poster analysis - Food inc.

This poster is advertising a documentary about food and where it comes from.The Academy Award-nominated film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. The film received positive responses and was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award and the Independent Spirit Awards in 2009, both for Best Documentary Feature.

The poster has been laid out so the text are central with the cow, which has been placed in the middle of the poster. The main titles have been placed below the image of the cow, with additional details in small print below, and quotations used at the top of the poster. The poster has also used a star system to attract a target audience, in which under the main titles, there is a smaller title that says "A Robert Kenner film".

The image used in the centre of the poster is important to give the audience a message and understanding as to what the documentary could be about. In the poster, there is a cow standing in a field which has a barcode on its side. The significance of it being in a field within the mise en scene is iconic as that's the environment we'd associate a cow to be in. The significance of the barcode, however, is that is it something we associate with brands or products at a supermarket as that is where you'd expect to see one. The use of combining these two elements is that it could tell the audience what the future holds for this cow, in which works in contrast with the farmhouse in the background as it is where we expect meat to come from. This further shows the cow to be "branded" with an expected fate which could make the audience feel guilty or sympathy and want to investigate further into this documentary.

The colours used in this poster are bright and highly contrasted, which works in contrast with the scenery set in the poster, which has been set up to create a sunny day in the countryside. The font style used for both the main titles and the additional titles are plain and serif, which works in contrast with the rest of the poster and makes it seem formal. The font colours are black and white, in which the darker fonts have been used to overlay the brighter areas and the brighter fonts overlay the darker areas. The font colours work well along side the font and mis en scene as the colours used are plain and formal, and they also match the colours of the cow in the image used.