The Business Poster Analysis.

The Business is a crime/gangster film, set in the 80's. It is famous for the era it is set in as it shows the way drugs and drug dealers have evolved and changed over time.


The poster for the film represents the era and shows the criminal nature behind the characters. The characters are dressed in classic 80's atire (man in a white 'power dressing' suit, the woman in a small, high cut silk dressing gown and the lead role wearing classic 80's RayBan sun glasses and having the iconic 80's slicked back hair).


The title is of a relatively simple block style font and is coloured white. It has been set upon a light blue background which makes it stand out more from the rest of the poster. This means that anyone glancing or looking at the poster will clearly see the title and will therefore remember the name of the film. This is a common marketing strategy used by producers to get their films name out amongst the public.


The tag line for the film: "Good Fellows In The Sun", gives us an indication that the film is set in another (sunnier) country. This also implies that the characters in the film are not gangsters or criminals as it says "Good Fellows..". However it is meant deliberately as a sarcastic statement which shows that the film may contain humour, which is also another common trait in gangster films. The tag line has been place directly above the title to draw maximum attention. The fact that it is also the same colour as the film title helps it to stand out more from the rest of the poster.

The use of props in the poster also indicates to us that it is a gangster film. The gun being the main prop in view, shows us that the film will involve violence/shooting as is a common trend in gangster films. The use of a cocktail also suggests to us that the characters have money and spend it on luxuries. This is also helps to indicate to the audience that the guns link in with the luxuries/money.



- James Banister

The Departed - Film Poster

After analysing the trailer for 'The Departed' I then found the poster for the film. As a part of our media project we need to make a poster for our own trailer.
I have already analysed one poster, from one of the trailer movies i have looked at (The Firm.)

From looking at this poster, I see the obvious text shown, portraying, movie realse date, the people involved within the film, distributes, ( which i will look later into) the main actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson...

The text that is used on this poster, and also as i have look at a previous movie poster, I mean there isn't alot of text because a poster is all about the image, and how they can attract the audience of this film, as well as on lookers as this poster will be bulleted up on bill boards and at bus stops etc... But i have looking at this poster found that the text i have mentioned are all that needs to be shown within a poster, also as this type of text is quite small also conveying that it needs to be on the poster but it doesnt matter for they want the audience to use their eyes to maybe pay to watch this movie, as well as the image on this poster show high class, actors, and also film star hotties such as DiCaprio, Damon and Nicholson. Which could be a clever way to introduce a wider audience of also female, being this film to be a males film.

Another BIG point to this poster of corse, THE TITLE. The title has to show a clear view to the audiene. On this poster the title is shown twice, because we have it in the bold white, shone on the black background, giving it more emphasis to be seen. But the title as well is also seen within the art work of the poster.The art work is the films title, The Departed, in big blocked text, but the text is used with images.Images of the main characters. Yet again, for someone to walk by this poster, straight away are going to be intreged by this poster as the main characters are high class actors that people idolise. Brining more viewers and making more money for their movie, whether or not that this film is a hit or not, people will still wants to watch it for the love of their idols. Going back to the Art Work, it is very, Very simple, but also creative for catching the audience attention. Which we will need to as a group to discuss because looking at different posters some maybe be more elaborate than others. But i think the more simple and more creative it is, then the more people will be fond of our movie.

Again the colours used for this poster as well as my previous poster review is, White, Black and Red. I think these colour indicate good and evil, dark and light, like as if there is postive events and then dark events. then the indication of red used brings me to see blood, danger, voilence. Looking closer into the poster, the red writing is, Cop or Criminals. When You're Facing A Loaded Gun What's The Difference?
This is a possible slogan, quote used from the film. Gets the audience to think about the film, about the storyline of the film. If i before hand didnt watch the trailer of this movie and i read this quote i would be thinking that they are trying to say that cop or criminal either way facing possible death it doesnt matter where you stand, there is no real difference.

Key Points From Anaylising
- Small Text for obvious text, such as the producers, distrubutors, text that doesnt really bother the audience.
- Large, Attractive Image and Title - What the audience will be most attracted to.
-Quotes/Sayings - Audience will cling onto, remember about the movie.
-Colour - Thinking about colour that will highlight our type of gangster genre.


-Karis Hammond

Film Anaylsis The Departed

This is the trailer for the film, 'The Departed.' From my previous analysis of 'The American Gangster' i got the same feel for this one as they both portray, good and evil. The good character being played by Leonardo and Damon and then the bad characted played by Nicholson.

Already anaylising gangster trailers i have understood that within our group, our final outcome of our trailer needs a good character and a bad character to bring across the effect of a good gangster film.

As the trailer starts we straight away see Nicholson, as well as the narator speaking throughout the trailer bringing a sense to the audience that he is the main, higher status character towards leonardo and damon, having more power, making the other two characters look more innocent and less of the bad guys.

As it starts and continues with Nicholson narration stating question towards the audience, brining them involved within the film, grabbing the thoughts of the audience to linger onwards to figure out the answers.This can bring the audience more inducued within a trailer which we want to indicate to our audience, as they get to know our characters within our trailer.

There is cross cuttings within the trailer to bad and good. From Nicholson to Damon, Nicholson to Leonardo. I also found that the bad character influencing the good, to make them into gangsters.This could as help us to think of another lead to our trailers storyline, maybe to mix it up a bit to get viewers more interested or it could possibly just make viewers bored. Maybe a group discussion on this will help bring our storyline, storyboard together in a different approach to the usual gangster image.

As the trailer plays we find out that here is a gangster film. Showing iconic symbols of Police men, Guns, Knifes, Fighting, all of which we need to consider within our own trailer to sysmbolise this genre into our filming. Yet again from my previous analysis of trailers iconic objects can help produce our genre. Thinking as a group we could all discuss on what objects could be good to use, maybe a gun, money, drugs... etc... The main images, icons that our audience will straight away view and think that they can pick up our genre and be interested as an audience.

- Karis Hammond

Trailer Format

This is the trailer for the new film Harry Brown, a crime drama set in East London, like ours. The only difference is the plot obviously and this still contains the elements of a stereotypical crime drama, the Slang used in their speech, guns, knifes,drugs,prostitution and revenge. The trailer is produced so that narrative is non-diegetic descriptions from the film,crossing over as scenes are played to give a summary of the plot and characters.

We will use this in our trailer as it is effective and looks stylish, creating an edge to the trailer. It makes it appealing as things are given away throughout the trailer in small segments and leaves some to the imagination.

The Usual Suspects poster analysis.

Looking at this Usual Suspects poster, we notice a key image that is used throughout all of the film posters and the film itself. The image of all the main characters standing in the line-up has been made an iconic image for this film.
The picture itself is a still from part of the actual film. There is a scene where all of the main characters are standing a police line up and are all asked to repeat a quote. This is turning point in the movie and has been cleverly used as part of the marketing strategy for the film.
The use of the police line-up imagery itself gives the audience an idea of what the characters are like. We know automatically just from where they are standing that they are criminals and they could possibly be gangsters. This is also a very clever use of imagery that once again increases film popularity. The characters costume also gives us an idea to the nature of their work and the role they play with in the gangster/criminal community. We see the middle two characters both wearing suits, which shows that these two characters are more the "brains" of the opperation. The characters that are on the outside of the of the group are the more rough looking and "brawn" of the business. They are the ones that do the manual jobs and tend to be the more aggressive and hands on characters.

The characters have also been arranged in order of size. The smaller characters are positioned toward the outside, and the taller characters are positoned toward the middle. It shows how the more powerful characters are taller and emphasises their power over the other characters. This concentrates our focus more towards the centre of the screen and makes us fammiliar with the characters before we have even seen the film, yet again, another clever marketing tool.

James Banister