Film Poster

 

Film Posters are examples of fairly ordinary posters however they are used to advertise upcoming films be it main stream or short film. They have both institutional and audience based purposes which is why they exist in the first place. Firstly, there are fewer institutional based purposes than audience based such as the basic purpose of advertising a film. This means a film can be advertised along side a trailer or without it for people on the move, magazines or locally. Also, similar to advertising a film, film posters promote a film to it's target audience which is important so that the correct audience choose to go and see the film or access it rather than mislead the wrong audience.

When it comes to the audience, there is one main purpose that links in with so to speak "sub-purposes" for film posters, this being to find out about films. One of the main things film posters allow audiences to find out about a film is the actors: this is important as especially for mainstream films where they cast well known famous actors, the actor's specific fans can be targeted this way as they would be dedicated and want to see the newest film their favorite actor is in. However, this is more difficult for short films therefore usually the actors are not mentioned on the poster as most of the time they do not cast well known actors to the main stream world. My group and I might choose to not put the actors on the film poster for this same reason in order to save space but also because no Hollywood mainstream actors will be cast.

Film posters are used by audiences for distribution information such as release date which is extremely important as if audiences do not know this information they will not know which cinema to go to or when in order to view the desired film. This is more true for short films as they usually only show in a small amount of venues therefore film posters are vital for audiences to know the specific locations they need to go to. Moving on, though obvious, a film poster is used by audiences to find out the title and to see the tag line which though basic and quite vital purely because a film poster uses minimal writing but mostly images therefore the small amount of writing that there is is specific and must give enough detail about the film and the plot of it without a large amount of text. The narrative links in with this.

Film Posters do not have a limitation of where they are located. However, the most popular place for them to be located is on the side of roads or through the use of public transport. When they are by the side of roads, it allows drivers by to view them, and due to roads being used by a wide variety of people, there is a guarantee at least a small amount of the target audience will see the posters. Public transportation is also used quite successfully to distribute film poster e.g. at tube stations where people can view them as they are passing a station or waiting for a tube, or on buses so that pedestrians can view the posters as buses drive by, or bus stops where audiences can view the posters as they are waiting for their bus etc.