Movie Codes & Conventions

What is a movie poster? The primary purpose of a movie poster is advertisement. The general purpose is

to catch the attention of a consumer and attract viewers to which ever production they are promoting.

Movie posters are a huge key element within the Film market and can be seen almost anywhere, outside cinemas, on billboards and along the side of

transport s to increase the potential audience and thereby success of the piece.

As the viewers, we should be able to tell which genre of a movie just by looking at its poster. This can be shown by colour schemes, Mise En Scene, Character

expressions and costume, taglines, and titles.

Some conventions that I noticed are common with Movie posters of all genres are that they all feature a masthead, a main image, usually of the main

characters, a tagline, the name of the director/actor and a billing block at the bottom of the poster highlighting the key companies, the production and

distribution companies, The name of the Costume designer and the director the musical composer.

There are various types of movie posters, including Add on Teaser posters, Blueray /DVD posters and the original production poster.

COMEDY POSTERS!

As my chosen genre is comedy, I will be looking into some comedy poster

codes and conventions.

Some Comedy Poster Examples

Comedy Conventions!Movie title in large bold font, attracts the attention of the viewer just after they look at the main image.Mise en Scene shows a shadowy, dull looking city, with protesters surrounding the main character, giving the poster a sense of dark comedy.The sudden burst of colour in the centre of the poster indicates to the viewers that this is the main character. Centred on the poster, We see a brightly dressed man waving to the protesters cheerily, creating a sense of humour as it indicates to the audience he must be the reason they are unhappy.

The well known name presented on the top centre of the poster in bold white font captures the attention of the audience as it stands out and is recognisable as the actor is well known for daring and comical acts, bringing them to want to see what he’s done next. The information shown in small clear font at the bottom of the poster includes all important information about copyright, directors and soundtrack details, like all professional posters.In slightly larger bold white font we have ‘Coming Soon’ informs the audience that the production will be released soon and is a common convention used in movie posters everywhere.

Codes and Conventions!After looking into what codes and

conventions movie posters have been following, I have decided that as I am following the comedy Genre, that I will be including the regular conventions, such as large title, information at the bottom of the poster and taglines. As well as taking some creative and comical photos to match my teaser trailer characters.