Saturday 7 January 2012

Jouvans textual analysis of a horror poster


The Woman in Black is a horror movie which is due to be released in February 2012. The film is produced by the film production company ‘Hammer Film Productions’ and is distributed by Momentum Pictures. The film is directed by James Watkins and features actors such as Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds and Liz White. The Women in Black is a film remake of the 1983 novel written by Susan Hill. The Woman in Black is about a lawyer who visits a small village for legal reasons and soon discovers that the village he has visited is haunted by a woman. The lawyer later realises that the woman is a ghost that is set on getting revenge on the community after she was unable to save her child, however the lawyer is determined to prevent this from occurring.

The posters main image is of the actor Daniel Radcliffe who plays the lawyer ‘Arthur Kipps’ in the film. The character is positioned on the left hand side of the poster at a close up camera angle from his eyebrows to his lower lip. Half of the characters face is displayed in the shot which creates a mysterious feel to the poster. The posters main image challenges common conventions by using a close up camera angle, many horror film posters typically use medium close ups or long shots for example Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) and Friday the 13th  (2009) follow conventions by both using long shots in their posters main image. Below is the 2010 Nightmare On Elm Street poster which uses as long shot. 


The poster however follows common conventions found in horror film posters by using less than three main image characters, the majority of horror film posters feature one main character and a minority use two or more.  The main image uses low key lighting, there are dark shadows around the characters nose and left cheek which could suggest that the light source is positioned at the characters right hand side. Low key lighting is common in horror film posters as it symbolises the horror genre. From the characters non-verbal communication the audience can tell that the character is focused because he is looking directly at the camera with his eyes wide open. The character has a well trimmed goatee which could suggest that he is a person who takes pride in his appearance as well as being of a higher class in order to keep up with such an appearance . The characters props and costume cannot be identified as the characters face is the only thing present in the poster. 

On the right hand side of the poster there is a background next to the main image which uses a mist effect, this effect makes the character appear to be in the mist.  The use of the misty background creates a mysterious and chilling mood to the poster, the mist is grey and grey connotes mystery,evilness and depression. In the mist a ghosts face can seen and the ghost could possibly be the woman in black, because the ghost is next to the main image of the character it could be mean that the ghost is coming for the him. Ghosts are spirits of a dead person hence why it is a typical convention used in horror posters as it frightens the audience.



On the right hand side of the poster the main characters name, a tagline, the films title and the films additional information is displayed. The information on the right hand side of the poster uses the same sans serif font which is in white capital letters however the text varies in font size . The poster has a structured and organized format because all of the texts use the same font.

The main characters name is at the top right hand side of the poster. The characters second name is below his first name, this word formatting style brings a  unique look to the poster.

The tagline used in the poster is ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’. The tagline  is next to the image of a ghost, the tagline could have been placed there to make the audience agree with the questions that ghosts do exist.

The title of the film is in the bottom half of the poster and it uses a unique format as each word is below its previous one and each word from the title uses a different font size. The word ‘Woman’ and ‘Black’ are in large font sizes while  ‘In’ and ‘The’ are in small font sizes.

Below the film title the films release month is displayed in a small font and below this is where the films logos are positioned.

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