Case Study - Film Poster 2

This film is primarily aimed at teenagers; however some may argue its real audience is females as the issue of feminism and the debate between men and women are explored within this film. The film poster consists of very little which could be seen in two lights. Some may argue, it’s too plain and uninventive, which does not attract the audience’s full attention. On the other hand, others will argue that the simplicity of the poster is what is eye catching and the slogans themselves are what stand out. 'How Do I Loathe Thee? Let Me Count The Ways'. This film is based around the Shakespeare text, ‘The taming of the shrew’; therefore this slogan will give some hints to the audience about what the film is based on and whether it is a rewrite of Shakespeare’s original version or is it suppose to mislead us to another topic. Also the slogan of 'Romeo, Oh Romeo, Get out Of My Face' suggests teenager’s attitudes towards school and Shakespeare. They are perceived to be uninterested and foul mouthed. The tagline/slogans are positioned at the very top and bottom of the page, suggesting it follows the conventions of a normal film poster. This film is based on a love story; however the film poster strangely does not give away any clues of romance, apart from the colour red connoting love. Also, the word ‘hate’ does not give the audience much hope of a traditional love story. This challenges the codes and conventions of a stereotypical love story and adds a modern take of how society portrays love. The title of the film is the name of a poem ‘Kat’ writes about her bittersweet romance with the main male ‘Patrick’. The combination of text and image, whereby the arrow is directed at Patrick shows the audience who the title is targeted at. Minimal colour and scenery is used for this poster as the producers want the characters body language to speak for itself. The use of the long shot shows all the main characters and their body language and attire portray how their characters will be played out in the film. For example, Kat is the main female character, standing straight in the middle with a rather confident stance. She is seen to be a feisty feminist and the colour of her top (red) could connote anger or passion, two emotions she endures throughout the film. The producers ensured that there was an equal amount of males and females; therefore no gender was singled out, and this leaves the audience to decide who should be in control, women, men or both. The two male characters either side of Kat are dressed in dark dull clothing which portrays them as serious mysterious characters. The boys are standing firm to perhaps show their dominance and this begins the debate between males and females, one of the themes explored in the movie. Kat’s sister, Bianca, is dressed and positioned like a respectable innocent teenager, whereas we come to find in the film, she is in fact the popular girl at school who wants a huge social life and a handsome boyfriend, which she is denied by her controlling father. The other two young boys have a bit more colour to their wardrobe and they are pulling silly smiley faces which suggest they are happy teenagers just trying to fit into a very judgemental high school. This film poster will relate to my genre of short film as it tells of story of two falling in love. However the only difference is that this film has multiple characters whereas my film will only star the lead male and female as I want all the attention to be on them.