Film Poster Purpose

What is the Purpose?
A film poster is a marketing tool that is very commonly used in the film industry to promote their upcoming films. There doesn’t always have to be one specific film poster for one film as films like fantastic four had several posters one for each of the main characters and showing the audience who they were.

Informing the Audience

Film Rating: Film posters include the BBFC rating which informs the audience about what age the film is appropriate and this is what attracts their specific target audience. Also the age rating determines what type of audience the film will attract, for example horrors are usually 15 rated and therefore this narrows the target audience down.

Institutions: The institutions displayed on the film poster can actually be used as a marketing point as some institutions are trusted by people, for example Disney is a trusted institutions by parents and they know that Disney films won’t have inappropriate content for their children to see so this encourages the audience to see the film.

Actors: Actors names displayed on the film poster can attract a new audience, for example a-list actors like Jennifer Lawrence, Zac Efron, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt have a huge fan-base therefore if they star in the film they will actually attract an audience just from starring a popular actor.

Types of Film Posters

Teaser Poster: This is a promotional film poster released before the main official poster for the film. It contains basic images which are very subtle in what the films plot is actually about, but its purpose is to get the audience interested and therefore generate excitement for the release of the film and more film-related content.

Character Poster: Some films have character posters which have a character for each poster and each of these characters normally play an important role in the film. The character will be the dominant image in the poster and can have a tagline to reflect the qualities of the character. Also the actors name is almost always featured alongside on these types of film posters.

Motion Poster: This type of poster is basically an animated poster therefore the entire poster has been created on the computer, these type of posters are relatively new as animated films haven’t been out for a long time as the technology needed in order to create these films has only been developed in the past decade or so.

Where are Film Posters used?

1. Inside/Outside Cinema's
2. Billboards
3. Public Transportation (e.g. Bus Stops, Train Stations)
4. Magazines
5. Newspapers
6. Websites