A Little Book of Movie Poster Terms
Please note that a braille version of this text is available near the entrance or by asking the Gallery Assistants at the Info Desk.
There are many terms used in this show that are not well known outside the world of movie-making. This booklet is arranged in two parts for ease of reference. The first covers general production terms in alphabetical order that correspond to highlighted words in the exhibition. The second indicates the hierarchy of jobs within the movie-poster world, presenting the relationships between positions from the most senior to the more junior.
Movie Poster Terms
Billing Block – the list of names and companies of those involved in the production of a movie, typically displayed at the bottom of a poster. Contracts often dictate how large an individual’s name must appear in the billing block in relation to the size of the title of the film as well as the order in which they appear.
C-print – short for chromogenic print, a C-print is a common means of making a color photograph from a color negative, a color transparency, or a digital image.
Character Poster – a poster featuring an individual character within a movie. These are most often seen as wild-postings or, for large-budget films, in the lobbies of movie theaters. Today, most character posters are created for social media rather than for print.
Chromatec – similar to Letraset, chromatec was a means of creating lettering that a designer could rub into place on a composition. First, a designer would spec their type by drawing it or tracing it on a Lucigraph. Then it would be sent to a typesetting company that would match it in black and white. When the set type arrived at the studio a few days later, the designer would have a copy of the type galley made on a stat camera (large-format camera) to the size needed within a comp. Once that size had been determined, a negative would be burned and rub-down type created.
Comps – short for “comparable compositions,” comps are a series of mock-ups of various poster ideas or directions that a campaign might consider. In the 1980s, the first round of comps were in black and white and small, and were usually part of a presentation of around twenty images. Today, as many as one thousand comps might be presented to a studio. From these, the art director selects a few favorites that are reproduced slightly smaller than full poster size.
Dye Transfer Print – a photographic print made through the sequential application of cyan, magenta, and yellow, resulting in an extremely precise color balance.
Key Art – the main image that appears in all marketing. It is typically first created for the primary poster and then adapted for digital art, as well as in various specific formats (like bus shelters, billboards, and ticket stubs for special events). The image must be powerful enough to instantly indicate what the movie is about.
Lucigraph – since the standard black-and-white machines had around four potential printing sizes, designers had to re-xerox images by percentage increases or decreases to get the size they wanted. With a Lucigraph, a designer could place an image on a plate and move a lens along a pulley system until it magnified or reduced that image to the desired size. Photographs were then ordered from a processing lab based on the measurements from the Lucigraph, and a designer would then cut them out and insert them into a comp.
Mechanicals – mock-ups of poster designs made by cutting up individual elements of a composition with an X-ACTO knife, including images and text. A production artist then coated the back of these pieces with rubber cement and arranged them on a piece of paper. The final results were then photographed and made into comps for presentation to the art director.
Payoff Poster – the final poster used to announce a movie, typically distributed on a national level and appearing in all major points of promotion.
Special Photography – photographs taken at dedicated photoshoots, usually for the explicit purpose of creating marketing materials or reference imagery within a production (i.e. when a character appears in a photograph in a film).
Standees – typically based on key art, standees are three-dimensional, free-standing objects used for promotional purposes; they are most often seen in movie theaters. The most common type of standee is a lifesize cut-out of a lead character. These are generally made only for large-budget productions.
Stock Photography – generic photographs like skylines or coffee mugs that can be licensed and inserted into poster compositions. This type of photography is typically used on lower-budget features.
Teaser Poster – a poster released as much as a year in advance of a film. As the main purpose of a teaser poster is to create excitement around a movie, it may not contain much information about the cast or show the actors in character.
Trade Ads – advertisements in trade publications like the Hollywood Reporter or Variety that note how much a film earned on its opening weekend and any positive critical reception. Aimed at people within the movie business, these advertisements also promote a film for awards.
Unit Photography – photography taken with a still camera on set during the production of a film. This includes shots of the actors as the movie is being filmed and staged photography of the actors in character between takes. It can also include behind-the-scenes imagery. In the 1980s, this was most commonly done with a 35mm camera that produced around two thousand images. With the advent of digital cameras, the average number of images is closer to forty-five thousand. Unit photography can be used for publicity materials as well as to check for seamless continuity.
Vector Type – a file format that distills typography down to mathematical lines and can be replicated at any size without losing quality.
Wild-Postings – posters pasted on the sides of construction sites or other unofficial outdoor areas. While related to the official poster or key art within a campaign, these types of posters can be edgier, often relying on repetition or a relationship between different designs pasted together to create a coherent visual experience. Character posters often are used as wild-postings.
Movie Poster Jobs
Creative Director – sets the tone for a campaign and conducts a team, providing strategy, direction, quality control, inspiration, research, and experience on a project. Creative directors usually have all the skills represented by individual members of the team as they have often performed all of those roles during the course of their own careers.
Art Director – while managed by the creative director, an art director oversees one or more designers, establishing the best way to execute a brief. Depending on the size of the production team, an art director may also act as a designer, building comps, creating logos, or illustrating. On larger projects, they may hire specialists to perform those roles. Art directors are usually skilled in layout design, some illustration, typography, and retouching since they typically begin their careers as designers.
Designer – works underneath an art director or creative director on the physical layout of approved elements within a poster to build out the creative director’s campaign strategy.
Production Designer – works with the art director or creative director to adapt art to different sizes, apply quotes from critics to the design, and modify it for award advertisements in trade publications.
Production Artist – the person who works on the print-specific technical layout of a poster, creating the mechanicals from which the final image is made. Production artists handle the trim, bleed, copyrights, billing blocks, and other information legally required in contracts. They are also the last people involved in the design process before the poster is printed.
Finisher – Most comps are built as low-resolution images because high-resolution files are too difficult to print at the needed speed and volume. Once a comp is approved, a finisher will rebuild the design in a higher resolution, retouch the images of the actors as needed, and polish the overall composition before it goes to press.