Codes and Conventions of Film Posters

Film posters are a big part of film promotions and they are used to lure in the target audience and make them see the film trailer by using key iconography which established the genre and sub-genre of the film advertised. Film posters communicate through visual and verbal messages; in my opinion they lure the audience the most as a person can see a film poster anywhere from a bus stop to a train station, all you have to do is walk past it to spot it. After seeing it, if the poster is successful the person will watch the trailer. Which is why its so important to make the poster effective. Some people even collect film posters which is why they have an artistic value to them, an original film poster can be worth a lot of money if it's old too. Film posters are a powerful piece of still media as the person who is looking at it can automatically want to see the film before they even know what it is really about from just looking at the image and liking it.

Just like there being two types of film trailers, there is also two types of film posters, one of which is a teaser poster. It features less text and a more specific image that will signal the basic narrative and genre of the film. This builds up excitement of a new film being out and anticipation of wanting to see the trailer to find out more about the film. A teaser poster has the 'less is more' approach to it, which is a concept I believe in, less IS more and film posters advertise a film in such a simple way by presenting a still piece of media that isn't a film trailer and that can be seen anywhere and have such a big effect.


The image of the poster will always reflect the genre of the film, which is why the main image has to be very specific and clear. It's important to have a good film poster or the audience will not be interested to even watch the trailer even if it's an amazing trailer and film, the audience will lose interest from just a bad poster. 


 Conventionally the image and background will take up the whole poster and the text will normally overlap the image; The layout will also work in a certain way; our eyes move from the centre to top to bottom, and horizontally from left to right. And in this exact order we look at the centre, top centre, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. Conventionally the title of the film will be placed in the top centre of the poster and this piece of text will be the first thing the audience will look at. They avoid using too much text as that can kill a good poster. Audiences don't want to have to do a lot of reading as it can be tiring to the eye and take too much time, and no one is going to stop to read the poster, which is why text is kept to the minimum and the main image is the most effective part of the poster and is the main focus. 

This poster of 'WANTED' is a good example of the 'less is more' approach, which is the approach that I followed when making my own film poster as it's something I strongly believe in.