Short film poster research- The Gravediggers son.

The Gravediggers son

Media language

Mise En Scene

Audience

Genre

The Gravediggers Son is an American short film written and directed by Jake Yard. The film has won a couple of American awards, Ouchy film festival, Los Angeles cine fest and Fest new film directors festival. Los Angeles film festival is a large and popular film festival that has alumini with celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson,Courteney Cox,Jessica Biel, Kirsten Dunst, Ralph Macchio, Ricky Gervais.

The Mise En Scene of the poster suggest that the film is a horror or thriller genre. The lighting is low key and very dark, this creates a scary feeling and a sense of danger. The male character is positioned in a long shot of him digging, the connotations of the prop (shovel) along with the other aspects of Mise En Scene are murder or a death? and the male is digging to hide or to find someone. The smoke around the character also creates a creepy feeling, is something beyond that? The title is positioned at the top of the poster and other information is at the bottom this allows us to focus on the image. The title gives more information than some short film posters. With this title I can connote that the film is about a man or boy, the title also sounds quite sinister as in the picture the grave has already been closed so it would suggest the man is digging up graves rather than making them.

One of the semantic codes is a prop of a lit candle, this creates a feeling of being lost or stuck as that candle is the characters only source of light. the candlelight is also a symbol of the time period it is set as is the males costume.These both suggest that the film is set before war time in America.

This film poster has  many conventions of short film posters for example:

• Billing block that tells us who was involved in the- This is positioned at the bottom of the poster like other posters however on some posters they position it elsewhere.
• Name of the director- 'A film by Jake Yard' many short films have the director and writer on their poster however showing the actors names is rare due to the low budget.
• Film festival awards- At film festivals the producers are more likely to get their film noticed- This poster shows that its won awards at the American film festivals. Showing the awards is also used as an advertising technique because short films don't get the media coverage big labels get.

What's different about this poster?

• Focus on the image rather than the title.
• No star ratings or reviews- This means the audience can't see what other viewers think of it and foreshadow aspects of the film.

I think the target audience for this are likely to be an older audience of 25-40 rather than 16-25 like many of the films i've looked at. The mise en scene is very professional that suggests its targeted at a specific audience.It appeals to this audience because of the Mise En Scene and the iconography of these they suggest its a dark film. older audiences tend to like thrillers or dramas more as they have to work out whats going on a lot more than in comedies.