POSTER: Analysing conventions of film posters

Film posters have many conventions, in order to make it eye catching for the audience so that the film is advertised effectively.

• Main Image - Creative ideas, including mise en scene. This should symbolize and tell the story through a still image.


• Main Text {Title and Tagline}. The title should be eye-catching which will grab the audience's attention and be a representative to the whole film - use of alliteration, triple emphasis, single words, puns, contrast. The title is the main aspect that sells the film. Taglines can use a rhetorical question, which create an unanswered question, so as a result of this, people would want to go and see the film so that it is revealed.


• Other Text {Credits, Review and Website}


• Functional Information {release date}
  
• Logo and Age Certificate

We analysed and looked carefully at popular film posters to assure that we understood everything that they should include, so that when we produce our own, it will look professional. During the process of designing our film poster, we will include the main conventions by thinking of creative ideas, so that it attracts and appeals to our target audience and advertises the film well. We viewed other students film posters that they have designed, looking at what was functional and symbolic. I analysed how the posters advertise the film in an effective way in order for it to be convincing and also, what is being represented through their chosen text {language and font} and mise en scene within the image. Looking at a poster, the audience should be able to gain an initial idea of what the film is about.

Films are advertised in or outside venues or in places that normally attract the particular age range and gender that the film is aimed at. For example, as our target audience is 15-20+, cinemas, school's/colleges, internet such as Facebook and Myspace are good examples of venues and places where our particular target audience would see the poster.