Poster Analysis - Fast & Furious 6

Focusing on the film poster for Fast and Furious 6, the main protagonist character is situated in the centre of the page with the rest of the cast behind him. The poster denotes the characters being represented as a strong body, people you would not mess with. This is emphasised by the costumes, facial expressions and body language. They are wearing tight clothes, which shows off their physique; this appeals to the target audience are they are able to see the male actor’s muscles clearly and the women all conform the perfect ideologies of what a women should look like to society.  The poster denotes the location of the England’s capital London which gives tells the audience that the film is set in London, appealing to English speaking audiences. There are high-speed sport cars situated next to the characters and these vehicles are iconic to the film as this is their main vehicle of transport in the film. The main font being “Fast & Furious 6”, the graphics for this font have been made to look like part of a car due to the metallic elements of the font, in silver colours. This appeals to the target audience, both the primary and secondary target audience as cars play an important part in the film. By having the dominant image of the main characters as the main focus on the film poster appeals to the target audience as they are key successful characters who are globally known to the Fast and Furious film franchise.

The film poster follows the narrative theory of Roland Barthes and Claude Levi Strauss, as Roland Barthes believes that there are five codes, which are woven into any narrative. These consist of the hermeneutic code, which is the code of enigmas, and puzzles as well as the porairetic code which is the code of action and any action initiated must be completed. In addition to this narrative theory, Claude Levi Strauss as he believes all narratives are driven by binary oppositions. As Fast and Furious is globally known, it is clear to audiences worldwide that Dominic Toretto who is the protagonist character in this film and his team are needed by Luke Hobbs to complete a mission and capture the antagonist characters. This appeals to the target audience as they want to know straight away who Dominic Toretto played by Vin Diesel and his team are after now. This leaves the audience with hermeneutic code an enigma and it can only be solved by the porairetic code, which is the action, completed by Toretto and his team in the film. Yet following the narrative theory of Claude Levi Strauss, all the characters can be viewed as both the protagonist and antagonist characters throughout the film in different aspects, which conforms the conventions of an action film.

This poster is for an action film and the conventions of action films are to be fast paced and create anxiety and suspense for the audience. By the main focus being of the protagonist characters being the main focus of the poster, they are known to be quick witted and rapid due to previous Fast and Furious films. The characters create suspense and anxiety for the audience so it appeals to them as they receive entertainment from watching the film, as they like to see how the Toretto and his team will be successful once again. The primary target audience could potentially receive adrenalin when watching the film due to the fact that the team are usually successful.

The main assumptions underpinning the poster is that yet again the Fast and Furious team will be successful which is emphasised by the image on the posture due to their facial expressions and body language as the audience are able to see clearly they are confident, strong, authoraitive characters. Therefore this appeals to the target audience as they encouraged to see if the team are fortunate again to win the battle that is about to commence with the antagonist. The target audience this poster is aimed at are both males and females from the age of twelve upwards. As part of the audience, my main assumption of this film is that the team are ahead of the game and will succeed yet I will not know what challenge they have undergone unless I watch the film so overall the poster encourages the audience to go and see the film.