LIGHTING
- Usually, the theme or age rating of a film can be conveyed by limited colour palettes, contrast and brightness of a cover. If the poster has a lot of dark lighting, whether something is set in a dark room, during the night or just a dark background in general, its intended for more mature audiences, while poster set during the day with bright lighting can convey to more childish and family-friendly audiences. For example, take into account the difference between the cartoony bright atmosphere of the city of Zootopia and it's residence, and the dark, tense and almost scary atmosphere of Shutter Island.
COLOUR
- Colour plays an important role conveying messaging in almost everything we do, such as a theme of a film, the flavour of sweets, or instructions given to us in every day life such as traffic lights. Colour in films then show us about a film's general atmosphere. similar to lighting, if a film cover has a varied colour palette that's appealing to look at, then it's a more family-friendly film. Because of this however, a lot of thriller and horror films use very limited colour palettes, consisting of black, white and a single colour, most commonly red as it gives a feeling of danger and suspense, or blue due to it being a cold and chilling feeling.
ACTORS and ITEMS
- In posters, it's common to have the main character(s) included in the picture. This isn't always the case however, as some might include the main item instead, something that ties the entire story or universe of the story together. For example this could be the rose from Beauty and the Beast, a canyon shot from 127 Hours, or a vehicle like the motorcycle from Akira.
- Posters will always show actors in poses that convey their importance to the film and how they act in it. You can have a common Role Up poster which shows all of the main actors from left to right (e.g. Trainspotting, the Fantastic 4 and The Expendables), An extreme close up shot of someone's face (e.g. Moonlight, The Silence of the Lambs, Salt and Gamer), or distorted to match the theme of the film (e.g. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Cold Souls and The Iron Lady)
The TEASER POSTER
- Teaser posters are the first to be released when a new movie is announced. This poster contains basic information that doesn't indicate much of the plot of the film, but just the name, a date, and some key actors or items.
VIDEO/DVD RELEASE POSTER
- This poster comes out when the film is released on DVD/Video and often has the typical aspects of a film poster, plus short one liners from relevant publications that may or may not include star ratings ranging from 1-5
IDENTIFYING GENRE
- All of the elements that go into a film poster will identify the core genres of said film. An action film will always have some kind of weapon on the screen, a romance may have the two lovers somehow next to each other, a comedy usually includes imagery that both fits and contrasts a particular theme; films like Spy and Hot Fuzz feature comedic characters trying to act serious in contrast with actual serious characters which make a comedic shot.
Narrative
- Sometimes a film poster can give clues away to the narrative of the film. Is there are particular stance or posture that can tell us something about the character? If not, what about their clothes, props, expression or background? is the poster composed of multiple images like a comic? Is there a key image that looks like it's from the film? All of these questions can be answered from a film poster alone, so it's important that graphic artists for these posters make sure that there isn't any spoilers that could give away the entire film away. One of the best examples of narrative posters is the star wars posters, showing as much as possible without giving away any spoilers:
WRITTEN TEXT
- Written text in a film poster can either be the most dominant part of a poster or the least dominant part. They tell people what the name of the film is, a tagline for some insight of the plot of the film, and the font itself can tell you want kind of film it's going to be. A good example of this can be seen in almost every film poster, one of my favourites being Jumanji (1995) explaining the name of a film, the font style is similar to the famous Indiana Jones, as well as African font types, which replicates a theme of adventure in the film, and it's tagline which explains people that play Jumanji get trapped inside it, as well as directly referring to the jungle, where most adventure films take place.
UNIQUE SELLING POINTS
- A unique selling point (USP) of a film poster is what causes audiences to flock to the film with intrigue and interest. This can range from a wide selection, from an iconic character being featured, a unique art style being introduced, or having the film be completely crazy that it has a feature in the "being so bad it's good" selection of films (e.g. Sharknado)
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