Reflection on learning from Film Posters.

Through our research we have realised that film posters have several aspects, particular to the content of the film. Film posters are almost a trailer within themselves, they broadcast an immediate message to the audience of the genre and the content of the film. From film posters such as, "Hard Candy" there are many different connotations in this one poster. The girl in the bear trap gives away an obvious sense of danger and how she will come to a dangerous turn, red has always been a colour for danger. Red inside the bear trap is also familiar to blood after the prey has been caught. These connotations are all immediate signals to an audience that the character will experience danger. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out and this is why this poster is effective.

We decided to use colour as a main contributor to our film poster, because colour can evoke stronger feelings in a person than pictures can. Such as, black and red, these colours give the audience the sense that the film will be dark yet, a feeling of suspense and edging towards the thriller genre. We also made our poster very simplistic, in order to not give away any unnecessary details of the film. The use of emotion on the character's face also helps to give an impression of the role the character plays. This can be another useful tool in determining the genre of the film. These few techniques all play a large role in developing film genres and displaying the film to audiences.



From the film posters we have researched into there has also been some stereotypical layout factors that we should consider when producing our own film poster. The title of the film needs to be the boldest text, normally in a different font/colour to other text on the page and in majority it must be in capitalised font. Any other text on the page must not defer sight from a clear image which can sometimes be a still from the film or a posed image relating specifically to what the film will entail yet not giving away any crucial factors to the outcome of the film. The film posters include small faded font which shows the production making credits and key members in the making of the film; this is prodominately featured at the bottom centre of both landscape and portrait layout posters. Alongside the title it is seen in most film posters there is some sort of 'tagline' this gives a vague insight to the genre and plot of the movie, for instance, in '500 Days Of Summer' we have the tagline 'bot meets girl. boys falls in love. girl doesn't' that reflects upon the one sided romance that can compare with the male shown singularly on the poster. In our own film poster we should create our own snapshot to what the movie will consist of by using a statement to go along with the title.