
The Jaws poster is unique in itself because of the blatant fact that it is attempting to procure fear from the public.  This was a groundbreaking movie due to the use of an aquatic animals killing innocent people and the fact that there is a real possibility that it can happen to a person watching the film.  When they are at sea of course.  This movie changed society’s views of Great White Sharks and initiated the mass killings of Great White Sharks.  Initially created by Roger Kastel, who also created the Star Wars, this film is indicative of what a great illustrator can do.  This just shows that the use of a prominent artist can attract a larger audience due to their talent.

The poster is a visual containing many different details that show the illustrator’s purpose to show the chilling reality of sharks and their dangerous abilities.  The ways in which the illustrator succeeded in doing so is through the use of a human being swimming on the surface of the water, the use of the different shades of blue, the detail of the shark, the size of the shark, and the title of the film font and color.  These traits all add to the feelings that are meant to be procured from viewing the poster.  Lastly, there is a sentence that says “The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 best seller.”  This confirms that this will be a scary film or is intended to be a scary film.

The human swimming on the surface of the water relates to the humans that are viewing the poster and makes them fear Great White Sharks due to the shark in the poster.  This increased the fear towards Great White Sharks and changed the social views of sharks all over the world.  The human in the poster is swimming in deep waters and is doing the freestyle swim stroke and shows the innocence and unknowing of what is underneath them.  This poster shows that going out to sea has the possibility of encountering a shark and may be a dangerous encounter.  Another detail of the human is that it is a female due to the long hair.  Females are stereotypically more innocent than men due to their innate nature and society’s views on the gender.  Through the use of the innocence of a woman this enables the viewer to be more fearful of sharks.

The shades of blue have more meaning than being the stand-alone colors to show the sea, and help to show the Great White shark as the “villain” in the movie.  The closer to the surface the shade of blue is lighter showing that the human is an innocent person due to the light commonly portraying the good side.  The deeper in the ocean it is darker and the deeper in the ocean the closer to the shark and shows the darkness and the evilness of the shark.  The darkness is slowly rising upwards toward the human being at the surface showing that the shark is closing in on the person.  These shades of blue are what procure the fear from people due to these colors surrounding the focus of the poster and the colors are in the background to make the theme prominent in the poster.  

The Great White shark that is shown in the poster is drawn in great detail, and accurately shows the dangerous aspects of the shark to make people more fearful of them due to these features.  The shark feature that is the most obvious are the teeth.  This is because the sharks mouth is open and the teeth are pointing out in many directions to show that if a human is bitten by a shark that it will be immensely difficult to escape.  The teeth are also shown to be sharp and long to show that it can penetrate skin with ease and their upper jaw shoots down into the prey.  Knowing this fact and seeing these teeth on this Great White shark and being fearful of the potential harm that can come to any human being that encounters a Great White shark.  

The size of the Great White shark adds to the amount of fear that each person will have after viewing this poster.  The size of the shark adds to the fear through larger sharks being more intimidating and dangerous due to their size.  Through just looking at the poster it can be estimated that the shark in the poster is close to thirty feet to forty feet long.  I can infer this due to the average size of a woman being five feet four inches, the shark is easily six times as large as the woman swimming.  Even though that seems unrealistic and this is because through research I have found that the largest Great White sharks on record are thirty-six feet and thirty-seven feet.  Now knowing this information, it has made Great White sharks more dangerous than assumed previously.  The size of the shark cannot be completely determined due to the poster showing just the head of the shark and none of the rest of the body shown.  This leaves it to the human imagination of the size of the shark and makes the shark even more fearful.

The font of the title foreshadows death using the sharp letter J, and that people will be attempting to catch the shark due to J being in the shape of a hook.  The color of the title is important as well because it is a red that shows a resemblance of blood.  One can infer that through viewing the title that there will be bloodshed and violence occurring in the film.  Although, the picture as a whole is obvious that there will be bloodshed, but the font confirms one’s initial thoughts.  The positioning of the title is put there to be looked at last because the shark is the first thing one looks at due to the size of the shark and the imminent attack on the human being above the shark.  One’s eyes start with the shark and rise from the shark to the human swimming.  Lastly, see the title’s contrast with a white background to make the title stand out in a blood stained color.

The color above the water is plain white and this is to show that everything above water is not evil and is considered innocent.  On the other hand, everything below the surface of the water is blue and darker shades of blue to show the evilness of the ocean and the creatures that live in it.  The specific focus in this case is the Great White shark and that it is a dangerous predator to all humans and living creatures above the surface of the water.  Which is true Great White sharks breach the surface of the water to kill their prey and feed on it.  It shows that sharks could be a threat, but due to their nature and not eating humans as a part of their diet that it is unlikely to change.  That is because they mistake humans for other animals and once they realize their mistake they immediately let go.  Although, there are records of fatal shark attacks which is a rare occurance.

The single purpose of this poster is to show that the film will be a horror film and has a high probability that the film will increase the fear of Great White sharks.  This can be said due to a human being swimming on the surface of the water, the use of the different shades of blue, the detail of the shark, the size of the shark, and the title of the film font and color.  Through these aspects of the film poster the creator succeeded in procuring fear from the audience.  Although, sharks are deadly creatures at sea humans may believe that Great White sharks are a threat to humans.  When sharks dislike human flesh that is why there are more shark attacks than killings because they bite down on a human then let go.  The sharks let go due to the mistake they made believing that they human is their food.  The viewers of this film poster can find all this information through viewing it, but will not comprehend the extent to which this poster has been formulated to make them feel that specific way.  The statement in the middle of the poster confirms the audience’s beliefs about the poster and as well as creates more fear in the audience to anticipate in the film.