Sahara (2005)
The predominant genre in Sahara is adventure, although its definitely also an action film. The people behind the designing of the official poster had to clearly show evidence that the film was an Action and adventure film. In order to do this, they needed to show several different key factors which allow the viewer to instantly recognize the type of genre. As Sahara is an Action and Adventure film, the creators of the poster needed to show signs of action, adventure. To show that the film had lots of action, the creators decided to use a gang of what looks like rebels on horse back. The rebels are deliberately holding weapons in order to highlight the aspects of action and danger. Apart from the rebels, the poster struggles to deliver any other forms of action that would allow the viewer to recognize the genre.
The poster also struggles to highlight aspects of adventure. The creators of the poster, have tried to use the clothing and appearance of the main characters to suggest an adventure or journey. Although this is a perfectly valid way to present the genres of the film, its not enough for the viewer to be 100% sure that an adventure will take place. However I did like the clever use of the coin shaped into an S. The coin is very important in the film and it also suggests that the film may be based around an adventure to possibly find treasure of some sort (most likely money).
The film itself has a range of very famous actors (stars), that would appeal to many film enthusiasts Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey are both huge Hollywood stars, and regardless of the films performance, fans will turn out in numbers to watch their films. Matthew McConaughey, is well known for his action, adventure films and his role in this film suggests that the film will include lots of action and adventure scenes. The tagline is very poor in my eyes. "Adventure has a new destination", is very unclear and vague. The film would struggle to show its genre without the tagline stating the word "Adventure". After looking through the various questionnaire results, i found one person that stated that they only reason they knew it was an adventure based film, was because of the tagline. The is evidence to continue my argument that the poster just simply does not provide the viewer enough information. The poster does not show the villain in the film, in fact they seem to suggest that the rebels are villains, when in fact they are allies to the three adventurers.
After watching the film, you begin to wonder why they didn't add the image of the ship or treasure. The ship is the adventurers main objective, and it seems rather unusual that they didn't include it in the poster. More successful adventure films such as Indiana Jones, clearly highlight the objectives and villains on their posters.
However the poster does have some good points. In my opinion, the creators successfully set the scene on the poster. The dark orange and brown Saharan Landscape is clearly visible in the poster. The Saharan setting has been picked very effectively as it suggests an adventure or journey into a very dangerous area of the world. I feel that after watching the film and understanding the narrative/plot, i feel like changes should have been made on the poster. For example, the Narrative includes the finding of a ship, however the ship isn't visible in the poster. Also the introduction of Penelope Cruz's character, is due to the fact that a pandemic is spreading through Africa and could affect the whole world, however her involvement or even any suggestion of the pandemic is not visible in the poster. These are all things i would introduce into my poster as they seem far more important than the rebels in the original poster.
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