Semiotics (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Semiotics

Pirates of the Caribbean

We were looking at the film poster from Pirates of the Caribbean: The curse of the black pool. And all the semiotics of the poster and what made this particular poster, appealing to the market market audience. I.e. color, font, image and the layout.

The poster shows the four main characters of the film. Shown in order of importance. From the Center of the page to the smaller image, behind the others. It tells us who the main character is without even watching the film. This shows Johnny Depp directly in the Center of the poster. Which implies he is the main character in the film. He is looking very serious holding his weapons, also painting an image of mystery. Because of his appearance i.e. his bandanna. This suggests he is playing a pirate role, which reflects the film genre and what it is about. Which is about pirates. Also the film title gives the film away Pirates of the Caribbean. This is important because it attracts the film and tells the audience what the film is about and the genre without even watching it. Also, it shows the roles of which the characters play and the darker more serious side of the film.

On the far left, is a picture of a female (Keira Knightly) looking very seductive with her chest out looking very serious. Her position on the poster is at the far back which represents her impotence in the film. This shows that it is a man dominated film because there are three men on the poster more important than her because they’re in front of her. This shows that she is only there because she’s pretty, which in a result will attract an older male audience to watch the film. Furthermore, she is looking very serious directly at the camera to connect to the audience because it intrigues them to watch the film, which is effective. Because of her sex appeal look on the poster, her role in the film suggests there are a romantic love side of the film, as well as a dark side.   

The title is appealing because it’s placed on an old tattered scroll, showing it flits with the theme of pirates and the time period of the film. The font is very old and looks handwritten which is appealing because it stands out from other movie poster competition and looks more appealing. Moreover, the films genre is more recognizable because of the films logo, which is a skull and cross bones with two old swords begin the rotten skull, with a bandanna, which gives a comparison to Johnny Depp because he is wearing the same bandanna.             

At the bottom of the poster, is an image of a pirate ship in front of a glowing sun. The holes in the ships sales are visible and blacked out but highlighted, which gives a dark image to suggest there’s a mystery of the ship. This also, connotes that the ship has a key role to the film before even watching it. This attracts the audience because it looks appealing and intrigues them into watching the film.

The poster has no set color scheme however; warmly colors such as orange and yellow are used to create a warmly humor feel to the film. Also because these colors contrast with the black color to make it look appealing and to attract a wider audience.