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Writer's pictureAlicia Hodgson

Narratives in film posters

Updated: Jun 15, 2022

What is binary oppositions?

Binary oppositions are a pair of related concepts that are opposite in meaning. They are often used describe the main forces in a narrative and their equal and opposite. These can be both visual or thematic within an image or a story. Binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. It is the contrast between two mutually exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right. Binary opposition is an important concept of structuralism, which sees such distinctions as fundamental to all language and thought. In structualism, a binary opposition is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language. Typically, one of the two opposites assumes a role of dominance over the other. The categorization of binary oppositions is "often value-laden and ethnocentric", with an illusory order and superficial meaning. Furthermore, Pieter Fourie discovered that binary oppositions have a deeper or second level of binaries that help to reinforce meaning. As an example, the concepts hero and villain involve secondary binaries: good/bad, handsome/ugly, liked/disliked, and so on.


What are enigma codes?

Enigma codes are the “revelation of truth”. The producer of the media text will deliberately create a plot point that raises questions and teases the audience so we read on to resolve the mystery. Crime dramas are obvious narratives that rely heavily on enigma codes because we are positioned alongside the detective while they try to solve the crime and reveal “whodunit”. The most annoying examples have to be attention-grabbing and misleading clickbait titles; or sensationalised headlines in a newspaper that try to shock the reader into buying the publication.


What is an action code?

Action codes are significant plot points that drive the narrative forward. Rather than a sense of mystery, action codes help create suspense because we want to see the outcome and consequences of the scene. Any boss fight in any videogame would serve as an example of an action code. Or the hero of a quest narrative confronts the evil villain and the audience are excited to find out who wins the battle. Of course, action codes do not need to be this climatic. A simple knock on the door can create tension and transform a story. The action code is the idea of little actions that do not particularly raise questions, which creates tension and builds suspense to guess what happens next. This can be used in film posters parts of the poster may not straight away raise questions but could have an impact on the film. These could also be things that we expect to see before an action happens.

Binary Oppositions:

One of the binary oppositions is that the characters all of the characters have been put into there own section.

Another binary opposition is that the sections that the characters are in are a shade of colour that the character is. Each of these oppositions are representing these characters. The lighter shades of the two characters at the ends are lighter than the middle character because it suggets that they are the 'heros' of the film. Meaning the middle character is some sort of villian.


Enigma Codes:

Each of the characters have their own section which represents themselves as well as different shards of glass. These colours could suggest what type of people they are by the shade of the colours. The black backgound could implie that this is a dark film with a bit of death in it.

Action Codes:

The yellow character is lunging towards us which could suggest that he is going to attack somebody or break something as he looks similar to the hulk, who is kniwn for breaking things.


Binary Oppositions:

The colours in the backgorund start off dark around the edges whilst fading into a lighter colour The darker colour around the edge and lighter colour in the middle are binary oppositions as they different. The lighting on face only show his most noticable features on him. This being his right eye and his nose.


Enigma Codes:

The broken glass which is floating around suggests that the man in the poster could be some sort of time traveler and is travelling through space, implied by the colours of the backgorund. This glass could get the audience thinking about why there is a lot of glass floating out him with no context.


Action Codes:

The text on this poster is a lot thicker and more noticable than the poster above. This is because it wants us to be able to see what it says. The tagline is a lot bigger as they want the audience to read it and then want to watch the film.

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