Poster Analysis #2: Ant-Man

Following on from last fortnight's analysis of The Jungle Book, here's another great poster that can be used for visual literacy with high school English classes. It isn't an official poster released by Marvel's marketing team but instead comes from a freelance designer, Thomas Walker. This, however, doesn't preclude it from analysis as it still has a lot going for it in terms of its elements working together towards a common promotional goal.

Here are some of the elements broken down...

Vector and Perspective: One of this poster's various striking design choices is the array of red and black points that come in from the left, bottom, and right sides of the poster's boundaries. Each one of these is an example of a vector, with the eye being drawn along these lines to a common point of interest - Ant-Man himself. The tapering of these lines, coupled with the way that the ant-shadow becomes smaller as we track it from the border inwards to the middle of the poster, creates a sense of perspective as well. 

Size: One of the themes of the poster is the diminutive size of the hero, which fittingly echoes the content of the film itself. The size of Ant-Man could be interpreted by the eye as a figure placed far away into the background and, while this is true, the aforementioned tapering perspective also helps to sell the idea that this is a three-dimensional view of a small figure. The ant-shadow provides a frame of reference for this size and conveys the idea that the hero is dwarfed by ants.

Salience: As mentioned in the previous blog entry, salience is a subjective matter whereby the viewer identifies the main visual item in the image's mise en scene. Students may choose either Ant-Man or the ant-shadow as the focal point (or something else?). Part of the fun of this will be in getting the students to justify their opinion by describing the impact that things like vectors or scale and size may have had on their verdict.

Shadow / Contrast: The stark white background provides enough contrast to ensure that Ant-Man stands out despite his smaller size. In addition to this, the shadow of the ant provides a contrasting counterpoint to all this white and balances the mise en scene from a design standpoint. The ant-shadow also plays a more symbolic role (albeit a really obvious piece of symbolism) in that it represents the lead character's connection to ants. The size of the ant-shadow further symbolises the extent of the hero's power too.

Colour Choice: The design choice of red and black for the tapered points is a no-brainer as it matches Ant-Man's costume. Generally speaking, the overall combination of red, black, and white can have more particular connotations. In Western culture, the colours black and red have the most sinister and 'evil' associations (death, darkness, blood, stop) and have historical ties to a range of evils both in reality (the Nazi Party) and in fiction (vampire cloaks, Darth Maul and the First Order in Star Wars, V for Vendetta's totalitarian regime, the bad guys in Tron, Mordor's colour palette in the Lord of the Rings films, House Bolton in Game of Thrones). It isn't much of a step from here to create a broader colour palette - this typically expands to include white and grey. So what do we make of the decision to create a hero using these traditionally diabolical colours? Well, for a start, the decision to costume Ant-Man in this way tracks back to the original comics from the 1960s. It isn't just super-villains who prefer this colour scheme - both Coca-Cola and the White Stripes also have a love for all things red, black, and white. It's a very eye-catching combination. Thematically though, we can take into account the idea that Marvel Film's Ant-Man starts as an anti-hero of sorts - he is an ex-con who has just served significant jail-time and he has a history of committing petty crime. Perhaps we can tie the colour choice for this character to the idea that he isn't your typical superhero? At the least, colour theory supports the combination of these colours as complimentary.

Dutch Angle: The poster uses a 'dutch' or tilted angle. This askew view is a popular directorial choice in the morally-grey film noir genre as well as narratives set in psychologically-complex or disturbed settings. We can interpret the designer's choice here in two ways. The first is that the generic convention of this angle plays into the character's criminal backstory; Paul Rudd's hapless character would not be that out of place as the protagonist in an actual film noir. The second interpretation is that the tilted view has a suggestion of slight disorientation, which links in with Ant-Man's power to shrink himself and change the way he interacts with his environment (often with disorientating effect). 

Match Cut: Ant-Man's leg shadows have been matched with the ant's antennae in the mise en scene of the poster. For want of a better term, I'm going to call this a 'match cut' - a reference to a film technique where a shot of something will cut to a shot of something else whilst retaining some common element. One of the most famous examples of this is Stanley Kubrick's 2001, where a caveman throws a bone into the air and the next shot features a satellite rotating through space in a similar manner to said bone. The purpose of the match cut is to create a thematic link between two completely separate scenes in separate settings. In this poster for Ant-Man, the designer has created a link between the hero and the ant by making their shadows overlap one another. 

Body Language: The posture of Ant-Man is suggestive of Marvel's now-familiar 'hero' shot. This is a shot where the hero is photographed from behind with their head turned to one side. It accentuates the musculature of the back and is suggestive of someone steeling themselves to defend against an attack (a heroic idea in itself - the hero is never the one to strike first). Marvel love this pose and have made it something of a meme for all their heroes.

Other Elements: There are a couple of other small touches that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the poster. The particles around the edges are a nice addition as they could be viewed as a form of foreshadowing that's representative of Ant-Man's ultimate quest in the film to shrink himself down to the molecular level. Another element is the way in which the font choice for the film title is reminiscent of classic comic fonts from the 1960s. 

And, even though this isn't an official poster, the absence of Paul Rudd's name speaks to the fact that it isn't necessary for Marvel to sell their films on the basis of an actor's presence - it's the characters that audiences go to see with superhero films (case in point, how many people have been disappointed by the cinematic Hulk being played by three separate actors? Or how easy is it for studios to recast Batman without fear of audience backlash?)

Questions for Students

Students will need to think about some of the bigger questions tied to the purpose of a film poster.

1. What message is this poster trying to convey about the film?
2. How does this poster want the audience to think about the film?
3. What is the poster designer relying on to help 'sell' the film?

In order to get them there, you could ask a range of questions related to the above visual literacy elements. Think about:

1. What is the significance of the colours used?
2. Comment on the body language and placement of Ant-Man, and how the viewer interacts with this.
3. Describe the more symbolic elements of the poster and explain how and why they've been used.
   
4. What is the salient part of the image? How do you know this?
5. Draw the vectors and indicate where they lead the eye, and why.
6. Describe the mise en scene and angle/size of the shot.
7. What genres are being suggested, how are they being suggested, and why are they being suggested?
8. Explain why the film does not have a tagline or actor names in big letters. 

And then, after all of the above has been completed, ask students to consider whether they think the poster worked in getting their attention and why this was the case. If they did not like the poster, they will need to justify how they would redesign it.