Poster Influences

The first trailer we looked at was Black Swan so we thought it would be a good idea to look at the poster for the film to see how they advertised their film to see if it would influence any part of our poster for Believe. The poster is very simple with an image of a ballet dancer wearing a tiara with heavy eye make up. This connects with a swan image as the woman looks very delicate and classy. It lists the main actors/actresses and also the awards it has won, with a list of credits at the bottom. I really like the simplicity of the poster however i don't think the style of it would be appropriate for our film as ours is a little more contemporary.

Secondly, we looked at the trailer for Billy Elliot. This film poster is also very simplistic, featuring an image of the main character in day to day clothes dancing. This applies to the plot of the film as it is about one boy's transformation into a ballet dancer. The writing is bold and large and the colour gives a light-hearted feel to the genre of the film. I think that our film could have a fairly similar poster but with more of a ballet edge to it, as this film has a very similar plot to ours, meaning we could also feature an image of the main character dancing in failry normal clothing. This poster does not feature any cast members' names or list any credits, meaning total focus is on the plot and genre of the film which is expressed through the colours and font used in the poster.

Instantly it is clear that this poster for Save The Last Dance has a lot more going on in it than the previous two posters. Similarly to the Billy Elliot poster however, it shows the girl dancing in a normal day to day situation such as walking down a road. At the top is a super-imposed image of the two main characters smiling together, which hints that the film also has a romantic side to it. There is a tag line of 'The only person you need to be is yourself', cheesy but very common on film posters. The main actors/actresses' names are listed at the bottom of the poster along with the title in bold, but a clear, easy to read font. The credits are also listed at the bottom of the poster similar to black swan. I think that this is an effective film poster as it describes the plot well from the images used.


This poster for 'Take the Lead' using bright colours to address its audience as prominently teenagers. I am not sure why the colour of the background is green, as this doesn't express a dance film to me, however it is still eye-catching. There are splashes of black paint-like blobs coming off of the characters, which could be related to grafitti spray as the film is about a rough area's teenagers starting ballroom dancing. The poster features 2 characters from the film dancing with a spotlight in the background to emphasise their importance. It also has a tag line of 'never follow' and from seeing a few posters with tag lines in I think it is important that we use one in our poster. The credits and opening date are also featured near the bottom of the poster.


The final poster featured is for 'Center Stage'. This is a fairly calm and quite simple idea, but i think its really effective. The battered soles of the ballet shoes show the tough experiences that the ballet dancers have to go through, and goes behind the galmour we are so used to seeing from ballet performers. It also displays the cast of the film facing forward with blank expressions. The tag line 'life doesn't hold tryouts' makes out that there is more to this film than just the dancing. The red title of 'Center Stage' is the only thing which is in colour on the poster, immediatly drawing your eye to it. I like how the ballet shoes are shown in this but from another view as the soles which are battered which I think gives another level to the film that it is not just your typical ballet film.