Like the bottom “small type”, a tag line adds credibility to the movie poster. The Alien poster-”In space, no one can hear you scream.” Classic. Some of the most memorable posters also have the most memorable taglines. Add a tagline.Ī good movie poster needs a good tagline. For my movie poster, I copied the SUPER 8 film credits.

The easiest way to do this step is to take a movie poster for a blockbuster film, copy it exactly and then ONCE YOU’VE COPIED IT EXACTLY, change the text. You will see this above any good movie poster title: A STEVEN SPIELBERG FILM (or any other director). In some cases, it’s the name of the actor. This is usually the name of the director, producer or studio. You should also have a small title right above the title. You want the full credits at the bottom along with a couple “studio” logos. It will take your image and turn it into a poster. This is easily overlooked as a technicality. Add the credits to the bottom of the poster. Bevels, gradients, outer glows, etc., don’t belong on a movie poster title. Take a look at a bunch of movie posters and you will see that the good ones don’t have text effects. A drop shadow if needed and that’s about it. Otherwise, AVOID effects on movie titles. It works and it looks good (which is why it is used so often). But suffice it to say, that on my mock poster, I’ve used the cliche movie poster font: Trajan! Probably used on more posters than any other typeface, but there it is. Kind of obvious, but worth saying.Īt some point, I’ll do a post on designing titles. Give the poster a title.Īll movie posters need a title. I also added some grunge, which you can see around the edges. This draws attention to the bug in the center of the poster, which is the “main character” of my poster.

The effects should not be there for the sake of being there.įor my poster, I first added some blur to the top and bottom of the image and also vignetted it.

The effects should be relevant to the message of the poster.

Draw attention to the primary subject of the poster-the center of attention.

As a broad statement on this step, the effects should: Trying to cover it all here would be impossible but if it’s a person, then basic retouching is pretty much a must. There’s a lot to be said about photo manipulation for posters and there’s a lot of tutorials you can find. Most, if not all, have had some manipulation done to the image. Very few posters are a straight photograph. Here’s the photo I used (taken with my Nikon D90): It could also be a photograph taken after the fact FOR THE POSTER. If you’re doing a poster for an actual movie (not like my example), then get a good still from the movie. You need a good photo to turn into a movie poster. For this tutorial, I’ve used a mock poster for a movie called “A Bug’s Life” (I know it’s a Pixar rip-off, but I already had a photo to go with). Here are 5 easy steps to creating a movie poster.

Life after life movie poster