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The Boat That Rocked Educational Resource

This section:

  • introduces students to the importance of the poster campaign in marketing a film and raises ideas about how posters work.
  • asks students to analyse and evaluate the teaser poster campaign for the Boat that Rocked. It contains the following teaser posters:-  the Teaser Quad and two sets of individual character posters.

A poster has to try to capture in a still image the excitement and promise of the moving images that you will see at the cinema. The poster for a film has to tell you as much information about a film as it can in one short "look" at it. At the beginning of a film campaign the distribution company will produce what is called a "teaser" campaign - one or more posters which will make you aware that the film is coming without giving too much away. More information will be given in the main campaign, which will appear closer to the release of the film.

Teaser Quad Poster

The Teaser Quad poster is the first full poster that the film's distributor has released.  Look at this carefully.

Theatrical Quad Poster
  • Describe in detail what you see on the poster.
  • How important are the colours used in the poster for getting across an idea of the film?
  • How does it use the ideas created in the teaser campaign and thus use our existing knowledge of the film?
  • Why do you think that for the first full poster the distributors have chosen to include the boat itself in the poster?
  • What is the effect of having the four disc jockeys walking the plank have on our understanding of what the film will be about?

 

Character Posters

The distributor has also produced two sets of individual character posters as part of their teaser poster campaign.  Look at the individual character posters below and then consider the following: 

Click on any poster to enlarge.
poster 1 poster 2 poster 3 poster 4
  • What information do these posters give you?
  • What ideas about the content of the film do they give?
  • What key aspects of the film do they stress?
  • How important to you think colour is on each poster? Why have different colours for each poster?
  • Each poster has a strap line - giving us some information about the character or else the film itself. How do these strap lines relate to the voice over of the trailer that you have watched?

 

poster 1 poster 2 poster 3 poster 4
  • Why do you think the distributor chose to use close up shots of the four characters?
  • What information are you given on these posters which is not on the Walking Banner posters?
  • Why do you think that three of the characters are all wearing red sunglasses?
  • How do you think that these posters work with the "walking banner" posters?
  • Why do you think that the distributor chose to have two sets of teaser posters?

 

Main Quad Poster

As the opening of the film approaches, the distributor develops the final poster campaign for the film. This often gives more information about the film than the teaser campaign.

Theatrical Quad Poster
  • Look at the main campaign poster.
  • In what ways does it develop the ideas from the teaser campaign?
  • What additional information does it give?
  • How does this affect the way in which you understand what the film is about?
  • From the images that you can see on the poster, are you able to make any comment about the characters in the film?