'Winter's Bone' and 'Unknown' comparison

The poster for the first film gives very little away about the plot of the film, although it holds enough information to interest viewers. First of all, it contains lots of reviews from different newspapers and websites who are well known for reviewing the most popular movies. This in itself will interest followers of the website/newspapers, as the reviews positively reinforce the quality of the film. The reviews are enough to interest many film enthusiasts as they will be curious to experience the film and determine whether it lives up to the hype which has been built around it. The second poster doesn’t have any reviews on it however, considering the Liam Neeson is a well-known actor and every film he has done has always had a good review so it was unnecessary to display the reviews that are used in order to interest the audience.
The poster for the second film is different in terms of layout compared to the first poster, the positioning and the montage of the images in the middle of the poster suggests narrative. The main character is enlarged on the poster, the intent gaze of his facial expression is very direct, almost patronizing.
The poster for Winter’s Bone uses a range of graphic design features. The font uses a mottled effect and a bold white colour. The use of the white font symbolises the whiteness associated with winter and snow and cold. The use of the white font also links with the word bone and the colour of bones being typically white. The association of the white font with the word bone triggers pejorative meanings for the audience which can link to the cultural symbol of bones signifying death and skeletons. It is the largest sized text on the poster which emphasizes that it’s the title of the film and also its importance. The awards that the film has won is displayed on the poster which really helps to add to the hype of the film as it will pique the viewer’s curiosity even more knowing that awards have been won. In the second poster for Unknown, the font is in large bold capital letters. Compared to the first poster, the font is much bigger and more inviting. The word Unknown suggests that either there is a piece of unidentified information that hasn’t been established and he is trying to find out what it is or maybe he’s trying to locate someone but their location is unknown.
The main actors who star in this film are Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Garret Dillahunt. These actor’s names are displayed at the bottom of the poster amongst the credit block which suggests that they aren’t well known and not one of the main focuses of this film. On the poster itself, it is very obvious that the three characters in the boat are in fact the three main characters. They are located in the middle of a large lake surrounded by giant trees which in comparison with the surroundings, this makes the characters look small and isolated. In the top right hand corner there is a large image of a female character merged into the background dressed in thick winter inspired clothing with a worried expression on her face. The connotations of this are that she is the main character in the movie and the worried expression on her face expresses the dangers that this certain character is going to face. On the second poster, just above the title Unknown, there is a name, Liam Neeson, a famous male actor who is very well-known for action/thriller movies. Considering his fame, just his name has been highlighted on the poster and this suggests a sense of familiarity and also predictability as you know what to expect considering that most of his movies are very familiar.
The poster has an overall dark, gloomy colour scheme, the low key lighting overshadows the slight areas of the poster where bright light can be seen. This could suggest to the audience that there are some positive events however they are outweighed by the scarier events. The low key lighting suggests that the genre of this film is a mixture of mystery, drama and thriller. You get a sense of horror however it is very small considering the worried/anxious look on the girls face reveals that something terrible is about to take place but not so terrible that it is considered as freighting, more thrilling. The second poster’s genre can be immediately identified by looking at the tagline and the title, it suggests to the audience that the genre is action. The iconography of the gun, setting and the clothing of the character also suggests action and the montage of images suggests enigma as it’s almost as if it is revealing clues and action.
The poster uses a range of mise-en-scene codes such as setting and costume. The main character is dressed in thick clothing which suggests to the audience that the movie will be set during the winter and warm clothing is a suitable idea. One of the characters who is in the boat surrounded by large tree’s in the middle of a lake is holding a flashlight, this implies that they are searching for something as they are most likely also in a remote area which suggests that the narrative will be circled around the genre of mystery. The name of the film, ‘Winter’s Bone’ suggests that this film is going to involve lots of drama as both words of the title release a negative impact. ‘Bone’ relates to death and ‘Winter’ relates to coldness or maybe the end of something. In poster 2, the placing of the central image is directly in the middle of the poster. The lighting on this image is half dark/half light and this adds on the genre of the movie, the character is hidden and he’s trying to find himself.
The poster is made of three main colours; black, white and dark blue which gives off a negative impact as it makes the poster look rather gloomy and plain. The cold/dark colours have connotations of metaphorical 'darkness' of the film. The dark colours can relate to the idea of death or evil and the white which would normally represent goodness is outweighed by the dark colours, initially suggesting that the film is going to be mainly centred around negative activities most likely involving the main character which could explain why she has such a worried expression on her face.
The images are both broken up into parts; a small image is used for the three main characters on the bottom half of the poster and a much larger image is used on the top half. This immediately emphasises to the audience that the female character has the most significant role in the narrative and it is placed near the centre of the poster so it will be one of the first things the viewer will see.