Film Poster Annotations
“The Final Destination” poster:
The poster features the standard credit block, tagline (“Death saved…the best for last”) & title of the film. Also it features information about the film being available to see in 3D (with a special tagline “Death is closer than ever in digital 3-D”) (and the film is shown in 2D in selected cinemas) which my fictional film “Addicted To Murder” (possible title) will be available to watch in and will so feature this information. It is also missing a release date which is very important information. Something common on film posters are names of actors/actresses in the film (and often directors) and there are none on this poster. This is because the “Final Destination” films feature unknown/new actors in their film and for my film I will stick to the common famous actors/actresses thing in my film, as I think this is usually a big attraction for people to see a film (eg: If a film comes out starring Will Ferrell, he will have some fans that will go and see the film just because he is in it).
As for the partial narrative displayed on the poster, there is a head (half skull) and shattered glass. The half skull and half skin of the head shows that the person is dying as skin represents life and skulls represent death and the glass shattering enforces the destruction/death theme of ‘death’ killing people. And this partial narrative displayed on the poster relates to the film as in the film people die.
I think that the “Final Destination” poster is effective because it shows the theme of death and partial narrative (through skin to skull), as well as showing it is a poster for a horror film by featuring the death convention and mostly dark colours (except for text which is yellow, white and red). I think the dark colour is a common convention of horror and an effective one and I will most likely use this for my poster (for example: If a film poster had mainly yellow and pink, it would not give the effect of a horror film). As for the skull and skin idea, I will not use this idea as this would make my poster too unoriginal/copied and my main character in the film is the killer (not the victims as there are many). As for the negative, I think more colour would make it more interesting but this is fine, as it fits the horror convention. And the font doesn’t suit horror films in my opinion so I will use differently.
“The Invention Of Lying” poster:
The poster also features the standard credit block, tagline (“In a world where everyone can only tell the truth…this guy can lie”) & title of the film. Also this film features common features (although not featured on the “The Final Destination” poster, which is common (except the release date) to not be features on horror film posters): Actors in the film, pictures of characters in the film (although some posters, more commonly in horror films do not feature pictures of characters/actors) and the film’s release date (October 2nd). Also this poster features 3 quotes from the film (1 of them being “It’s Not Me, It’s You”), a ‘from the…’ (‘from the co-creator of ‘The Office’ and ‘Extras’) which links makers (eg: Director) of other films/TV shows to this film.
I think that the “Invention Of Lying” poster is effective because of its bright colours (mainly white & blue)- its bright colours show well that the film is not a comedy (sky blue whereas most horrors are set at night or in dark places) and it shows generally happy people