Conventions of film posters

Mostly all film posters contain the technical codes shown in the image above.  All posters will include the title as so the audience can identify the film, furthermore posters may include a tagline in order to give the audience a greater understanding of the genre and style of the film.  In this case 'One man saw it coming' suggests action thriller, and added to the background image etc, the genre of this film becomes clear.

The image used as the foreground on a film poster will often vary depending on the genre of the film.  For example in thrillers the foreground image is generally an iconic image from the film, as seen above, to add to the drama of the film and entice the audience.  However in romantic comedies we often see a 'cheesy' posed picture of the main characters.  Moreover the background image gives the audience a broader understanding of the style and genre of the film.  In the image above we see a number of robots, telling us that the movie is about robots, it also adds style to the poster as it may appear quite bland without the use of a background image.  In romantic comedies a common technique used in background images is to have a white background with only a foreground image.  This would alert the audience to the genre of the film.

Another way in which filmmakers look to entice the audience is to include the name of the 'star' actor/actress in the poster.  This has a great effect on the popularity on the film as the audience are much more likely to watch 'i,Robot' as Will Smith is in it.  However if the actor was unknown the director may not feel the need to include the actors name in the poster as it would not entice the audience in the way a Hollywood star would. 

Finally most film posters will contain the BBFC classification and the billing block which adds extra information to the film.  The BBFC classification alerts the audience on the content of the film and the issues that are raised, for example in the poster above, the classification of 12A tells us that the film will not touch on any controversial themes and will be fairly light in terms of violence/swearing etc.  Finally the billing block is there to inform the audience of key production teams who worked on the film.