Fish Tank: Poster Analysis

• For the marketing of Fish Tank, a variety of posters were released in order to make people more aware and attract an audience to go watch the film once released. This poster however, is the main theatrical trailer that was used because this poster includes more information on the film itself as it gives those who haven’t seen the trailer a visual idea of what the films characters will be like.
• Fish Tank is the title of the film, therefore is a key element to have included on the poster. The title is in the middle of the poster, behind a girl, which appears to be the main character. This is in my opinion is very effective as it could possibly suggest to those looking at it that the film is about the girl on the poster, the text furthermore stands out yet doesn’t take the attention of those looking at it away from the main image completely.
• Because this is a film created and distributed by an independent film company, the negative space around the character is mainly filled with reviews given by British newspaper critics and awards they have won (winner of the Edinburgh 2009 International film festival and Jury winner of Festival De Cannes). This helps, entice the audience, especially because the reviews included gave the film 4 or more stars.  One of these includes a review written by The Guardian, giving the film a 4 star rating with a comment of  “ Jarvis and Fassbender are outstanding”. I think that this is very effective because the film is British and by having a well established British newspaper review it, it will attract and gain the attention of the targeted and possibly a wider audience. Furthermore, because the names Jarvis and Fassbender are also mentioned in a black and bolder font under the review stars it again links it and makes it clear that the names the article/review by The Guardian is referring to are the protagonists of the film.  
• On the opposite side of the names of the main 3 actors, the name of the writer/producer is written in the same black, bold writing as the names of the actors. Both the writer and producer of Fish Tank is Andrea Arnold and by having her name in bold it is effective as she is a relatively successful British film writer and producer, especially successful with her films within the same genre of Fish Tank, which is the genre of social realism. This will therefore, attract those already established audience members who are fans of her work along with a new one from the actors featured.
• On the very bottom of the poster, above a blue background, layered the release date is written in white making it stand out against the blue. It is written in a bolder font, making it clear that this is important information. Under the release date, the films website is given stating that further information can be found on there about the film (fishtankmovie.com).  In addition, above the blue box, scaled smaller in comparison to the stars are the logos of the companies, which helped with the funding and production the film.  
• The main focus of the poster is the protagonist that appears to be a girl aged around 16-18 years old; Fish Tank’s protagonist is named Mia.  “Funny, moving and profound” suggests that throughout the film we will be following a particular journey of hers, which will probably be made clearer later in the film.  Mia is placed more to the right of the frame and this is because they wanted to show us, as an audience what she is looking at. Having her look so sadly out of a window could suggest that as a character she might go through something raw and tough.  “Live, Love and give as good as you get” is something that supports this as it could again be suggesting that she might have been forced to go through something tough as this gives an insight into the film and additionally suggests that we, as an audience may possibly be a situation which will some of us will empathise with the protagonist.
• Similarly to most independent films’ posters, Fish Tank uses bright and eye-catching colours, which may not particularly fit in with the genre or narrative of the film but do however, all fit in. The colours that are used in Fish Tanks poster are light blue, baby pink and black. This follows the general rule of thirds in terms of colour on posters. These colours help make the poster brighter and eye catching. All colours stand out against the cream background and all text is placed in a shard and effective way.
• Overall, I think that the poster for Fish Tank is very eye catching, appealing and very effective. I chose to analyse and look at it because I think it can help me a lot when I come to create my own poster, especially because I want to create a film within the social realism genre. This has helped me because I now know that I need to consider even the smallest details in order to make my poster as effective and professional looking as possible.