met his future business partner Leigh Whannell while he was studying at RMIT University he then went on to co- create and direct the 2003 horror film and franchise Saw. With the help of Whannell, who wrote the script. Wan and Whannell made a short version of the film to showcase the script. Whannell played the role of David in the short film, and the leading role of Adam in the feature film.
The three producers who saw the short film and read Whannell's screenplay agreed to produce the film. Saw was to become a surprise record breaking theatrical horror franchise, earning Wan and Whannell much more than they had originally predicted


Three Different Horror Films

Halloween

Director- John Carpenter
Genre- Slasher

The year 1963 the night of Halloween the police are called to 43 limpkins ln. only to discover that a 17 year old Judith Myers has been stabbed to death by her 6 year old brother. After being institutionalized for 15years. Myers breaks out the day before Halloween. Myers physiatrist dr Loomis knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it will be too late.

Scream

Director – Wes Craven
Genre – slasher

On year after the death of Sidney Prescott’s mother, two students turn up gutted when a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother’s death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one bye one. Everyone is a suspect in this case

The Crazies

Director- Breck Eisner
Genre- Zombie

As a toxin turns the residents of Ogden marsh into violent psychopaths Sherriff David Dutton tries to make sense of the situation while he, his wife, and two other unaffected townspeople band together in a fight for survival.


Horror Film Teaser Trailer

Fast and quick imagery which are used to empathise tension and suspense of the teaser. I have noticed that with teaser trailers very little story line and plot is given away, to prevent too much of the main action being revealed. The teaser trailers aim to scare and entice the viewers. During a teaser trailer snippets of infliction or pain are introduced to attract and ensire that the horror representation is implied. Very short and quick glimpses of these elements are revealed so that it prevents too much of the action and shock to be shown

Summer Research

Summer Research

For A2 Media we will focus on the ‘horror’ film genre, the genre of which changed the landscape of cinema from its debut in the 1930s, to its rise in popularity in the late 19^th century and early 20^th centuries.

The horror genre was first succeeded by 1931 films ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’, both of which were based on books. These pioneers of horror paved the way for future films that would help push the envelope of what would be accepted in movies. This would include movies such as the iconic Psycho (1960), The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), A Nightmare in Elm Street (1984), and the Friday the 13^th series. These films have defined the horror film industry, cementing their legacy by establishing many elements that are considered common conventions in modern day horror movies.

The conventions were suggested by media theorist Graeme Burton who, in his book ‘More than Meets the Eye’, stated that films of a particular genre have a set of key elements that are followed in order to be recognized as a film from that genre. This list included protagonists, stock characters, stock situations, icons, background & décor, and themes. In terms of the horror genres, these conventions are executed differently depending on the film’s sub-genre. This includes the following:

- Splatter
- Slasher
- Vampire
- Zombie
- J-Horror
- Thriller
- Monster
- Psychological/Supernatural

The modern day splatter movies has seen the birth of one of the most successful film series of the last decade. The ‘Saw’ series, created in 2004 and directed by James Wan, has left an impression on the splatter genre for because of its unique plot. It revolves around main antagonist John Kramer, nicknamed ‘Jigsaw’, putting his victims through psychological and physical torture to test their will to live. This movie lives up to its genre name because of it gruesome nature, and is considered by many as ‘torture porn’, although the creators disagree.

The series follows many common horror conventions. One major element they follow is the trend that the victims placed in danger and tortured by Jigsaw have done something in their lives that is either morally wrong or discriminatory. This has been a recurring trend in the Saw series. However, this method is used differently to movies like Friday the 13^th or Halloween for example, and this is achieved through its use of stock characters. Whereas the usual horror movie would have the main protagonist portrayed as pure & innocent and all other victims being killed because of their reckless actions, the Saw series reverses this, having the innocent stock characters being put through torture because of the main protagonist’s wrong-doings. The series is also known for the repeated appearance from Jigsaw’s puppet Billy, who delivers pre-recorded messages to his victims regarding the ‘games’ they are put through. It has served as somewhat of an icon for the Saw series especially as people can identify the mask of the puppet to the series. The movie can also be recognized with its signature theme, named ‘Hello Zepp’ after the antagonist in the first film, placed as a red herring, was revealed to be a victim of Jigsaw’s games rather than the actual Jigsaw killer.

Saw was originally directed by James Wan, a Malaysian-born Australian producer, screenwriter and film director. Along with Leigh Wannell as writer of the movie, the two created a 9 and a half minute horror short film, called Saw, in a bid to pitch their concept to other actors and studios and create a full-length movie. The ‘Hello Zepp’ theme was created with the help of Charlie Clouser, and with their cast limited, even resulting in Wannell taking role as main character himself, the film was created. They pitched their film idea to Lions Gate studios, who accepted the deal and were provided with 1.2million dollar budget, and with this they were able to gain great success, grossing 103 US dollars worldwide, with profit being over 80 times bigger than budget.

Along with Leigh Wannell, James Wan was able to take his idea based on his fears and dreams and turn it into the highest grossing horror film franchise of all time worldwide. Wan has also been involved in other film projects including Death Sentence (2007), and teamed up once again with Leigh Wannell for 2007’s Dead Silence horror film, and their most recent project, 2010’s supernatural horror Insidious.

Summer Research

The Conventions of Horror:

For the summer holidays i was asked to do some research on Horror films.

• In a horror film, there is usually a good person and an evil person. These two people are usually against each other & the two characters conflict.
• There is always a main character and this character usually survives at the end of the film.
•  In most horror films the killer has a unique weapon which they are easily recognised with.
• There is usually low key lightening and usually shadows around.
•   In most films the main character is a female
• Also at the beginning of the film someone or people die
• There are close ups to show the facial expressions of fear in the faces of the characters
• There are long cut when tension is being built.
• Tension is usually built through sound or background music
• In horror fills the killer or monster of the film has a mask or a weird, scary and not normal look.
• In the settings of many horror film are based in houses , in woods, or in abandoned towns
• The weapon that are usually used are knives, bate or spade
• Silence is used to build tension
• There’s usually loud sound then a bang with is used to scare the audience
• Horror films always include a lot of screaming, shock the killer or monster noises or cry of pain.

Three Different Horror Films:

• Insidious
• Drag me to Hell
• The Hills have eyes

A Horror Film Director:

A horror film director : James Wan

• He was the director of 'Insidious (2011)'
• He was the director of 'Dead Silence (2007)'
• He was the director of 'Death Sentence (2007)'

The Conventions of Horror Film Teaser Trailers:

• Trailers have limited time to build tension and to fright the viewers
• Music used in trailers are usually built up really quickly
• There are usually quick cuts in trailers which show different scenes 
• There is usually a scream in most trailers 
• There's usually a sound track in most trailers
• Trailers leave the viewer wanting to know more
• After watching a trailer, the audience are usually left with a question, "what happened to him/her?" or "Did he/she survive?"

Writing about a horror Film that i have watched...

The horror film that I decided to watch was insidious. I wasn’t able to watch insidious recently, but I have watched it twice before.

Insidious is a Psychological/supernatural horror film which was released this year.

Psychological/supernatural horror is all about an evil force trying to persecute someone/people and bringing back something that happened in the past. That is what insidious is about.

In the first scene of insidious there is a figure of an old woman creep around the house of the family. Already the film has started with ghostly figures to scare the audience and to get the audience thinking. Later on in the film, Dalton, the son of Rengi and Josh, fall into a coma ands is taken to hospital. This coma was an unexplained comma. Again this gets the audience thinking.

Later on in the film Rengi starts to believe that the house they are staying in is haunted, and that she keeps on hearing noises as if there are people in the house and she even starts to see people in the house which are mostly ghostly figures. This works on the disturbance of human psyche.   

Analysing Lighting 

I was asked to analyse pictures with low key lighting...

Teaser trailer Storyline

·         Two main Characters

·         One of them will be the Killer and The other will be the Boy that sketches

·         The trailer will start of with the boy in a deserted room with sketches of different scenes of a killer killing people or with its weapon

·         The boy will then pick up one of the sketches and then a close up will show the sketch

·         That sketch will then come alive, but this will be quick shots of that scene

·          Then at the end of the scene there will be a zoom in of the boy still holding the picture, still zooming in but into it face, at this point we can only see the side of his face which seems to have been slightly burnt. The face will be turning around but then there will be a cut where it will show the killer just standing there holding its weapon. And that would be the picture that the boy at the end is holding.

·         The killer will be wearing an overall with shackles on their feet. They will have a burnt face. But all over the face. The boy will also have the same burnt but just a little on the cheek.

·         Throughout the boy’s scene we will never see the full figure of the boy he will be shot from the back, then it will only be one side of his face that we will see.

Logo Design for Production Team

This is a logo design for our production team, created on Photoshop. The idea behind it is meant to
reflect a stamp being pressed on a sheet - in this case, the SLAM productions logo is being stamped
on a paper, with blood dripping from the stamp sign. I used blood splatter because this is a horror
film production.

Meeting 1

We have had our first meeting, where we came to the following decisions. Firstly we had a discussion about the name of our production team, there was a series of different names which we could not decide upon such as Element Productions, The Four Productions, Climate Productions and SLAM Productions. We then came to the decision of calling ourselves SLAM productions which is an acronym of the names of the people in the group.

We also decided on setting deadlines of when our summer research should be posted onto the blog. The deadline was set for the 13th of October 2011.

NAME: Shanice Redwood
ROLE: WRITER/ EDITOR
FAVOURTIE HORROR FILM: The Ring (Ju-on)
ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE: Awesome.
ABOUT :

NAME: MOYO
ROLE: CAMERA MAN
FAVOURTIE HORROR FILM: SCREAM 4
ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE: MOTIVATED
ABOUT :
    

NAME: ALI KAMARA
ROLE:  GRAPHIC DESIGNER
FAVOURTIE HORROR FILM: The SAW Series
ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE:  Creative
ABOUT : My role is graphic designing for the horror project, which is a pretty easy job for me because I've got experience in Photoshop. I don't know much about Mac's editing software but I will...and when I do...muahahah...nah I'm joking, I'm excited to learn new things in order to expand on my skills.

NAME: Lysette Baafi
ROLE: Blog Administrator and Make up 
FAVOURTIE HORROR FILM: Insidious
ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE: Smiley 

ABOUT LYSETTE:
I will be in charge of making sure that everyone on the SLAM production team's work is uploaded. I will also be in charge of ensuring that everyone is up to date (as well as myself) in terms of individual work towards the group. I am an hard working team leader and like things to be organised and to keep our work on task and to get things done on time. I enjoy media studies as I learn something new everyday that can be contributed towards my group work. I am really looking forward to producing our horror Movie Trailer :)