Overall Summary of my Poster research

From carrying out sufficient and in-depth research on 10 movie posters, I now feel confident in pursuing development for my drafts of poster. This is because of my research has allowed me to discover further about the conventions and forms of film posters.


--- One feature I have discovered further is the formatting and structure of film posters. They are all completed in the portrait format, which allows many things to be happening in the poster at one time, such as images and text coming from the top of the poster down to the bottom. This is the standard convention for all posters for films.

--- Another convention my research has now helped me develop my understanding of  is posters use of symbolism and in general their use of semiotics. The way posters position certain characters next to certain objects, different types of lighting, certain types of text around the character can be telling and informative to the audience, even though the meaning isn't clearly and explicitly stated. Such as, when I researched the poster 'Black Swan', the fact that the female character had red lips and black eyes and most of the poster elsewhere is all an angelic white colour, this heavily connotes meaning and emphasis on the darker side of the character even though there isn't anything explicitly stating that, simply due to alternating colour schemes. This is one way posters can use symbolism and semiotics, and is also something I aim to transcribe into my poster. In addition to this, the poster for 'Shutter Island' does a great job in telling a story and setting a tone, just through the use of the characters face emerging from the darkness holding a candle, with a very sinister looking island placed directly below him. This also showcases how the positioning of images can contribute to a posters meaning.

--- Lastly, my research into film posters has helped me understand the conventions regarding text and typography. The type and form of text used in a poster has a great deed in determining the impression the poster creates. Such as, horror film posters will have text that is very eerie looking, and the audience knows this because they are used to the convention of seeing typography like this with that specific genre, being horror.

Overall I'm pleased with my film poster research and think the research has been widely beneficial when it comes to me proceeding development of my posters for my short film.