RESEARCH: ANALYSING FILM POSTER 4

Colour scheme

The colour scheme for the Silence of the Lambs poster focuses mainly on blue and red tones. Running down from the right side of the poster, along the cheekbone and to the neck is a blue tone. This adds a grainy look to the poster and really emphasises the blue.  The other colour evident in the poster is red; the girls eyes are red, along with the moth’s wings and the title of the film. (explain red and blah blah danger)

Position of text and image

All of the text is towards the bottom of the poster, the image covers the majority of the poster, as it is iconic and eye catching.  The top bit of text is the names of people featured in the film; Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn. Under this we see the title of the film, followed “from the terrifying best seller”, and after that the institutional information.

Film title design

The title of the film The Silence of the Lambs is featured in red and is the largest text seen on the page. The title of the film does not take up that much room, as the key aspect of this poster is the image of the girl, however to still draw the eye to the text, it is placed in the same colour as both the eyes of the girl in the poster, and the top set of wings on the moth feature the colour red. Another thing that makes the title stand out is it is the only coloured text on the poster. The rest of the text is white or grey.

Institutional information

This is found at the bottom of the poster and says a jonathan demme picture, it then features the names of the three actors who star in the movie. Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, it then says the title of the film, and then says another actors name, Ted Levine. Then it states who did the music, who was the production designer, the director of photography, the editor, the executive producer, the author who wrote the novel the film was based upon, the screenplay writer, and the producer and director.

Characters & Iconography

The moth featured on the girls lips is iconic, the skull on the moth is the skull made up of 7 naked women, which was created by surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The moth and its cousin butterfly are extremely symbolic to The Silence of the Lambs.

Genre

The colour scheme and eeriness of the photo in the poster is what leads the genre to horror. The colour scheme being dark colours, with blacks and blues and then featuring red, which is the colour of blood and represents danger. The skull on the moth also gives away the horror aspect of the film, as it shows a direct link to death.