Film poster research Josh Brown

Rocket - Virgin Media Shorts

The short film Rocket is an award winning short film directed by Jennifer Sheridan. It is about a dog who decides to build a rocket out of household items and go to space.

The poster includes all the basic subjects in the film; the dog and the rocket. This makes the poster identifiable and relevant to the film. From first glances, we can see that the poster looks like it has been made from coloured paper or cardboard. Not only does this give an eye-catching and intriguing appearance, it is also relevant because in the film, as the dog makes a rocket from cardboard. This short film is not like any other British short film. British short films usually incorporate British people for actors, however Rocket clearly uses a dog, which might have resulted in a surprise for any audiences watching Rocket after seeing the poster.

The short films that appear on Virgin Media Shorts that have posters look mostly the same. They all look cartoony or hand drawn because none of them have used famous actors that audiences would recognize. Another fact I have realized is that the majority of posters do not use any ratings, certifications, quotes or film production company logos. Rocket is exactly the same. It only consists of a main image of the dog and the rocket, the title and who it is directed by. The title for this movie has been really well constructed. It appears to be made out of cardboard and stuck together with tape. This is a very nice effect because it is unique and readable for the audience. It also has meaning as it relates back to the film.

Narrative

From the poster, the audience can gather that the dog is the main character, as a result of it being the largest object in the poster We also recognise that there must be some connection between the dog and the rocket. We gather this because these are on the same image that takes up 3 quarters of the poster, so our attention is immediately attracted to this. Themes that I could have extracted from the poster would have been space exploration, rocketry and maybe animal curiosity.This is because of the way the dog appears to be looking towards the rocket and the stars, so maybe he is curious about it all and wishes to find out more.

Representation

Rocket's poster does not incorporate many representations. It does not represent and location or nation. Nor sexuality or class. However, it could represent a particular theme, which could be recycling. When we initially look at the poster, we can see that it has a coloured paper or cardboard appearance which adds to the theme. Then, once we have watched the movie, we see that this theme is well applies because the dog makes the rocket out of of recyclable items such as plastic bottles and cardboard and at the end of the film after the credits have rolled past, it reads "please recycle". So it is obvious that this short film was made to represent the awareness and improvement for recycling.

Genres

Just looking at the film poster, we see that the dog appears to be gazing up at the rocket and stars. So we could guess that possible genres might be science fiction or action and adventure. These predictions are correct when we watch the movie because there is a sense of adventure and definitely a theme of science fiction. We see science fiction because the dog makes a rocket out of cardboard. Obviously making a rocket is possible for a human, however a cardboard rocket made by a dog would never work. There are also conventions of adventure too. The dog is preparing for a journey to space. The audience do not know if this is his first journey, but it still counts as an adventure because he travels far into an empty sparse atmosphere.

Audience

Trying to debate which audience this poster would attract makes a challenge because it seems to appeal to many audiences. The cardboard effect, I thought, would strongly attract a much younger audience because it looks slightly like a cartoon. Adventure or sci-fi audiences especially may spot the rocket taking off in the poster and may be curious to see how the dog and the rocket relate.


Media Language

If we look at the bottom of Rocket's poster where the title is, we can see that it has been given a really good font that suits the film itself really well. It appears to be created from cardboard, just like the rest of the poster has which keeps up the level of consistency in the poster. It also seems to be held together with some black tape which, in my opinion, is a great effect because it shows the sense of improvisation and the fact that the dog put the rocket together with tape and glue in the film. If we also look at the rocket, that also appears to be put together with balck tape. So if we looked at the poster for the first time, we would be able to see a relation between the two and guess that the dog is building this rocket with cardbaord and tape. So all this put together makes it relevant to the film. The title is easier to read than it sounds because it is written in bold and is equadistant from the sides of the poster.



The Inbetweeners Movie


The Inbetweeners Movie is about 4 school boys who have just finished their time in college and have decided to go on a summer holiday to Malia in search for a good time.

Narrative

By looking at the poster, we can see that there are themes of teenage holiday dreams, clubbing and drinking. If we watched the movie, we would also see a theme of girls and the pursuit of girls. However, girls are not seen in the poster because the four boys hardly ever get any girls. We see the clubbing are drinking theme from the background. The high exposure, high saturation, vibrant colours of the clubs and bars seen, are the reason why we retrieve these themes. Aspects of the story can be guessed by the themes we recieve. We know that the boys go to abroad to a land where young people go to party and drink because we see them against the setting. The boys appear to be wearing clothes that they would have protrayed to be cool or smart. The far left and far right characters seem to be more formal compared to the two characters in the middle. This maybe to their method of attracting women.

Representation

From the poster, we can extract some representations. We can see that the background represents a place of livliness and clubbing because of the signs such as bar and club. However, we do not really know where they are in the world because there are clubs and bars everywhere. Only from watching the film do we understand that they go to Malia. We can see that from the clothes the boys are wearing, we can gather that they are from higher working class families.

Genre

There are not many conventions of this film poster that would imply that it is infact a comedy. The facial expressions of the four boys look quite comedic. However, if somebody that had never seen the series before hand would not get the idea that it is a comedy. There are no quotes on this film poster from newspapers or film critics either to give a clue of its genre.

Audience

Types of audiences that would watch this movie as a result of seeing the poster would be people who would like teenage holidays to similar locations to Malia. This is because we can see bright saturated colours and signs for bars that represent that young energetic teenage holiday type of audience. This could also appeal to people a little older who may have experienced it before and may wish to see it as a reminder of their fun times abroad.

Media Language

Looking at the title on the poster, we can see that it is hollow and outlined with a neon appearance. This  again reinforces the clubbing and partying theme of this film because clubs and bars use neon lighting to look vibrant and eye catching to attract more customers. This may have been used for the same effect. If we look at the title again, we can also see that it has no capital letters. If compared to other film posters, we can see that they usually do contain capital letters for the name. This adds to the theme of informality immaturity because we know that names should begin with a capital letter.


Harry Brown

Narrative

Representation

Genre

Audience

Media Language