Analysing existing Film Noir Posters

Classic Film Noir Posters.

Before making a poster for our film, I needed to study the classic Film Noir posters to get an idea on their style, and what would be included. Below are three examples; "Born to kill", "The killers" and "The Lodger". First of all, all of the posters were drawn, but because they wanted to show the poster in colour as in that time (40's-50's) there was only black and white film. However as in modern day all posters are in colour, I will make the pictures in the poster black and white to help show the classic film noir style contrasting from current films. I will also use photographs and photoshop instead of drawing the image, to give a modern touch to the style.

Next, I noticed that the colour scheme was very similar in most posters, with black, red, white and yellow featuring most often. These colours work well for the theme, black being dark, white contrasting from the dark, red to resemble blood and passion, and yellow to represent danger. I will therefore stick to using this colour scheme for my poster. With the pictures in the poster, alot of them use multiple different images and combine them, overlapping them. I will do this on my poster too, and it will be alot easier to achievethe effect on photoshop, using the different layers and the erase tool. On the poster they also always show the male main character, the protagonist, and the femme fatale. There is also usually another man in the poster who is closely involved in the story.

When looking at the text, the main title is often diagonal or waved, to give it more emphasis. There are effects I can use on Photoshop to do this. The main title is also usually in captials, to give further emphasis. A lot of the text is also outlined in another colour tomake it stand out more. As well as formal, capital fonts, italic fonts are common in the Film Noir posters. I will make sure to imclude both in my poster, which will help give it some variation. The text on the poster includes the title, cast and producers logo, and also often has a little catchphrase/summary like the top two posters. I like the "Tense! Taut! Terrific!" one, as it uses multiple literary techniques; the rule of three - listing three things, using alliteration of the 'T' and using exclamatories to make it sound more exciting. I will add a mini catchphrase/summary to my poster to help make it look more authentic.