Research (Ancillary Products): Poster Analysis 2

The annotations above show the main aspects of the poster in which I overlooked before analysing the poster in detail.

Film?

The Cabin in the Woods is a 2012 American horror comedy film directed by Drew Goddard in his directorial debut, produced by Joss Whedon, and written by Whedon and Goddard. The film stars Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford. The plot follows a group of college students who retreat to a remote forest cabin where they fall victim to backwoods zombies and the two technicians who manipulate the ongoing events from an underground facility. The film was originally slated for release on February 5, 2010 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists, but was indefinitely shelved due to ongoing financial difficulties. In 2011, Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights. The film premiered on March 9, 2012 at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas and was released in the United States on April 13, 2012, grossing over $66 million worldwide.

Main Image

Conventionally with a horror/thriller genre poster, the film focuses on having one main focal image of a character in the film which is generally fearful. This film poster of 'the cabin in the woods' follows these conventions well, as the main image shown in this poster is of the cabin as a very obscure structure.  As this is the main focal point, it obtains the most attention from the target audience (public) viewing the poster. The image itself is a medium shot of the cabin in the film. With reference to the lay out of the poster; the design places the main image of the cabin in the centre of the poster, with the title of the film below the main image and tagline just above it.

The image signifies obviously as ambiguity, adding mystery to the poster entirely. Ambiguity is a main theme within this poster, mainly as because of the dark blank colouring and the dark shadows of the trees in the background. The colour of the cabin being black, grey signifies that the cabin is not a good place to retreat to, which the college students do. The way the house is looks like it is being reflected, maybe across a invisible lake or some water makes the house appear obscure on the poster, creating a whole atmosphere to the poster to be tense and creating suspense  Colour of the trees again in the background are grey dark and tall, maybe signifying the zombie like figures within the film.

Tagline

The tagline on the poster; 'you think you know the story' adds more intrigue to what story they are talking about, and whether there is more to the story than the poster is showing. The fact that is it above the main title, may make you infact read that first before the title below, this would maybe add more tension as you think 'what story?' 'The cabin in the woods', follows nicely and therefore is placed perfectly onto the poster.

Mise En Scene

The main colour scheme used on the poster; shades of black, grey and and white. All three of these colours link to a unnerving, mysterious and ambiguous narrative to the film. Below is a colour scheme of the poster below, showing the colours within the poster, as shown are all relatively dark and mysterious.

The dark black and grey colouring on the cabin, adds to show how mysterious the film will be and how the college students will find fear within there. The colour black (shades of) has denotations of darkness and fear of the unknown, showing that there is going to be a ambiguity of what is involved within the cabin and around it of the characters, as well as this the poster not showing the characters (mainly the zombies) adding even more to the mystery which then is linking to the colour black and the shades of it. The white colouring of windows may show that there is some happy things within the film, maybe connoting with a happy ending of where there is some finding of purity within the characters (zombies and college students) that needs to be revolved. The colour grey sky and darker grey of the trees show how there is no happiness in the woods, having no help and no contact with the outside world in there. This could symbolise the situation that they are in and the situations that they get themselves into. As the titles feature black in them, this connotes again with fear of the unknown, especially in the woods and the cabin. The colour scheme as a whole immediately follow the conventions of the horror/thriller genre that is is, they promote a dark horrid feeling and it also allows the audience to have feeling of suspense and tension before even watching the film. 

As well as this, the cracked glass effect around the bottom half of the poster, presents the aspect of maybe their cabin getting broken into by the zombies in the woods, and maybe the fact that the windows are very weak, giving a sense of the cabin being very old and therefore the idea of having no contact with the outside world grows stronger within this poster.

Typography

The typography in the poster a very conventional font. This font gibing the impression of a very 'woods' feel. The thickness of the font gives the effect of twigs and sticks of trees, and has a earthy feel to it. The black colour of the font makes it stand out a lot more contrary to the white/grey background. This is important as the audience viewing the poster will need to have to read the poster title, maybe from a far away distance at times. The size difference of the words in the title add effect a lot. How the CABIN and WOODS is a lot bigger than IN and THE signify that these are the main aspects within the film and therefore giving the impression that there will be danger because of the significance in the title.

Conventions

The conventions of the poster are followed successfully  With all my conventions I researched before being shown. This being main title, main image, release date, institutional paragraph etc. However despite these being shown, star reviews from other companies such as news papers and other haven't been put on this poster. This may have drawbacks as the audience wouldn't know whether it is good or not and therefore have trouble on whether to decide to watch it or not. The colour scheme of the poster is followed successfully, as it involved dark colours as show in the colour  scheme I made. 


How does it relate to the narrative?

With regards to how much the poster actually gives away about the film, the poster is quite ambiguous. Just presenting an image of the cabin does not make many links to the narrative apart from the main location in which something happens to the college boys. The different colours within the poster may add some sense to the audience that it is dark and scary adding fear to them. One of these interpretations is that the characters in the film enquire major danger within these woods that they stay in. These themes may be linked to how the characters feels within the film therefore some relation to the narrative is made there. Despite this, the poster only presents one aspect in the shot which does not really give away the narrative apart from being about horror/thriller apart from the colour and text font.

Lighting

This film uses low key lighting within the image on the poster. The effect of this type of lighting creates a dark tone which links to mood that the film displays about horror/thriller. Where the image is covered by dark colours, the image is darker which can bring in a negative mood towards the theme of horror it is trying to present.