Harry McHale - How are posters used to promote short films.

There are various ways to promote short films however, these methods are different to ones used to promote feature length films as short films tend to have less publicity and lower budget than the feature length films. When marketing a short film, those responsible for promoting their short film will have to sell it in creative ways and it is not as straightforward as marketing a feature length film. The three methods for promoting and marketing a short film are: posters, reviews and film festivals.

Posters
Posters are used in both short and feature length films to promote the film and foreshadow the narrative as it may interest the audience the film is targeting. All posters are built of certain elements no matter what it is promoting. All posters will have a title; the title will be bolder and stand out the most. Many film posters will have reviews which are represented through short quotes and star ratings which label the source. Film posters will advertise the awards they have one or have been nominated for.

There are differences in the poster of a short film to a post of a feature length film. Short posters won't have certifcation as they don't have to ussually go through censorship unlike feature length films. Short film posters tend to avoid large actor names and don't have reviews sourced from mainstream media.

Film posters will have billing blocks although the content of them varies from poster to poster. The billing block (also known as a credit block) is an important aspect to consider when designing a movie poster. Usually found at the bottom of the movie poster, this is the section that provides credits for the most important members of the cast and crew, as well as logos.

The layout of film posters is always carefully considered. The layout is used to hint, or foreshadow the narrative. The posters will be designed to attract to a target audience therefore colour schemes and considering what fonts you use is important to the design of a poster. It's also suppose to look professional most times so not having a organised colour scheme and using fonts such as comic sans is not advised when making a poster for a short film. The poster will have to be relevant to your film therefore it will need to have some sort of link to the narrative of your film; this can reveal as little or as much as you want but it's important the poster doesn't reveal to much and spoil the story for the audience.