Analysing Scarface Poster

• Narrative

Scarface has a common structure where the story is told in an order in which the events happen with some gaps in diagetic time. this makes it easier for the audience to understand how Tony Montana went from the bottom to the top.

poster- tagline: the tagline 'he loved the american dream with a vengeance'  says a lot, it lets the audience know that he means business, it lets the audiences know that Tony Montana is a guy that use violence to get to where he is. 

There's a lot of verbal dialogue on the poster, normally posters use visual to send there message through but this poster used verbal dialogue so maybe the text is used to let the audiences know how serious the film is. 

In the poster Tony Montana (protagonist) is shown to holding a gun, which show us there will be murder and violence in the film, which already show that it is aimed at older target audience, 

Trailer 

voice-over 

the trailer includes voice overs, narrating us through what is going on, in the voice over we learn how Tony wants power, Money and he has an interest in another mans women.  the voice over continues to tell how he came about such big power, how he entered the world of power and how the protagonist made his name as 'scarface'. 

the conventions used in there trailer is most gun violence, which makes it very conventional for a gangster movie. wealth and money was also another convention used in the trailer and the other convention i noticed was love interest. 

• Characters

 Al Pacino is the main focus of this poster, the title and his name are in the same size and place, showing how important he is to the film. Al Pacino was synonymous for playing gangsters like in Carlitos Way or The Godfather, so he's appeal and reputation is used as the main point of focus for this poster. The main information put across by this poster is the name, the synopsis, the genre.

In the trailer we see a bit more characters than the poster, the other character that we see as often as the main character is the best friend, he is often see next to Tony as his right hand man  (the protagonist). we also see a lady which could suggest to us a love interest between her and Tony. we also see a lot of other characters with Tony while he was making his way up top which suggest that they are the bad guys. 

• Technical elements e.g. camera, editing

There isn't a lot of editing on the poster because it didn't need much editing. the only way editing was used is the colours in the background, the two different use of black and white and the way the writing was used so that it stood out without really standing out. 

The camera shots used in the trailer is long shot to show everyone protesting and fighting. a close up was mostly used to zoom into Tony's face to show what he was feeling and the emotion he was pro trying. a lot of fast cuts were used in the trailer in a way to show what happened in the film without really spoiling everything. 

• Representation

The main colours used in this film poster are white, black and red. The contrast between white and black suggest that this film is very dramatic as it's such a clear and dramatic contrast, it also seems to represent how serious the film is as it doesn't bother with any other colours or shades. The red for the title could connote blood, or the colour of newly formed scars which tend to come out dark red. It could also connote the violence and the horror aspects of the film, which is common practice for film posters. A black and white image of Tony Montana's pistol is clearly shown in his hand. the gun in the poster shows how there's aspects of murder and violence in the film so it already is aimed at an older market.

• Identify and explain reasons for similarities/differences in the techniques used to target the audience.

the narrative used in both the trailer and poster are different. different methods were used to get the story line across to the audience. 

the gun, tagline, verbal language used in the poster all connect with the narrative of the movie. the reason these were used are to attract the attention of the audiences.  

the trailer uses voice over to give the audience a summary of the story and uses the conventions guns, love interest, power, money and violence to get the attention of the audiences. the trailer helps give information that the poster cant give so that the audiences are even more eager to watch the movie. 

the similarities used in both the trailer and poster is the convention. the poster speaks of a man who came to power by using violence and that is what the trailer is saying as well. 

the differences between the poster and trailer being that the poster doesn't give much away, we only see Tony on the poster, I think this was done on purpose seeing that the actor is well know for doing gangster films maybe the posters doesn't give much information away but the trailer on the hand shows us the the film involves more then just one characters, it shows Tony's right hand man, his love interest and many more people.