Film Poster Inspiration - 'Arrival'

Film Poster Inspiration - 'Arrival'

To attract audiences to watch your film, many marketing practices have to be used in order to promote the film. To market our film, we are creating a poster that will highlight what the film will involve, whilst also looking attractive and atmospheric.

This is the poster for the film 'Arrival'. This film is about the arrival of aliens to earth and the process of asking the question: "What is your purpose here?" This film is a sci-fi thriller and I think this poster does a great job of representing the general atmosphere of the film. The poster takes place in the location that most of the film is set in. The imagery of this location shows the alien spaceship in the centre, with a helicopter flying towards the spaceship. By using the "Z rule" we can see that the poster shows all of it's most important information and imagery in accordance to this rule. The actor's names appear at the top and this allows the viewer to see who is in the film first, before they read the rest of the poster. This is because the actors are the most recognisable part of the poster, and if the viewer likes these actors, they are more likely to stay interested and continue reading the rest of the poster. Looking at the middle part of the poster we can see the alien ship along with the text: "Why are they here?", most prominently. The alien ship adds a sense of mysticism to the poster as it is completely black, which could represent a dark evil or it could connote the sense of space and how it is mostly unknown to the humans within the film. The ship stands out as it appears to be still and somewhat calm, which complements the calming nature of the background of the backdrop, yet it contrasts with the chaotic and complicated looking helicopter. The helicopter shown in this poster seems to represent the panic that humanity must be facing as it sees this highly advanced technology and race on it's metaphorical doorstep. The alien ship and the tagline are the most important themes addressed in this film and this is represented by how they are positioned in the centre of the poster with humanity represented by the helicopter pushed off to the side. Below the ship the statement, "From the director of Sicario and Prisoners", is shown as this allows the viewer to form an opinion on much they may enjoy the film based on whether they have watched the previous films by this particular director. The director's name is not shown however, as their films would be more recognisable than their name. "Arrival" has a font that evokes a mysterious tone; each letter within the title is spaced out and the thin text possibly represents the space between the humans and the aliens. The colour scheme within this poster is muted yet the lighting is bright. The bright light of the background could represent hope for humanity, but the deep black of the alien spaceship could represent a threat or death. The colours of the backdrop are very natural e.g. blue, green. Overall, this poster has provided a lot of inspiration toward us during the poster-creating process, as I believe it accurately depicts the tone of the film and it is very aesthetically pleasing, and this is exactly what we hope to convey when creating our poster for 'River'.