Catfish Poster Conventions&Influences

As you can see from the previous post, our production team will be breaking down and analysing the success behind the hit MTV show catfish. The first thing we will be analysing is the film poster, which was released before the film, to excite potential viewers and attract more customers towards the film.

This is the poster which was released by Relavitiy Media production team, advertising the documentary which hit the silver screen on the 17th September 2010. There are various different messages and connotations that this poster gives off to the viewer. The first most noticeable thing is the link to the social networking site and the link back to the computing technological side of the story line. This is shown through the two images placed at the top and bottom of the page. These pictures are pixel issued as if they were zoomed in or can be shown as if it was on a computer screen. This gives off connotations of Nevs journey within the social networking site and to able to instantly give this connotation to the viewer, allowing them slither insights into the storyline exciting them for the release of the film.

The next connotation is the link back to the largest social networking sight Facebook of which plays a huge role within both our storyline Behind the screen, and the Catfish storyline. The link within the poster is fairly obvious due to the large banner placed across the middle of the poster. The banner is a very similar shade to the blue used within the social networking site and allows the viewer to use recognizable shade to give them a better understanding. This is a technique to allow the viewer to use recognizable things they've seen an a daily basis to give them an initial reaction into what they know, of which the poster has also done with the font of the title. The font title is the same or very similar to the one use on Facebook. This is then gives off an initial idea of the story line and clearly allows the viewer a recognizable understanding that the famous social networking site plays a large part within the storyline of this documentary.

The final aspect that our production company broke down was the tag line, of which we found was a recurring aspect which can be found on most of if not all posters released. Tag lines are used to allow the target audience a smaller insight into the storyline of the film using catchy phrases and words in a small sentence. For example, think before you click is the clear tag line for the Catfish poster. By jumbling these 4 words into a small sentence immediately becomes catchy and memorable. When viewers read this it then gives them a small insight into the networking side of the storyline, but also intrigues them of who or what might they be clicking on within the film.

Overall there is various techniques and tips we have learnt from breaking down this Catfish poster of which we can now apply to our posters. By doing this it will allow us to broaden our targeted audience and excite for the release of the film.