This document discusses conventions used in film posters, using the posters for the films "Split", "The Butterfly Effect", and "Inception" as examples. It notes that typical conventions include featuring the main protagonist prominently, relating the central image to the title, including the release date, and using a strapline to summarize the narrative. Genre-specific conventions for psychological thriller posters mentioned are using red, black, and white colors symbolizing danger and violence, and placing key text elements like the title and date at the bottom to focus on the central visual.

1. Film poster conventions
Karin Falconer-Bailey

2. SPLIT
Without knowing in depth about this film, by looking at this film poster a lot of information is
given away to the audience. The main image of this poster is of James McAvoy, a well known
Scottish actor known for being in films such as X-men; Apocalypse and The First Stand, The
Chronicles of Narnia and many more. This is the first convention of not only a psychological
thriller film poster, but, all film posters in general. A film poster’s main image typically consists
of an image of the protagonist, who may also be a well known actor and/or actress. As James
McAvoy is the protagonist within this film, his name is included within this poster. Having a
well-known actor being the protagonist within this film encourages the public to watch this
film because of his leading role. This will also lead to the film gaining a target market of James
McAvoy’s fan base. A close-up shot of the central image is also a genre convention of
psychological thriller posters.
Another generic convention which can be identified within this poster is the main image and
the film title having a correlation. As the title of the film is ‘Split’, the central image consists of
only half James McAvoy’s face being shown. This is generic as by including this throughout
this film poster, this gives the target market a brief idea of what the film would be about.
Other generic conventions of film posters is the films cinematic release date. By including the
release date of the film on this poster, this allows for the audience to pre-book tickets for the
film, generating profit for film prior to it being physically released.
Moreover, one last generic convention that is evidential within this film poster is its strapline.
This film poster’s strapline states ‘ Kevin has 23 distinct personalities. The 24th is about to be
unleashed’. The purpose of a strapline within a film poster is to promote and sell a film, whilst
also giving the audience a summary of what the narrative is.

3. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
The poster of ‘The Butterfly effect’ also fits into the generic, and genre conventions of film
posters. Ways in which this poster conforms to the conventions of psychological thrillers is
through the colours used. Colours which appear in a psychological thriller film poster tend to be
predominantly red, white, and/or black. This is due to these colours having the connotations of
danger, violence, death, innocence, and blood. These connotations of these colours tend to be
evidential in psychological thriller films, hence the use of the colours in their marketing
strategies. Another genre convention is the layout and font of the poster itself. Many film
posters from this genre tend to have the main information about the film e.g. the title, strapline,
and release date at the bottom, just like in The Butterfly Effects poster. This allows the audience
to focus on the central image, rather than writing surrounding the image.
Again, the central image of this poster has a correlation to the title of the film which is a generic
convention of film posters. The name of the film is ‘The Butterfly Effect’ as you can see, the
central image of this poster also happens to be a butterfly with Ashton Kutcher in the centre. By
having both the central image, as well as the title on the subject of butterflies, this leads the
audience into questioning what is this butterfly effect, and how it has effected the protagonist.
For a second time within these psychological thriller posters I am analysing the release date is
shown at the bottom of the poster. Although it reads ‘coming soon’ rather than having a
numerical date, this prepares the audience to pre-book their tickets to which this film in the
cinema.
The strapline that is used in this poster states ‘It will all end in the beginning’. The use of this
extremely vague strapline will create questions within the minds of the audience, again
influencing the film’s target market to watch the film to answer their questions.

4. INCEPTION
The poster of the film ‘Inception’ is another psychological thriller that conforms to the
conventions of this genre. As previously stated on the analysis of the poster for The Butterfly
effect, the main colours that appear within a poster from this genre consists of colours such as
white, black and/or white. The colours that appear on the film poster for ‘Inception’ are white,
black and red. This foreshadows to the target market the danger, violence and even death that
may arise throughout the film. Again the layout and font is another generic convention of this
film poster. The layout of this poster is set in a similar manner as the poster of The Butterfly
Effect – the title, name of directors and producers, casting, production and exhibition
companies, and the exhibition date is at the bottom of the poster, allowing the target market
to focus on the central image of the poster.