Poster Reasearch #1 - 'Moments' - Sam McLeish

'Moments' (Chris Cronin, 2013, UK)

'Moments' is a British short film that describes itself as an Comedy-Romance hybrid short film on IMDB.

Media Language 

This poster is actually incredibly clever in conveying it's message to the audience as there is no information about the film in the ways of text, except from the title. Instead, it relies on the way that the poster is created.  

The main focus of the poster is clearly the couple at the front. In this mid shot, the couple's body language suggests that they are slow dancing. This sort of dance is normally associated by society as the dance that a couple will take at their wedding, an idea that is further supported by the confetti surrounding the couple. However, this idea is disproved due to the fact that both of the couple are wearing casual clothes which would be unacceptable at a formal event. Therefore, we can assume that this dance that they are taking is unexpected, as shown in the female's surprised facial expressions and by the fact that the characters are in uncomplimentary outfits.

Representation

This poster represents the female character as rather smitten by the male, so she is the 'princess' if you were to apply Todorov's character theory. The usual connotations of this suggest to the audience that the female character's only purpose within the film is for the male's love interest and in doing so, the story-line will not go into the trouble of developing her a backstory. This would normally disengage a modern, more progressive audience as females are seen as equal to the males in society and we would expect our media to respect, as seen in films with female roles such as 'The Hunger Games' or 'Divergent'.

Audience

For this film, it is quite clear that the target audience would be females rather than male. This is because, stereotypically, the male demographic of our society is less likely to want to watch a 'chick-flick' romance-comedy film and the poster reflects this. For example, the font of the title is in elegant cursive and the red heart above it shows that it appeals to an audience that will engage with the concept of a romance-led storyline. This idea also works with the idea above that the female is truly in-love with the male.

Comparisons to other posters
The poster for 'Moments' is rather unique for the industry, mainly due to the fact that it doesn't feature the crucial information that is usually required, being the billing block, social media information, reviews and awards. Although this minimalistic design doesn't distract your audience, it makes it more difficult for your audience to engage with the content that you've created. For example, a website or access to a social media platform allows these pages to act as a second layer of advertising for the audience to receive to convince them to engage with your film.