What are movie posters?

Movie posters are advertisements used by productions companies to promote the movies that are coming out, usually featuring:

• A title
• A tagline
• The Billing block
• Name of the actor in the lead role
• A picture of the actor as the character (often with a supporting actor)
• A picture of something in the background which usually resembles something in the plot or narrative
• The BBFC certificate of the film (more often than not on the DVD release cover instead)

Movie posters can be found in a range of places, from billboards to magazines, and come in two main forms. The first is the movie release poster which contains all of the information that is needed for a movie goer to get attracted to a movie, with all they need to know from release date to director and so forth. Not all movie posters will have all of these technical codes. using or omitting them will be done for a reason, either to tease information or withhold some plot devices from the film.


For example, the movie poster for the Dark Knight on the left
features merely a famous quote from the from the film, that will be recognised when they go to see it, "Why so serious?", as well as the title and the symbol that was made famous from the previous film of the "Bat Symbol". this iconic symbol on its own would be enough for audiences to recognise which franchise this belongs to along side the title of the film "The Dark Knight". this is an example of  "Teaser poster" which allows potential audiences to know that a film is coming out, leaving them in anticipation.






However this movie poster, which would have been released closer to the to the date of release, featuring the main cast which may not have been fully cast yet, as well as a possible still from the movie. also, both posters feature release dates that are very different. the poster to the right says the year of release date as opposed to a month or a day. the one on the left gives a specific release date, shown that this poster was released in the same year as the film whereas the one on the right wasn't.


However, over the years movie posters have evolved from drawings to photoshopped pictures, which attempt the movies to look more epic, however both use the technique of layering, in order to create the posters. for example, in this poster for Prometheus (2012), there is a picture in the foreground of a possible explorer shinning a light into the distance, where as the background features a large statue, which would eventually featured in the narrative.

However, posters from earlier movies would have featured drawings as opposed to photographs to compose them.
this 2001: A Space Odyssey poster is not as up-to-date as the current movie posters, but still follows the same rule of layering in its composition, having pictures upon pictures in order to show a lot more information and sometimes, show a hidden meaning.

Over the years movie posters have changed the way in which they are constructed but the premise of layering pictures has been kept by most production companies. Movie posters have over the years developed to have two purposes, one being their intended purpose of advertisement, and the other being collectors items. Earlier posters were often hand drawn, but in modern times, photographs have been used with photoshop to layer and create a more enticing image for an audience to be attracted by.