Film posters are a very effective piece of promotional material for films and therefore it is essential for them to clearly connote the genre of the film and attract the correct target audience.
When analysing numerous crime drama posters, there are most definitely a few running themes.
The image typically focuses on one character, the main protagonist, although sometimes it may focus on a pair or small group. Close ups are more commonly used as the actor's facial expression, very gloomy and serious, creates the perfect mood for the poster. It can vary between being an image of the hero (detective, police officer) or the villain (the criminal). This all depends on who enters the narrative. With crime TV shows it will nearly always be the detective and you watch them solve multiple crimes and deal with multiple criminals, but with films this does not necessarily always happen to be the case. The mise-en-scene will remain realistic, so as to fully draw the audience into the drama by making it relatable to the real world. As it's a crime it's relatively easy to anticipate what props will be used; guns, knives and any other weaponry/police equipment. Most crime drama posters will also have their primary setting blurred in the background, which is usually a city skyline.
The lighting used for crime drama posters is consistently dark so as to also help create the right mood for the poster and connote the metaphorical darkness of the film narrative. Too bright lighting could lead to audiences believing it's a happy and joyful film.
All film posters need a large and easy to read title so that audiences can recognise the film upon a quick glance. They tend to use the same font as the film for the title and in terms of crime dramas this is bold and harsh looking- the font name helvetica came up in my research. Most of the titles are at the bottom of the poster, just above the credits, meaning that the image will be the first thing to catch the audience's eye.
The colour palette used consists of darker colours, most commonly blue and red. This is because this is the colour of a police siren, therefore having a very close link to the crime drama genre. It would be very surprising to come across bright and happy colours such as orange and yellow, as they would create an entire different atmosphere for the poster.
As mine is also a short film I also analysed some short film posters as they differ slightly to those from mainstream feature length cinema. The main difference is the simplicity of their design as they tend to have a more niche target audience. They also don't tend to have the star vehicle as a close up for the main image as it's uncommon for them to have big names starring in their films, therefore meaning they can't necessarily be used as a selling point for the film.
Evidence of excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
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