Gone Girl Poster

Gone Girl (2014)

Genre: Drama/Mystery/Thriller

This poster is conventional for it’s genre of  a drama/thriller film. Firstly, the colour scheme is dark, cloudy and grey, which presents a melancholy feel to the poster therefore associating the film with a glum feel. The image in the poster is a man facing sideways so we see his back and part of his face. He is standing alone, and although we can barely see the face, the audience is aware it is the well-renown Ben Affleck. Ben has starred in many Hollywood films, ultimately the audience can already recognise this film will be a success.

His name also features at the top in white, thin font alongside Rosamund Pike’s who is also very famous in the Hollywood scene. The concept of including the  A-List stars who are in the film, in the poster is drawing an audience in, who will most likely want to see a film featuring these two actors.

The image also contains a pair of eyes, that take up most of the width of the poster and they fade into the dark sky background. This gives a feel of danger and threat, as if someone is watching you. This is conventional to the genre, and as the eyes are faded it doesn’t straight away jump out at the audience, this is a clever tactic used to initially draw the reader in then allow them to realise they are looking at a set of eyes that appear to be looking sideways at something else, creating a sense of fear and questions such as what are they looking at?

The title features in the centre of the poster, in large bold font, with a grey colour filling the text. This is so the audience can straight away know what they are looking at and what the film is called, the use of the title fading into the clouds corresponds with the sub-title, which reads “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’VE GOT ‘TIL IT’S GONE”, hence the use of clouds submerging the title, and it is starting to disappear and go. The subtitle is punchy and relates to the title, so the audience will remember it and think about what happens to the ‘gone girl’?. The title itself is short and memorisable, by using an alliteration to form the title it is short, flowing and snappy so the audience will remember the film, and think about going to see it.

The news report positioned across Ben’s body makes him seem disorientated or not real. This could suggest the news report which gives an ambiguous running line of “SEARCH FOR ‘AMAZING’ … CONTINUES” is ruining Ben’s life. Either he is searching for the missing girl too, or he has involvement in her disappearance. The use of only including part of the news report line is provoking curiosity from the audience, just like how the catchy subtitle does. A news report is also conventional of a thriller, drama and mystery  film, as many people go missing, die or end up injured within these genre films.

Right at the bottom, in white font stands the release date which stands out against the dull colours of the poster. This is conventional for a poster as it lets the audience look out for the release date, and when they can go and see the film. By putting a release date on your products, the profits will increase as people will know when to look out for the film if they are interested.

Finally, the credits at the bottom portrayed in sentences featuring long, narrow thin font gives the audience a sense of who created the film, who was involved and who produced it. This is just in small print as it’s pretty insignificant and it just gives credit to those involved to a mass audience.

The poster also doesn’t include age ratings, which is unconventional as many people like to know what they might be seeing when going to watch the film, however due to the genre and adult actors shown in this poster it is expected to be around a 12 or 15 age rating, which many who see this poster will be or above.