Posters

1. Posters My definition of a poster: “Poster is a factor of print media, usually used to advertise a film”. “A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface.[1] Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be used for many purposes. They are a frequent tool of advertisers (particularly of events, musicians and films), propagandists, protestors and other groups trying to communicate a message. Posters are also used for reproductions of artwork, particularly famous works, and are generally low-cost compared to original artwork”. –Wikipedia explanation

2. There is a link between the tagline and the title. It could be argued that the meaning behind both conventions are similar as we could assume that the tagline ‘what happened last night?’ is associated with the characters being hangover and not remembering anything they do. The theory of binary opposite stated by Levi Claude Strauss could been included in this poster. Although binary opposites are only usually ever included in films, there is an element of this theory being shown in the poster as there is a baby presented wearing sunglasses which is too big for him therefore intending its for adults. Consequently the opposition in this image makes the poster much more exciting for the audience. As well as that, the opposition in this image adds humour to the poster as what we are viewed with is unexpected, therefore it is likely to make the audience laugh, consequently adhering to the genre of the poster. This therefore reinforces what was mentioned earlier on in my research in the section ‘What makes us laugh?’ which included unexpected events. The strapline at the top is used as a way of engaging more audience. Old school must have been a successful movie in the past so therefore audiences of old school are likely to be attracted to the hangover as they will expecting the humour to be similar. The director of the film is likely to create similar ideology in both films The tagline acts as an enigma code. The question mark at the end is as if it is asking the audience a direct question therefore, engaging the audience to the poster wanting to find out about what happens in the movie.

3. Title: This font is similar to the neon lights that you will see in Vegas. The neon lights reflects back on the actual movie, filmed in Vegas therefore mirrors the lights that was seen in the strip clubs in the movie.This therefore makes the movies and posters coherent and adds continuity as the next posters includes similar fonts. The celebrities namesare not included in the poster. This may because celebrities like Bradley Cooper are already well known, so therefore audiences maybe already aware that he stars in the film. Most likely, audiences would have seen the films advert so therefore they would have already acknowledge the celebrities who stars in the film. One major factor we need to consider is how the change in technology has an effect on the production of the trailer. Due to digital proliferation we can now make better and attractive posters. If you compare the poster above (which was made in the 19th century) to the Hangover posters you will acknowledge that modern posters include real models of people rather than cartoon figures, therefore showing us that technology have become more better where we can edit real pictures of people and produce a poster out of it. It can also be acknowledge that posters now include little information compared to the amount of information they included before. This is good, as little information in a poster adds to the enigma and suspicion. As well as that the improvement of Software's such as Photoshop allows us to do a lot more with the text and colour in posters. For example adding a gradient to the background and also adding a glow to the title. Colours: Although a baby is presented as the main image of the poster, the mixture of murky and bright colours suggests that the audience is actually an older audience, ultimately for a mature youthful audience. This particular poster to Hangover was actually rated 18, which indicates that the audience is for people that are 18 or over. It is important that the colours are kept bright as this reflects back on the genre of the poster. Comedy is very restricted to banter and humour, so therefor it is important to keep the audience light hearted. The colour yellow is the main colour in the poster, this was a good choice as the gradient in the colours suggest there is a sunset, therefore connoting happiness as people are usually happy when the sun is out. Layout: This poster is presented landscape which follows a typical convention of posters. The layout of this poster is very simple, laid out in chronological order: Title, main image, then tagline. The simple layout contradicts the target audience for the poster. As it targeting an older audience we would expect it to be more complex. The editor of the poster might have been deliberately presented in this way in order to prevent the poster from revealing many aspects of the actual movie. This is great as the audience will be left with many unanswered questions therefore leaving them eager to see the movie