Extra Research - Posters

As my role is research, I have started to look at different horror movie posters to understand the generic conventions they have and to see whether any of them give me and my group inspiration for when we create our poster to our teaser trailer.

One thing I have noticed is that they use low key lighting and dark colours such as greys, black and red. They tend to use red for fonts, which is probably used as the colour red has connotations of blood and danger, which contrast with what horror films contain. The image used on the poster usually reflects an aspect of the film or shows the main character.

I would have expected to see age ratings on the posters; however the ones I have looked at do not have this.

The titles have all been in capital letters which may be to make the title stand out more so it has more an impact on the page. The title also usually seems to be positioned towards the bottom of the poster about ¾’s down. Some of the posters contain quotes e.g.: One missed call “what will it sound like when you die” this automatically reveals that the film is about death, which would be expected in the horror genre anyway.

I believe that the unborn poster is very effective as it is like it is showing a clip from the film rather than just showing a character, the setting in the bathroom with the child in the reflection depicts that the child is evil as the text “Evil will do anything to live” backs up this idea. The colours used in this poster are different from the others as they are more subtle with shades of blues, greys and whites however they do work as it creates a cold feel and shows that this film is chilling. With the light shining of the title adding extra effect to make it look like there is a spirit floating around. So this shows that you don’t have to use the stereotypical ideas of horror to create the same effect.So when designing the drafts for the poster, we will take into consideration the elements of horror posters and hopefully use some for inspiration. we have also thought about challenging conventions of typical horror posters and therefore may try a different colour scheme although still try to make it so the audience recognize it is from the horror genre.

The main image is what catches peoples attention so we need to make sure that we use our photography and editing skills to create the perfect image for our poster as well as finding the right fonts and extra features such as quotes or text that we may want to use. Posters are to catch an audiences attention and inform them of the film being promoted so the image is what determines whether a person will want to go and see the film. Bearing this in mind we will try out different angles and shots so that we take the perfect photograph for our poster.

The main images used on horror posters are usually quite graphic meaning that when photographing our image for our poster we should try and make it so that we can convince audiences who will see this poster that they should watch this poster and that it is worth while.