Film Noir: Poster Ideas

POSTER IDEAS:

This poster reminds me of the type you see outside cinemas promoting films - all the actors are clearly visible, and as the audience won't have time to stop and look, the title and the actors are all that is necessary for them to see.

The central femme fatale to our story is of course central in the poster, and the two men who she manipulates are either side of her. I made the poster black and white, and also a photo frame 'division' in between the middle picture and the outer ones to make it look a littlemore old fashioned, because of course our film is set in the 1950's. All of the actors are in smart clothes, which to the immediate eye initiates money. The whole poster seems rather 'wealthy' and the left two characters look like they earn money in perhaps more ways than the law permits. (Bobby and Bonnie). On the other hand, our character Carter in direct comparison to the intricate details of Bobby's tie and waistcoat and Bonnie's hat and scarf looks incredibly plain in just his hat - suggests he does not earn or deal with as much money as the other two do.

The red of the title is again a feature which stands out against the black - the exact reason why I chose to use the black and white background and the red coloring of the letters. The middle positioning over the only female on the poster allows the audience to see that she may well be the cause of the 'lust' within the story. Centering her also appeals to the male gaze. (Laura Mulvey's Theory)

I wanted to keep this poster fairly simple - more modern audiences will appreciate this, due to the simplicity of posters such as these:

Both these posters conmbined are like my poster - both very simple, to the point, and you can

see the connection between the characters just by the way they are portrayed in the photographs, as well as the traits the characters possess.

This poster is a lot more suggestive than the other one - even though the same image for the femme fatale is used, because it is made the main photograph we know that her character is perhaps more important - and perhaps in more control than the two men down the bottom. Her position at the top of the poster taking up over half suggests she is 'above' them in power. Her character's belittling of the men is reflected by the poster as they are both shown as very 'small' men in comparison to her. By putting the important line from the script into verse at the top like I did on the other poster it suggests that she is indeed very seductive in the story line.

I've placed the title in the centre of the poster, carefully so that the word 'lustful' is attractive enough to the eye because of it's red color. It is the only red on the page and therefore makes it stand out further. The photographs of the characters are in black and white, but I added a cartoon effect to echo the poster of 'Glinda' because none of the other posters I had done had a different effect to them.

The two men have close-ups and when this is shown against Bonnie it develops almost a distance between her and the audience. The fact that all the characters are making eye contact by looking directly at the camera allows the audience to feel like they could relate to each - however Bonnie's gesture of seductive silence with her finger over her lips contradicts this for her character and the clearer images of the men making eye contact suggests she uses them - especially through the questioning looks they are both giving.

I like the way that the grey colour and the hints of white connect to the colour of the text.

I wanted to put the names of the characters on this one because it fits in nicely, and I felt that it would make it look much more like a film poster.

Similar modern posters I looked at to generate this layout idea were these:

This poster had the division across it to show the connection between the two couples, and instead of confusing onlookers by putting all the characters together, the division allows us to see that somewhere in the story these two couples join together. Similarly to this I have put Bonnie fully across the whole poster, and then divided the two men's images up smaller. This means that both of them are equally connected to her, and also the fact that they are set next to each other puts them together. I did not want to take photographs of Carter and Bonnie together and use that like the love affair is shown in this poster because Bobby supposedly has some kind of link to Bonnie too, and Bonnie and Carter do not end up together - it would be misleading.

I used varying sized text in my title too - 'Lustful' is smaller than injustice so that the 'lust' part of the storyline is shown to be overshadowed by the 'injustice' part, reflected through the poster.

In his poster I like the way each of the characters are posed to initiate how they behave in the story. It's not all together obvious but they each have a different look on their face. I used this in mine by putting rather unhappy or perhaps 'expressionless' images pf the two men at the bottom to show that as men they would hide their emotions, but at the same time something is wrong because they are not happy. Of course as the male characters (one being the main protagonist) the depressing time the story is set in is reflected in the way they both appear to feel on the poster.) Bonnie's posture and suggestive behaviour in her image is much like the bottom left photograph of the man - we see what she does or might go through in the film from the way she is portrayed on the poster.