Codes and Conventions of Film Posters

Film Posters have the same objective as a film magazine, however, rather than advertising many aspects they just advertise the one.

Straight away it is obvious that a main convention of a film poster is the title of the movie. Conventionally this is found at the lower end of the poster, below the main image. The reason being is because; as we read down the page we get to the title and all other aspects of the film. The title is always going with the theme of the movie and therefore, like the film magazine, they use similar, if not the same, font that works alongside the theme of the movie. The font is usually unique to that of the film, for example Star Wars. The font used is traditional of that franchise with the letters joining one another. This creates codes for that particular film, the same goes for the font used for ‘The Hobbit’ and the rest of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ franchise.

The main image yet again is a major factor in a film poster and like the film magazine features the protagonist(s) of the film. However, rather than it always being close up images a film poster varies with the camera angle. These angles can be close ups, medium shots of even long shots such as ‘The Dark Knight’ film poster. This is so that the film poster is able to get more detail into the advertisement. For instance ‘The Dark Knight’ features Batman underneath the symbol made of flames. This shows the recognisable graphic and icon of Batman on top of the background that is of a building, thus showing the setting of the film, Gotham City. However, film posters such as Star Wars follow their own convention by showing multiple characters, good and bad, in the main image. This allows the audience to see the many characters involved with favourites such as ‘Darth Vader’ in the background. Unlike film magazines, the background allows for more detail, ‘The Hangover’ shows lights which connote as a somewhere eccentric like ‘Vegas.’ The Eiffel Tower in the background of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ shows the setting of the film and altogether these aspects work well in creating the theme of the film for the audience to see.

Other conventions such as the date are commonly seen in the film poster. The reason being is because a film poster is used to advertise the movie and with the information of when it comes out allows the audience to know more about when they can see it and therefore are more tempted into going. The information is quite vital when advertising an upcoming film; however it is not always necessary if the poster is more for merchandising reasons.

Lastly, there is always the little details in the film poster which give more inside information of the film. This includes the names of the directors, producers and main cast. The reason this is a convention is because it is not only to give the creation team some credit for the film but also by stating their name it also allows members of the audience to see who has done it and if they are a fan of their work, this is mainly associated with directors, especially people like ‘Steven Spielberg’ and ‘Peter Jackson.’ A convention of these details is that, the writing is usually thin font that is all put together; this takes up less space on the poster and fits all the information into one bulk piece of text.