500 Days of Summer Film Poster

Whilst I was researching film posters I chose to go for the genre that really grasps my attention and also features one of my favourite films being, 500 Days of Summer. As the audience the title of the film doesn’t quite reveal the targeted genre leaving the target audience unspecific. When I was finding the film poster I came across that there was more than 1 poster which is a clever technique used to interested more than once specific group of audience.

The first poster I came across was the one above, in my opinion it focuses more on the female audience as the main focus point is a ‘cute’ man which is a typical stereotypical appearance used in a chick flick/romantic film. Although it could also attract men because of the use of colour being blue, this draws the attention away from it being a typical chick flick therefore it may be a little more appealing to men than competitive chick flick films. This poster immediately gives the audience symptoms and expectations about the content and style of text according to its genre. Although the background isn’t a typical colour used for a ‘chick flick’ the blue colourings suggest certain coldness and possibly foreshadow a sad conclusion but on the other hand pleasure may be drawn from differences. The title of the film, which looks as if it is printed on the man’s t-shirt, is also blue this keeps the colour palette simple and emphasises the attention drawn to the main focus being the man. The pictures which also look as if they have been printed on his t-shirt give the audience an insight to the content of the film and give a taste of the events taking place and the actors/actresses featured in the film. By doing this is could increase the interest of the audience as well as targeted a specific group, mainly girls. This leads on to my next point of the actor and actress’ name also being a main focus o the t-shirt as the audience interested in this particular film could also be a fan of these actors which would make them more inclined to watch the film.

  The quote on the right hand side of the poster from a Radio 1 presenter makes the poster more eye-catching, not only does the bold white font draw your attention to the quote but also the 4 stars beneath it which is a familiar icon informing you, as the audience, it has more than a good rating. If you are the targeted audience the four stars alone would be a big influence to enable you to want to see the film. Although all the elements I have spoken about above suggest the film has the typical conventions of a chick flick the other snippet of text on the bottom right hand side gives a slight twist to the genre, typically in all chick flicks the boy and girl eventually fall in love and live happily ever after but here it clearly states they don’t fall in love, easily. This gives the audience unexpected pleasure and an anticipation to want to see the film. The billing block, which has to be present on a film poster, is in the bottom right hand corner giving additional information such as the names of the producers etc which the audience rarely read but it may be useful at times.

This is the second poster I came across whilst researching into 500 Days of Summer, this immediately caught my attention and gave off the impression it is a conventional chick flick, I immediately came to this conclusion because of the soft colours that had been used giving off a calming and warming vibe. The positioning of the two main characters also gives away the genre of the film as it shows their closeness and relationship, which is exactly what the target audiences will be looking out for. This poster again has the names of both the main actors. Surprisingly the title isn’t in striking colours, yet it still draws the audience’s attention due to the bold font. The billing board is also in the bottom right hand corner of this film poster but is a lot more lighter than the previous one almost impossible to see. The conventions of a typical chick flick are consistent as the mise en scene also suggests a typical cliché, for example the boy looks as if he is subtly geeky as he is wearing reasonably smart trousers, a shirt and a woolly tank top stereotyping him to be a ‘nobody’ where as the girl, Summer, looks attractive in a cute light blue bow dress yet she also looks a little geeky but almost uninterested in her facial expressions, although smiling, she is looking away from the camera and the boy perhaps a way to foreshadow such events. We get the impression that the characters are both a little quirky we have knowledge of this for example, take a typical James Bond film Bond himself usually wears a tuxedo which fits in with his stereotype of being extremely masculine, powerful and stylish then Bond girls usually wear elegant long red or black dresses with glamorous jewellery and makeup which shows their level of power and beauty. This is a good comparison to make as it defines the genre of the film and applies the appearance to a specific target audience, in this case it would be females.

The final poster I researched into was the antithesis to the other two posters I commented on. The most obvious different was the use of bright colours, the yellow star shape behind the title not only drew the audience to the name of the film but also emphasised the picture collaged behind it. This poster seems a lot more crowded and busy than the other two which remained very simple yet subtle. It not only used colour and images but also symbols and texts to make it more eye-catching. In my opinion this film poster focuses on the target audience of both men and women but can be more appealing to men than the other two posters I looked into. I came to this conclusion because without taking a closer look at the pictures in the background it doesn’t give off the vibe of being a typical rom-com/chick flick. The use of vivid colour also draws the male attention and the caption states ‘This is not a love story. This is a story about love’ which almost foreshadows the content taking away the typical rom-com/chick flick ending. Again the billing block is on the bottom right hand corner which is the brightest of them all almost impossible to see.