Poster Analysis 3

This film is called Shaun of the Dead and the main characters are played by Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Kate Ashfield. It was released in 2004.

This poster is a video/DVD release poster as it has the production company, stars and the distributors as well as a review from a film critic.

The title graphics are in white with a bold font which provides a startling contrast against the background; they also appear to have blood spatters across them and a bloody handprint on one of the letters. These effects show the audience that it is going to be a zombie film.

The actors names are at the bottom but the two male actors are easily recognisable as they have been in many comedy films (Paul, Run Fatboy Run) and are regarded as a double act.

The main image is a large poster of the three main characters that is being pawed over by a large number of zombies. This image has been chosen because it shows the three main characters and gives the audience a hint of the props as the characters are holding makeshift weapons (and a bunch of flowers) that are slightly blood stained.  

This is a very clever poster as the image being pawed over by the zombies looks almost 3D which makes it very dramatic.

There is an amazing colour contrast as the zombies are all grey with dull coloured t-shirts while the image is white, almost completely covered by red which represents a sea of blood, this is confirmed by the handprints along the top of the blood.    

The characters almost look like superheroes by the way that they are standing, they each have determined expressions and they are organised with one character slightly in front which further gives the impression that they are the heroes in this film. They also have confident body language which adheres to my earlier impression.

Each of the characters have a different style of costume; the character in the middle (Simon Pegg) looks like he has come straight from a workplace, the character on the left (Nick Frost) has very casual clothes while the character on the left (Kate Ashfield) has a mixed smart casual style. Basically neither of the trio looks like they have suitable clothing for fighting zombies aside from the character on the left.

When it comes to personality’s I would say that out of the three of them, the character on the right looks like she would be the most intelligent while the two other characters look like they are not exactly clever, especially the one on the left whose t-shirt is stained.

The main colours that have been used in this poster are; black, red, white and a little hint of yellow. Most of the colours used are stereotypical of the horror genre aside from the white which usually represents innocence and the yellow which represents joy (two things that are not normally found in horror films).

 However, Shaun of The Dead is a zombie romantic comedy, which of course is a hybrid genre so I feel that this colour scheme represents this hybrid genre perfectly.   

I would not say that the perspective of this poster is normal when considered to normal size relationships between the people and the settings as they are on a large poster which has life size images of the characters on there, normally there would just be a smaller image of the characters.

I think they are laid out like that because they are representing the hybrid genre and the fact that it is in its own little section.

I would say that the target audience for this film is anywhere from 13 to 30 as although it is a horror, it obviously had comedy and romantic elements in it which lowers the horror element slightly. I would say that maybe it would appeal slightly more to the male gender as there are zombies in it but it will also appeal to the females because of the romantic element.

I would say that the poster has been made using DTE because of the fact that the images are practically jumping off the paper.

There is a tag line on the white poster which clearly explains the hybrid genre; it is blood red against the white background.

There is another tag line at the bottom of the poster on the bottom red section which adds another element of comedy as it has merged the month that the film is being released with a line from the film.

At the very bottom there is a zombie holding a review on a banner which is white with a red font. I think it is very cleverly done as the zombie catches your eye as obviously no one is expecting to see that. At the bottom of the poster there is information about the directors, company distributors, the promoters and a website address.

The unique selling point is definitely the actors and the genre as the actors are well known and the genre is so different that it attracts a lot of attention.

In analysis I feel that this is an excellent poster which really shows the hybrid genre and interacts with the audience.