...Med1 Practice Essay...

The medium being analysed is print and is a movie poster for 'I am Legend' although it is not clear what the movie title is unless you see the website address. The poster is there to sell the movie, it is there to promote it to attract the targeted audience.

The first aspect of the poster which stands out is the bold typography. 'The Last man on Earth Is not Alone' hints us the narrative of the movie, although we are not sure that if it is the film title, it seems more like a tag line. The assumption of the tag line hinting us the narrative/genre corrresponds to the setting which is behind the typography. The text is transparent which allows the audience to see the background. It covers most of the poster frame, the font size gets bigger as it goes down the poster. The word 'Alone' is directly behind the person who may be the protagonist in the movie this implies that he may be the last man on earth and is not alone. Other credits we see is 'Will Smith' which is above the film title, this is the protagonists name, i can say this because the character is well known within the action genre. Some other credits such as 'december' is understandable that is the release month and 'iamlegend.com' would undoubtedly be the direct website address for the film, this would be for the contemporary people who use computers, so the advertisers not only just want to use print media but also electronic media i.e. diversification in advertising, this would sell the movie to more people, trying to attract a wider audience.

There is low key lighting used, which implies gloomyness and mysteriousness, this realates to the genre of the movie, which can be urban action and thriller this can be said by looking at the Mise-en-scene of the poster and relating by the well known protagonist. Also the film looks like it is set in a urban area, we can see the New York skyline in the background, the Empire state building is a symbolic sign as it is linked and it represents Amercia, the indexical sign is identified by the audience and know that the film is set in America-New York, it strikes out to the audience as it is is well known skyscraper.

The Character is more focused than anything on the poster, so this implies that they are quite important in the film. The focus of the background is quite faint, which makes it quite gloomy. The postion of the character emphasise confidence, it seems as if he/she is walking from completing a mission/or saving the day. Although the character covers a small part of the poster but he/she is clearly focused. The characteristics of the protagonist seems masculine and that it is a man, the props that they wear are casual clothes, this shows a fair representation of the character, it seems that he is an normal city citizen. We can clearly see the protagonist is ethnically black, mature adult. 'Will Smith' has always represented the Black ethnicity in his films and has shown that he holds a responsible role in any film he does. This may be because he wants to break the general stereotyping of Black men and that not everyone is bad or violent, but helpful and that Black people can hold resourceful/responsible roles. Overall the poster tries to hold a neutral representation of black people.

The target market that would be for this film would be 15 year olds or over. The primary target market would be people who are interested in the type of genre, this would usually be men. The male audience would be attracted becuase of the genre or as they would identify themselves with Will Smith. On the other hand the secondary audience would be the Female audience, the female will only be attracted by the character Will Smith, as the character would be a sexual object for the female, which would fulfil their fantasy.

The poster reinforces many ideologies and values, the main one is Nationalism, this is becuase Will Smith is American and we see the Empire State Building so this tells us that the protagonist is showing nationalism, a slightly showing the patrioism Ideology, as he is representing America. However there is patriarchy ideology shown in the poster, as there is no other person except one man, the text that appears on the poster 'the last man...' tells us that the last person in the world is a man, corresponds to the first person on earth which was 'Adam'. This reinforces the fact that man rules the world.

The Institution of the text is not stated, but it seems a big budget film.

The Narrative is not known, but the audience can create some own ideas about the movie.