A Screenshot into the World: A Comparative Analysis of Star Wars Film Posters (1977-2019)

Abstract

A screenshot into the world. That’s all the film poster allows an audience, showing the fine balance between constructing meaning and grabbing audience attention. This balance is explored throughout this research, which used the case study of Star Wars and took the form of two stages. On an academic level, it looked into how changes within the industry have resulted in two main variables of alteration, artistic style and composition for today's film posters, resulting in trends and stages of similarities across the traditional and contemporary promotional film landscape. Specifically, this research found that contemporary film posters have become formulaic with film and marketing industries using the same composition (what I term the 'celebrity pyramid') and art style (real images photoshopped) within the large majority of their posters, using the case study of Star Wars to study this change. I argue that this has resulted in audiences becoming less engaged with posters and many wanting posters to go back to the traditional style from the 1970s. On a second level, and going beyond an academic dissertation, this research undertook industry research into the marketing sector in order to develop the conclusions from the research into a practical and creative set of digital media artefacts beneficial to industry. Specifically, this project aimed to recreate the Star Wars sequel trilogy posters, which many fans saw as uninspired, using the style of traditional posters such as the original Star Wars trilogy. As well as this, I then aimed to explore how this can be pushed into contemporary society, adding moving elements to the posters which would make them stand out. In doing so, and with my academic conclusions asking the question of whether nostalgia impacts the success of posters, with ‘old school’ artwork and style having and greater positive result, this work explores a possible outlet for industry to develop a new trend of film posters, harnessing the possibilities that digital technology and social media have given us.