FILM POSTER STUDY AND ANALYSIS

By Lewis Howard

Often for marketing/advertising purposes’ a poster will be created to go along with the film. This done in order to give people the general impression of what to expect to see from the film in terms of the genre of the film and who stars in it (e.g. a certain actor or character), which urges them more to go and see the film.

The basic film poster will have the title of the film as well as one or two characters that will be featured in the film as well as background image that reflects the type of genre of that particular film (often ether the background to a certain scene or in some cases a certain colour that reflect the genre of that film e.g. light colours for comedy’s and dark colours for horror films).

Also a lot film posters like to use taglines and pull quotes. The taglines help to entice the views because of certain words and helps them to remember the film (often used in horror films and comedy’s), and pull quotes help to give the film a better reputation since people will assume that the film is good.

Tagline

Pull quote

When theatrical films first became popular the type of posters that would accompany the film would often be painted and show the main characters in the film with a simple coloured background. This was mainly to do with the limited technology of that time period since computers as well as digital/professional cameras and so on weren’t around during that time, so painting was pretty much the only options.

Skip to the modern day and we can see that film poster are now mostly photographs of one of the character in the film along with a background used in a certain scene with in the film, plus some extra effects (e.g. Computer generated images, lighting, and airbrushing)

After looking at and analysing various film posters there are two specific type of posters and a certain feature of film posters that entices me the most to see the film since they look very strong and often make me incredibly interested in seeing the film.

The first type of film posters are painted posters over digital posters. Now I’m talking about the modern day painted film posters not the old painted film posters (because they look incredibly cheesy), this is because often having something painted gives the film a more unique and slightly epic quality to the film.

Also not only can you get away with a lot more when something is painted but the range of colours and painting style you can use are pretty much limitless, and often with modern poster the digital photographs sometimes tend to not mix that well the extra effects used in the poster.

Painted

Digital

The second type of poster and my personal favourite is what I like to call the ‘black background single image’ or ‘SIBB’ poster. The main reason for this is because if there is colour used in the single image can come across incredibly powerful since if used right, the colours stand out from the background and put more emphasis on the image itself. Plus because it’s a single image there isn’t too much going on at once which doesn't make the poster seem too clustered or bare. Also because it’s a single image it often gives the viewer the general idea of the film but it doesn't give anything major anyway. What’s also great about these types of posters is that they can be both painted and also digital photographs.

To expand upon this point lets look at two of my favourite film posters!

The poster for ‘Halloween’ 1978 is incredibly effective since the bright orange colours reflect well with the dark background and the single image of the pumpkin face and the knife gives you the feeling that this is a horror film based around Halloween.

Plus the poster doesn't give away anything specific about the film like the...

KILLER!!!

Or victims

Film Poster Number 1 Is...

Film Poster Number 2 is...

The poster for ‘TRON’ 1982 is just incredible because the bright blue lighting contrasts greatly with the black background and draws the viewers attention to the image. Plus the image of ‘TRON’ reaching for the disc symbolises a sign of greater power trying to reach us (e.g. A species beyond our own, if you’ve watched the film you’d understand) which it what sci-fi is all about.

Also like ‘Halloween’ you get the idea that this is a sci-fi film about the world inside a computer but you don’t know what will be featured within the film like...

The light cycles

Sark and the M.C.P

Flynn, TRON, and RAM

To further emphasise why ‘SIBB’ posters are my favourite, compare the posters for ‘TRON’ and ‘Halloween’ on the left to the ones of the right

My person thoughts are that the ‘TRON’ poster on the right has WAY to much going on at once and looks confusing as what it’s about and the Halloween poster has already shown us the killer and the image look like one of the still from a scene in the film which is very unprofessional

Along with painted posters and black back ground ones, one of the extra features I love about posters is taglines. This is because taglines help to make film stand out on it’s own and gives it a sense of individuality and it also helps to get people more interested in the film. This technique is used A LOT in both horror films and comedy’s as it gives the film a sense or mystery, danger and excitement (e.g. “the night HE came home” and “some guys just can’t handle Vegas” etc).

Taglines

Based on the research done and my personal opinions I believe that a ‘SIBB’ poster or a typical modern day poster would be best for my group to have to go along with our film. The reason for this is that... well the last few slides have been explaining my views on black back ground posters, so the reason I chose this and modern day style posters is because it seems like something that my group and I could create. The reason I left out painted posters is because despite the fact that I love those type of posters It doesn't seem like something my group and I could accomplish since none of us are professional painters and we simply don’t have the time to paint the entire poster plus if something goes wrong it is likely that we have to start all over again.

Thanks for watching