Film School 101: Film Posters

on Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Film School 101 highlights overlooked aspects of film and television to enhance your understanding and appreciation of the screen. Well, that's the idea anyway.

Words: Saam Das


You might have noticed film posters tend to look quite similar. Check out the poster for the remastered 'Back To The Future', which is mostly just a sharpened version of the original poster. ORANGE AND BLUE. BLUE AND ORANGE?

Charlie from Ultraculture compiled a set of posters that show off the complementary colour scheme in its full, overused glory. If you're interested in how similar complementary colours are used in film-making, specifically post-production, I highly recommend watching this Red Giant tutorial video. However, that's not the only commonly found trope in movie posters. No, sir. Or madam.


Trajan. Which meant nothing to me until very, very recently. Turns out this is the "movie font". And it appears a lot, if this Flickr group is anything to go by. And sometimes posters combine Trajan WITH the orange and blue. The people behind the 'Stardust' poster are certainly cheeky sods. Kirby from Goodie Bag put up a video capturing the phenomenon perfectly.


As a bonus, and for all you font-lovers out there, enjoy this humorous font/comic book video from College Humor.

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