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Movie Poster Trends: From Art Form To Boredom

Once upon a time, movie posters often turned out to be iconic works of art - fascinating and striking visual representations of great cinematic efforts. They were filled with passion and reverence for the project they were depicting and, as promotional material, they heightened anticipation for the film.

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The influence of commercial growth on movie posters is all-encompassing. As the film promotion industry has grown, so has the demand for lengthy advertising campaigns. Now, we don’t just get a poster, we get teaser posters – sometimes before production has even ended – and ranges of character posters. For enormous movie projects such as X-Men: Days Of Future Past and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, that’s a vast number of posters. They all have to be striking, while conveying everything you need to know to make a split-second decision about whether to see the film or not. They all need to reflect the film’s ‘brand,’ so you feel comfortable and familiar enough to part with your ticket money. Ultimately, for huge studio productions, they need to fit with all the conventions of the previous three ‘G’s.

But, let’s not kid ourselves here. Independent movies aren’t much better at producing interesting film posters. Movie promotion companies know that indie films are not exempt from the conventions that everyone else adheres to and, in fact, with independent productions, promotion is even more important. Without the sizeable cash injection of the big studios, the word needs to be spread somehow. Without the built-in status of a recognisable brand, the film still needs to compete in the marketplace. This is how indie movie posters eventually look the same – by sticking to the idea that they must highlight the fact that they are independent. How is this achieved? With a quirky font, of course.

So, this is all terribly lamentable – and there’s not really much to be done about it. It’s not possible to ‘vote with your feet’ on a movie poster. It’s not about wanting to return to ‘the good old days,’ either – although the complaint does highlight the evolution of these trends over time. On the contrary, change can be an incredibly positive thing, if those working within it embrace the opportunities that change provides.

To seek to visually represent a film that is rich and complex, simply with a picture of the lead star’s face or body, is to miss an important chance to create something fresh, unique and reflective of the movie in question. So much more can be conveyed, beyond blandly stating which genre it falls into. The use of complementary colour theory in colour grading is like opening a palette containing all the colours of the rainbow, and restricting oneself to variations of only two shades. Objectifying a particular gender, or relegating one to ridiculous hair-tossing, is to devalue half the audience. To flood the media with an endless stream of teaser posters, character posters and full posters is to reduce the impact of all posters. Seriously – how often do you take a good look at your wallpaper?

With all possibilities open to them, those behind modern film posters have succeeded only in applying a range of new and pointless restrictions to themselves – stifling a means of advertising that once created great artwork. It’s not all doom and gloom though. Every once in a while something wonderful slips through – something filled with colour, joy and passion. Something just like this:

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