Paper Example. Movie Poster Analysis

Movie posters can reveal many things about a movie before they can be watched. Posters show several moods and emotions that the director used. This paper is an analysis of a poster of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It is a poster with a man in tinted sun-glasses, the man in the drawing is disproportionate with a head that is bigger than the rest of the body, he is smoking a cigarette, and the background is that of a road at the countryside. There is the title of the movie written, with two names at the top. The title analyzes the mood evoked by the poster, the use of color, the texts, and their meanings and the evidence of pathos, ethos, and logos in the poster.

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The poster is drawn in a way that reveals the dominant, humorous mood of the movie. The setting of the movie looks like a desert due to the presence of desert plants in the background. The vegetation is scattered, and the fact that there are heavy clouds drawn shows that it is possibly during hot daylight. The fact that there is a man drawn walking with a hat smoking a cigarette in a dessert makes it humorous. The poster evokes an emotion of amusement (Hu). The fact that the designer of the poster decided to draw the man in the poster curvy and disproportionate amuses anybody interested in watching the movie. It evokes an urge to learn more about the man who is smoking a cigarette, walking down a path in the desert -path.

The designer of the poster has used several colors to reveal several effects. Some colors have been explicitly used to evoke the mood of the movie. The red color used on the title, which is written just opposite the drawing of the man, emphasizes the mood of passion, danger, and possibly love. It sets the viewer on the possible messages to expect in the film (Hu). The cloudy sky at the background is blue indicates melancholy and loneliness.

It can be the effects of the abuse of the drugs or an impression of fear in the movie. Finally, the designer uses a yellow color, which is depicted in the reflection of a yellow street in the enormous eye-glasses that the person in the drawing has. It shows that he is riding at high speed. Yellow color has been used to signify indulgence. It is usually used to show confusion or madness. The person is indulged in some form of recreation or a passion, probably drug abuse from the cigarette he has in the mouth. He has a hat on his head, which is pale yellow, emphasizing the same mood of indulgence and madness.

The design used for this poster is a mixture of complementary colors. The background is catchy, and the drawings are related to the content of the movie this strategy has worked for many movies. Creative film poster designs are a great marketing tool. Marketing cannot be carried out without some things like creative and luring posters. Looking at the most operational film marketing resources in the market, the advertisement posters being used on current releases and older films have played a significant role in the key components that have backed to their attainment. Every kind of movie, whether it's the smaller cult or blockbuster movies get to benefit a lot from the posters made. The film posters also have the essential elements which lead to the success of movie marketing. The posters are made to catch the attention of the audience, and without it, it's next to losing the film's goal or success. The main element in this poster is the AADI, which stands for - Action, Attention, Desire, and Interest. Those are the first for elements that are the core basis of the success of any film advertising campaign. The designers have used the chief plot point or the movie's characters, some point of the plot gets imposed and also the attention of anyone who gets to view the poster. For instance, when you get a poster with flamboyant gradient contextual, head-and-shoulders personality photos, and bright lighting, it gets so difficult to avoid staring at it. The use of iconography in this poster is also very vital since it gives some of the audience a notion of what the movie entails. For instance, when you use the face of a person with blood coming from his or her mouth and with sharp teeth looking like a wolf or any other dangerous animal, a movie fanatic gets a notion that the film may be a horror film and the person receives interested of a liking for the movie.

One of the primary texts displayed on the poster using large lettering is the title of the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The title is mostly perceived as the first or merely the introduction of the film itself. This means that the title of a movie talks a lot about the movie, and the audience may get a glimpse of the movie and perhaps even its meaning also before they get to watch it. Therefore, when selecting the title of the movie, it must be able to grab or attract the attention of the viewer so that they may have the desire to know more about the film in hand (Hu). The other texts displayed on the poster are the author or the actors of the film and its director. It is an easy way of understanding and appreciating the players in the production of the movie. It is also a marketing strategy as the names make it easy for the readers of the poster to look search for their works by the producers.

From the movie one can infer that the person is moving at high speed probably on a moving automobile, from the images in the tinted glasses, one can conclude that there is city life in the film(Hu,2019). The person in the poster has a cigarette depicting that there is the abuse of drugs in the movie. The ethos in the film is not appealing as the scenes likely to be displayed those of indulgence in the fast life of drug abuse and party life. The pathos appeal, in the movie from the poster, is appealing; the emotion that is depicted is catchy and can attract the attention of several audiences. The logical appeals of the film are the main focus of the movie. The movie is likely to discuss themes related to indulgence in lifestyle and drug abuse.

In conclusion, the poster of this movie reveals a lot about it. The creative mixture of color in the sign evokes various emotions. The mood of the film is also revealed by the design of the poster and the idea behind the crafting of the names and the drawings.

Work Cited

Hu, Huafang. "Meta-function Analysis of Movie Posters from the Perspective of Visual Grammar." (2019).