Film Promotion Poster Conventions

Seems a little late for some research right? It's never too late to educate yourself on some research about a big portion of the project! Today I will be researching some conventions for Film Posters. 

  Film posters are used to advertise a film and give a small piece of the story to the viewer. Making the poster visually attractive is very important because that is what entices people to watch the film. Film posters and target audience go hand in hand because it is essential to create a poster that will attract the intended target audience of the film. 

Main Conventions: 

• Attractive poster to captive viewers attention
• Main image should focus on capturing the essence or a part of the film.
• The title should be eye-catching and take about a third of the poster
• The poster should be genre appropriate 
• The poster should include and tagline or release date.
• The poster should include main actors and or director.

Quotes and Ratings:

• Including quotes and positive ratings will attract viewer into going and watching the film.
• "That critic liked it, I must like it too." Subconsciously this is what the viewer is thinking.
• This Gone With The Wind promo poster has a subtly placed rating that entices the viewer to watch the film because is says "The most magnificent picture ever!" 

Taglines:

• Taglines give an insight on what the film is about and attracts the viewer to watch it. 
• In this Blade Runner poster, the tagline is tiny compared to other text found on the poster. Many probably won't see it. 
• The tagline is "Man has made his match, now its his problem.

Institutional Conventions 

• Near the bottom of the poster is where the actors, directors, writers, etc are mentioned in small font.
• Posters have 3 main color schemes that are genre specific.
• Production company mentioned in bottom of poster with the directors, actors, etc.

Here are a couple examples found on empireonline.com. 

Thanks for tuning in!

Isa