Analysis on Image Production

For my contemporary horror film poster I re-enacted the poster for the film ‘The Ring’ (American version). My main aim of the poster was for the signification to be scary as it was a horror poster.

My poster is made up of various paradigms, which together give me my main syntagm. I started to think about creating my poster by brainstorming various ways in which I could portray the main idea of ‘The Ring’ without giving any of the film away but still being effective.

The various paradigms in my syntagm are colour, the image of the girl, and the landscape, such as trees, grass, and plants. The main focus of the poster was on the girl. In the film the girl is portrayed as scary, which is how I was aiming for her to come across in the poster. I took a long shot of a girl in various stances so I could then use them in Photoshop to manipulate them into a way I wanted, to show her on my poster. Not being able to see her face was a key factor when taking my photographs. Not being able to see her face symbolises to me that there is either something wrong with her face looks wise, or that she is just a very shy disturbed girl.

The main image is of the landscape, I used an empty field with a dark forest behind it because in a lot of horror films these two things are symbolised with loneliness and being terrified.

The focal point of my camera is not necessary one thing, but the main images your eyes are drawn to in the centre are the various images of the girl fading into the distance. The position of the camera is between a low angle and in eye view. The main image is an extreme wide shot, with some long shots and mid shots manipulated into it. I used the rule of thirds to position my images carefully so the most important aspects of my poster are noticed and in a relatively good order.

Just from looking at the girl in the image you are not given very many clues as to who she is. All you can tell is that she is a girl with long dark hair. This way not a lot is given away of the film, therefore people are inclined to want to watch the film. I did not use colour in my poster, because I thought it gave more of a dramatic effect, and made things seem scarier. As if the poster had been in lot of bright colours it would not of had the same effect as with dark gloomy colours.