Adventures in Comm Tech

The Movie Poster

What’s in a movie poster?

The “Star” Cover Shot/graphic Tagline Title Acting &

production credits Release Date

Break it down…

The Star Every film needs a star.

Genre films aimed at a certain audience nearly always feature at least one big name star, usually in some kind of ‘heroic’ pose.

Break it down…

The cover shot Cover shots nearly always feature the star in a pose that “echoes” some aspect of the film’s theme or storyline.

Use the maximum resolution possible for your cover shot.

Cover shots are heavily photoshopped/edited and designed to get the viewer’s attention

Break it down…

Colours Colours used in a movie poster are carefully chosen to communicate the mood of the film.

Break it down…

Composition The arrangement of elements in the cover shot communicates the relationship of the main characters in the film.

Break it down…

Tagline The ‘tagline’ is a memorable short phrase that sums up the tone or premise of the film.

Break it down…

Title, credits and release date

The film’s title can be any font style, as long as it’s clear and easy to read.

Taglines, film credits and release date are ALWAYS a sans serif font such as Arial Narrow.

use all lowercase for titles and uppercase for names. For example: ‘directed by JOHN DOE’ or ‘starring ALICE and BOB’

Break it down…

The Layout Most movie posters follow the same general format:

The lower fifth is reserved for production and acting credits. This is called the “billing block”

The title generally takes up about a fifth of the total page height

The cover shot/graphic forms the background of the poster. All other elements are overlaid onto the cover shot. This gives the composition DEPTH.

http://bighugelabs.com/poster.php

http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/05/13/how-to-design-a-movie-poster-with-an-example/