Media Text Analysis

Friday 14th September 2018:

During this lesson today with Luke we looked at how to understand a piece of media text, such as films, TV shows. posters, magazines etc. We first looked at the Pulp Fiction movie poster together as a class to see the codes and conventions of it. We then found a film poster of our choice and wrote about that. I chose the Film Django Unchained as this is the most recent film I have watched. 

Django Unchained:

This is a mid-western/action film. I know this by the use of cowboy hats and guns that are shown on the cover. The character of Jamie Foxx is at the center of the poster which shows he is the leading character, but Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz are on either side, showing that whilst they are still vital characters, the story is based on Jamie Foxx's character. 

The splats of blood around them and the guns they are holding shows that this will be an action film, as it portrays violence and implies there will be gun fights throughout the film. It's giving the audience a taste of what to expect from the film itself, whilst at the same time not giving away too much information that it spoils the plot of it. The use of red shows danger and as the rest of the poster is black and white, it stands out and makes the audience focus on it better.

The cover also clearly shows the names of the lead characters in the film, enticing the audience to watch it as they are well known popular actors who are widely liked. By creating a film with a well known cast they are appealing to more people; some people will watch the film purely because their favourite actor is in it as they want to support them and see some more of their work. 

Overall, this is a very powerful poster. It gives the audience enough information for them to decide weather or not they want to watch the film; a poster is a vital part of any film and Django Unchained has been successful in encouraging people to watch their film.