Semiotics

The official definition of semiotics is:

"the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation."

The poster you see above is what I am going to analyse as an example.

The dictionary meaning of Denotation is the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests

Some denotations in this photo are:

• Person on a bird in front of the sunset
• Two large faces, one completely blue, the other with a bluish tint
• Floating island
• Mostly Red and Blue colours
• Glowing blue 'avatar'

 According to the dictionary a connotation is an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning (The association evoked by the denotation)

• Person on bird-Adventure
• Two faces and floating islands-Sci fi
• Red and blue- contrasting ideas of peace and danger/adventure
• Glowing blue 'Avatar'- Peaceful nature of the protagonist

We can also look at the anagram 'Distinct', which stands for:

Describe in detail
Setting - location,time period
Themes - love, guilt, revenge, good vs evil
Icons - Props 
Narrative -  Plot/Storyline
Characters - People/Those who the story is about
Textual analysis - camera angle

If we apply this to the poster we will see that the setting is the sky which suggests the movie is a sci fi, the time period seems to be futuristic. From the person on the bird and the planes in the background the viewer is lead to believe that the movie is 'good vs evil' as well as adventure. The most significant props used in the poster are  The sun and the floating islands which create a surreal atmosphere in the poster. Finally, in the centre we have two characters, one human, another avatar. The avatar is looking straight ahead, whereas the man is looking to the side and hiding half of the avatars face. Because of this we can only see half of each character's face creating a romantic atmosphere around the two.