Abstract In this paper I will be talking about three different movie posters of the American War genre. First I will describe where I found the movie posters, and then I will state the results of the visual elements. Then I will analyze, and critique the results of the findings. Introduction When someone walks along the hallway of a movie theater, they will see a series of movie posters which are there to advertise the movie. Humans are known to act on their first impression, and this is important in advertising because it will either attract or defer a potential viewer. Most people have a favorite movie genre, so they’re more inclined to watch a movie that appears to fit under their genre. Through the movie posters a patriotic theme is given off, which will invite in the intended audience. American War movies have very similar posters, although they will have different stories. Today I will be talking about three different movie posters of the American war genre: “American Sniper” (See Fig.1), “Fury” (See Fig.2), and “Lone Survivor” (See Fig. 3). The main purpose of this report is to find and analyze the visuals of the three movie posters.

Methodology

In order to try and test my hypothesis, I will need to find material that will allow me to gather the appropriate information. I am going to use the internet to find three movie posters of the same genre, and that genre is American war movies. First I will search on google images for American War Movies. In order to stay within the boundaries of pop culture, it will be smart to add the word “new” to the search box alongside American War Movies. Most of the time there are different posters for the same movie, and this depends on budgeting for that movie. The first poster will serve as advertisement, and the advanced movie poster will be the one that I will use to describe genre awareness. The first movie poster that jumped out at me was for the movie “American Sniper” (See Fig.1) Thinking before printing this movie poster, I checked the site it came from to assure credibility. The site I chose to get this legitimate movie poster from was http://www.imdb.com/ because it seemed the most credible being that it was sponsored and owned by Amazon.com. This poster also had a release date, rating, and a list of credentials. I searched for the movie “Fury” (See Fig. 2) on Google.com because I saw it in my recent discoveries on the search engine in finding my first poster. My first movie poster had a release date, but this one did not. Knowing that I thought http://www.imdb.com/ was credible and reliable enough for the first movie poster I used, I went ahead and used the site again. For my third movie poster I went straight to the same website previously utilized to find my last movie poster which would be for the movie “Lone Survivor” (See Fig. 3). Although I used the same website I became skeptical because this movie poster had neither a release date nor any credentials at the bottom. I searched Google.com and found that the most frequent “Lone Survivor” did not have either of these things. Therefore, I had completed my search for three American War Genre movie posters.

Results
“American Sniper” (See Fig. 1) The background of the poster is a gloomy, and grey sky which resembles thick clouded smoke with small cracks of plain white light behind it. The background adds a sharpened effect to Bradley Cooper who is wearing a military green, brown, and beige camouflage outfit with a beige bulletproof vest. His outfit resembles the traditional navy seal combat uniform. He is carrying his helmet which was obviously taken of his head due to the messy look of his somewhat grown military haircut. His face is dirty, and his squinting facial expression is pointed down as if he is looking at the ground ahead of him. A tilted sideways American flag is blowing in the wind, and is covering the middle of his body. The American flag covers the width of the poster and is colored Red, White, and Blue. In the left bottom corner of the poster it is smoky and makes it hard to see his legs and weapon that shows under the bottom of the waving flag. The title is written in white and does not stick out, but below it says faintly in the same color “THE MOST LETHAL SNIPER IN U.S. HISTORY” (See Fig.1). The credentials are exactly as wide as the statement in the same color. And the release date is in the bottom right corner written in red in all caps, still as small as the credentials, but spaced differently. Bradley Cooper is written in grey at the top left corner, and Sienna Miller is written the exact same on the opposite side. “Fury” (See Fig. 2) The sky which shows in one fourth of the poster is completely filled with white cloud, and a pencil sketched looking vignette. Below the sky is bushy green trees that look like they’re far behind the huge Tiger tank that is dirty with mud. Shia Labouf leans up against the dirty tank, and has a look of defeat while looking into the distance. Michael Pena is sitting down on the tank while looking into the same direction as Shia. Logan Lerman is sitting on the highest point of the tank, with his knees facing the trees behind, but he is wrenched around looking the same direction as the others. Brad Pitt is the focus of the poster and stands in front of the tank with everyone behind him. Brad Pitt is looking in the same direction as the rest. They are all dirty, black on their faces, and all wearing marine outfits from the early 1920’s. As they are all looking in the same direction their facial expression looks like they’re waiting for something, but do not look afraid. Each of their blackened faces look like they know what is coming. The main cannon coming off of the front of the Tiger Tank says “Fury” in white chalk looking paint. “War Never Ends Quietly” is at the top center of the movie poster written in faint grey, which doesn’t stick out. “FURY” is in the lower center of the poster written in very bold yellow with the name “Brad Pitt” written in less bold directly above it in the same faint grey as the quote at the top of the poster. Under the unnoticeable credentials written in the traditional skinny unreadable font is the release date which is October 17th. . The release date written in small white bold at the very bottom center of the poster lining up with the poster.
“Lone Survivor” (See Fig. 3)

Mark Wahlberg is the main focus of the poster with rest behind him being black, which makes every detail of his face stand out. He is very close up looking straight at me, but only half of his face makes the poster. He is wearing a khaki bucket hat which fabric and stitching looks frayed and distressed. His skin is blackened with mud, or paint. His skin looks oily as if he hadn’t cleaned himself in days, and his pores are very prominent. Each piece of facial hair that makes up the dark mustache, and “chin strap” is also prominent and noticeable. Mark Wahlberg looks very un-groomed. You can tell he has an American Navy Seal uniform on because of the American Navy emblem patch that you can see near his face that is attached to his bulky combat vest. You can see the hood if his jacket that goes all the way to the back of him where you can no longer see. He wears an ear piece, and you can see the spiral electrical wire attached to his vest to his ear. “Live to tell the story” is written to fit all the way across the width at the top of the poster. The quote is written in white, but doesn’t stick out dramatically. In focus, next to his eye says the title in bold white. Over top of the title says “Mark Wahlberg” in smaller print, and in even smaller print below the title says “Based on the acts of courage” (See Fig. 3

Discussion

By researching these movie posters I was able to better interpret what made these posters fit in the American War genre. In these posters they share similar elements such as color, fonts, and tone of character.