How to make a film poster

Before creating a teaser poster or feature poster for our film, I decided to research how to create an effective poster which will make the audience interested in watching our film. 

I found this video on YouTube and it explains the importance of a film poster and how to make an effective one which will demonstrate the genre of the film and a basic idea of the storyline. To do this it analyses a poster: 


The film tells us why the advertises used certain techniques and what makes the poster so effective and eye catching. 

I also found a website: http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/how-to-create-a-great-movie-poster/- which gives three stages in the process of making a good poster. The three stages are similar to those presented in the film but are explained in a different way: 

Part 1 – STYLE

Decide what kind of movie your poster is going to represent. You should try to convey the general mood of your film to its graphic design. For example, if you work on an action or horror movie poster, you should create an intense or dark atmosphere – if it’s a comedy, it would be better to choose a funny and light style. Your poster should be striking, memorable and focused on a single, clear message. When you are working on your graphic design, always make sure you think about your target audience!

The first stage explains that the poster design should match the genre of the film. Therefore, in our film poster we need to display that the two main characters (James and Sally) are in love but something must be stopping them from being together (the train). 

Part 2 – TEXT

The next thing to focus on is the text. Apart from the movie title, your film poster must also contain a tag line (a striking sentence or branding slogan the conveys the movie’s message), the name of the director, names of main actors or characters, the release date and a billing block (credits at the bottom).

If you need to emphasise a presence of someone famous in your movie, or highlight some other particular aspect of the film, you may write it on your poster, along with making sure this information is really indispensable. Your movie poster must say just enough to make the sale and not a word more!

Our tag line should also be around the main characters love and how they are forced to be apart. But it shouldn't give away that Sally is killed by the train. 

Part 3 – IMAGES

The most difficult step is choosing images. You should hire a great graphic designer. And your designer should help you with this. But even with the professional assistance, choosing the correct graphics can be difficult. So the best way to find out what to put on your poster is to look at other similar works or to watch some films in the same genre for inspiration.

If you don’t have any good pictures of your actors or movie scenes, you can try to substitute them for some more symbolic images. On the Internet you may find many interesting photographs that would express the mood of your film. Otherwise, you may choose to forgo photos for representative drawings, which would make your poster illustrated rather than photographic.

Although the need to print a poster may seem secondary in digital distribution era, you should always consider that most video on demand marketplaces will require your art in a relatively large format. That’s why anything you do should be created using a high resolution!

Lastly, you should use a consistent graphic design in all areas of your marketing, including website, DVD cover and all other visual collateral associated with your film. Good design is a complicated task, but can be rewarding when you see your sales increase!

The last stage focus's on the images which will take up the most space on our poster and so, the most important. For our poster I think we will need to show the main characters and the train in between them to show the separation. However, this may give away the storyline and so we will have to develop the poster as we are making it.