Winter's Bone & Unknown poster analysis

1. Analyse the two film posters commenting on:

WINTER’S BONE

The main image on the Winter’s Bone poster, showing three people on a boat, has an isolated feel to it. The low key lighting used by one of the characters connotes undiscovered horrors, this is emphasised by the darkness of the trees. This image also raises questions for the audience like ‘What are they looking for?’ it also gives the audience the expectation that they will find what they are looking for. Another that gives this image a supernatural feel is the fact that the torch is aimed towards the audience. This may suggest that one of the characters has noticed something unordinary and is looking at it, this shows that this image maybe a point of view shot from something or someone unknown.

The image at the top of this ad, the one with Jennifer’s character on it, has supernatural qualities to it. Its opacity with the cloud background gives it a misty feel, which connotes the supernatural, this is emphasised by the characters hair blowing. Furthermore, the brightness of the image also distinguishes it from the trees from the other images, the brightness makes the character look ghost like. The characters expression in the image adds a dramatic and realistic tone to the film, this gives audiences some expectations for the film.

UNKNOWN

The main image in Unknown’s poster shows a character played by Liam Neeson stood dramatically, making eye contact with the audience. This adds a serious tone to the film, the use of low key lighting adds to this dramatic yet serious tone. The characters eyebrows suggest that the character is sceptical, adding to the mysterious feel to the poster. The main strip across the middle of the advert has a timeline like feel to it, possibly showing the storyline of the film and highlighting the events. This adds to the ‘unknown’ feel that this character has. The title suggests that the characters memory is damaged, this is also emphasised by the phrase ‘Take back your life’. The fact that the ‘timeline’ like images are distorted or damaged also suggest this storyline about memory loss. The main actors name is placed just above the movie, and is nearly bigger than the title. This tells us that this actor adds a wide amount of ‘star appeal’ to the film.