Technical, Written and Semiotic codes

What are technical codes?

Different technical codes make up movie posters, often some will omit these in order to achieve different aims such as creating a teaser poster, or even to omit some of the key features in the story that would be ruined on the poster.The Technical codes of a movie poster are the factual aspects to it, that stand out to the audience and inform them about the film in terms of: 

• Lead actor/actress                  
• Tagline                                   
• Billing block                           
• Title                                       

The name of the lead actor

is represented here.

 
 Another technical code is the

Tagline "Its nothing personal"

The title of the movie as usual is 

just above the billing block.

At the bottom, like the majority 

of posters, the Billing block can

be see.

The billing block of a movie sums up all of the directors, producers, actors, writers as well as the production companies that will have endorsed and funded the making of the film. similar to the credits at the end of a film, the billing block gives credits to the most important people from the film, and won't for example include the make-up artists or the lighting executives would not feature on the billing block, considering its just a small portion of the poster.

What are written codes?

these are the words that are used in the tag lines themselves to make a short summary to the films. Tag-lines are the catchy, enticing short phrases used to attract potential audiences in, and sell the movie to the people. Sometimes it can sum up the narrative in a short sentence or convey the genre or themes of the film and often provides subtle narrative or genre information, which wouldn't be communicated by the title and images alone. e.g. "part-man. part-machine. all cop. the future of law enforcement" from Robocop (1987) sums up the premise of the film, a cyborg police officer, that becomes the new face of law enforcement in Detroit. the use of the short sentences to create the phrase is powerful and tells the audience all they need to know about the film, to create interest.

Another example is this tagline to Alien (1979). This is one simple phrase, but split into two parts, reveals the theme of the film and the genre. "Space" automatically links to the Sci-Fi genre, as well as the use of the word "scream", showing the film could be a horror/thriller as well.

What are Semiotics?

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, which is heavily used in movie poster from the past up until the present. This is often the connotations of certain images colours and even font styles that are used in movie posters. like written codes these also show the themes and genre of the movie they are advertising, but in a more implicit way.

For example, this movie poster for Star Trek, advertises that it is a movie of the Sci-Fi genre, but shows it to people that previously may not have seen the series of films or TV. this is shown through the use of colour and font style, the use of the dark blues and silvers in the poster are reminiscent of the futuristic and sci-fi genre, and audiences that have come into contact with movies like this before will recognise it and understand the genre from the colours. 

the same goes for the font style in the title, a futuristic font for a film set in the future makes sense and is very relatable for a target audience for sci-fi films.

The most obvious image also that endorses these points is the image of the "spaceship" in the background layer, but goes to show how semiotics in movie posters can point out stuff without the most obvious images to confirm these ideas.