Crime film poster analysis

Mystic River poster analysis




This movie poster is typical of the genre crime, as its mysterious and dark. The black background makes the title stand out but it doesn’t your draw attention away from the mysterious image of the reflection of the three men. The image is quite bold although it doesn’t give anything away. I think this movie poster is quite good because even though the audience will know it’s a crime film based on the dark and dull colours and also the shadows, it doesn’t really show what the film will be about and that will intrigue the audience and maybe make them want to watch it.

Evaluation

Location report

The location we chose to film the beginning of our film in was local and public. As it was public it was easy to access and we didn’t have to ask permission to film. Most of the shots that we got were of the scenery and buildings in the location, we also have some shots of random people who were walking in the street although we kept this to a minimum, we wanted shots of people to create an atmosphere in our film. As we filmed locally we didn’t spend a lot of money.

Film summary

Our film is about five teenagers who sleep through a train journey and end up in a small, quiet town and have no way of getting home until another train comes which is a few days later. They stay in the local hostel and the owners who obviously has mental issues, torture and attempt to kill the teenagers. We don’t want our opening sequence to give too much away because we don’t want the audience to know what’s going to happen in the first two minutes, the audience should be intrigued to know what happens next. Our film fits into the crime genre because it has suspense and mystery. It has the typical conventions the sub-genre of crime which is horror. It is dark and scary and is typical to what you’d expect from a horror film, gore and violence.



Cast List

The main characters will be:
Emily (teenager
Lizzie (teenager)
Jack (teenager)
Adam (teenager)
Katie (teenager)



Our film is aimed at mainly teenagers because the film follows five teenagers and it is probably easier for them to relate the characters better that adults. Although adults will also be part of our target audience because I think they would enjoy the suspense and guessing what will happen next. Our film is a sub-genre of crime which is horror, so our target audience is anybody who enjoys horror films.

Target Audience- crime

I think most crime films intended target audience is teenagers and adults, mainly men. The main conventions of the genre will appeal more to men than women because its stereotypical for men to enjoy action and violence. Although as there are lots of sub-genres in crime films there may be certain types that might appeal more to teenagers, women and men. For example I think that maybe crime thrillers that bordering on the horror genre may appeal more to a younger audience and women. But films such as Memento and Se7en target a much more mature audience. But in general I think most crime films intended target audience are 16+ and mainly male.

Crime history

History of crime films

Crime films, such as Sherlock Holmes began to appear onscreen as early as 1900 or 1903. The arrival of synchronized sound in 1927 and the Great Depression in 1929 created an appetite for escapist entertainment and films to become more popular.
Lots of gangster films of the 1930s and long series of detective films were often based on novels. Film Noir was produced in America throughout the decade beginning in 1944 and the they were very popular during those times. Post-war crime films were shaped in America by cultural anxiety about the nuclear bomb (Kiss Me Deadly, 1955) and the nuclear family.
The decline of film noir after Touch of Evil (1958) was offset by a series of crime comedies such as The Lavender Hill Mobs (1951) and a series of Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers.
James Bond films because popular in the 1960s, which headlined history’s most lucrative movie franchise in a long series beginning with Dr.No (1962). Films such as The Godfather (1972) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967) reinvented the crime for a hip young audience. The closing years of the century, marked by a heightened public of crime allowed crime films such as Traffic (2000) a remake of Traffik (1989) to become much more popular than the original version.

Analysis of three crime films

An analysis of 3 crime films

The film Saw (2004) directed by James Wan is about a two men who have to go through physical or psychological torture in survive and escape with better appreciation of life, the Jigsaw Killer puts the victims in this situation. One of the characters, Lawrence has to in order to survive he has to kill another character called Adam, otherwise he’ll lose his wife and child, who were being held captive in their home and left for dead. In the room with the men are to hacksaws and they realize that to free themselves from the chains they must hack off their feet. The men try and stage Adam’s death but an electric shock through Adam’s ankle chain ruins this plan. Their abductor is Zep and as the deadline approaches he moves to kill Lawrence’s wife, Alison, but she frees herself. Lawrence who is only aware of gunshots and screaming, in desperation he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the revolver. In the opening scene starts with a close-up shot of a character under water breathing heavily as he comes up for air and then screaming. There is then a brief darkness and you can hear two characters talking, and then bright lights reveal two men on either side of what looks to be a rusty bathroom. The camera pans the around and reveals a corpse in the middle of the bathroom with a revolver. As the men try and move, it then shows that the men are chained to pipes on opposite sides of the room. The corpse in the middle of the room is probably there to give an early fright for the audience and also already suggests that the film is going to be a horror. The master shot of the bathroom after the lights are switched on; this reveals to the audience the whereabouts of the characters and emphasizes the bad situation that the characters are in. Editing is used well in the opening scene as it adds suspense, a significant shot is when the camera cuts quickly to a bird eye view shot of the corpse of the floor and Adam’s screaming reaction were perfectly timed.

The film Seven (1995) directed by David Fincher, portrays the exploits of a deranged serial-killer. His twisted agenda is to choose seven victims who represent example of the seven deadly sins. Two homicide detectives, one who is about retire and the other young and ambitious, team up to capture the serial-killer and they too become part of his gruesome plan. In the opening sequence of seven is intended to introduce the central character which is Detective William Somerset, as well as setting the mood for the remainder of the film. It gives the audience lots of information about him such as what he does for a living and what he’s like as a person. It also introduces another main character, Detective David Mills. The edits in the opening sequence is fairly fast, this is to keep both the pace and tension as high as possible. There is no music in this scene, only the diegetic background effects of the city he lives in, there are people shouting, dogs barking and alarms and sirens going off.

The film Wolf Creek (2005) directed by Dave Mclean is about three friends in their twenties who set out hike through Wolf Creek National Park in the Australian Outback. They get back to their car to find that it won’t start. A local man, Mick Taylor stops his truck and offers to help the three friends, finds that they need to replace the coil and offers to tow the car to his camp where he could fix it. When they accept this is when their great vacation away turns into a scary nightmare. The opening sequence in Wolf Creek declares that approximately 30,000 people a year disappear and are found after about a month, and 10% are never seen again. This is quite good as it gives facts and the film is based upon true events, also it gives the audience and insight of what the film is going to be about. It then goes on to show one of the main characters Ben buying a car and picking his two friends up and they spend the day at Wolf Creek National Park, the way the film cuts from the facts given in the opening sequence and the three friends is good because it suggests that they might become part of these statistics.