Film Poster Research

I have decided to research into Film Posters as I want to learn more about what makes a film poster effective and what conventions they normally follow in order to reach their goal of promoting the film and attracting the target audience.

Conventions of a Film Poster

• The title of the film is always shown to inform the audience what the film is called, also this is always the largest piece of text on the poster as it helps grabs the audiences attention.
• Smallest text on the film poster contains actors, directors and production companies which also can grab the audiences attention and also interest a new audience, for example if Zac Efron or Jennifer Lawrence was featured on the film poster, these very popular celebrities would already have a fan base therefore by including the actors names can help target a new audience.
• A Release date or ''coming soon'' is also featured on the film poster this tells the target audience when the film is due out or if its coming out to theatres soon.
• The images or graphics of the poster tend to feature one single dominant image which is the focus point of the poster, usually most posters have a character or the main characters featured on the poster. But the dominant image is always something that links clearly to the film and that plays an important part in the narrative.
• The film poster mist be captivating to the target audience and must promote the film.
• The film poster should clearly show the genre of the film.
• Usually film posters feature short reviews from newspapers like The Times with very short sentences and sometimes even one word reviews.