Movie Poster Conventions

Movie posters are a form of advertising and due to the fact that they are physical (unlike trailers) they can be placed anywhere such as billboards, busses and walls in shopping centre’s cinema’s.

What a Movie Poster Should Include

• Iconography• Reviews• Title• Billing block• Tagline• Release date• Actors names (if famous)• People associated with other famous movies

that have helped make the movie being advertised.

• Film posters are important as the people viewing it will only take one glance at it so therefore icons are important within a movie poster so that the audience know the genre of the movie being advertised.

• Because my chosen genre is thriller/horror I am exploring the convention of movie posters with a horror/thriller genre.

• Usually a poster will have an image with a specific iconography based on the movie’s genre.

• For example you can tell all the posters below are advertising a horror due to their dark colours, their scary taglines and the scary images that are the main focus point.

Very dark colour pallets are used to emphasize horror, such as greys, blacks and dark reds.

Both ‘The Counjouring’ and ‘Shutter’ reference people working for their movie that have worked on other famous horror movie’s.

The focus point is the image of the girl in the middle of the poster sitting on the chair with the doll so that the audience knows that the film has something to do with the doll.

the title is in a font with pointed edges to look simple yet menacing. The title ‘The Conjuring’ and its white colour connote supernatural beings and the bringing back of the dead.

Every movie poster has billing blocks that contain the names of people and companies that helped in the making of each film.

All three posters have the title at the bottom a lot bigger than all the other text, the title is also contrasting colour to the poster and on the bottom of the poster to stand out.

The screaming face made out of photos suggests that the story has something to do with cameras and the screaming face has connotations of horror and fear therefore showing that this movie has a horror genre.

The tagline emphasizes that ‘Shutter’ is about camera’s and also attracts the audience to watch this horror film.

The release date is important so the audience know when the movie is coming out.

A tag line is used in all of the posters to emphasize the movies genre and tell the audience a little of what the film is about.

The image of a screaming women with a tiara suggests that this movie is a horror and is also set in a high school.

The scratched filter has been added to the poster to show that it is a violent movie, possibly about death.

The red title connotes blood and danger and is written in a pointy font to look scary yet simple.