Poster AnalysIs: Shutter

The poster emphasises details of the film for example; other films produced by the same producer ‘The Grudge’ and ‘The Ring’”. The reason for this to show the audience that there is more of a chance that the film will be enjoyable as it tells the audience that the producers have filmed other successful films and so this film is more likely to be successful as well. The design of the poster ‘Shutter’ includes a collection of screen grabs from the film, all put together to form a horrific face. This tells us that the poster is for a horror film and so people interested in horror films may be more interested in watching it.

You can also tell this poster is for a horror film as the colours used are dark. This makes the text on the poster stand out as it is white. The ‘Shutter’ poster gives off a very dark and unnatural feeling. This connotes darkness which most horror films use in their posters and trailers as it’s a way to implement fear. The use of dark colours contributes to the unnatural theme that has been used in the poster and the colour red could connote blood which could also mean suffering and pain. Using red on this poster is important as it makes the poster even more eye-catching to an intended audience. The use of the colour black would connote evil and death and would show a prospective audience what the film may be about.

The poster uses a catchy slogan “The most terrifying images are the ones that are real” to help promote the film for its release. The slogan portrays how horrifying the film may be, scaring the audience and making them want to see the film. The audience may not understand what the slogan means and so may also want to see the film to get a better understanding of it.

The text on the poster contrasts with the background, as it uses white text on a black background, to help make it clearer to the audience. Using caps locks on the text helps make the text more identifiable to the audience and makes it stand out more. The size of the font for the title is larger than the rest of the text and so makes the title of the film eye catching and means that an audience are forced to see the face on the poster which is made out of smaller poster and are forced to see the title. If the audience is intrigued by the images that create the face they may wish to go and see the film.

Directed by	Masayuki Ochiai
Produced by	Takashige Ichise Roy Lee Doug Davison
Written by	Luke Dawson
Starring	Joshua Jackson Rachael Taylor
Music by	Nathan Barr
Cinematography	Katsumi Yanagijima
Editing by	Tim Alverson Michael Knue
Studio	Regency Enterprises New Regency Vertigo Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	March 21, 2008 (USA) May 15, 2008 (Australia)
Running time	Theatrical cut: 85 minutes Unrated cut: 90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Japanese
Budget	$8 million
Box office	$47,879,410