Short Film Poster Research: 'Shades of Hope' - Zoe Cameron-Waller

'Shades of Hope'

 

Shades of Hope is a portrait short film poster in which displays the main image of a solider character. This reveals part of the narrative as it becomes apparent that the plot is most likely war based due to his army-like costume and the gun prop. The character is positioned upon a blend between a dark sky and the American flag. This also reveals part of the narrative as it's obvious that this war based film is focused on America. The use of the helicopter images and explosions that lurk in the background also portray the idea of war and enhances the conflict theme. The war and conflict themes generate an Action War genre in which involves semantic codes such as guns and helicopters that imply syntactic codes such as explosions, death and war-in terms of Altman's theory. These props are often repeated conventions within an Action War film and we generally associate these props with a conflict film, according to Neale's theory of Repetition.

The soldiers body language hides his facial expression due to the way his head is dramatically bowed in a sorrowful way. The rest of his body appears to be stiff and still to reflect the strictness of army life. His body language works with the title 'Shades of Hope' as his sorrowful posture implies that he's hoping to live perhaps.

The main title itself is coloured white in order to appear visually appealing positioned on top of a dark and gloomy background. The use of pathetic fallacy allows the background to reflect the sinister war zones and the danger of conflict. The font is fairly thin and traditional which creates a classic looking appearance. In fact, all the text including the billing block, release date and the actors names are all coloured white which creates a clear theme running through the poster. The billing block is aligned both sides meaning the gap from the edge is equal on each side. This is the same for the title and actors names; the film poster appears as professional and carefully constructed if the text is aligned correctly and doesn't differ on each side.

The poster uses low key lighting to represent the doom and gloom of the conflict theme and to emphasise the need of hope which reflects the title. The title is the biggest text on the poster which follows the film poster convention of always ensuring that the main title is the biggest piece of text as it's the most significant. This would attract a male audience due to the manly theme of war which most females wouldn't find appealing. It would appeal to young males possibly as young as 16.