Contexts:
Director - David Fincher
Writer - Aaron Sorkin
Key production companies - Relativity Media, Trigger Street Productions
Distributor - Columbia Pictures
Budget - $40,000,000
Box Office Revenue - $224,900,000
Main Cast - Jessie Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella.
Genre - Biographical Drama
Analysis of Theatrical Poster
The poster is majorly just a close up of the film's main character, Mark Zuckerberg (portrayed by Jessie Eisenberg). In front of him are one word descriptors that link to the character. This reveals to the audience that this film will be an exploration of a character an also, in terms of Barthes' theory, act as enigma codes that encourage the audience to see the film to find out why he is referred to like this. Another key enigma code is that of who the person actually is, as there is no other reference to him on the poster. This could also be a semantic code as it requires prior knowledge of the film to know who it is. A major referential code is that of the films logo, which is done in the style of the iconic Facebook logo. In my opinion, this poster is much different to what would be expected of a film that was distributed by a mainstream company like Columbia. This could link to Curran and Seaton's ideas that a more diverse pattern of media ownership could lead to more innovative and fresh content being distributed. While the film does make use of a mainstream distribution company, its production companies are mostly independent which means they could hold a variety of differing patterns of ownership diversity.
Analysis of DVD cover
Much like the theatrical poster for the film, the DVD cover is also very unconventional in how it is styled. The cover focuses more on the films many accolades and awards than displaying the characters and the narrative. This again could link to Curran and Seaton's key ideas on more diverse patterns of ownership with the independent production companies. Again, the referential code of the Facebook logo is present. The more sophisticated approach may also appear to the more mature target audience for the film and prevents them getting any misconceptions on the film that another poster may cause.
Comments