Planning And Research: Film Poster - Martin

 A movie poster is a poster used to advertise a film. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. they normally contain an image with text. Today the film posters will usually feature a photograph of the main actor however prior to the 1990s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on movie posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. They may also include a tag line, name of the director, names of characters, the release date etc.

The Dark Knight Film Poster featuring the main characters

Movie posters are displayed inside and on the outside of movie theaters, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The smae images appear inthe film exhibitors pressbook and may also be used on websites, DVD (a nd historically VHS) packaging flyers, advertisements in newspapers and magazines etc.




Kick Ass Billboard Advertisement

 

Hangover Part Two Billbaord Advertisement

 


History of Movie Posters

Movie posters have been used since the earliest exhibitions of film. They began as outside placards listing the programme of (short) films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater. By the early 1900s, they began to feature illustrations of a scene from each individual film or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Other movie posters have used artistic interpretations of a scene or even the theme of the film, represented in a wide variety of artistic styles.

Originally, movie posters were produced for the exclusive use by the theatres exhibiting the film the poster was created for, and the copies of the posters were required to be returned to the distributor after the film left the theatre. in the United States, movie posters were usually returned to a nation-wide operation called the National Screen Service (NSS) whioch printed and  which printed and distributed most of the film posters for the studios between 1940 and 1984. As an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theatre. During this time, a film could stay in circulation for several years, and so many old movie posters were badly worn before being retired into storage at an NSS warehouse (most often, they were thrown away when they were no longer needed or had become too worn to be used again). Those posters which were not returned were often thrown away by the theatre owner, but some movie posters found their way into the hands of collectors.

Beginning in the 1980s, the American film studios began taking over direct production and distribution of their posters from the National Screen Service and the process of making and distributing movie posters became decentralised in that country.