Metro ManilaFilm Poster Analysis

Actors - NamesThere are no actors names on this film poster. This is probably because the actors are not known well enough to be a selling point for the film. So instead of cluttering the poster, they could put in things such as critical praise which might encourage people to go and see the film more than if they were to see the names of the actors which they probably wouldn't know.

This would be the case with my film poster because neither me or Jamie (My group member) are known for acting and this seems a convention for small independant film posters which is what ours is.

Actors - Picture

Actors - PictureThere are not conventional pictures of the actors on this film poster. There isn’t a picture of all the actors lined up facing the camera like the ‘This Is England’ film poster.We are introduced to two of the characters:

1) The silhouette of a soldier - We are not shown the actor but the outline of a character. This also gives the audience an indication as to what the film is about and possibly genre

2) The side profile of a face - We are only shown part of a face but no body. This is not a silhouette like the other so we can see who it is.

Main ImageThe main image of this poster is not conventional due to it not being a photograph but rather a cartoon image. The text on the poster covers almost every part of the image apart from the soldier in the center.

GenreWe can tell the genre through a few things on the film poster. The first is that the silhouette if the character shows us that he/she is a soldier holding a gun which would imply a thriller/drama hybrid due to guns and war being a convention to both of these genres. Another is the direct, Sean Ellis who produced the film ‘CityLights‘. This film was a drama/thriller as well as most of his other productions showing that this is the theme/genre of films he likes to shot

References to Other FilmsThere are no references to other films. This could be because the other films that the director has produced have not been successful enough to use on the film poster to entice an audience because they might not recognise the other films.

This would be the same for my film poster because i have not made any previous films which have been even remotely well known. Because of this there would be no point in putting these films on my poster because they would not be recognised.

Cultural References

Cultural ReferencesThis film won the audience award at the sundance film festival.By putting this on their film poster it might attract more people to go and see it because it must be good in order to win that kind of award. Mainly, only smaller independent films win awards at film festivals and so this would be good to put on our film poster because it is a small independant film

Tagline

TaglineThe tagline in this film: "desperate men take desperate measures" tries to create a hint towards the storyline and build excitement through enigma. Its also a way to link a phrase to the film so that people can remember it. Every aspect of the poster tries to get their target audience to go and watch their film and this is one of the least affective one.

Most low budget independent film posters don't actually have a tagline so I don't think that it is nessicary to put one on my film poster

Website

WebsiteThis poster, like quite a few others, has a website which their audience can go to to find out more about the film such as release date, trailer and so on.

What this poster has also done which a lot of independent film posters do is create a Facebook and twitter account which people can then either like or follow the page to get constant updates on thinks such as reviews and new trailers etc.

Critical Praise

Critical PraiseThis poster has two kinds of critical praise. The first are reviews from newspapers and film magazines and the second is a star rating out of five. Both kinds of critical praise are used to try and make people go and see the film. The reason why it works is that the reviews are from well established film critics who know a good film, so if a critic likes a film and there is a general consensus between many film critics then it must be a good film, so people will then go and watch it. I am going to put these kinds of reviews in my poster to try and increase ratings

Title

Size: the title as always is the largest part of text on the whole poster. This is to try and make people remember the name so that they feel a connection to it and whenever they hear about or see the name they know that they recognise it which may increase the chance if them going to see it

Font: This is a very normal sans serif font the only thing strange about it is the letter 'A' in Manila. I have not seen, or know anything about the film so I can only guess from what I can see that it matches the style of the poster. The whole design of the poster is based on horizontal lines and that's what this letter is doing

Title

Style: the style is very plain, it is not made to colourful or too extravagant to take away from the rest of the poster

Colour: same as the style, this is not made to stand out to take away from the rest of the poster

Title

Credit Block

Credit BlockThe credit block is a legal requirement for film poster so it came as no surprise to see it. It tells the audience who and which institutions were involved in the production of the film and gives them credit for it. There is a conventional fint which pretty much all posters use and it is usually kept out the way of the poster so not to be seen

Age CertificateThere is no age certificate on this poster. However, there will be one because it is a legal requirement from the BBFC. A lot of the smaller film posters i have analysed have not had the age certificate on and so i don’t think that it is a convention and therefore i am not going to put one on my film poster.

Release Date

Release DateThe release date tells the audience when the film comes out to make sure as many people go and see it in the cinema because lots of smaller independent films don't tend to come out on DVD after they have finished playing in the cinemas. Because of this they need as many people to know when it is in the cinemas as possible and what better way to do that than letting the audience know the date of release