A movie poster is a poster used to advertise a film.

They normally contain an image with text.

Today's posters often feature photographs of the main actors.

The text on movie posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors.

It may also include a tag line, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, etc.

Where are they?

In/outside of movie theatres

On the street or in shops.

Websites, DVD, packaging, flyers, advertisement

s in newspapers and magazines, etc.

As we can see the Hollywood blockbuster movie posters of 2012 all appear to have the same basic layout – close up of the face with an item (such as an apple) that hints towards the story of the film. However these close ups could be a clever publicity technique, as all the close ups are of characters played by famous actors/actresses. We can apply this to Blumler and Katz’s explanation of

IDENTIFICATION – audiences will recognise a film based on the famous actors displayed, and this will be an immediate reason as to why they will see a film. This would not work on our poster as British realism films tend to use unknown actors.

With this in mind we would need to think of different ways to draw in an audience to our film. Ifwe look at the posters for Submarine (2010) and the more recent Salmon

Fishing in the Yemen (2012) we can see the theme of using bright, primary colours in the titles for the film. These colours draw attention to a poster, making it recognisable, easily standing out. Especially with SFINY we

can see the need for a poster to stand (Hollywood blockbusters) are. The photo creates an emotional atmosphere which will also draw in an audience.