The Cabin in the woods film poster analysis

The film title “The Cabin in the Woods” is pretty self-explanatory as you expect the film to be based around a cabin that is situated in the woods, the audience will expect there to be a story behind the woods and that’s why they’re going there.

The main image is of a cabin which looks to be never ending, this suggests that there is no escape once you’re in there. It also resembles a puzzle such as a Rubik’s Cube. The image is multi-layered as in the background you have a faint picture of the trees and then the cabin floating on top of them, it creates a code of enigma as you are left wondering why the cabin is all twisted and is some sort of game as it looks like a puzzle.

The poster employs the iconography of a psychological thriller as the main image used is confusing and the colours (black and white) create an airy feel to the poster reinforcing the idea that this movie is a thriller and not a horror as there is no blood or explicit scenes on it.

The film stars in this film are Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz and Jesse Williams. The main actor in this film that most people will know about is Chris Hemsworth as he has previously played the main character in the film “Thor” which made millions at the box office.  This will attract more of an audience as the people who saw “Thor” will be interested to see him play a completely different role.

The poster does not show the stars only the names of the actors at the bottom of the poster.

The poster’s tag-line is “You think you know the story” this suggests that there is more about this cabin that originally meets the eye and that you as an audience are the only ones that are meant to know this information.

The credits on the poster are conventional to a film poster as it has the names of the producers, directors, actors/actresses and the company name “Lionsgate” on it, the film director is not that well known as he has only worked on T.V programmes or low budget indie films such as “Cloverfield” The writer Joss Whedon however has worked on over big projects including “Avengers Assemble” which also consisted of Chris Hemsworth playing one of the main characters, he has won 8 awards making him a well- known writer.

The experiences and pleasures that are offered to the audience is mainly the intellectual puzzles as the pleasure is trying to unravel the mystery behind the cabin and trying to unlock the secret before the characters have. The target audience appears to be 18-30 as the general ages of the cast are around those ages and the plot of the film going by the poster seems to be an intellectual story which is aimed at a slightly more mature audience who enjoy figuring out things.

The film has a well-known actor in it which is the main USP of the film but also what makes it different to other film posters is that they have not put any characters as the main image of the poster in fact the main image is of the cabin distorted as it is all twisted, this marks it out as different because the audience is already questioning the concept of this film before watching it intriguing the audience into watching the film to find out what its about.

The Blair Witch Project, Film poster analysis

I chose to analyse The Blair Witch Project film poster as I like the fact that it is quite clear and basic, I think that it’s good that the main feature is her eyes as they show the fear the best and that the woods are blending in nicely with the cover.

Changes made to our film trailer plot:-

•We added the over the shoulder shot of the Facebook event showing the details of the camping, as we believed it would be a good technique to show in the trailer as it will only be a couple of seconds but will set up the narrative of the plot.

•We decided to change the main male characters name from Garin to Jack as we believed that Jack would fit better in with the plot and is a more suitable name for the character.

 •We have also cut quite a few killing scenes from the film trailer as we didn’t want to give away too much of the plot and still wanted to leave some of the mystery so that the viewers would want to see the full film.

 •We added more scenes to emphasise Emily's jealousy towards Jack and Amy's relationship, so that the audience become more attached to Emily’s character as they feel sorry for her.

 •Added more shots of Emily being possessed as before the audience could've been confused as to whether she was being possessed or had just gone crazy over jealously so we thought this would clarify the story a bit more for the audience to be able to understand.

 •We changed the order of the scenes as we had to choose particular scenes for the trailer that would entice the audience in and make it look the most interesting as possible, for example we left the scene about the curse until the end instead of at the beginning as it created more of a code of enigma , we edited more of the action scenes together as it shows the audience some of the climax's throughout the film.

•We finally came up with the film name which is "Deprived" we thought this was a suitable name as it reflected the way that Emily feels, as she believes that she is being deprived of her brothers attention and highlights how lonely she feels, therefore in return she deprives others of their life.