Drafting and planning: Conventions of a film poster.

As well as developing and creating a moving image piece for my coursework which will be a film trailer, i am also required to create two ancillary products which will take the form of a film poster to go alongside the trailer and a front cover of a film magazine that will feature our magazine. Because of this it is vital that i take a look and research into some film posters to expand and gain a better understanding of film posters so i know what I'll be doing when it comes to creating my own piece.

So in this blog post i will aim to examine the common conventions of a film poster and then use my new found knowledge to examine and analyse a movie poster.

Conventions of the film poster:
The main aim of a film poster is to excite and captivate the audience and pull them into the movie. There will normally be a focal image that acts as the aim image that will attract the eye of the audience.  Commonly unless for a specific reason the title of the movie will be displayed in a large eye catching font. The film poster can tell the audience alot about the film. It should normally be able to tell the audience the genre of the film and also the basic plot of the movie.  There will normally be an indication of when the release of the film is, this will either contain a specific date or a "coming soon". Smaller details will also be included such as a production block and if the director is a well known director it will say the name of the director.

• Image: The main image normally contains the main character or characters that are used to intrigue and captivate the audiences into looking at the film poster and so then being engaged into the film as a whole.
• The film title: This is the title of the film and is used so that the audience know what the film is called an can give an insight into a films tone, genre and even plot.
• Tagline: These can emphasis something to do with the film and also be used to sell the movie as it can be used on all promotional images and trailers.
• Ratings: These can persuade an audience to go and watch a movie if its shown that other people like the movie and its good. If critics like the movie than it might tell the consumers that its worth the watch as it might be a good movie.
• Director of the movie: Sometimes the poster will display the director of the movie for example "a James Cameron movie" or  a "Steven Spielberg" this normally happens if the director of the movie is well known and can tell the audience that the film has been directed by a well known professional director that knows what he is doing and the film is in safe hands and it should be a good movie.
• Awards: Like the ratings awards can act as a way to get the audience more interested in a film as they'll see that the film must be good if its won awards and so might be worth seeing.
• Actors: If there is any well known actors they are displayed at the top, it can attract the audience as it might be an actor that the audiences enjoys or a familiar with a type of genre.