What is the one thing that your movie poster should do above all else? Tell the truth.
I have loved movie posters ever since I was a little kid. I love the way they tell a story and get me excited about a particular film. What I don’t love is when the movie itself is nothing like the poster suggests.
The main objective of a movie poster is to get people to want to watch the movie. But the one thing that it should do above all else is tell the truth.
If people go into a movie with certain expectations created by the poster and a filmmaker doesn’t make good on those expectations, the audience is not going to be very happy.
Using the fewest number of elements possible, I believe the poster should show who or what is in the movie, what genre of film it is, along with conveying the overall tone of the picture. The poster should also evoke an air of mystery and generate enough curiosity to entice people to want to go see it.
But what constitutes a great movie poster and how do you make one?
Less is More
When it comes to creating a stellar movie poster, I really feel that less is more. If you can accurately convey what the film is about with less, I believe you will find the end result to be much more powerful.
When I really began to look at movie posters and the covers of Blu-rays, I realized I was really drawn to the ones that were more concise and simplistic.
I noticed each of them only featured two or three elements along with the title. One had a girl and a house. One had three characters and a background. One had a shape and a character.
Another design element I noticed about most of them was their use of complimentary colors. I saw red and green. There was yellow and violet. Blue and orange. The use of complimentary colors really accentuates the hues, further separates the elements, and really draws the eye in.
The use of text effects and textures were also prevalent. I saw drop shadows, outer glows, and different textures added to the lettering and subjects.
Textures are a popular design element. You can do a quick internet search of texture stock photos and see what I mean. There are hard textures like steel, concrete, and rock; soft textures like cotton, fur, and silk; and everything in between.
You can overlay these textures onto subjects, objects, and text in Adobe Photoshop and change the blend mode of their layer to create whatever kind of look you want.
So How Do You Make One?
There are many different kinds of software programs out there that will allow you to create a movie poster with Adobe Photoshop being the most popular.
When it comes to creating a poster for your project, there are really only two options: Hire a designer or make one yourself.
If you’re already familiar with Adobe Photoshop, this shouldn’t be an issue. If not, there are some really great tutorials on Adobe’s website, as well as on YouTube, to get you started.
Once you’ve mastered the basics, I definitely recommend researching the more advanced features in Adobe Photoshop such as Gradients, Layer Masks, Filters, Blend Modes, and Adjustment Layers to take your poster and other projects to the next level.
With a little bit of time and practice, you’ll be surprised at what you can create.
When I’m casting for an upcoming project, I always like to have a poster present that conveys the mood and overall theme of the picture.
I did this with “The Devil’s Instrument”, using stock photos and Adobe Photoshop. Later, after the film is shot, you can create a poster using actual pictures from the film.
For “The Devil’s Instrument”, I wanted to keep things simple, so I used only two elements: an ominous face and candles.
For the face, I manipulated a stock photo using the different Adjustment Layers of Exposure, Curves, Hue/Saturation and Color Balance. Then, I added a concrete texture and changed its layers Blend Mode to achieve the look I was after.
I wanted the candles to be less prominent, so I changed their layer Blend Mode to Screen and dropped the opacity of the candle layers to 55%.
For the lettering, I added a cracked texture over top of all of them and changed the layer Blend Mode until I achieved the look I desired.
Later, I created a poster with the actors from the film. I used the Adjustment Layer of Hue/Saturation to turn one of the production stills to black & white, and then I used Curves to dramatically increase the contrast between the lights and the darks.
For the other production still, I heavily manipulated it using the Adjustment Layer, Curves, and then I used Hue/Saturation to “colorize” the picture a dark red.
I did the same thing with, “Darkness Hunting”, in that I created a poster using only two elements: A witch and a forest. The film is in the horror genre and does have a witch in it, so the poster is somewhat horrific.
Later, I created a poster with actual pictures from the film, much like I did for, “The Devil’s Instrument”.
I was using Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Color Balance along with textures. The only thing new was that I used the Adjustment Layer, HDR Toning, for one of the images to give it an almost cartoonish appearance before using Hue/Saturation to “colorize” the whole thing red.
So, what constitutes a great movie poster? One that tells the truth and makes people want to see it. That is to say, a poster with the fewest number of elements that accurately conveys the mood, genre, and theme of the picture while being honest with itself as to what the movie is actually about.
