What needs to be in a film poster?

To find out exactly what the audience would be expecting from a film poster, and also where they would expect to find a film poster, so I can further understand more about creating my own; I questioned a selection of varied individuals all within my target audience, and asked them the following questions in two blocks. I asked a group of twenty individuals to make sure that the results were vast enough, and each person did have mulptiple choice in deciding, on average I am expecting each person to have selected two of the main they acknowledge, as they re such regular daily occurences, people will more than likely notice more than one.



Firstly I wanted to know where exactly people would view or notice a film poster, as to understand where to advertise my own.


The questions I asked are as follow;



Where are you most likely to notice or view a film poster?

• Outside/inside a cinema

• On a billboard


• In magazines


• In newspapers


• On the internet


• At bus stops


• On sides of buses


• Other - please state

What attracts you to a film poster?

• Bold title


• Catchy tagline


• Images of main character/s


• Indication of plot through tagline


• Indication of plot through photographs


• Actors name/s


• Production departments name/s


• Nice bold colours


• Bland dull colours

The results are as follow.

The others stated were subway stations and carrier bags. Subway station is an agreeable source, but plastic bags was, well more productive means of advertising a film.

From these results we can clearly see that the top four places that posters are most noticeable are; 1. Inside and outside cinemas. 2. On billboards. 3. In magazines. 4. On the internet.

The top four important features of film posters, according to this research is; 1. Bold title. 2. Indication of plot through photographs. 3. Image/s of main character/s. 4. Actor/s name/s.

These four qualities will need to be taken in to account when designing and producing my own poster.