The Importance of Semiotics/Signifies Signified. 

Here is a poster advertising  the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

The first thing the audience sees when they look at this poster is the actors faces. All four actors are looking directly into the camera in an inviting fashion. The audience almost wants to be taken into this fictional pirate world and go on a journey with these ferocious and heroic pirates. 

    

Johnny Depp (Captain Jack Sparrow) is wearing a red bandanna and is holding a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, both cross over making a 'V' shape with his face in the middle. The connotations of this are danger and violence. Red is associated with blood and death which demonstrates this isn't a typical Disney production. 

Above the parchment are the main four actors names (Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and finally Keira Knightley), however the real shots of the actors/characters are not organised in this way. Unlike the writing the images are different sizes and in a different order. Johnny Depp is at the front and is the largest image, to the left and right of him are Bloom and Rush who are both similar sizes and last to the left of Bloom is Knightley who is the smallest. The reason they are organised this way is down to character importance and likewise with their acting names at the top. Depp, the most important character, is the biggest and Knightley, the least important character is the smallest. 

Underneath the actors there is a long shot of a dark pirate ship with a very orange moon in the background. The connotations of this remind me of Halloween because of the orange and black colours. Certain themes of Halloween include pirates and dead men (skeletons) which could be perceived as foreshadowing for the events in the film.