Evaluation for Movie Poster Analysis

All of the movie posters I chose to analyse were all movies with similar genres, most of them including horror and thriller, but with a lot of fantasy and adventure. Therefore, I was expecting a lot of the same conventions, which there were. I found that all the colour schemes on each of the posters used very dim colours, this helps majorly on creating the atmosphere and the feel of the movie. The only light that lit up the posters was fire for “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” which represented disaster, and for the “Gothika” poster the title of the movie was lit up in a blue light, suggesting that something supernatural was going on. This shows that light cannot always be related to good.
I also found that a large majority of movie posters I came across had the date of release on them, usually placed at the bottom. This would be a good idea for my poster as I feel it doesn't take too much attention away from the main focus of the poster, but it's still there for people to notice.
In only two out of five of the posters I analysed, the names of the actors that starred in the film were written at the top. This was a convention I expected to see more of, however, in my opinion Halle Berry, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are all well-known stars so this would help majorly in drawing audiences in, whereas the main character in "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" is less popular, therefore it wouldn't be drawing many people in by having her name on the top of the poster as an unknown name wouldn't make any difference to the audience.
In four of the posters, the characters are looking at the camera, therefore making the audience feel like they are being watched when they look at the poster. This could help the on-looker feel connected with the characters, and more involved in the film. The only poster in which the character is not looking directly out of the poster is the one for "Transformers", however he is a rival in the film, so maybe a character that the audience wouldn't want to be connected with. Also, with him facing the other way, it creates the effect that you are being ignored when looking at the poster, maybe because he has greater things on his mind such as evil plans, all helping to make the audience not like him already.