BUCH
Watch It!
Movie Posters as Marketing Tools and Genre Indicators
Film and Television Studies, Bd. 4
2017
Zusätzliche Informationen
Bibliografische Daten
Abstract
Despite being mute and static, the movie poster manages to inform potential audiences of a film’s rough content and encourages them to buy the ticket after one quick look. The poster achieves this by strategically combining verbal and visual design elements. Titles, claims, taglines, release dates, studio logos, symbols, star images, and the like are presented in a particular light, layout, frame, setting, and color depending on which genre the advertised film belongs to. ‘Watch It!’ discusses the forms and functions of these and other generic verbal and visual movie poster elements. It analyzes ten film genres and their poster design conventions using a corpus of 250 popular movie posters of (mostly) Hollywood films produced between 2010 and 2015.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
| Zwischenüberschrift | Seite | Aktion | Preis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| Titel | 3 | ||
| Imprint | 4 | ||
| Table of Contents | 5 | ||
| Acknowledgments | 7 | ||
| List of Tables | 8 | ||
| Table 1: Genre Mixing in the Corpus | 22 | ||
| Table 2: General Genre Definitions | 28 | ||
| Table 3: Typefaces in Movie Titling | 43 | ||
| Table 4: The Number of Claims on the Corpus Posters | 51 | ||
| Table 5: The Distribution of Ratings on the Corpus Posters | 62 | ||
| Table 6: PG-13 Profitability in the Corpus | 66 | ||
| Table 7: The Number of Critics’ Opinions on the Corpus Posters | 68 | ||
| Table 8: The Number of Award and Festival Winners on the Corpus Posters | 75 | ||
| Table 9: Examples of Generic Advertising Language Choices | 79 | ||
| Table 10: The Use of Rhetorical Figures in Movie Taglines in the Corpus | 81 | ||
| Table 11: The Number of Auteurs in Taglines on the Corpus Posters | 84 | ||
| Table 12: The Number of Adaptations and Remakes in the Corpus | 89 | ||
| Table 13: The Number of Billing Blocks on the Corpus Posters | 98 | ||
| Table 14: The Number of 3D and IMAX Films in the Corpus and the Number of Hints on the Respective Corpus Posters | 102 | ||
| Table 15: The Number of Different Release Dates on the Corpus Posters | 107 | ||
| Table 16: The Distribution of Genre Release Dates Over the Year | 111 | ||
| Table 17: The Number of Academy Award Nominees and Winners in the Corpus from 2010 to 2015 | 114 | ||
| Table 18: The Development of Website, Facebook, and Twitter Hints on the Corpus Posters from 2010 to 2015 | 117 | ||
| Table 19: The Current ‘Big Six’ Hollywood Studio Conglomerates | 130 | ||
| Table 20: Genre Films Produced/Distributed by the ‘Big Six’ Hollywood Studios from 2010 to 2015 | 132 | ||
| Table 21: Soundtrack Availability as Indicated on the Corpus Posters | 135 | ||
| Table 22: The Number of Franchise Productions in the Corpus and the Number of Key Art Symbols on the Corpus Posters | 146 | ||
| Table 23: Colors and Their Meaning | 156 | ||
| Table 24: Generic Color Schemes on the Corpus Posters | 158 | ||
| Table 25: Generic Lighting Preferences on the Corpus Posters | 160 | ||
| Table 26: Generic Framing Preferences on the Corpus Posters | 167 | ||
| Table 27: Universal Facial Expressions and Their Meaning | 179 | ||
| Table 28: Posture Types and Their Meaning | 183 | ||
| Table 29: Interpersonal Distances and Their Meaning | 185 | ||
| Table 30: The Number of Star Images on the Corpus Posters | 187 | ||
| Table 31: The Number of Credits on the Corpus Posters | 189 | ||
| Table 32: The Number of Male and Female Characters on the Corpus Posters | 193 | ||
| Table 33: Genre on the Corpus Posters | 205 | ||
| 1 Introduction | 9 | ||
| 2 The Movie Poster | 13 | ||
| 2.1 The Movie Poster in Film Marketing | 13 | ||
| 2.1.1 A Short History of the Movie Poster | 14 | ||
| 2.1.2 The Basics of Film Marketing | 17 | ||
| 2.2 The Movie Poster and Its Genres | 20 | ||
| 2.2.1 The Basics of Film Genres | 21 | ||
| 2.2.2 The Genres of the Current Corpus | 25 | ||
| 3 Verbal Poster Elements | 31 | ||
| 3.1 ‘A Box of Chocolates’: The Film Title | 31 | ||
| 3.1.1 Content and Grammar in Movie Titling | 32 | ||
| 3.1.2 Typography in Movie Titling | 41 | ||
| 3.1.3 The Effect of Movie Titles on Audiences | 45 | ||
| 3.2 ‘Faithful in Spirit’: The Claim | 50 | ||
| 3.2.1 The Authenticity Claim | 51 | ||
| 3.2.2 The Marketing Claim | 54 | ||
| 3.3 ‘Making the Right Choices’: The MPAA Rating | 59 | ||
| 3.3.1 The History of the Rating System | 59 | ||
| 3.3.2 Today’s Ratings and Their Implications | 61 | ||
| 3.4 All Thumbs: The Critics | 68 | ||
| 3.4.1 The History of the Critic Quote | 69 | ||
| 3.4.2 The Modern Critic Quote | 70 | ||
| 3.4.3 Award and Festival Wins | 74 | ||
| 3.5 ‘You Had My Curiosity, Now You Have My Attention’: The Tagline. | 77 | ||
| 3.5.1 Stimulating Interest | 77 | ||
| 3.5.2 Advertising Auteurs | 83 | ||
| 3.6 ‘I’m Ready for My Close-Up’: The Billing Block | 90 | ||
| 3.6.1 Credit Where Credit Is Due | 90 | ||
| 3.6.2 The Opening Credits | 92 | ||
| 3.6.3 The Actor Credits | 93 | ||
| 3.6.4 The Crew Credits | 94 | ||
| 3.6.5 The Production Credits | 96 | ||
| 3.7 ‘No Place Like Home’: The Third Dimension | 100 | ||
| 3.7.1 3D at the Movie Theater | 100 | ||
| 3.7.2 Back to 2D | 103 | ||
| 3.8 ‘Round Up the Usual Suspects’: The Release Date | 107 | ||
| 3.8.1 The Release Rumble | 107 | ||
| 3.8.2 Generic Release Strategies | 111 | ||
| 3.9 ‘Because Their Friends Are Online’: The Online Presence | 116 | ||
| 3.9.1 FilmWebsites and Social Media Campaigns | 116 | ||
| 3.9.2 Various Forms of Online Film Marketing and Their Implications | 119 | ||
| 3.10 ‘Don’t Ever Take Sides with Anyone against the Family’: The Studio Logos | 125 | ||
| 3.10.1 The Early Studio System | 126 | ||
| 3.10.2 Today’s Studio System | 129 | ||
| 3.11 ‘Show Me the Money’: The Merchandise | 134 | ||
| 3.11.1 The Soundtrack | 134 | ||
| 3.11.2 Merchandise | 135 | ||
| 3.11.3 Product Placement | 136 | ||
| 4 Visual Poster Elements | 139 | ||
| 4.1 ‘I’ve Seen This Before’: The Key Visual | 144 | ||
| 4.1.1 The Sequel | 144 | ||
| 4.1.2 The Remake | 147 | ||
| 4.2 ‘Here’s Looking at You, Kid’: The Catch Visual | 149 | ||
| 4.2.1 The Setting | 149 | ||
| 4.2.2 The Color Scheme | 155 | ||
| 4.2.3 The Lighting | 160 | ||
| 4.2.4 The Layout | 163 | ||
| 4.2.5 The Framing | 165 | ||
| 4.2.6 The Clothing | 169 | ||
| 4.2.7 The Actor Performance | 173 | ||
| 4.3 ‘You Had Me at ‘Hello’’: The Focus Visual | 187 | ||
| 4.3.1 Star Power | 188 | ||
| 4.3.2 A Question of Gender | 193 | ||
| 5 Conclusion | 201 | ||
| 6 Bibliography | 207 | ||
| 6.1 Primary Sources | 207 | ||
| 6.2 Secondary Sources | 207 | ||
| 7 Appendix: Film Lists | 221 | ||
| 7.1 Corpus Film List | 223 | ||
| 7.2 Additional Films | 230 | ||
| Backcover | 234 |
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