Post card analysis

1. POST CARD ANALYSIS
1. Most postcard ads have the main focus on the title, which is the name
of the film festival.
2. The next focus is usually on the dates, to make sure the audience of
the ad can commit to the day of the event.
3. The names of the sponsors and the hosts of the festival are also
credited.
4. Catchy taglines may also be mentioned to attract the viewers of the
ad.
5. Venue of the event and contact information is also mentioned.
6. A slight description of the event may also be there to attract a certain
group of people to the event.

2. •Man’s expression serious, woman running - to or from? Man looking into shadowidentify
hidden, woman running towards light - hope?
•Words assist in understanding of narrative and suggest choices for the central character as well
as encouraging audience involvement.
•Denotation: Bright blurred, coloured lights suggests urban setting, traffic and nighttime.
•Graphics and text above main title make explicit connection to format of graphics on TV show.
Intertextuality for TV audience.
•Font of main title: broken down, all lower case and coloured from red through to yellow -
tattered look contrasts with the word millionaire, colour could symbolise journey from bloody
beginning to golden wealth.
•Coined word slumdog - compound of dog and slum connotes extreme poverty.
•No stars. Directors name above title, small but significant for followers of film maker.

3. The dominant colours that we first notice present in the poster are the dark red
fiery walls on both sides of the image, the colour red connotes danger and maybe
even death.
The poster shows us where the movie is set which appears to be the Grand
Canyon, showing us this extravagant scenery.
The suggested diagonal lines coming from the corners of the poster immediately
draws our eye to the man and the round boulder jammed between these two
giant walls. This again signifies danger. This could also tell the audience a little bit
about the character, we immediately become to understand that he is the main
character and the fact that there is no one else present in the picture could tell us
that he is quite a lonely character and that maybe he goes through this
experience by himself.
The first line on the poster reads ‘a triumphant true story’ this immediately grabs
the reader’s attention as we instantly become aware that this actually happened
to someone, and we are intrigued as to what he went through and how he
managed to live to tell the story.
‘From the academy award winning director of Slumdog Millionaire’ – this
educates the audience as to who created the movie and referring to a popular
movie that most film lovers will be aware of, leads us to believe that this will also
be an award winning film and we should definitely watch it.
The slogan ‘Every second counts’ tells us that something goes wrong, yet again
suggesting that danger is just around the corner.
In my opinion we are led to believe that the genre of this film is a thriller type
thing.

4. Aesthetically, the poster is very pleasing to the eye. Strict restriction is given
to the colours - his clothes are very basic and so are muted in tone, as his
skin, so the orange of the number 12 in the title is the only real distinct use of
colour in the poster, thereby making it stand out against the rest. Obviously
the title is very important and so the viewer of the poster should remember
that. While the 12 is presented in a stylised, perhaps hand-written style,
possibly the handwriting of the main character, which makes it seem more
down-to-earth, the rest of the font is a regular serif font that evokes the
period in which the film is set. The names of the cast are overlaid on to his
body, as is the rest of the text, but in comparison to the image of Northup,
they are relatively small and hard to distinguish. Ejiofor is not a hugely well
known actor so his name isn't singled out to promote the film and simply
appears with the rest of the cast. Director Steve McQueen, however, is highly
regarded in the film community and so his name appears in the same size
font, but somehow more distinguishable due to its isolation, above the title,
as his involvement will be a unique selling point for moviegoers. Underneath
the title, which is given a clean line underneath for emphasis as well as
aesthetics, is the tagline 'The Extraordinary True Story of Solomon Northup'
which works in informing the audience of the film's basis in reality and that it
has a story that is, for whatever reason, extraordinary, therefore inviting the
audiences to see the film for themselves to discover the truth.