The Film Poster

Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and convey information...

Originally, film posters were produced exclusively for the theaters showing that specific film. Once the film had finished showing the posters were required to be returned to the distributor. In America, posters were usually returned to the National Screen Service which printed and distributed many film posters for studios between 1940 and 1984.
I think this is very interesting because nowadays we have so many major collectors who search the globe for original prints. If posters had to be returned to the distributors, were they conceived as pieces of art in their own right or was their original purpose solely to promote the film for which they were made?

Lobby Cards...

Film posters started out as a small lobby card (usually about 11”x14”) . The first Lobby cards were thought to made in the early 1910s around the same time that Charlie Chaplin was breaking into motion pictures. These small movie posters were display in the foyer of a theater with the intention of luring people to see the film by showing key scenes from the movie. Lobby cards were originally just black and white or duotone stills from the film. These were eventually replaced by beautiful hand-tinted scenes, and by the 1920s studios were producing full-color lobby cards. Original lobby cards are worth a fortune, the most sought after ones to date have been Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz and the famous crop-duster scene from North by Northwest. This last example so perfectly captures an iconic moment in film history, that this single lobby card will sell for more than the full-size posters from North by Northwest.

This is a very early lobby card form the Mary Pickford film 'little Lord Fauntleroy'. Mary Pickford "America's Sweetheart" was one of the first 'superstars' so much so that no studio in town could afford her salary and accommodate her demands! Charlie Chaplan was the only other star of a similar magnitude. Both being in the same situation they decided to join forces along with Pickford's husband Douglas Fairbanks to form their own studio United Artists in 1919.

The Film Poster

SAUL BASS was an American graphic designer and filmmaker, he worked on the design for many animated title sequences. Until Bass, the credits of cast and crew members for film titles were so dull that apparently "projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished." This was until The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles sequence by Bass, who's title sequence was an integral part of the film.
A film about the struggle of a jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra, who's trying to overcome his heroin addiction. Designed by the graphic designer Saul Bass the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it – rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face - as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster. "A picture is worth a thousand words" good graphic designers can convey a whole story in one image, they are amazing at selecting that one images that they feel will have the greatest impact on the audience. Communication is the basis of graphic design and that cut-out arm was a huge success. 

Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form. By the end of his life, he had created over 50 title sequences for Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer and Martin Scorsese!

TOM BEAUVAIS' poster for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

TOM CHANTRELL'S made many Sci-fi posters which again have a very illustration based painted style.

RENATO FRANTINI'S posters for Phantom of the Opera & From Russia With Love.

REYNOLD BROWN'S posters include Attack of the 50 ft. woman, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof & The Time Machine. Reynold brown was an illustrator, it used to be popular to have posters hand drawn and painted in this way.

This last image shows one of Brown's posters for the war. As propaganda was such an influential part of the war effort, many poster artists continued to work during the war making war propaganda posters.Posters such as the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" from the United Kingdom, and the "Uncle Sam wants you" posters from the United States have become iconic due to their simple yet highly effective design.

This propaganda poster shows the importance of not absentmindedly discussing secrets that could be intercepted. Many men did this when they were relaxing with alcohol and in the company of women who they didn't realise were spies for the other side. I think this poster is a perfect warning for this, propaganda doesn't always have to be to rile up the troops it can also spread awareness which would be just as important during the war.

The interesting thing about these posters during the war I think is how different the style and design changes from country to country. My favorite propaganda posters are the Russian Soviet propaganda posters.
I think the russians designers had an amazing sense of perspective, the posters are very angular and if any angle was changed the audience would read something different into the meaning.
These two posters are by Gustav Klutsis. One shows a civilian worker standing strong holding the flag. To me he is standing strong because his body it tilted back making him seem very defiant.

 This angle puts importance on his fist holding the flag, which is important as it's obviously holds the message. If this man was angles forward the poster's meaning would change into a more aggressive meaning, a more 'attack' like angle.

The Russian's used a lot of monotone pictures, often collaged together with the colour red used to signify importance, Russia and everything the colour red depicts; blood, sacrifice and passion. (In The Battleship Potemkin at the end where the red tinted flag is raised, I noticed it was the only colour used in the film and it reminded me of these posters.) This make them very powerful images that I'm sure would have communicated well to the people. In this second poster, the repetition of the hands all in the same angle is a very powerful image, it shows unity and power while remaining clear and simple.

Propaganda and the movies...

This is the polish poster for the film Cabaret, the poster is by Wiktor Górka. Wilkor Górka studied Graphic Design in Cracow. I think his work is very unusual, again he often uses very simple, bold shapes to convey a message. I think this is a great poster for the movie, its a simple idea to make the showgirl legs into the swastika symbol that has become iconic with Nazi Germany. It takes the two key aspects of the film and merges them into one image. So in terms of Graphic Design and showing a message as simply as possible I think this is a great poster.