Natalie Portman has a very serious expression on her face, her eyes are completely focused on the camera.

Because she is the only person featuring in this poster, it clearly indicates that she is the protagonist of this film.

Natalie Portman is shown with a crack down her face. This could portray that she is coming to a breaking point, so it could be a metaphor. It could be a metaphor for a number of different things such as her being under so much pressure, ( as I know from the title that Black Swan is a ballet show, and ballet dancers are always under a large amount of pressure).

The title is black.Black is authorial hint for darkness, and therefore would indicate in the film that her story is going to be dark and mysterious. Swan being written in black is interesting because swans are usually white and are associated with purity. This is a massive hint about the contents of the film, it is easily misinterpreted.

You can vaguely see a white feather in the corner of the poster.White represents innocence, but that is contradicted by the black background and title, as black represents darkness.

Dark makeup is shown on Natalie in this poster, especially around the eyes and she is given a very pale complex.

The type of thing you would expect to see in a thriller is good and evil fighting against each other with a on going feel of tension, and suspense. In a lot of thriller films, the antagonist is know, and the protagonist tries to intervene with the plans, a good example of this would be ‘Dark Knight’. A film of this genre usually has a sense of danger or of threat through out. The story of the average thriller film will usually be shown from the protagonists point of view. This point of view helps engage the audience in the on going events, and lets them become closer to the character as they are able to see how the protagonists reacts in different situations with different characters. Other points of view can often help with revealing the plot for example showing clips from the villain’s point of view, allowing the audience to understand him as a character when he is alone, or how they used to act ( in a flashback ), which sometimes creates a sense of empathy towards the villain. During the scenes in which characters are just using dialogue, the audience can sort of grasp an idea of what is going on, but never receive the full truth of what is happening until later on in the film, so that it holds the mystery and suspense until further on in the film. Usually the motive of the villain will be revealed more towards the end of the film, it is then when the audience can finally match their thoughts with the characters, or in fact change them.

The conventions of a thriller poster are always quite simple yet effective. There are always hints on a thriller poster which will let the reader have an idea of who the main character is, and possibly certain traits of that character, the situation they might become involved in, or possibly even show hints of danger or mystery. There will always be a tag line, this could be used to give a moral to the story or it can be received as a warning. Cast members are always a major part of the campaign, as if the celebrity is well known, then it will help to attract their fans to go and watch the film. This can also apply to a director, if the director is well known for amazing films prior to the one that is being advertised, the audience are more likely to trust that this film will be a good one.

Specific things that may feature in a convention could be, a weapon, as thrillers are known to use them. A serious look could be present on the characters face. There are loads of iconic objects used within thriller films, and therefore they are more than likely to appear in a poster. The posters are used to capture an audience’s attention, the better the poster is, the more enthusiastic people are going to be to come and see it.

The characters teeth.His teeth have the mannerism of a wild, crazed animal hunting for something, it is sort of a smile also, which indicates that this character is excited about what he is about to do.

The main focus of the poster is Jack Nicholson, he is renowned for playing strange and often insane characters therefore the audience could guess the theme of the film is likely to follow that of a psychotic nature.

The character has broken through a door. The facial expression shown suggests the character is menacing another character, possibly violent and out of control

The eyes. Jack’s eyes look fixated onto something. He could be staring at another character, whom he is about to attack.

The hair. His hair is out of place, I think this adds to the frantic look that the character has, it adds to the fact that the character has been doing something crazy.

The title is written in black, and the directors is written in red. Black is a color of mystery and red is a color of danger, this gives hints about the films content.

Iconic Thrillers

Silent night