RESEARCH: Posters

A film poster is one of the many ways a studio will use to advertise its film. They are typically made up of brief text and a single image. Posters are used in many different ways, for example in magazine, bus stops and billboards.

The aim of the image used is to grab peoples attention as it will be the first thing that people will notice. Designers for posters use an image in order to have a certain effect on the viewer. For example a horror movie poster would have an image with an intent to shock, where as a movie targeted at young men may use women with few clothes, or a comedy film would intend to make the viewer laugh.

Every image used in a poster has a particular purpose in order to grab the audiences attention.

Other conventions of an image in a poster is that it is normally of one the main characters, this is also shown by the three images above.

Text used for the title is always large and bold. It is the most important part for the audience to remember even though the viewer will generally look at it second after the image.

Colour schemes of 3 or 4 colours are typically used e.g. Green, yellow, blue and white are used in the Bruno poster. There is also one dominating colour which the rest of the colours are based around, for example yellow in the Bruno poster, blue for Tomb Raider and white for Saw. The colour scheme for some genres is normally very typical, for example a horror film would normally be mostly black.

Taglines are another device which is sometimes used. A tagline is normally a memorable phrase which helps to sum up the tone of a brand or product and reinforce the audiences memory of a product e.g. 'Just Do It' is used for Nike. An example of a movie tagline is in the Saw 5 poster above, 'In the end all the pieces will fit together' which is referring to it being the last instalment in a series of films.

Other less notable, though still necessary conventions are the date for when the movie is in cinemas, a website address, age certificate and production logos.

Due to the film I am producing being a horror, I am most likely to take on board the techniques used in the Saw poster. In particular being that the image used has the intent to scare and shock it's audience. However I am more likely to use a far darker colour scheme which would follow the conventions of a horror. It is likely that the only reason the designers of the Saw poster have chosen to use white is because it is an established series of films which everyone already knows are horror movies, therefore they are able to subvert the conventions in order to receive a greater effect.