The Dark Knight Poster Analysis

The Dark Knight

The dark knight had an extremely successful campaign pre-release. It had a major triumph through their viral marketing campaign and attracted thousands and thousands of potential viewers before the film trailer had been released. However this poster on the other hand played a part in that. This poster was composed brilliantly. It doesn’t necessarily attract the viewer’s eye to one thing but at least 7. The centre of attention would start centrally at ‘Batman’ (Christian bale) and then widen to the ‘Joker’ (Heath Ledger) and then ‘Harvey Dent’ (Aaron Eckhart). They were positioned excellently in order to make this process of awareness spot on.

It seems to be photographic which gives it an amazing effect that the viewer will appreciate and the cast would be proud of. The part of it that seems to be computer enhanced would be the Batman logo which is almost being obliterated by a source of light behind that we are not aware of at this point. They are not in any setting, just a dark background; this gives off a more mysterious effect and once again pulls the viewer in further. What is special about this poster is that it has no setting, the three main characters with one prop each and it still manages to question the viewer intensely. The viewer is almost obliged to look at what feature each character is bring to the table and with that it will either succeed or fail, we now know that it succeeded with flying colours.

The level of mystery included in this poster is abnormal to most posters. On the other hand when it works it works brilliantly. The reason for this is that each characters prop covers the other side of their face which may mean that they all have secrets if not weaknesses. These factors intrigue the viewer and make no mistake in saying that it did.

The rule of thirds is used superbly as everything matches each third of the poster exactly. The font is very bold and direct, the title is evenly spread across the bottom third of the poster and across the imaginary horizontal line. Each character takes up the middle row boxes and the casting names at the top third. This allows everything to be organized and makes it as easy possible to comprehend by the viewer which I think is what making this poster and all posters is about.