Dance Flick Analysis

Dance Flick Analysis

Dance Flick parodies many dance movies and involves aspects of each of them in the movies storyline, meaning it relies on an Dance movie literate target audience. It heavily bases most of it on Saved The Last Dance but include similar, almost caricatured characters from other movies also. This is clearly seen in the poster as it represents the mulitple movies by referencing to the different exaggerated characters and scenes, appealing to their dance/drama literate audience. This presents the point of many parodies: to appeal to a literate audience so they can part-take in the jokes as fully as possible. We want to appeal to a literate audience but possibly in a wider sense of the entire genre opposed to specific movies like Dance Flick have.

The Poster In General

• -The film poster uses apex of gold triangle to draw the audiences eyes to the film title. It also includes most of the film references within this triangle which is the most important information.
• -The poster is also dynamic because it uses different colours not only to reference to other films but also to make look more exciting.
• -It makes links to stereotypes of dance dramas as it implies there is romance, by using codes of gesture of couples hugging to imply a relationship.
• Hyperbolic language is used at the top of the poster. They say the movie is the 'funniest' and 'of all time' suggesting that the film is better and more comedic than all previous dance movies/dramas.
• The Wayans Brothers family name is placed in white bold writing to emphasise the name from the other red text, implying they are using their star personas to gain a bigger appeal for the movie.
• The colours used are not that many because they are copying the Save The Dance Poster opposed to the fun vibrant colours used in Austen Powers. However, they do make the poster more dynamic by placing the typography in red and white and having splashes of colour such as yellow and red to make them stand out more.
• The typography is a sans serif simple font in capitals creating a drama about the movie and also keeping the focus on the images taken opposed to fancy high graphics typography that is normally used in dance movies.

• Dance flick strongly copies the Save The Last Dance (STLD) movie poster, which mirrors the movies strong involvment in the plot line. It also implies again that the movie is a parody of Save The Last Dance and that it is making fun of the movie opposed to just copying it.
• The background is the same to Saved The Last Dance using the run down background to link to the conventions of the genre or the characters coming from a poor area.
• The loving gase at the top of the STLD poster is subverted into cheeky smiles implying the movie is a comedy as well as a drama, taking away from the seriousness of the original.
• The black actor also addresses the audience by looking staright at the camera to connect with them, demanding their attention.
• The couple also connote romance but also imply that they are the main characters. We could use similar shots from dance movie posters in ours to link with certain conventions of dance movies.

• They also parody You Got Served and they show this by using a break dancing pose the front that is similar to the original You Got Served poster.
• On the Dance Flick poster the character that is upside down has a sign on his top. This automatically makes the poster more dynamic and interesting as the poster has a lot of smaller, slightly hidden references to the original posters.
• The sign says, 'Don't stop snitching' making references to one of the movies jokes, giving the audience a sneak peak of the what's in the film.
• The man in the Dance Flick poster is standing directly on his head in an impossible position, implying the film with have special effects that will give a comedic effect.
• The cracks on the floor suggests his head made the marks and so implies the movie is parodying the motion of break dancers spinning on their heads as they use an extreme exaggeration in the film to create humour.

Dance Flick also references to one of the teenage pregnant characters Save the Last Dance. However, they exaggerate her character by making her have a huge baby bump and give birth to the baby on the dance floor as seen in the trailer.

• This is implied through the exaggerated picture on the poster where the baby is standing on her back and the sign saying, 'Who's my baby daddy?'.
• 'Who's my baby daddy?' links to the storyline of the original character in Save The Last Dance but also is comedic because it replaces the traditional text of 'baby on board'
• This evokes humour and reinforces that Dance Flick is a parody of the dance movies it refers to, not just a comedy.

• The Dance Flick film poster also refers to the internet and media phenomenon/meme of the 'Dancing Baby' or 'Baby Cha-Cha'. This video is one of the first viral video in the 90s where a baby is shown doing a dance that resembles the cha-cha. As Dance Flick desided to base their baby character on him as they are very similar, it shows that their audience would be internet/media literate and would have been familiar with the comedic internet viral video.
• The baby on the Dance Flick poster however has more detail to him. He has white plastic glasses that is linked with music and youth culture to make the baby seem more comedic and quirky.
• We could possibly play on an internet phenomenon which is popular because of the success of websites like Youtube, showing the importance of the internet in advertising. This is also supported by our audience research results where most of our audience said they found most of their information about films on the internet.

The poster also features another comedic character from the musical Hairspray. They parody the plus size character and exaggerate the idea of her dancing by having her bumping part of the bridge and breaking it. This slap dash comedy gives the poster a light hearted and fun approach. This also widens the appeal to not only people who are fans of Dance movies but also those who watch musicals, through the use of intertexual references to different movies.

• Another movie it parodies is Step Up when it refers to their movie poster by using a similar dancing embrace and the same orange lighting effect. The comedy is implied through the exaggeration of the male actors character, they emphasise that he is a janitor by incorporating a mop in the picture and making him have a cheeky facial expression. The female character is also exagerated as the actress they chose has high cheek bones, sports a pouting face, hair tied back and a tiara. This connotes they are choosing to emphasise the difference in these characters and suggests that they are addressing that in Dance movies, there is a lower class group that are often unsophisticated and ignorant to cultures such as ballet.
• They are also centre frame indidicating that they are also appealing to a younger audience that probably began watching Dance movies from around 2006 and have built on their interest in the genre from there. This is probably one of the most recognisable posters as it uses this uniques orange lighting, so not only allows the audience to recognise it but also draws people's eyes to fact that it's a parody.