Poster Audience Research Results

We interviewed 10 people - 6 girls and 4 boys. We interviewed more girls as this is our target audience. They ranged between 16-18 years.

1. What genre do these belong to and what do you think the film is about? 

All of our respondents agreed that these were posters for romantic films, heavily due to the pictures of couples close together, and the use of words like 'love' etc.

2. Which title font do you think is most effective and why?

All of our female respondents said that they thought the title for 'Like Crazy' was most effective due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the colours suited the image and were warm and inviting. The layout of the text was original and created more impact. Others also noted that it gave context to the film which made them want to know more.

However, many of the boys did not like this film poster because they could not tell which was the actual title. Others said that there was too much going on and that they preferred simple fonts such as the font for 'The Lucky One'. Another thought the font for 'The Lucky One' was more timeless and traditional so worked with the genre of the film. Only one boy liked the 'Like Crazy' poster because it was 'eye catching and effective'.

3. How does the use of text affect whether you want to see the film? For example in 'Like Crazy' they use a lot more text than 'The Lucky One' - are you more likely to want to see 'Like Crazy' (LC) or 'The Lucky One' (TLO)?

This was a very varied response. Some girls liked LC the best because it was more interesting to look at, and gave more context to the film, whereas others felt that the messages were too cheesy which resulted in them becoming less likely to go and see it. Others also noticed this in other posters such as 'Dear John' (DJ) and one girl said there was 'too much writing at the bottom' which drew the eye away from the subject of the poster. Overall, the girls generally did not like TLO. This was because they did not even notice the tagline and they did not like the composition of the text down the side of the picture. However, the boys seemed to prefer this minimalist approach and thought less text was more effective. Most girls thought the poster for 'Love Happens' (LH) was too boring to comment on. This suggests that the film is aimed at an older more middle-aged audience.

The boys did not like the amount of text on LC because they generally could not tell which was the actual title to the film and thought it was over powering. However, one thought that the text on LH (Love Happens) and DJ was not powerful enough to make them want to go and see the film. One liked the composition of DJ with lots of text at the bottom as they thought the colours worked with the image.

4. What do you notice about the use of colour in the Blue Valentine (BV) poster in comparison to the other posters? How does this change the mood of the film if indeed it does? What do you notice about their costume in comparison to the others - what mood is this trying to create? Do you like this poster?

Across both genders, everyone agreed the colours used in the poster for BV created a much more dark and depressive feel than that of the other posters. This created a divide in audience of those who wanted to see it and those who didn't as many thought it would be too depressing and therefore would not be enjoyable. However the majority of people preferred this as it was completely different from the other posters and therefore reflected a completely different style of romance, 'not necessarily set in America', which made them want to watch it more. Many noted on the effect of the costume which accentuated this difference in subgenre - the characters in BV are dressed in darker clothes, the girl is wearing less whilst the boy is wearing leather which seems much more serious than that of the posters for DJ and TLO where they wear tshirts and very simple clothes.

The majority of people liked the poster due to how it was different, however a couple of people objected to the font choice. One girl said that the blackboard font was too 'innocent' for the poster, which was clearly quite serious and adult. Another boy said that the heart used in the 'V' for the title didn't work as it was misleading to the genre of the film which was far more serious than the font.

5. How do the awards on the posters of Blue Valentine and Like Crazy affect you as an audience? Does it make you want to see it more or less?

The majority of our respondents said that the awards did not affect them at all, it would be more likely that they would see a film for the actors involved rather than the awards. However two girls said that the actual presence on the poster was not important to them but they liked the use of awards as confirmation for a good film. Those that said the awards did affect them, said that the use of the shapes on the poster for LC seemed more professional and important than that of BV. They argued that the headline on the top of the BV poster was easily overlooked and therefore did not make much difference to the audience.

W.H. B.M.