Analysis of Film Poster 4
The film poster I will be analysing is the poster for the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, sequel to the extremely popular Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a reboot of the famous Planet of the Apes movies. Looking at the poster there are many giveaways as to what may occur in the movie whilst still providing an intruging undertone to the poster that draws the audience to want to see the film. Firstly, the focus of the poster is upon the main ape in the movie Caesar, riding a horse.
This is significant as horses are usually only rode by humans whereas on the poster the horse is being rode by an ape showing how the apes have become as advanced as humans and are evolving. This creates a sense of fear for what could occur in the movie as we can assume that apes are now going to attempt to overrun the human population.
The gun that Caesar is holding in the poster is also suprising as it is an assault rifle, typically used by Americans to defend themselves, Caesar, an ape holding this weapon shows how apes have learnt the humans weaponry and holding it above their head provides a sense of conquering the humans. Furthermore, the way the horse is rearing whilst Caesar is looking like he is shouting orders to his fellow primates looks similar to that of Napoleon on his rearing horse preparing for the revoloution indicating a revolution of apes over humans.
Another outstanding part of this poster is the Golden Gate Bridge being split and on fire, this is a significant point of the poster as on the previous movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar led the apes across the Golden Gate Bridge to Redwoood where the apes reside in the movie and they launched a battle against police in order to get to the forest. The bridge being broken indicates that the humans and apes have broke down communication and are seperate societies now and the fire could suggest a a sense of war/destruction still ensuing as the fire is still ignited. The use of the Golden Gate Bridge being on fire would shock audiences as it is a national andmark and it being destroyed would cause the audience to wonder why it had broken and why it was on fire, another reason this would be included would be to connect this film with the previous one as it was one of the most intense scenes in the previous film.
In the background we can see a city in ruins with buildings on fire and crumbling away showing how human life has declined as something has occured to lead to these large skyscrapers falling apart. This suggests that human have gone backwards and their technologies and power in society is now challenged by the existence of the super smart apes which have challenged humans position in society. The crumbling of these buildings suggests that human life has gone backwards and a fight for survival may ensue.
The poster has a consistent house style and uses the same text as which was featured in the previous movie so the audience can recognise the font and associate it to the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise which features the same text on its poster, DVD case and in the opening credits in the movie etc. The poster also features dull colours with a low contrast apart from the release date, which is bright red making it outstanding on the poster so the audience knows exactly when the movie is due to be released.
The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes poster also features common conventions of movie posters with the production company logos being on the poster and a link to a social media site with the #DAWNOFAPES meaning that users of the social media site Twitter would search that hashtag to see what people are saying about the movie, the poster also features an official movie website. However, unlike many film posters, this poster does not feature a billing block or any names of the actors in the film.