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.
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