The document describes a student's analysis of their film poster design for a class project. The poster was for an unknown masked villain character and was inspired by Hamlet. Photographs were edited to make features more prominent in dark lighting. The layout included the film title and tagline above the photograph, and production company names and release date below. The design was inspired by posters for Insidious and Evil Dead 2 in its use of red and black colors, character facial positioning, and block of text below the image.

1. Film Poster Analysis
Shanice.S©

2. For my film poster I decided to create a character
poster which would refer to the main character; in
my case it was the unknown masked villain.
The photograph I decided to use was inspired by
Shakespeare play ‘Hamlet’ the famous pose the
main character ‘Hamlet’ does is when he has full
eye contact with a human skull and says “Alas poor
Yorick, I knew him well”, the pose is also known for
the most memorable Hamlet quote “To be, or not to
be, That is the question”.
The editing I did to the photograph was making the
shadowed shading around the eyes, neck and the
open spaces of the skull a bit darker and make the
hue/saturation darker so the features on the hood
and skull looked more prominent and three-
dimensional.
When taking the photograph I wanted to make the
film come across as being scary and heart retching
as possible by taking the photograph in a dark
compositional space with a bit of artificial lighting
directing to the main focus objects.

3. On the banner of the of the poster I have put the
names of the actors and creators of the film, this is
above he extension line of the ‘W’. To separate the
names by adding a circle in-between each name.
Beneath the extension I have put the films tagline
which is used to entice the audience even more, this
is because they begin to think about the film more
and if the tagline links to what they see in their
everyday life. I have put an ‘Ellipsis…’ at the end of
the tagline because it means there is more to come
within the gruesomeness of the film.
For the masthead of the poster (The film title) I have
used the same creation I used on my magazine cover
to get the audience use to see this design in different
places, for example: On social network sites (Twitter
or Facebook) and more. I also separated the banner
form the tagline by using the litter extension on the
‘W’.
Below the photograph I have made date bar slightly
bigger so the audience will notice when the film is
was going to be released, I have used the font ‘
’ to represent this section of my
poster because it is different to the above font used
on the banner, masthead and tagline.

4. To create the billing I used the billing block of ‘The Eye’ poster as a template and a breakdown billing block Ben Schott
of The New York Times did as a template for media students. from using these two different design billing blocks I
managed to make a similar layout on mine.
My billing block consists of the Production companies, The associating company, Music, Costume designer Editing,
Production design, Director of production, Line producer, Executive Producers, What the film was based on and
Screenplay.
Besides the last line of the billing block I have put the production companies logo I used which was ‘New Line Cinema’
and I made my own production company logo inspired my A2 Media Studies subject called ‘A2 Media Production’, I
have done these in a light grey colour to layer on top of the dark colour of the right side of the photograph. And
bellow the the last line of the billing block I have put the films website.

5. The inspiration for my character poster was the
posters for the films ‘Insidious’ and ‘Evil Dead 2’, this
is because of layout, content on the poster and colour
scheme. For example: I have used similar layout to the
‘Evil Dead’ poster of having the main characters face
on the right side of the poster with looking
downwards and having full eye contact with
someone, something or the target audience. Also the
positioning of content below the main picture which
has the title of the film, the tagline and the billing
block.
I linked the photographical side to both of the film
posters because of how they are lit. for example: in
the ‘Insidious’ poster there is lighting below the main
characters face to create a scary scene and cast the
shadows in the right places on the face of the villain
or suspected suspect. This same effect goes for the
‘Evil Dead 2’ cover because of the where the lighting
is positioned to get main focus on the character.
Main similarities between their posters and mine:
Colours: (Red, Black and White/Off White)
Layout: (Photographs, Masthead/Title, Tagline)
Content on the poster: (Billing Block, Masthead/title,
Release date, Production Companies)

6. Most horror film posters always uses the same type of
iconography, for example: Colour Scheme, Villain/
Suspect, Last Girl/Man standing Character(s). This could
be due to either what the film is about or who the
dominant character is, the theme of the film that links to
a specific colour.
Similarities between most Horror Film Posters:
Colour: Colours that are usually used the most are
representation colours, for example: Red (Blood, Death,
Love), White (New beginning or Afterlife, Black/Dark
Tones (Death, Near death encounters and more, Swamp
Green is also usually used if the film is a monster movie
or zombie horror.
The use of selective colour is normally a main feature
because if it is on a billboard or a page in a magazine it
needs to be quite eye-catching for the audience to go and
see it.
Layout: Layout is used to get the audiences attention to
what is being shown, also what the film is about. The
positioning of the content on the poster also plays a big
part of how the audience see the film as being amazing
because of where the text is placed so it doesn’t interfere
with the main photograph for the film.
Props/Features: A lot of horror film posters always tend
to show a prop or character feature that gets the
audiences attention, for example: A knife or murder
weapon, mysterious surrounding (House, Barn, Hotel
etc…), an object that obscures the main character(s) face
(Mask, some form of eyewear etc..