The Interactive Meaning of a Movie Poster: a Multimodality of Spiderman: No Way Home

DOI : 10.30595/jssh.v6i1.12806 Abstract. This study aims to disclose the interpersonal meaning in movie posters. This is a semiotic study, applying Royce's (2001) intersemiotic complementarity framework. It is to analyze visual and verbal codes in the posters. The poster is taken from the official website of Marvel Studio. They are used as a medium for advertising the products. Based on the analysis, it can be identified that the visual contact is straighforward creating a demanding pose, a close-up mode presenting an emotional expression instead of the covered face, the frontal view emphasizing the bond of the character to the viewers, its eye-level presentation creating his equality to the on-lookers. All of this demanding pose was made clear by the situation informed by the verbal elements, that Spiderman had no way home. It is also a preview of the plot of the movie in this sequel. Thus, both semiotic elements in the poster have produced a unity of meaning, which puts the superhero as a part of the society in general, especially where he lives; he is not a different human being in spite of the super power he holds.


I. INTRODUCTION
Visual communication design in a modern sense is a design that results from rationality, knowledge-based, rational, and pragmatic (Widagdo, 1993:31).
The world of visual communication design is always dynamic, full of motion and change because modern civilization and science have made industrialization possible. As a culture that is related to social and economic systems, visual communication design also has to deal with consequences as a mass product and mass consumption. One of them is poster, functioning as a medium of mass communication that serves as a means of promotion and entertainment. Hornby (1974:799) defines posters as placards or announcements posted in public places.
One of the most widespread applications of posters today is to promote a movie. A movie is a mass communication medium in the form of a series of pictures taken from moving objects that show a series of events that occur continuously, which functions as a medium of entertainment, education, and information (Shadily, 1980(Shadily, , p.1007.
In designing poster visualization, images as visual language containing visual structures such as lines, colors, and compositions designed together with verbal language must be packaged in an attractive, simple, and correct way. Visualization and the approach in delivering the message of a poster are elements that are quite important so that the message can be well received and attractive. The language of poster is typically informal, using simple and short sentences and interactive word (Dyer, 1982, as quoted by El-Dali, 2019. This is closely related to the main purpose of advertising is to persuade the audience to do something and make the audience easier to catch its message.
Therefore, the visual and verbal elements of advertisements can be explored further to reach their full meaning.
Royce (2001) suggests a descriptive framework for analyzing multimodal texts, especially words and images that blend together, by adopting Halliday's language metafunction theory and visual grammar (Kress and Leeuwen, 1996). Royce concluded that images and text in posters tend to work together to create meaning for the reader/viewer. He refers to this as complementary between languages (Royce, 2001). This study presents an analysis of interpersonal meaning based on images and texts used in MPA (Movie Posters Advertisements). Some studies on mutlimodality have been conducted by previous scholars (Yusuff, 2020;Mahmudah, 2021;Yu, 20019;Dallyono & Sukyadi, 2019;). Yusuff (2020) took printed ads from interpersonal aspects, by seeing the look of the characters in the picture and also the type of mood in in the clauses used there. Focusing on different aspect of metafunction, Mahmudah (2021) analyzed a public health campaign in the form of comic strip. The campaign was related to the recent pandemic of COVID 19, and it is published in Instagram. She explored representational meaning of its verbal texts and the images of the comics. Dallyono and Sukyadi (2019) collected some environment campaign posters and analyzed their visual and textual elements in them. The data were analyzed from their interactive meaning. These studies have made use of posters as their data with two different purposes: comercials and public-interest. Some other studies (Yu, 2019;Yin & Hassan, 2021;Darliati & Mahmud, 2020) analyzed movie posters from classic western films (Yu: 2019), war film (Yin & Hassan:2021), and romance films (Darliati & Mahmud: 2020). Their data are also various in number from a poster (Yin & Hassan:2021), some posters (Yu: 2019), and many posters (Darliati & Mahmud: 2020). The studies employing more data only focused on the visual aspects of the poster, and analyzed them from three aspects of meaning: reproductive, interactive, and constitutive (Yu, 2019;Darliati & Mahmud, 2020). Meanwhile, a poster in the study of Yin and Hassan (2021) was analyzed from their visual and verbal signs by exploring all three aspects of meaning. Considering the fact above, the present study took a poster of different genre movie, superhero which is commonly depicted in a solitary mode. Thus, the interaction is more between the viewer and the image; no relation between the represented participants. Besides, it focused on the interactive/interpersonal meaning of the visual in more detail. The verbal element, which is usually minor in poster, was also looked closley to discern a complete meaning of the marketing item.

II. METHOD
The data for this study was taken from a promotional poster titled "Spider-Man -No Way Home" posted on November 8, 2021, on Marvel's official Twitter account (@SpiderManMovie), where the movie was officially released on December 15, 2021. The data was collected in several stages. The first step is to download the ad from the official Marvel website, the second is to observe the visual message of the ad, such as color, shape, and the third is to observe the verbal message attached on the poster. The collected data were then analyzed descriptively and qualitatively based on semiotic theory, especially Royce's (2001) multimodal complementarity framework, which combines Halliday's (1991) SFL and visual grammar (Kress and Leuween, 1996). They were applied to undertand the network relations among the represented participants in the image, and between the picture designers and the viewers, interactive participants, who were analyzed from the verbal signs, through Halliday's (1991) interpersonal metafuncstion.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The description of the results of this study was based on interpersonal perceptions which are verbal and complementary signs. The first part shows that interpersonal relationships represent every sign contained in the poster. Exchange images/text with viewers/readers, and others will focus on both. To achieve the same goal in one way.

III.1 Visual Sign
There are five aspects of the visual code that are believed to help structure the human interaction between the image and the viewer. Namely, eye contact, social distance, engagement, power relationships, and forms. Each will be discussed in terms of image features considered within the framework of visual grammar theory, according to Kress and Leeuwen (2006).

III.1.1 Visual contact
Judging from the visual side, the poster picture shows only the main character of the movie. The main character, Spider-Man, wears a new costume with his whole face covered in a mask. It is sophisticated with variations in iron and gold colors. His eyes are invisible, but from a point of view, you can see that the character is looking straight up while his hands are holding the sides of his head. Seen from his posture and appearance, it means he has something coded for us. All viewers are encouraged to understand the fictional relationships it provides (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006). In other words, the attendees represented the demand service. He asks the audience to act or perceive. He looked depressed and showed that he didn't know what else to do to protect something on his own. From our observation, viewers can conclude that violence will occur at this point, or after some time. The warning is the fact that the enemy can be killed multiple times at the same time unless one of the viewers drives the enemy away and comes up with a solution for the character. Therefore, it can be said that this photo is a "demanding photo" that leads to a serious plea.
Audience were encouraged to take some urgent action. Here, the poster figure does not look at the viewer. It is displayed as the scene to be observed. The single character is impersonal and is not in an eye contact with the viewer. The poster depicts him as an actor, with participants placed in a third party for the audience and image producers (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006). This fact informs the viewer that such an incident may not occur in the real world due to a solitary presentation of the superhero. There are things they can do to help the victim in that situation. Viewers are guided to indirectly imagine that the movie is being shown through the visual message of the poster.

III.1.2 Social Distance
Participants shown in Figure 1 were taken in close-up mode (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006), showing a person's head, hands, and shoulders. This method makes it easier for the viewer to see the details of the facial expressions, though the character is wearing a face-covering costume. Viewers can understand how the character's feelings and thoughts are depicted on the poster. Close-ups tell the eerie story of a character drawn by making the viewer feel something while looking at the visualization of the image.

III.1.2 Social Distance
Participants shown in Figure 1 were taken in close-up mode (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006), showing a person's head, hands, and shoulders. This method makes it easier for the viewer to see the details of the facial expressions, though the character is wearing a face-covering costume. Viewers can understand how the character's feelings and thoughts are depicted on the poster. Close-ups tell the eerie story of a character drawn by making the viewer feel something while looking at the visualization of the image. This shot maximizes the personal distance and creates a close relationship between the viewer and the person. The male character in the picture is depicted to have a solitary nature; he was there alone, not with anyone. He became a part of the audience. He can be their close neighbors, friends, and even family members. In short, a close-up image of a male image creates a close relationship to the viewers. Figure 1 shows a front view showing audience engagement. The viewer and the male character represented are on different eye lines, but put both sides in the same circle. Here, the viewer sees the object directly, which means a strong and clear interaction. Thus, there is a high level of interaction with the object of the picture (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006). You can observe how the symbols shown in the figure are positioned in an inclined position. Viewers do not share views with any character. Although the characters are unfamiliar, the audience can feel like relatives. This angle does arouse a sympathy, regardless of who the

III.1.4 Power Relations
The character depicted in movie posters is clearly visible (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006). Such a clarity created a neutral point of view (neither superior nor inferior). This is done to convey equality between the subject of the image and the viewer. The difference in power between spectators and participants was not there. Besides, the character there also connect the emotions depicted to the audience. This means that violent/heroic events are part of a social lifestyle where each body has its own powers. This equality is an attempt to impress strongly that the superhero is a part of the society, though he has obvious superiority, compared to other people.

III.1.5 Modality
In the Spider-Man movie poster, the background has a lower level of detail, indicating a lower modality. The background image is mainly dark. The colors are dull, and the depth is naturally suggestive that the image represents anxiety. Dark colors convey a mood of sadness, tension, anxiety and sadness. Some details a character can best see are displayed at the expressive or detail abstraction level and use textures, lighting, and tones to enhance form. Image without bright colors to emphasize the seriousness of the situation. The realism or reliability of the image is different. An image creator can make it clear to the viewer that a character's personality is unknown, but predictable.

It makes the viewer imagine.
Therefore, when judged as the most visible object, the image has a high level of stylistic or naturalness (Kress, Leeuwen, 2006). This is real. It's not a fictional character. An anxious and irritable superhero in a tense atmosphere. The image has fully saturated colors. The visual style is high in terms of realism and certainty (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006). This poster doesn't explain very well how the movie will be aired. The simple design and a few secondary accents will make the viewer think about Spider-Man's plot. The poster presents reality to the audience. However, as a fictional case, the scene is certainly artificial. This has been exaggerated to reinforce people's ignorance of the superhero saga. This should stimulate awareness in the minds of the audience that there must be no ignorance here. They will be impressed by the movie.

III.2 Verbal Signs
According to Halliday (1994) analysis of verbal interpersonal aspects, clauses as exchange and various options provided in Mood and Modality. Based on the findings of the mood system analysis in the Movie Poster Advertisement, the clause used in the poster is a minor clause, with a single nominal group, SPIDER-MAN: No Way Home. It can be interpreted as, "It's no way home".

It
's no way home S F/P C MOOD RESIDUE Table 1. Declarative Mood in the MPA Thus, it can be said that it can be read as a declarative mood. In a declarative setting, the statement actually provides a statement about what people actually experience (Halliday, 1994). As demonstrated in other studies (Faidah, 2018), this statement is related to the presentation of information. Here, the author of the text informs the reader that the main character, Spiderman, in the movie will never find a way home. This goes in line with the pose of the character in the image; it shows that he was confused about the situation and seemed not to find a way to any solution. For the viewers, it is a preview of the plot in the movie where the superhero couldnot go home; or at least he would find complex problems and hurdles before he could. The word "home" has become a keyword higlighted in the series of Spiderman; other taglines or titles are Homecoming (2017), and Far from Home (2019). Thus, the storyline in No Way Home (2021) cannot be separated from the prequels (https://gensindo.sindonews.com).
The use of a pure subject uses the name of the character. This clause tells the audience that the character in the movie is not the writer, but someone else as the main character. There is also the phrase Marvel Studios, an American movie studio based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a wholly owned division of The Walt Disney Company. Displaying the company name clearly indicates that the ad is from a trustworthy source. The declarative use in the ads is to provide information or news about the product.
In the case of modality, there's no use of modal between the clauses. this implies that a proposition could be a fact with absolute truth. Modalities are accustomed describe judgments and attitudes toward the messages they impart (Halliday, 1994). There's no argument about the probability or frequency of the proposition, and any comments may also be made within the clause. All of the clauses within the advertisement are mostly statements, namely declarative sentences that provide information.
Thus, we have shown here that images and text can be analyzed simultaneously and reveal more connotations. Discussing complementarity in the interpersonal sense, the study found that movie poster advertisements were reinforced with inter-common addresses. This indicates that a declarative sentence is being used in the author's address. Use statements specific to their fashion: when exchanging information (Royce, 1999).
The high modality with all the naturalness of the characters depicted in the pictures helps to say that the poses and places are the events experienced by the characters in the movie. This is consistent with the selection of declarative statements in the movie title clause. The factuality of the information in the clause is further accentuated by the lack of modal operators or any kind of modal operator that means their implementation. Here is a clear and powerful message that the depiction is absolutely true. The congruence of command implementations in the imperative form supports the tendency towards high modality of images.
Under the auspices of Marvel Studios, the poster for this movie has attracted a lot of viewers' interest in waiting for the movie's release in theatres; giving fans a long-awaited surprise. Visual and verbal seem to complement each other. The first emphasizes information from the character's perspective, by presenting the pose of the character clad in costume in a close-up shot, to show details of actions and feelings. His gaze must have evoked a strong feeling of anxiety in viewers. The poster has managed to touch viewers' every deep feeling and imagination. Thus, the movie poster advertisement has performed its function well in the public's mind. In this part you should relate your findings to other relevant studies.

IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the visual and verbal elements in the poster complement each other to evoke a single meaning unity. Demanding picture, that he is in need for a help, is seen clearly from its visual contact. The character was shot in a closeup mode, letting the viewers understand his emotion; this creates some emotional bond to them. The frontal view has made this bond stronger, creating a familiarity between the parties. Such an angle has produced a certain sympathy on the viewers' mind. The eye-level presentation of the imgae puts an equal relation between him and the on-lookers. This is to send the message that Spiderman is a part of the society in which he lives. The poster is presented in high modality, though the character itself is like an imaginary, but the background is real urban scene; this real presentation is emhasized more with the background knowledge of the people who have folllowerd the prequels of the movie. All of the demanding presentation is clarified by an obvious information evoked in declarative mood, no way homeimplying the reason of the situation. For verbal interpersonal characteristics, the statement is used in the verbal text of the ad. The minor clause used in the ads is are declarative and inform the reader about the representation of the movie plot and what happens to the character. Complementarity between semiotics manifests itself in interpersonal relationships through the meaning projected onto a single picture frame. The use of advanced visual techniques and declarative and meaningful modality helps to emphasize imaginative expressions.