Film Posters Analysis

Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese

This poster is characterized by it’s darkness, the majority of the poster is black, with only Leonardo DiCaprio and the island visible, this establishes the mystery of the film and lets the audience know that the film is going to be dark. The contrast between the blues, blacks and greys of the background is contrasted by the sharpness of the blood red titles. The title font is an all-capital, tall sans-serif font that is textured with some kind of overlay, making it edgy and atmospheric.

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This poster, like a lot of noir is quite symmetrical, this makes it organised and sophisticated. The strapline ‘Someone is missing’ depicts the mystery of the film, and gets the audience asking questions from the start, it is short and sweet, leaving the reader wanting more. Another clever but missable part of this poster is the island, if studied carefully, you can make out that it is assembled out of what looks like photographs, this is mysterious in itself but also again draws upon the theme of crime.

‘Sin CIty’ by Frank Miller

This poster again is mainly black, making it dark and mysterious, it also employs the use of a common feature of film noir which is rain, this makes it more atmospheric and moody. Similar to ‘Shutter Island’ the main title is in a blood red that contrasts with the darkness of the rest of the poster. However, unlike original Noir posters, this, being a neo-noir uses a comic book style font for the title, date and billing box. The main image of this poster also employs the use of a film noir technique that is called a ‘dutch angle’ which is when the image of centre of focus is slanted so that it is not vertical and is at an angle.

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There is a colour correction on the main image that has desaturated it so that it is almost black and white, like original noir, but it still contains some exaggerated blues and greys, this complements the moodiness of it.

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Additionally the poster uses an overlay to place another image on top of the main one, it is blended so that it doesn't stand out and instead fades into the other image smoothly.

‘Chinatown’ by Roman Polanski

This poster is very typical of film noir, it is firstly an artwork based off images from the film. The majority of the poster is black, connoting dark and mysterious themes. The poster’s text is symmetrically aligned, making it professional and tidy. All of the colours in the poster are very subtle, they are not loud or brash primary colours, this makes it sophisticated. The informational text in this poster (i.e the billing box, director, producer etc.) are all in tall sans serif fonts, while the main actors and film title is in a more elaborate serif font that was used on many film noir films, these fonts might now be recognised as one of the following: 'Outlander Nova Bold', 'Outlander Bold', 'Outlander Black', 'Outlander Nova Black', 'Boldoni Gray', 'Ambex Heavy', 'Zygo SE', 'XXII Black Block Serifa Norm' or 'Outlander Binary'. The central image also allows the audience an overview into what kind of feel the film might have, it connotes that it will be smokey, contain violence and murder and also hints at who the main character might be.

In summary, this poster, like most Noir connotes the darkness and mystery behind the film, however, it keeps it simple and minimal.