Film Poster Codes and Conventions

Film Poster

Codes and Conventions

• It must be eye catching and captivating to the audience
• There must be a focal picture that will draw in the audiences eye
• The title is displayed in a large, eye-catching font
• It clearly defines the film’s genre
• The poster should be designed to attract the largest audience possible
• There is usually an indication of when the film is being released – either a date or ‘Coming Soon’, although they are sometimes less specific, for example they might say ‘In Cinemas This Summer’
• Information on the Directors and Production Company is often displayed in a billing block at the bottom of the poster
• There could be reviews or titles of other films that the company has made
• In film trailers, posters and other promotions, taglines are used within them all to emphasise a point about a film as well as hint to what will happen in the film for audiences. Examples of thisare Alien ‘In space no one can hear you scream’.Taglines aim to be memorable for audiences, so that when they think of the tagline, theytherefore think of the film. 

Film Poster Theories: (Roland Barthes: media theory)

• The Action/Proairetic Code is the idea of little actions that do not particularly raise questions, which creates tension and builds suspense for audiences to guess what happens next. This can be used in film posters, especially psychological thriller posters, as little parts of the poster may not straight away raise questions, but it could have an impact on the film.
• When a text is not being fully explained, it is considered to be Barthes Hermeneutic Code, as audiences want to find out what happens as so far everything seems to be a mystery. This is very applicable to film posters, as audiences do not have the whole story, so they are curious to find out more. (Definition: Hermeneutic and Proairetic Codes: the two ways of creating suspense in narrative, the first caused by unanswered questions, the second by the anticipation of an action's resolution.)
• The Enigma Code pushes audiences to ask questions about the film’s plot, which they can do from seeing sneaks of a film’s plot in film posters.
• The Semantic Code and Symbolic Code look at symbols and connotations and meanings of symbols, so if lots of symbols are on a film poster, what could they imply?