Film posters have the commercial purpose of promoting a film
to their target audience, thus they can be analysed to see how well they fulfil
this role. Conventionally, film posters include a Title, Tagline and Credits to
crew-members, the Tagline however would be suited for each film individually
depending on its genre and tone but is generally intended to draw the audience
in.
Conventions can also include the key visual image being
centred as this is where the eye naturally tends to focus, an eye-catching design
that is simply yet effective, large and bold typography and an engaging style
with colours to draw in the audience.
Types of film posters
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| X-Men Origins: Wolverine teaser poster |
Teaser poster:
One that doesn’t reveal too much about the film, but enough to entice the
audience. Often featuring the stars and release date.
Theatrical Poster: The main poster for a film, containing
information on the production members, distributors, stars and title.
Video/DVD Poster:
Released when the film is released on Video/DVD, containing all the information
of a theatrical poster and short reviews from film publications.
Character Poster:
Featuring the main character/s as the central focus, often to promote the star.
Film Poster’s attract their target audience through a variety
of techniques:
Narrative: What
impressions the audience can gain about the film’s genre, characters and events.
These can be formed through an actor’s facial expression, body language and
costume to given an idea of the character’s personality, and stills from the
film of significant moments.
Image: Visuals of
key settings and main characters an audience can identify. Including the
graphics of the title, mise-en-scene, stars and key images.
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| The text here really stands out |
Colour: The
colours used in the poster. Usually relevant to the film’s genre, e.g darker
colours for horror and dark-toned films, whereas lighter shades are used for
romance and comedy to set the mood for the audience.
Text: Written
text on the poster. The font can tell the audience about the genre and tone of
the film as well as whom the film is targeted at, it includes the cast list and
any given information such as a certificate and a website.
Layout: How the
images and text are laid out for the audience to view. Posters can either be
portrait or landscape, and the position of images and text can allude to the
genre and themes of a film.
USP: The Unique
Selling Point which differs for each film poster. This is where a poster will
be different to others, drawing their audience either through stars, setting,
theme, plot or characters.
1.
Grab audience’s attention- Don’t design a poster
for art, their purpose is to sell tickets so creating a piece of art for
decoration will not be effective. Have a large title that immediately conveys
to the viewer the genre and overall tone, many indie films have small font that
is difficult to read. 
2. Iconography- Having an image tell the viewer the
themes and plot of the film without directly telling them. Image must convey
central idea, problem or conflict of film, not necessarily all your actors and
locations. Don’t use too many colours, film posters are designed to catch the
eye and then create a sense of intrigue, with too many colours it will begin to
look like an art-piece.
‘Lincoln’ iconography conveys drama genre,
black and white image of famous American President.
3.
Incentive- Putting the viewer in the middle of a
scene from the film creates tension and an incentive to see film to find out
more. It is unwise to feature characters on a poster unless they are film
actors, the viewer will not care unless they are recognisable. For well-known
stars, directors or producers, often film poster designers don’t need to emphasise
their involvement as current fans of them will already know and new fans will
not be as interested.
The
King’s Speech’ has too many well-known actors in one small space, overcrowded
and it is not clear who the focus is supposed to be on so the viewer is put
off. 
‘Tooth
Fairy’ The tagline completely takes over the whole poster, making it unclear as
to the title of the film. The main image is also very small and not clear,
making the poster bare, with many empty spaces.
5.
High resolution- All images should be in high
resolution as film posters are large. Generally film poster designs are used
for the DVD release cover, meaning that the design can’t be too complicated
otherwise it won’t be clear to the viewer. In the past illustrations were more
common than the photographs used in today’s age.
‘The Frost Witch’ A made-up film and poster by Nathan Brown, he uses a very clear image of a girl’s face, emphasised through
Photoshop that immediately pleases the eye to view all the tiny details.
The audience can identify that ‘Suicide
City: Whos That Knocking At My Door’ is a drama film, not only by the sombre
expression, but the Title is black and leaves a dramatic impact. There is blood
on the character’s body and his glasses are broken, suggesting pain, suffering and
violence which are all common themes within drama films.
The majority of these drama film posters include a central
character, one that the audience is encouraged to identify with through their
expression, which also reveals the tone of the film. Most of the posters
contain sombre colours like black and white to reflect the genre mood, and the
titles are innovative and eye-catching. This is similar to film posters of the
past, such as ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ 1959 and ‘Raging Bull’ 1980, although the
colours of these appear dated, drama film posters do not appear to have evolved
significantly as key conventions have been maintained with the rapid growth of
digital technology.
