Film posters now-a-days are so much more than a few pictures scrabbled together, with the actors name in large print to try and pull in the punters, undoubtedly they are hugely intricately thought out works of art. An astronomical amount of money is spent on creating film posters each year.Often it's the case that a film has many more than just one posters. There are different styles for different things, such as on tube stations and buses etc, this entices the audience, because at first glance they think that they're seeing something new, however it's just the same film with a slightly modified poster. This is very clever advertising.
It's often the case that the distribution companies will release a fairly plain version of the poster first, when I say plain I mean the picture being the forefront, then the title of the film, maybe a few of the actors names etc. Often they wont even put a date on it, it can often be left as "Coming Soon". This wets the consumers appetite, only leaving them wanting more.
The question is to what extent does the film poster, and the film poster alone influence a person's choice to see a specific film?
As a visual aid of course film posters are one of the most influential ways of effective marketing. We have come accustomed to seeing the latest movie blockbuster splashed across our tv's, magazines, bus stops and so on however I'm not sure that it's actually the film poster itself that influences a persons choice to see the film.
Don't get me wrong, if I saw a simple, badly designed, half hearted poster it would slightly curve my decision. However after doing a lot of research into how much time and money is spent on constructing the perfect film poster, i think it would only be film buffs and film poster buffs (if there is such a thing) that it would effect to any great level. I know personally that i'm not going to stand at a bus stop analysing the form of a poster.
Personally I believe that its more the quantity of times we see the poster. If everywhere we go we see the same or similar image over and over again, it leads us to believe that this film is going to be good. Clearly the film has put a lot of money in advertising, meaning they have a lot of money for other things within the film, generally meaning it's going to be a greater success. In our modern climate going to the cinema is a luxury for a lot of people and we need to be 100% sure that what we're investing our money in, is going to be good. If we've seen the poster of a film splashed across every surface, we're more inclined to see that film, rather than a plain looking poster in the back of a film magazine.
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