WEEK 5 - Analysis of a media text using codes (movie poster)

Don't Speak movie Poster - https://princfilms.com/dont-speak/

1- What is it ?

This is horror movie poster.

2- How do I know it ?

I know it because there are some conventions in it such as the scary face, the darkness, the focal picture, the title that is obvious, the colors that are used and the format.

3- What message is it reflecting ?

I'm going to analyse this movie poster by breaking down all the signs in order to identify the meaning of this media text. I'll firstly use visual, language and technical codes before denotating and connotating the signs.

CODES

• VISUAL CODES

The color: The predominant color used is black, creating a sensation of mystery and suspense.

The lighting: The poster employs lowlighting around the girl and add a sens of danger and mystery.

The composition: The central image is the image of a little girl with her head tilted slightly off-center, creating a feeling of instability.

The environnement: The houses at the seaside show the location where the events of the movie are taking place.

• LANGUAGE CODES

The title: "DON'T SPEAK" is evidenced by being written in uppercase letters, giving a sens of command. The word SPEAK is in red color, showing the danger that is behind the action of speaking.

The tagline: "CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET" is also written in uppercase letters and reveals the concept of the movie.

• TECHNICAL CODES

The close-up: Gives more deep details about the face of the girl, shows her facial expression and demonstrate that she is the main personage of the movie.

The camera level: Shows that the girl is at the same level as the public; is as terrified as the audience.

Layout and designs: The title, in uppercase letters, placed above the main caracter and in the dark side of the poster shows that the action of not speaking about a mystery dominates and is crucial to the girl. Meanwhile the tagline written on the sea part, make feel that that secret that has to be handled is about the island.

DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION

• The girl’s face

DENOTATION: it has a tense expression with the white eyes without pupils and the hair that is partially covering her face.

CONNOTATION: It connotes fear, vulnerability, traumatism, concern, and a feeling of danger. The girl also seems to be in a trans state and has lost a part of herself.

• The sewed mouth

DENOTATION: the mouth is badly sewed, showing the incapacity to talk of the woman.

CONNOTATION: It connotes fear, sadness, torture and pain because it should have been painful to have her mouth sewed. It means that here is something that doesn't have to be revealed.

• The position of the girl's hand

DENOTATION: her index finger is vertically placed on her mouth.

CONNOTATION: It connotes silence, the unability to speak, holding a secret, receiving the order to not talk, being under the influence of someone or something, the girls has to be quite and not talk about something she saw or happened to her.

• The cloth

DENOTATION: the white cloth, that seems to be a dress is stained of blood.

CONNOTATION: The white color correspond to simplicity, peace, innocence, and the blood is expressing horror and danger. The inocence of the girl is represented by the white cloth and the blood shows that she suffered violence, torture, or was in danger and fight with someone to try to escape.

• The Dark color

DENOTATION: The color black is the predominant color and at the same time, the background color

CONNOTATION: this means that there is a lot of paranormal events, spirit, mystery, somber, suspensful, unknown things and a heavy atmosphere of scary events.

• The houses and the sea

DENOTATION: The houses of the little neighborhood are all adjoined in front of the sea.

CONNOTATION: this shows that there is a small amount of people that leave in the island.

ANCHORAGE

After all these analysis made, i'm going to bring all these informations together in order to give the meaning of this movie poster. By joining the signs of the sea and the house, we can say that the scenes of this horror movie are taking place in a seaside, reside by a small amount of people. In addition to that, gathering the informations about the girl (face, mouth, stained cloth) leads to the deduction that she has been violented and tortured by someone or something (a spirit) after discovering a secret about the neighborhood where she is and since then, she has lost her innocence and has been traumatized. So to make sure that she will never reveal this secret, she was forced to not talk about it by getting her mouth sewed probably by her torturer.

References

https://princfilms.com/dont-speak/