This is the poster for the Danny Boyle film '127 Hours', it is fairly simple in it's design, but at the same time is original, memorable and effective. One of the interesting features of this poster is that it doesn't actually reveal much or any of the storyline or what the film is about. A person looking at the poster would, at first be clueless as to what the film is about. In this way I think that the poster more serves as a way of pointing the viewer to the trailer or to find out more, as the poster certainly makes the viewer want to find out what it is about. It makes them want to know this because of the headline at the top that says 'A Triumphant True Story' which naturally would make anyone curious as to what story it is telling. The film is made so much more exciting when the audience knows that it's a true story, as it makes everything seem more dramatic that it actually happened. However the viewer of the poster isn't watching the film, so they have to be blown away that something actually happened from what they can see on the poster. This is surely done by the picture of the man balancing between two rocks which are dramatically separated at the bottom. The audience will be amazed by the incredible feat that the man is trying to accomplish and their amazement is heightened by the fact that it is a true story. Of course the poster is exaggerating reality, and the chasm doesn't look that dramatic in the film or real life, but the reality is that the chasm wouldn't look nearly as impressive if the viewer were to see the actual one. Posters depend heavily upon one picture to sell the entire film, so the exaggeration is vital. It also adds to what the director wants the feel of the film to be; he could have decided to evoke the feel as a claustrophobic bottle drama which could have worked and appealed to a large audience, but instead he choses this exaggeration in order to present it as a 'Triumphant' human achievement. It is quite hard to sell a man cutting his arm off in this way, so it leaves out that part and instead focusses on an almost 'feel-good' type of film, which seems odd, but feel-good films tend to sell a lot better than bottle dramas.
The colours in this poster are what are so striking about it. The colours seem to split the poster into two genres rather than one, with the top half selling it as a feel-good, 'triumphant' achievement, and the bottom half selling it as a thrilling, dangerous adventure. This is done with the most obvious colours available; light blue for happiness and red for danger, however it is shown a lot more subtly on the poster through the use of a bright sky and a sunrise/set. By using these, not only does it sell the effect in a subtle way, but it also gets across the strong role that nature plays in the film. Both halves have taglines relating to their respecting genres, with the top half selling a 'Triumphant True Story' and the bottom half saying 'Every Second Counts'. Under this intense scrutiny, the poster's techniques become blatantly obvious, however the casual viewer would not immediately pick up on these things, instead they see the film as what they want to see it as. Better still, the film sells itself admirably to the tastes of couples; stereotypically women prefer feel-good films, whilst men prefer thrillers, making this film a suitable compromise. This isn't the reality, however, as the stereotypical woman wouldn't want to see a man's arm being cut open, but the poster doesn't include this part in order to open itself up to this audience. In a way the poster is powerful for what it leaves out, rather than what it includes. Not many people would chose to see the film if it was advertised about how he was going to attempt to escape, whereas it would gain a large audience if it was advertised as his great escape from the forces of nature.
As with the poster for 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', this poster uses the famous people employed to work on this film as unique selling points. These are Danny Boyle and James Franco. Danny Boyle has previously won an Oscar for his film 'Slumdog Millionaire', so this is put at the top of the poster. Although it doesn't actually say 'A film by Danny Boyle', it does say 'From the Academy Award Winning Director of Slumdog Millionaire. Many people recognise names of films before names of directors, and so the name Slumdog Millionaire is much more likely to be memorable to a wider audience as it won Best Picture a few years ago. This makes people want to go and see the film because they assume that it also will be good because it's by people who have already proved themselves in film making. The name 'James Franco' appears just above the title - another obvious place to put a name, as once the viewer has read the title, the next thing they see are the things around it, so they would then read the name. James Franco has starred in a number of famous films, and so he will have built up his own fan club, who would go and see a film purely because he is in it. This is a very good place to be when advertising a film, because they already have a guaranteed audience. Unfortunately we do not have any famous names that we can put on a film poster, so we need to bear in mind that we need to make our poster strong in other ways in order to compete with posters such as this.
In conclusion I think that this is a very powerful poster that sells a difficult product well. It's use of colours is certainly something that we can take inspiration from when making our poster and we need to bear in mind the various different connotations that different colours can have. As I've seen with the 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' poster there should be strong taglines that draw the audience in, but from here I can see that the taglines do not have to be similar, but rather they are more powerful when they are different, as they are able to appeal to a wider audience, and the poster can advertise the film to many different groups.