Poster Codes and

Conventions

Promotional Value Posters are produced in order to promote the subject chosen. In this case, films. This is just like a promotional film trailer but can be viewed within public areas such as on the sides of buildings and on buses. This helps promotion as posters are a physical thing that can be placed anywhere. Posters are extremely useful when positioned in and around cinemas as people visiting will see and become interested in other films for their next visit.

ImageMany films will publish more then one version of a poster for their film. For ‘Insidious’ the main published poster features the font featured on the DVD coverwith an image that relates to the film. It also includesa production blurb at the bottom to show how was involved in the production team. However the otherposter is an artistic version that uses a different font with blood to show the horror element and does not give too much away about the plot other than the text at the bottom which links to the plot of the film. Typical dull colours are featured to fit with horror conventions. The main published poster at the top promotes the film where as the poster at the bottom is a teaser poster.

Posters are produced for a variety of reasons. Especially for promotion as they are a simple media text that mentions vital information for the spectator that links to the subject in question. As we are exploring into the industry of horror films we will look at typical horror conventions that have been illustrated on published posters.

Posters must be clear and easily seen. This means that the photo must fill the space provided and give a hint of the film. The text, especially the title must be bold and in a large, readable font so that people can view it from a distance.

As seen in this poster created for the film ‘Orphan’ the main image is bold, the colours used contrast well, meaning that the girl stands out well, especially her face. The main title, even though it is not a large font, stands out well against the blue clothing and would be seen from a reasonable distance. A strong tagline has been selected to entice the audience by hinting slightly about the plot. The rest of the text does not necessarily have to be seen from a distance as its importance is not high. The release date is show in a small font but is still viewable. The main conventions for this poster are strong and the poster seems to be successful in the promotion of this Film.

Title/MastheadThe title/masthead is one of the main conventions that features on a poster.This means the titles font needs to follow typical conventions of the genre. In our casehorror, so red and black fonts with dripping blood for example would meet the conventions. As can be seen with ‘Red Riding Hood’ a red text colour has been selected and a bold font has been used that has a sinister presents to it. Furthermore, with the red markings around the text it adds to a typical horror convention to show the type of horror within the title. ‘Smiley’ and ‘Friday The 13th’ use a similar font to ‘Times New Roman’ to show a sharp, bold title that can be seen from a distance

ColourColour is a strong feature when creating a poster as the colours need to contrast against each other in order to produce an engaging and eye catching poster. Dull colours are used to create a sense of suspense and mystery and to sometimes hide the character to create a silhouette. Colours such as black, red and grey are used as connotations of these colours are danger, blood and doom which links to the horror genre. This is shown in ‘Friday The 13th’ as the dull colours are used create a sinister and ominous attitude. This is especially seen on the background.

Quotes

Quotes and pull quotes are used on the poster from films/trailers to entice the spectator to watch. These quotes are usually said by the main characters and hint the plot but without giving too much detail away.

Release InformationRelease information is always featured on posters so that the audience know when the film is going to be released into cinemas so that they can go and watch it. Posters do not always feature the exact date, the sometimes will say the month and year it is due out or even something more simple, such as ‘coming soon’ if the film is still in production.