(A quick presentation I made on Prezi with my annotation of the film poster on, which I created before writing my analysis)
http://prezi.com/fraaj6n2nclb/untitled-prezi/
One good example of a similar film poster to our film is the one released for Just My Luck, because film has a similar theme of fantasy and magical elements to ours. The first thing to comment on is the fact that although the main theme is around luck and magic, the poster keeps this knowledge hidden. The way the main characters are placed on the poster does not suggest that either of them own this luck. This keeps the audience guessing why "everything changes in a wink of the eye," and encourages the audience to watch the film to find out how luck links these characters. This would be a good tactic to use for our film poster. We do not want to give away too much information regarding the content of our film, so a simple pose like shown in this poster would be a good idea for a film poster as it would inform the audience about the key characters, but not why they are linked. However, the fact that the film poster is ambiguous, can be interpreted as ineffective. The poster doesn't really tell the audience what the film will be about, why the characters are linked and how the luck will be involved in the plot. Because of this, it could be argued that the film poster is not effective in encouraging the audience to watch the film, instead it may fail to entice them due to the little information provided. I think that although we don't want to give too much away, it would be more effective if we represented luck in our poster. For example, we want to demonstrate that the penny gives the main character luck and that the film will revolve around this. This could be achieved by our main character holding the penny.
The main character is front and centre of the poster to emphasise her importance. She is the first individual the audience would look at, as she takes up majority of the foreground compared to the male character. The use of pink for her jacket creates the personality of the character; rich and feminine. The use of pink gives the impression that she is surrounded by good events and luck due to the bright colours used. In contrast the male is dressed in dark colours such as black that suggests that he may be associated with bad luck and terrible misfortune. This emphasises that they are polar opposites. He is behind the main girl which gives the idea that although he is important, the luck is not his, it is hers, and because of this he is a lesser character. I believe that it would be effective for our film poster to subliminally give impressions about what we want our audience to think. By having our characters in a similar position, we could suggest that Sarah is the main, lucky character, and Leah is the character who brings her the bad luck. The background used is extremely effective as a means of setting up the location of "Just My Luck." The background is of Manhattan, which is the location throughout the duration of the film, which is effective, as it instantly gives the audience information about where the film will be set, to see if it appeals to them. This is a good method as it sets up what the location and the characters would be like, which could possibly entice the audience into viewing the film. I think it would be effective for our film poster to include familiar location that we use in our short film. For example, I believe it would be effective to use the background of Dorothy's house (where the penny is given to Sarah) as a means of creating a familiar background, that the audience would instantly recognise when they viewed the film, as they would have been aware of the importance of this location before even viewing the film. However, on the other hand I also feel that maybe it would not be effective to use a location as our background for our film poster. Because our main storyline is around the luck from the penny, it could be more effective for our film poster to possibly have the penny as the centre, with the main characters sharing the shot. I think, a simple poster with a close shot of Sarah and the penny would be much more effective, to demonstrate its impact and the main character. This would be more effective, as our story is not about where it was shot, but about the impact of the luck penny's luck.
On the "Just My Luck" poster, "everything changes in a wink of the eye" is used for the strapline. This is an effective strapline because it mentions the theme of the film (the luck) but is fairly ambiguous and vague about what the film consists of. Its primary function of providing an insight to the film is achieved as it very briefly explains that the film will revolve around luck influencing an individual's life. However, it is also effective because it keeps the audience intrigued because it doesn't give too much away about the story, which undoubtedly encourages the audience to go on and watch the film. With regards to our film we also want to achieve something similar with our strapline. We want a short and brief but powerful strapline as a means of enticing the audience. However, we also want to inform the audience about our film before they watch it, in order to make sure we encourage them to watch our film. We could achieve this by having a similar ambiguous strapline to encourage them to watch our film, in a bid to find out why "what goes around, comes back around."
The font used is extremely appropriate for the poster and the film. It is simplistic in terms of style. This is effective because it doesn't ruin the purpose of the poster by distracting the viewers attention away from using the poster to make a decision about viewing the film. The use of pink is also effective, because it demonstrates the kind of person the main character is, and whether they are interested in watching a character like this. The font is placed at the top centre of the poster which is eye-catching. The audience doesn't have to search for the title as it is clear and central. The remaining text such as the actors/actresses names, strapline and review are in much smaller font, which is also effective as it demonstrates that these are less important and doesn't distract the viewer's attention from the purpose of the poster; which is to stress the name, theme and characters of the film, in a bid to encourage the audience to watch the film. The pink and black coloured font is simplistic and effective, as they are polar opposites. For example black often reflects negativity and misfortune - linking back to the film's theme - whereas pink often reflects positivity and good luck. This is undoubtedly effective as it subliminally informs the audience about the film's theme and is extremely effective as a means of drawing the audience in and encouraging them to watch the film. Additionally, it could also be interpreted as resembling the difference between the boy and girl in the film. For example, she embodies the luck (pink) and he embodies the misfortune (black). I think it would be effective if we took inspiration from the font and font colour used. For our film poster it would look professional if we had the font in a clear and eye-catching place, such as centre or top-centre, with a large bold font, as it wouldn't require the audience to search for the name, and therefore if they were enticed by the name they would browse the rest of the poster and make their decision as to watch it or not. Also, it would be effective to use a simple font type. Our film is fairly simple and straight forward and it would be a nice link to have a font that reflected this.