The document discusses film poster research and conventions. It categorizes example posters into genres like horror, action, comedy and drama. Horror posters tend to have dark backgrounds while action posters feature dramatic landscapes. Comedy posters use bright colors. Drama posters emphasize facial expressions. The document also examines where posters are displayed, typical sizes, how they appeal to audiences, differences between genres, priorities like emphasizing the title and characters, and examples that challenge conventions.

1. Film Poster Research

2. 1. Give evidence of a range of film posters you have
researched

3. 2. Put your posters into film genre
categories and identify some common
icons in each genre
Horror :
• The conjuring
• Dead Silence
• Carrie
• Final Destination
• MAMA
Action:
•Fast and
Furious
•White House
Down
Comedy:
• Neighbors
• Vampire
Academy
•The Other
Women
• Zombieland
•22 Jump Street
Drama:
• 12 Years of
Slave
• The Fault in Our
Stars
•If I Stay
•Heaven is real
•The Impossible
One
common
thing that all
of the horror
posters are
dark in the
background
One common
thing that the
action film
posters have is
a dramatic
landscape
behind the
characters.
One common
thing that the
comedy film
posters have is
all of them
have bright
colours to give
it energy and
happiness.
One common
thing that drama
film posters have
is that they seem
pure not only by
the colours
chosen by also by
the facial
expression for
example If I Stay.

4. 3. What are the different TYPES of
film posters
• Video/DVD release poster – This one comes out when the film
is released on DVD/video.
• A Teaser poster – This poster contains basic information to get
the audience attention. This often does not indicate much
about the plot.
• The main poster - This poster is more detailed and contains
information about the production personnel, the characters,
and the distributors.

5. 4. Where do film posters get shown and why?
Give examples (even if not your chosen
posters)
• Film posters can be shown anywhere especially if it’s a high budget film.
We see posters on:
• Buses
Here we have “The
• Bus stops
Hobbit” on the bus
• Billboards
• Cinema’s
• Theatre’s
• Film Magazines
• Public walls
• Tube stations
Here we have “The
End” on a bus stop.
Here we have the
“Skyfall” poster on a
billboard

6. 5. What is the typical size for
posters? (can be more than one)
• A typical poster would be the usual one you would see in film premieres ,
most of those posters are landscape.
• A bit bigger one are the ones you would see on the hallway of a cinema.
• Posters that are on a tube station are similar size to the ones on the bus
stops.
• The biggest posters would have to be the ones on a billboard.

7. 6. How are posters appealing/attractive to the audience? Does
the appeal/attraction differ than that of the poster? (is it aimed
at same target audience as other advertising such as trailer?)
• The posters may attract different audience than the trailer itself, because the
poster may have different context that the trailer doesn’t show.
• For example in the poster from Final Destination it looks like a gothic horror film as
shown by the dark colours and the skull so therefore it will attract audience that
enjoy actually enjoy a gothic horror film. However looking at the trailer it shows a
different side of the film and has an impression of a more slasher thriller.

8. 8. What is the difference of conventions
between different subgenres?
• Drama romance posters are more likely to contain Quotes
rather than a horror/thriller type of poster.
• Action films are more likely to have a tagline to make the film
more exciting.

9. 9. What are the similarities of
conventions in similar subgenres?
• One big similarity is the big title that has the catch the audiences
attention. Especially in the genre comedy and action.
• Another similarity is that most posters contain the directors name. If
the director is well known then this will help to attract more
audiences. This occurs with all type of subgenres.

10. 10. Priorities: What do some poster prioritise?
• The first main priority of a poster is the title as most film (especially
action) make it bold, big and a certain bright colour to stand out.
• The second priority are the characters because well known
characters will get the audience attention. Also, If the film is
successful people will remember which characters acted in that film.
• The third priority is the directors name because some people refer to
to films by the director and its the first thing they will look for it see if
the film is good or not because they will remember the previous films.

11. 11. Summarise how your film posters reinforce
conventions (reinforce stereotypes)
• From the poster ‘Carrie’ we see blood which reinforces one of the
conventions of horror as it represents evil and/ or the devil as well as
death.
• In action films such as Fast & Furious or White House Down we see the
landscape and the location in which the movie takes place this
reinforces the convention of action posters as most of them show part of
the film and what the ‘action’ is all about. .

12. 12. Give examples and explain how some film posters
challenge the conventions of film posters (they do
things different than most)
This film poster (12 Year a Slave) challenges the conventions of any type of poster
because the title doesn’t stand out compared to the typical ones. They want the
audience to focus on the character more rather than the title.
The poster ‘If i Stay’ also challenges the conventions of a film poster because it exposes the
film by showing scenes. Other film posters would avoid this and keep it restricted to show as
less possible so it would not give away too much detail and manage to get audience interested
by the time its released .