Task 1: This was the first poster that The King's Speech used; as you can see this poster is not really too suitable for the theme of the movie. The poster features three of the main characters with The King in the foreground looking nervously at the camera, his wife behind him looking confident and the speech therapist in the background looking expectantly. In this poster, the characters are all awkward positioned; the creator took three different images of the characters and put them in front of one another adding a shadow to create the illusion that they were actually all like that; with how the Speech Therapists eyes are aimed, it would be that he was looking at the wife, and not the king, this is only a small nitpick but in the long run, when considering movie posters, small things need to be taken into account.
Because of how the poster has been edited, The King's Wife and the Speech Therapist do not look right in the frame. The poster might have been better if they were to have just included the king. The way it is formatted makes the poster look as if it's a comedy, because of the emotions that both the other characters are holding. This poster was trying to aim at a larger range of people, giving a sense of mystery. There is no reference to what the film is about from this poster, all we know is that these three characters are important and that the story is based off an 'incredible true story', so other than us knowing the story is apparently 'incredible' according to the creator, which is about as useful as us knowing that the king is featured in this film, we do not now much.
Task 2: This poster was the improved version of the previous poster that was made to hopefully attract more attention towards the film. The biggest improvement with this poster is the theme, we can now see what we assume to be the theme and genre included; we know that the king has to make a speech and that he is nervous about doing so because of the emotion on his face. This poster contains more reviews from other people, other than just the creator, this allows other people to see what people think of the film, and judge whether or not they want to watch it.
If they were trying to portray The King as a confident speaker, they would probably have had him open his mouth slightly to show that he was about to speak. With this image, we can see that The King has lent in about to speak, but his lips are pursed because of his nervousness, it gives us a sense of the plot. The colours used in this poster are different to that of the first one, the first poster featured clouds in the background, with black filling the majority of the page to allow for the characters black apparel to fade into the bold colour, while this poster features a much brighter Yellowy-Orange that fills the entirety of the page. The only two objects in this poster are The King's face and the microphone; making sure we know what we are focusing on.
Task 3: These two posters were made when the film's popularity began to increase; they contain a lot more within them than the previous posters, with white text filling the screen. The text does not have a shadow, so it simply lays with the picture on the same field, this gives us a sense of inclusion, and that the text is meant to be there; there is a slight transparency to the text which makes it so it fits in well and looks right. There are two posters, one that simply says 'God Save the King' which is a common expression that is used several times throughout the film, while the second poster is filled with reviews, featuring the Speech Therapist in the background. The reason for the text on these two posters is to suit their characters, for example, The King is looking for confidence, and in the film he utters 'God Save the King' to himself in order to give himself confidence. The Speech Therapists poster is filled with reviews because that is what he does to Burty, he constantly reviews what he does and gives him praise.
The poster of The King shows him looking directly at the camera, with a small smirk on his face. This is referencing to the end of the film after he has made his speech and increased his confidence, on a related note, both characters are dressed identically, again linking to the end of the film where they more or less become equals with each other in a metaphorical sense. The poster with the Speech Therapist shows him looking off to the left, this is to show that he is more focused on what Burty does than himself; in the film we see him fail an audition, but this does not dampen his spirits, he instead focuses his attention of Burty and tries to bring him to full speech capability.
The background is very plain, so that the focus is on the characters in the front; using a grey gradient to give a sense that the background is uninteresting while the full colour characters in the foreground are very interesting. The title and cast are placed at the bottom of the poster because the suits the characters are wearing are black, and it allows for them to add these items without adding a shadow, to keep with the theme of the poster.
Task 4: This is the poster for the film The Social Network; as we can see there are may similarities between the two, with text filling the screen covering the face of the character in view. The Social Network poster came out before the altered King's Speech poster, so it could be seen that it copied. Although the film fits the same theme as that of the Social Network, the text on this poster is not entirely transparent; for the use of this film it is intentional, as the characters face is desired to be obscured, but for the use of The King's Speech, the directors wanted the faces to be entirely visible.
The Social Network poster is aimed to give an impression of the plot and show an image of the character, the King's Speech poster does the same but uses a different quote that is actually used in the film. With the social network the phrase is referring to Mark Zuckaburg's rise to fame and depletion as he lost the people who helped him become who he was, using this phrase as a reminder of his mistakes. For the King's Speech, it is similar in the way of how the Prince became the king, and uses the phrase as a reminder of confidence.
It is most likely for these reasons that the directors decided to inspire their film off this poster, because of the similar films. The character of Zuckaburg is portrayed as mysterious in the sense of people don't know what to expect. The same could occur to The King, as he could be seen as someone who no one really knows what to expect, due to the fact of King's often having to give speeches, and Burty having too much of a stutter to perform.
Task 5: This is the american version of the film. Straight away we can notice that the logo is different and more condensed, with a shadow behind it to give a sense of distance, there is also a label that reads 'rated PG-13' underneath it, this is because in the original release of the film there was a lot of profanity in terms of swearing, although the british board saw this as suitable as it was all in context, but with the american release, the scenes including profanity were removed. This poster was made after the release of the british version, and as such has all the credits for rewards including the boasting of Academy Awards and being the 'Best Picture of the year'.
The poster is very different from the english release, because with the british release they had to create a way to show what the film was about and who was important, but with this the film had already been released and as such there was already a following. Because of the cut profanity scenes, the film is advertised as a family friendly with the happy family looking overly happy in the background. The bottom of the poster again fades to black to allow the cast to not have a shadow.
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