Film Posters Over Time

Film Posters were around since the beginning of films, even before that when theatre was the main means of entertainment using posters to show society what was going to be shown, when and where, much like film posters today. Similarly to films theme selves, film posters have developed and adapted from decades ago to now through the change in technology, styles, trends etc.

To begin with, a good example to look at for an older film poster is the one for "Brief Encounter", which shows the difference clearly between film posters now and then. Due to there not being computers or printers 90 years or so, the film poster is seen to be painted, which is what normally happened in those times making them much more expensive and time consuming to produce therefore film posters were rare. The characters are seen to be in black and white just like in the film itself however the bright yellow background was clearly chosen to attract audiences to see the poster and choose to view it. A major difference in film posters back then and now is the amount of text used: posters these days tend to have a few short words on film posters to keep it simple and concise and make it easier to remember, this poster has several different pieces of text to explain the title, the actors, the places to view the film etc.

Moving on to a further time, the "Wizard of Oz" poster has similarities and differences to the "Brief Encounter" film poster. One of the similarities is that the poster, like the previous one shown, is also painted rather than a photograph or digital graphics made on the computer. It was a choice to do it with paint however, as the poster to the right shows not only painted characters but also two photos of scenes in the film meaning the characters could have also been shown as photographs but the producer of the poster decided to use paint for a vintage effect. The use of 3D is showing to start to form around this time with the title of the film painted with a 3D effect to show that film posters were beginning to be more modernized and different, making them pop out more and catch the attention of audiences more successfully. A noticeable attribute to older film posters compared to more modern film posters is that they do not tend to have tag lines most of the time, just a picture of some sort of the film along with the directors, producers and most importantly actors.

Moving on to the 90's, movie posters had clearly developed more but all had a similar type of layout just like the one shown on the left for the movie "She's all that": the main characters posing (usually not showing a specific scene from the movie), very simple however bright, memorable therefore effective. This film poster has the two main characters, a tag line at the top (showing that tag lines were now introduced), a title of the movie, the names of the main actors and the billing block. This layout is now what is seen as conventional and most film posters, even today, follow it. The reason for the actors posing in this film poster rather than a screen shot of a scene in the film is purely due to the fact the more mainstream actors were being cast in films therefore audiences would want to see whether their favorite actor was in the film. Again, as mentioned before, my group and I will probably not follow this as no mainstream actors are realistically going to be cast in our short film.

Finally, an example of one of the most recent film posters is shown on the left for the new film "Sinister". The poster is much more graphically pleasing to the eye with well thought out effects making it simple yet effective. The layout shows it is well spaced out and clearly shows audiences it is of the horror genre with the blood and the mysterious little girl especially with the tag line seen "once you see him, nothing can save you". Like all film posters it has the title, actors and like the more modern film posters a billing block. This means when my group and I make our film poster for our short film, a billing block and title are vital though obvious but also we must decide whether we want to keep an older layout where actors are posing or a more modern layout where there is a screen shot from the film. The typography is also quite important as for this film the font for the title links in with the horror genre which is something my group and I must also consider.