This document provides guidance on analyzing film posters using various concepts from media studies. It discusses analyzing posters in terms of connotation, anchorage, tone and register, intertextual references, target audience, representation, and effectiveness. It also provides examples of British film posters from different genres and budgets to demonstrate different poster conventions and design techniques. The document is intended to help students apply media studies concepts and terminology when analyzing film posters.

1. A2 Media Studies
Ancillary Tasks
1: Film Poster
2a: Film magazine front
cover featuring the film
2b: Film magazine review
page featuring the film

2. A2 Media Studies
Analysing film posters
1: Film Poster
Based on ideas from Media Magazine.

3. Intro
In your analysis you need
to be able to apply a variety of
concepts. While widespread use of
Media Studies terminology is not
100% essential, your ability to
employ key terms such as
connotation or anchorage will
considerably enhance your work.
1: Film Poster
a. Connotation
Words, sounds and visual images have denotative or literal meanings. A dictionary
definition of ‘rose’ is likely to describe it as a flower, with a thorned stem, having a
variety of colours and emitting a pleasant scent.
In our culture, however, the rose has a large number of associated meanings, the
majority of which connect with ideas of romance: ‘My love is like a red, red rose’. Be
prepared to explore these associations or connotations as they are
likely to yield a good deal of insight into the preferred reading of your film poster
and magazine cover.

4. b. Anchorage
A picture is worth a thousand words,
so the cliché goes. But rarely
do pictures appear without some
text, (whether spoken or written),
which serves to establish or anchor
an interpretation.
In a newspaper, sub editors will
apply headlines or captions to a
photograph; in a documentary, a
voiceover may serve a similar
function.
To highlight for yourself the
importance of anchorage, try
looking at pictures you’re thinking of
using for your poster or magazine
cover with, and without,
accompanying text, or with
Different text.
1: Film Poster

5. c. Tone and
register
What tone is being adopted?
Remember that in human
communication roughly 70% of the
message is through non-verbal
communication, 23% is tone and a
mere 7% is through the words
used.
Is the tone humorous, solemn,
laddish, coy, sentimental, or
what?
Register refers to the vocabulary,
style and grammar
used by speakers and writers
according to a certain situation.
There are thus degrees of formality:
bloke, man, guy, gentleman, geezer,
dude, blud or ma, mam, mum,
mummy, mother, mater.
1: Film Poster
d. Intertextual
references
Note any visual or verbal
references to other media in the
text.

6. e. Target audience
From what you can glean from the ideas
already listed, who in particular do you think
was the intended audience for your
particular text?
Your answer may refer to age, gender,
socioeconomic status, region or
nationality, sub-culture or even
personality type.
If you are
examining a poster, you ought
to consider the context – such
as genre & classification – for an
indication of target audience.
1: Film Poster

7. f. Representation
Consider the image or portrayal of groups in
society. Posters, by dint of limitations
of space, time and the need to make an
impact, tend to trade in simplifications.
Be prepared to discuss representations of,
gender, class, nationality, sexual orientation,
youth and age (the elderly, for example,
are often depicted negatively, if at all).
Close cousins of this are the concepts
ideology and values, which refer to
ideas about the way the world is
and ought to be.
At their most effective, ideologies assume
the status of commonsense, natural
explanations of the world.
Part of your job is to identify any social
assumptions contained in the texts
you are analysing.
1: Film Poster

8. 1: Film Poster
g. Effect and effectiveness
To what extent does the poster achieve its purpose? Distributors will employ a
battery of market research techniques to measure the audience and market
response – from sales figures, surveys and focus group gatherings.
Film producers are likely to mount test screenings to test audience reaction. What
is your own response to your poster?

9. How to read a film (poster)
1. Previous credits? one of several film poster
conventions used as a form of guarantee and as a
means of prompting audience expectations.
2. Positive quote: another movie poster convention is to
use quotes from national newspapers with the same or
similar demographic or from respected critics. Failing that,
anyone who says something positive about the film can be
quoted. References to aspects of the film not referenced in
the poster can offer more detailed information about plot or
character or style e.g. balancing the hardness of a thriller’s
title and dominant images in the poster with reference to love
or humour?

10. How to read a film (poster)
3. The film’s star: You ought to be alert to the techniques used - technical
codes of photography would refer to aspects such as distance (close-up, long
shot, and so on), angle, focus, cropping, digital manipulation, use of lighting, and
so on; in moving images you may wish refer to editing, mise-en-scène or use of
camera. Discuss font style and layout.
4. The title: note position, size, colour
and font. As well as demanding
recognition, the font may suggest other
connotations.
5. Colour saturation: red has connotations of passion, anger,
Danger, love – other dominant colours blue, yellow, green etc connote
different things depending on context – cold, calm, cowardice, sunshine,
nature, jealousy…

11. How to read a film (poster)
6. Certificate 15?: a requirement
of the British Board of Film Classification
(BBFC) indicating that the film will include
moderate violence and swearing. What
might an 18 or 12A suggest about content?
7. Costume, props, iconography:
further help to establish setting and genre.
Gothic horror you’re after? Look for fangs,
bats, crucifixes, rats, coffins, black cloaks,
fog, dark nights, the moon, and a Victorian
or earlier setting…
8 ‘Intertextual references’: any
references to films in a similar
genre?
9 Credits: another convention of the film
poster – what do they tell us about the film?

12. A2 Media Studies
Ancillary Tasks
Exemplar British Film Posters
Different Genres
Medium to Micro Budget

13. Brighton Rock
(2010)
British Historical Thriller
Tone & Register?
Which one do you prefer and why?

14. Atonement
(2007)
British Costume Drama
Portrait or landscape? Use of
costume/mise-en-scene?

15. Eastern
Promises (2007)
British Contemporary
Urban Thriller
Layout and previous credits.

17. Submarine
(2010)
British Arthouse
Comedy
Key art taken from film.
Use of colour and
white space
Interesting graphic for title?

18. Shifty (2009)
British Contemporary
Urban Thriller
Key art taken from film.
Use of bold colour
helps it stand out in a
crowded market
‘Kill Bill’ intertextual link?

20. Eden Lake
(2008)
British Contemporary
Horror
Key art taken from film but
switched.

21. Use of colour saturation
& positive quotes…

22. Same image, mise en
scene…

23. Four Lions
(2010)
British
Contemporary
Satire
Key art taken from film
but not contextualised.

24. Exit Through
the Gift
Shop (2010)
British Postmodern
Satire

27. Fish Tank
(2009)
British Contemporary
Social Realism
British and American film
posters.

28. Moon (2009)
Science Fiction
Portrait or Landscape? Use of
black and white?