COMPOSITION OF MOVIE POSTERS

IntroductionA movie poster follows a certain set of formatting conventions, just like the editing of a movie does. For this task, I will research into some of these conventions that they follow, and then apply it to my poster in order to create a more successful product in achieving its aims of attracting people towards the movie. By the end of this task, I should have more confidence in how my poster should be conventionally laid out.

Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds describes how posters are often split evenly in a 3x3 grid to have a certain amount of symmetry. This technique is used to evenly distribute aspects of the poster across the space available, and also tends to make the poster a lot more visually appealing. For example, in the poster shown here, each character takes up their own third of the poster, and the title and credits take up their own third, too, which is a lot easier on the eye for the audience.

‘Z’ layoutThe Z layout is a technique with posters that aims to make the audience scan as much as the poster as possible in the most efficient way. If the aspects of the poster are scattered about in an unorderly fashion, the audience are much less likely to read the whole poster. In the example to the left, the poster naturally draws the eye from left to right with the bold title, and then diagonally down from top right to bottom left with the main image and how they are angled. This then leads them to read left to right again for the credits of the movie.

Circular layoutThe circular layout is a common theme used in movie posters that is an effective way of drawing the audiences’ eye to the main feature of the poster. It acts as a ‘spotlight’ within the poster, so that the audience know where to look at. In the example to the right, we can clearly see the circular shape that does an effective job on drawing us to the main figures of the poster. Without this circular shape, the audience will most likely be drawn to the bold text first.

Grid layoutThe grid layout is a feature of a poster which allows the creators to centre the point of interest straight in the middle in order to instantly attract the audience. In the example to our left, it has also allowed the artists’ to make the poster in a symmetrical style, which not only looks better for the audience, it also allows information to be displayed in a much easier to read fashion.

ConclusionI have found out that many of these styles of posters are used to the advantage of the creators of the poster. For example, the Z layout is used because it promotes the audience to read most, if not all, of the poster, compared to a poster that would have information scattered about. The circular layout shows the audience the most important figures of the poster, and therefore does a good job of preventing confusion. It is therefore a very good idea to implement at least some of the techniques I have looked at here, and perhaps even more if needs be.