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.

Poster Analysis #1: The Jungle Book

In a previous life I wrote a lot of film reviews. It made little money but it was a labor of love and, hey, who doesn't love movies? I still love cinema but I don't get anywhere near enough time these days to keep up with its latest ebbs and flows. 

 

I can still indulge in my fascination with film posters though because the internet is awash in them!

One of the benefits of the internet is that it democratised information. Things became accessible to a broader range of people and this continues to grow broader, meaning that if you have the inclination to design your own film poster you can do this and then potentially share it with millions upon millions of other people. This also works for the big guys too, with any marketed material now proliferated throughout the internet.

Over the next month I've decided to tackle Nanowrimo for the third time (third time's the charm, right?) so I'll have little time to write blog posts. I thought I might keep things ticking along by looking at a few posters.

There are several striking things about the above poster that tie into the study of visual literacy in the English classroom. Let's break it down element by element.

Light and Shade: The borders of the poster are cast in shadow, creating silhouette-like effects for the figures in the foreground. This 'vignetting' of the image pulls the viewer's focus into the middle, where the source of light is, which brings us to...

Salience: The salient (main) feature of an image is usually its central figure, or a large piece of writing. This is almost always a matter of perspective - what each viewer sees as having salience may differ, as does the creator's vision of what will be salient. It's worth thinking of a poster as an exercise in persuasion - it's a product design to persuade the viewer to be interested. I would argue that the salient part of this image is one of it's smallest visual features - the flame in Mowgli's hand, which may be making a thematic point. A lot of the elements work together to draw our eye to this point. But, as mentioned, this is a matter of perspective. 

Colour: Colour often functions as a form of symbolism. We attach colours to certain connotations or associations, dependent on our cultural background. For example, in Western cultures the colour white is used to symbolise purity and peace (as seen in the wearing of a white dress at a wedding, or the waving of a white flag). In Ancient Egypt, however, white was the colour for death, and among the Bedouin peoples white represents fertility and happiness. In the case of The Jungle Book, the colours are organic, orange/yellow to represent the light brought by Mowgli, and blue/green to demonstrate the nature-based setting of the jungle.

Colour wheels demonstrate colour oppositions and help designers select colours that will contrast well with one another.

 

Colour also functions, from a design standpoint, in concert with other colours for aesthetic impact. A cursory understanding of colour theory will help students comprehend why certain colour palettes are used when creating images for film. The poster for The Jungle Book takes a muted approach to the often overused blue/orange contrast (look up blue/orange film posters to see just how often these two colours get used together). Part of the reason for this is that it demonstrates a juxtaposition between a 'cool' colour and a 'warm' one, which can assist with attracting the eye. 

Camera Angle / Shot Size: The camera is placed somewhere between eye level and slightly lower, and captures an extreme long shot of Mowgli in his environment. The angle and shot size work together to place an emphasis on the setting (the jungle) and Mowgli's role in leading a vanguard of sorts into this realm (making him the viewer's identification point in this poster/film). The size of Mowgli in comparison to the environment also suggests a certain power in the setting - that Mowgli is dwarfed against these ruins suggests that they are something to be reckoned with, something that will feature significantly in the film.

Mise en scene: This French term literally translates as 'setting the stage' and refers to the design of things within the shot. A director needs to consider mise en scene when arranging what the audience sees in each shot and how they see it. In this case, we have an 'over-the-shoulder' shot of sorts that places the viewer on the shoulder of the animals as they look up towards Mowgli. The image itself is neatly split into background-midground-foreground by the architecture, creating a three-dimensional effect looking into the environment, which dovetails nicely into the film's promotion as a '3D' experience. 

Focus: The camera is focused predominantly on the foreground and, at a pinch, the midground too. The large statue-head in the background is unfocused - perhaps inviting curiosity from the viewer, a sense of something being held back out of reach, something that would bear further investigation if the viewer agrees to watch the film. 

Vectors: Images often utilise lines (imagined or real) to draw the viewer's eye to where the designer wants them to look first. There aren't clear, strong examples of this in The Jungle Book's poster, but the contours of the animals in the foreground - the big cat, the wolf, the monkeys, and even the snake, all seem to point towards Mowgli in the middle. This isn't a coincidence; he's the main character. This is part of how we know he's intended to be interpreted as the main character.

Font: There's a slightly cursive, scimitar-like quality to the key parts of the lettering that is reminiscent of colonial India. The pock-marked texturing of the letters also correlates with the texture of the ruins in the image, suggesting the worn and aged surface of stone structures deep within the jungle. 

Gaze: Gaze is often characterised in terms of how the viewer engages with media. In the English classroom this can refer to where a central character is looking in an image - do the eyes make contact with the camera (and therefore the audience)? Do they look off-centre at something else? What do these acts symbolise in relation to the content of the text? In the case of The Jungle Book, we are given no eyes to observe. Instead, Mowgli's gaze is elsewhere. The gaze of the animals is elsewhere. Where do these eyes look? What role is the audience being cast into by this act? These things coincide to place emphasis on the setting and it's three-dimensional quality. It's an invitation to adventure.

Generic Conventions: Allowing the viewer to identify genre is a big part of a film's effort to promote itself. In this case, The Jungle Book suggests the genres of adventure and fantasy through its inclusion of animals, architecture suggestive of ancient civilisation, the boy's heroic and curious stance, and the previously-mentioned evocations of the font and the gaze of the characters. The image also showcases the computer-generated scenery and animal-characters that feature in the film - elements made possible by 21st century technology. This is a wave of technological innovation that has played into Disney's relatively recent effects-driven wave of adapting their classic animated oeuvre into live action, a trend that could be seen as a 2010s-2020s sub-genre unto itself (see their effects-heavy live action remakes of: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, Dumbo).

Promotional Choices: The choice to only portray these characters from behind could also be interpreted as a deliberate 'holding back' of detail. Disney knows that these are popular characters and that a big drawcard for modern audiences will be seeing what Shere Khan, Baloo, Bagheera, King Louie, etc., all look like in this expensive, modern adaptation. The property itself - a story produced by Disney from a well-known book and a well-known animated film - means that there is little need to rely on A-list actors to attract viewers. Hence, we don't see any actors in the poster, and the names are relatively small. There is also no need for a tagline - it's The Jungle Book, most people already know approximately what it is, so Disney knows that their best approach is to instead focus on their recreation of this beloved story and the way that modern cutting-edge special effects are being used to bring it to life.

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 are the filmmakers relying on to 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. How has colour been used to attract the viewer's attention?
2. How has colour been used to represent the film's themes?
3. Comment on the body language and gaze of the characters, and how the viewer interacts with these.
4. What is the salient part of the image?
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 genre is being suggested and how?
8. Explain why the film does not have a tagline.

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.