For every moving image film there’s an equivalent paper-based poster designed to
promote it.
Choose a film and its corresponding poster and reflect on how the typography, image, colour
and composition are used to reflect the nature of the film. You may want to choose a film
you’ve seen or can view some clips from; alternatively, you could start from the poster and then
research around the film. How has the aesthetic of the moving image influenced the design of
the poster?
You may want to extend this exercise to compare a film or TV programme’s trailer or opening
credits in relation to the programme itself. What choices have the designers made to try and
capture a sense of the whole.

Seven (stylized as SE7EN) is a 1995 American neo-noir^[3]psychologicalcrime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. McGinley. The film tells the story of David Mills (Pitt), a detective who partners with the retiring William Somerset (Freeman) to track down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as a motif in his murders.

‘SEVEN(1995 film)'(2003)Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film) (Accessed 23 July 2022).

Browsing on line, I found this really interesting poster analysis:

Poster Analysis – Seven – David Fincher (1995)

MAIN IMAGE:  

As you can see from the image above, the lead image(s) takes up the entirety of the poster. These main images are off the two protagonists played by hollywood actors Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, with there names written in a plain bold white font above them, using the colour white against the orange/red colours of the poster allows or their names to stand out even more, ideally enticing an already made fan base of these two actors.  Immediately you are drawn the the attention that these two characters are both of different ethnicities, this could possible portray that they have a strong friendship which is hard to have due to the ethnical divergence. Moreover, the use of both characters facing away from each other but both looking forward could connote that they are separate characters and have no link to each other, but they are focussed on achieving the same goals, these goals possibly being related to the “seven deadly sins” which are seen dividing the characters, as well as the title that reads “seven.”  The colours within the poster are mainly orange and red with the font of the title and the characters names in white. These warm colours possible connote flames which is engulfing the protagonists which could be used to indicate to the audience that the main characters are caught up in the heat of finding the killer that they could be in trouble and that they may be harmed in the process of finding the killer. These are all enigma codes raised from this proportion of the film poster. Further more these colours can also connote danger and jeopardy, both key aspects of this narrative. Finally the characters clothing is made for them to look like detectives from what you can see from the image.As you can see, Brad Pitt (Character: Detective David Mills) is wearing a shirt and tie, stereotypical clothing of a detective, furthermore these connotations are also supported in Morgan Freeman’s character, Somerset.

TITLE: 

The title of this film poster is located at the bottom of the film poster, this is not uncommon in film posters, however is less common than finding it placed at the top. This is due to the title needing to grab attention and being one of the most important features of the film, hence why it usually placed at the top to show its authority. Much like the actors names, the colour of the title is also white. This is used to stand-out to the audience and attract there attention, as well as the contrasting colour compared to the warm orange and reds connote different meanings, the white shows us purity and innocence, possibly revealing to us as the audience that this film doesn’t follow one strict narrative or point of view, that there is in fact multiple characteristics to the narrative and characters. The font is very basic, and does not reveal anything further of the narrative, this is done in order not to reveal too much about the story line, or genre as the reveal of the seven deadly sins an apparent link meaning that the film is specifically based upon this topic. Another noticeable feature of the title is that fact that it is all written in lower case. This could indicate that within the storyline, there is not a particular protagonist that contributes more to the narrative, everyone has an equal role within the protagonists.

TAGLINE: 

The tagline of this film is once again located at the bottom of the film poster, as seen written under the the title. On particular posters, the tagline was actually written in a different language, the most common being french and german. The particular image below shows a french version. However, we do know that this translates too “Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Ways To Die” (“sept peches capitaux, sept facons de mourir”) The idea of having this written in a different creates a buzz about the film poster, due to word of mouth, people will talk about what does the tagline translate to, resulting in them translating it and telling more friends, creating a hub of interest about the film, a very cleaver marketing technique. Even though this tagline is being used to create such an interest about the film, the font, size and style do not exploit its creativity due to the tagline being very small, however it is strategically placed under the title resulting in audience members reading it directly after the title.  

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION:

Much like any film poster the official documentation is scattered all over the poster. As you can see the billing block is located at the very bottom of the poster, this is where you will always find this particular information. The billing block always includes the production and distribution company, director, writer, and the most crucial members of the production of the film. In essence, the billing acts as a abbreviated credits that you find at the end of a film. The billing block is not designed to stand out as a dominant feature of the poster hence the colour and size, although the font is always the same, as this is a standard requirement.  Unlike other film posters, this one does not incorporate other information, such as reviews from film critics or media tabloids such as “Empire.” Moreover, this film poster does not include a BBFC age classification rating as some do, or a BBFC content grid which tells the audience why the film is targeted at the specific age group, whether this be due to violence, strong language, or nudity.

Most of the main features of the poster have been covered in the analysis above, except the fact that the names of the deadly sins (written in yellow which implies danger as well as are printed in the sequence they are represented in the film) have been crossed out with red ink meaning that someone has either done them and is ticking them off or someone wants to erase them(hence the red ink) implying, of course, the serial killer killing the so-called sinners.