Learning Report

In this report I will be discussing the history of film posters and how that has influenced my design. The aim of this brief is to take a poster from a past film production and re-create it so that it meets today’s market.

Film posters were introduced when film became a story telling medium rather than simply a series of moving pictures. As a result of this film became a lot more popular throughout the United States and across Europe. As popularity grew so did the need for advertising to entice people to see the shows and inform them of when and where they would be showing. At first, the standard film poster design was inspired by Vaudeville (carnival) poster designs, up until the 1910s when the audience started to demand to know who the actors of the film were. This meant that the design of the poster had to change, to add the film star names, highlighting their appearance, in order of fame, which became more important than the film itself. Posters became even more important with the increase of movie built theatres and the appearance of billboards being put into use. From 1930 to 1939 movie posters reflected the Art Deco movement where the details of the imagery decreased while being replaced with white spaces, bold colours and geometric shapes. This all changed in 1939 when magazines began printing colour photographs of stars and so with this, posters began using tinted photographs.

There is a definite transition of film poster designs, starting off as pieces of art created to promote the film and location of the showing, evolving from the needs and wants of the public. The introduction of photographs replacing the art work, enabled the stars of the films to be the main feature, which became more important then the film itself, and also kept actors in fashion, if they weren't in the latest film, they were out of fashion.

More recently poster designs have been simplified by removing all the unnecessary imagery around the poster, moving the focus onto one specific image minimalism seems to be trending through the twentieth century and into today’s designs, mostly seen in companies like Apple and Nike.

The renowned film director, Steven Spielberg, who creates huge blockbusters that also expand the minds of the audience, bringing something new and exciting to the screen, creates posters of outstanding quality and creativity. The posters have the bare minimum of information that a viewer would need to know. It can be said that the more simple the design the more effective it is, working better than having the cast/most famous actor or actresses blazoned across the poster. This instills more confidence in the film itself, then if having a famous person on the front, hoping that they will sell the film for you, suggesting less confidence in the story line.

To continue my research I looked into the different genres of film to see if there were a difference in style and format depending on the type of film. The genres I looked at were; action; comedy; romance; family and horror.

In the blockbuster action films there is definitely a theme being demonstrated. In most the same format is being use, with minor tweaks to match the films. Three out of the four posters I looked at also all used the “famous” blue and yellow Hollywood colours you see in most Hollywood blockbuster film posters.

In the comedy film posters, they are simply there to do a purpose, advertise a film. The poster sets the scene, introduce the main cast of the film, and give a tag line that giving a brief idea of what the film content. All the posters use photography for the main image of the poster either of the scene or the actors, mostly they are a collage of stills from the movie itself.

All the posters whether they are family or horror themed, all consist of having at least one photographic image of the main actress or actor with the setting of the story behind. This layout obviously works as it is the most common to be seen in the film poster design. I believe this is because it gives the viewer exactly what is needed in order to decide if they want to see the film. In today’s society people are not so likely to go to the cinema and so the more the designers can give without giving away the whole plot, the better chance of the viewers going to see the film.

The poster I decided to base my brief on was, “The Man From Planet X,” a 1951 science-fiction film, about a spaceship that lands on the Scottish moors, bringing an alien to the planet. There are various versions of the poster, but I based my design on the original design, a layout that consists of the main character, the alien, standing over a human girl looking confused, behind the alien is the space ship. The background is a setting of a house, with fog covering most of it, to create a mysterious setting. Across the bottom quarter of the poster is a bright yellow box with red coloured font, this is makes the title of the film jump out, in contrast to the rest of the poster. The tagline gives the audience a very brief outline of the story. It looks like it has been painted, rather than printed, which shows the age of the poster.

One of the two designs I focused on was a simplified design based on Steven Spielberg designs. I wanted to give the audience a restricted idea of what the film was about, so I limited the image to a very simplified layout. I used the image of an alien I had designed earlier, and put it behind a giant X shape which only shows the eyes, and the shape of the head. I did not want to include a tagline, only the title and who has written, produced and directed by. This is so there is no information about the film other than the raw basics. I also chose a font that was in the style of sci-fi like to suggest the theme. I really liked this design of ‘The Man From Planet X’ poster, espicially the simplicity, though going from my research I found that this did not work so well with getting the audience to see the film, and so I decided to work on a different design.

As a result of this I looked at creating a design that I felt would fit the criteria of today’s poster design, although I did try to keep it simple. For the final design I kept the same alien head that I had created earlier. I added an image of the earth, to demonstrate where the film was located. Having the alien scaled larger than the earth represents the domination of the planet. I also included the tagline, “The Deadliest Enemy The World Has Ever Known” this helps give the audience an understanding of what the film will be about. I also chose a sic fi font, which also shows distress at the bottom representing destruction creeping in, it is a subtle element, but I feel it creates an effect. The font is in white, so to keep it neutral and not to over power the imagery. In addition to the tagline I also included the writer, producer and director, to give the audience more information, and for some this will also persuade them to go see the film as they are a fan of the director or producer or writer.

Overall the poster meets the criteria from my research, it is dark, and limited, giving a mysterious feel to the film. The darkness gives the impression of a horror, but also shows the main figure and where the film is set, using the criteria from an action film. The poster gives the audience information about the film without giving away the storyline. The imagery also helps set the scene of the film, showing the audience who the main character and where the film is going to be set. Using a limited amount of imagery, does not over power the poster, or make it too busy, it has the right amount. By only showing half of the alien’s head, it intrigues the audience and leaves them wanting to find out more about this character, also by positioning it next to the earth, the audience is left wondering what the relationship between the two is about and so will want to see the film. Once the poster design was printed to a larger scale, it became a lot more powerful and the layout worked. I felt very confident in the final product, as before I was not getting the full impact from the computer screen.

The Final Design/ Poster

 

After some final tweaks, this is the final product of this module. I originally had this professionally printed in an A3 poster format, which once it had arived, I felt very confident in what I had produced. It also showed me how it would look if it were used in the film market. I feel it has strong imagery and would stand out amongst other film posters, because of the aliens eye, almost starring at you, making you look at the poster for longer.