Ancillary Planning - Film Poster Action Plan

A film poster is a form of advertisement to a film. Studios often make several different variations of a poster for one film for various different audiences and places. Typically they contain feature photos from the film itself and of the main actor/s. Before more modern day art arrived, film posters tended to feature illustrations rather than the real life pictures from the film that feature on most posters nowadays. Accompanying the pictures on the poster, text is also featured, often included is the films name in a bold, attention-grabbing font and colour, and also the names of the main actors. It can also include a tag line, directors name, name of characters and the release date of the film.


For my film poster, I want to make it as professional looking as possible and therefore I am going to build on my Photoshop and InDesign skills to allow me to do this. To try and achieve the look I want for my poster and maintain the theme of the thriller genre it is important that I find a strong storyline to use for my film trailer itself. As I haven't decided on every scene that I am going to be using and every character e.c.t it might seem difficult to create a poster that will end up linking to what actually happens in my films trailer. However, it will not affect my poster given that I have the basis of a story line to use and therefore I even if the order of scenes change, or a character is added the actual storyline will not change, allowing me to start my poster. The basic storyline that I am working with is that there is a certain area (most likely to be a large open woodland area/park) where there strange things happen. I have drafted several ideas as to how to film my trailer although I have not come to a decision on which character I am using - I will either be showing the victim in the trailer, or the villain. Either one I use the same scenes and shot types will be used so it is just a case of more drafting to be put in place.


The things I need to include in my poster are:

• Name of the film
• Possibly the directors name/production company
• Actors name
• Release date
• Main picture that is related to the trailer
• Colour scheme that keeps with the continuity of the thriller genre

By Monday 19th January I will have a firm idea of what my poster will look like along with drafts and layout plans.