The film poster is sued to show the audience the dilemma that Edward – the main character is in right now. He is in love with the girl who is shown in the film poster to be embarrassing him, his deformity with the scissor hands doesn’t allow him to return the affection. The colours in the background contrast with Edwards gothic look. The poster is split in two with picture an information quite clearly separated by the bright white and the cloudy scene behind the characters. The background is shown to have a clear blue sky filled with lots of soft white cloud. It gives a sense of purity and innocence about the film, matches the pre-modifier “gentle”. However, it juxtaposes to how Edward looks and the colour that he wears shows darkness.
The central image is of the gothic character looking hurt and in pain while the beautiful girl is embracing him. He cannot return the affection that she is giving him, hence the hurt expression on his face. We see how helpless he is because of the scissor hands. The text colours are black and blue as they are used to contrast against the part of the poster they are on to make the lettering stand out. Black at the top over light blue and white with dark blue over bright white at the bottom. The noun phrase “Scissorhands” is capitalised to emphaisise the main storyline to the audience.
There are two different tag lines on the poster. The first is at the top of the poster talking of a gentle man which makes the audience symphysis with the gothic looking deformed characters we see in the picture. While the second tag line at the bottom of the poster describes the feelings that the couple have for each other. The poster is split into two. Picture and information, quite clearly separated, by the bright white and the cloudy scene behind the characters. By having it this way, it is easier for the audience to focus just on the image and emotions in the picture of the couple, then to read after what we can in the small print and the title.
Skylar Brady 