Film Poster Analysis

The poster for 'Kidulthood' is very similar to the 'This Is England' one in that they both feature a photograph of the main cast. This suits with the genre of social realism, as an image like that is easy to create and doesn't show anything majorly out of the ordinary. Due to 'Kidulthood' being an exagerated and larger film than 'This Is England' its poster is more dramatic, darker and makes use of atmospheric effects. While 'This Is England' isn't a comedy, the brightness and colour of the poster shows that it isn't a dark and completely serious film. From what can be seen in the posters, they have both made extensive use of colour lighting to create very contrasting themes within the posters. 'This Is England' is set in 1983 and so is probably trying to evoke a sense of that past and nostalgia by making it very bright and blue. Blue is a colour that is said to make people feel good, so making it dominately that shade causes this to go hand in hand with the typically good feeling of nostalgia. 'Kidulthood' is set in the present and is so is much closer to the reality of the viewers. As a result, it doesn't take the chance of showing a good present and chooses to display a darker, more proably relatable, present that is shown.

 

Both of the posters are coherent in that they don't specifically show a main character among the cast. 'This Is England' perhaps hints that the main character in their film is Shaun as the tagline states 'A Time To Stand Out From The Crowd' and, among the crowd of the characters against the wall, Shaun stands out as he's considerably shorter than the others and is the only one not wearing a jacket. It is important to note that neither of these posters have the names of the actors in the film on the poster. This is because they're relatively unkown, which is a common factor in social realism films. As a result, this displays all of the main cast for the viewer to see, revealing who the unkown actors in the cast are and what they look like clearly. This also adds the opportunity to show some personality of the characters they're playing through their stance and costume. Each of the characters in the 'This Is England' poster are pulling a different pose and are wearing different clothes, showing how each of them have different personalities and are trying to stand out from the crowd. This adds a somewhat three dimensional quality to the characters just from looking at the poster.

 

Both of the posters have in common that they include quite a lot of text. They have, in large letters, their titles, or logos, written clearly in colours to make them stand out. 'Kidulthood' has it's title in white, to make it stand out against the dark background. 'This Is England', which is a much lighter poster, makes it's text stand out by having each word in different colours, with the colour-scheme also serving the narrative and to suggest what the film is about. The position of the title is also different for each film, with 'This Is England' choosing to position it just above the centre whereas 'Kidulthood' chooses to put it at the bottom. There is also smaller text; however, 'This Is England' has quite a bit more text than 'Kidulthood'. 'Kidulthood' apparently tries to keep it simple by just having one review shown, and capitals and small letters as opposed to the bold capitals of the logo. 'This Is England' shows more reviews, perhaps because it is a lower budget film, focusing on telling the narrative and is trying to prove itself more than 'Kidulthood', which is, generally, more trying to be a Hollywood-type film. This shows in the style of the posters, with 'Kidulthood' attempting to look very dramatic with stark lighting whereas 'This Is England' looks more like a novelty in that it is bright and is trying to evoke a strong sense of nostalgia and is intended not to be taken as seriously or dark as 'Kidulthood'.