Film posters are created to increase awareness for the film that's been produced and to attract an audience while giving them an elusive insight into the plot and story line. The standard conventions of a film poster are:
Film Title
The film title is normally on the part of the poster where it doesn't disturb the main image, but still grabs the attention of the audience. Also their is a specific font for the film posters. For example on the "Snatch" poster the title's font is simple and this could have been done for an ironic sense because, even though it's a comedy the plot is complicated. While with the Sherlock Holmes film poster the font is old fashioned, yet capitalised because the film is an action thriller and needs to jump out at you.
Billing block
The billing block is arguably an unappreciated part of any film poster, but it is an undoubtedly vital part that some posters disregard. The billing block gives credit to the major associated parties in the development of the film documenting things like the production company and the main actor.
Main Image
The main image of the film poster is what sells the film to people that see the poster. This is because it is an image that gives away something about the film from what the main characters look like to a hidden message in the images. A film poster that really exposes this is the Swordfish poster above. This is because, it shows all of the main actors in the film, thus attracting the fans of the actors to the film. The poster also gives subtle hints about the plot of the film because it shows the four main actors and a computer in the image and from the mise-en-scene in the poster we can infer the roles of each of the characters. For example:
John Travolta - The main figure
Halle Berry - the love interest
Hugh Jackman - The computer hacker
We can also infer this due to where the characters are sitting as Hugh Jackman is sitting nearest to the computer and from knowing a little bit of the plot, it is loosely based on operation Swordfish, which was an operation undertaken by the American Government in the twentieth century that set out to hack computers for counter terrorism.
Also the colour of the image tells the audience that the plot of the film isn't going to be straightforward as it's in black and white and disjoints the situation and the audiences perception of it.
The date of release
The date of release on the film poster is important as it lets the audience know when the film is released. However some films are released on significant day. For example, the film Paul starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost was released on Valentines Day in 2011 to make fun out of the bro-mance between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and their characters.
