Advanced Poster Analysis

In this post i am going to do an advanced analysis of a poster from another film falling into the thriller category/genre. 

The film poster i am going to be performing this advanced analysis on is Prisoners. Prisoners was a film about the abduction of a mans daughter and his daughters friend. The father takes matters into his own hands to find the girls. 

The Poster:

As you can see on the top left of the poster they have used lots of Star Billings to highlight the calibre of the actors and actresses playing roles within the film. 

You can see how they have highlighted each of awards the actors have been associated with or won. This can give the audience encouragement as they can see that the actors and actresses have seen quality in the film otherwise they would have not signed up to the film.

In the main title of the film on the poster the "O" has been filled in with a maze. This creates a connotation for the audience of mystery. This is used to draw in audiences who are fond of this sub-genre. It is also a slight hint at the narrative of the film which is another enticing factor for audiences.

If you look just below the title you can see the films tagline featured. This is small enough to not stand out but large enough to be noticed. It gives the viewer of the poster the feeling that it is always there. Almost nagging them, constantly making them aware of what the main point of the film is about. 

They have featured the release the date of the film at the bottom of the poster which isn't necessarily the best place to put one of the most important elements of the film however they have counteracted this problem by displaying the release date in a white font. There reason for doing this is that it stands out to the viewer of the poster clearly.

Pictured above is the films title taken from the movie poster. It has once again been displayed using a white font. As i mentioned previously the selection of this font colour would have played a big role in the prominence of this element of the poster. It also creates a link between the film title and the release date for audiences to latch onto.

Coming back to the overall outlook of the poster, they have chosen to use a still from the film featuring one of the main actors. The reason this has been done is to provoke association of the audience with this actor. The actor, Jake Gyllenhall is very well known. This can also be interrupted as a connotation of quality due to the success of previous films this actor has appeared in.

I would also like to mention the colours in the still which has been used as the backdrop for this poster. It has a very desaturated look which is quite typical of a thriller film. It also feels quite moody which is another connotation of a thriller film.