Film poster
Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets.
They began as outside placards listing the programme of (short) films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater.
As an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theater.
[3] As Hollywood cinema was disseminated into foreign markets, distinct hand-painted film poster traditions arose in Poland, India, and Ghana, with depictions of posters often varying from their original Hollywood versions based on the artistry of local painters.
[4][5][6] After the National Screen Service ceased most of its printing and distribution operations in 1985, some of the posters which they had stored in warehouses around the United States ended up in the hands of private collectors and dealers.
[12][13][6] Ghanaian hand-painted movie posters from the tradition's Golden Age in the 1980s and 1990s have sold for tens of thousands of dollars and been exhibited in galleries and museums across the world.
However, most modern posters are produced in large quantities and often become available for purchase by collectors indirectly through various secondary markets such as eBay.
Films released by major production companies experiencing financial difficulties often lacked lobby sets, such as Manhunter (1986).
These, however, also refer to black-and-white press photographs, in addition to the more typical 8-by-10-inch promotional devices resembling lobby cards.
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University holds a collection of lobby cards from silent western films that date between 1910 and 1930.
[31] A billing block can be seen at the bottom of Reynold Brown's poster from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), which is reproduced below.
[32] By convention, the point size of the billing block is 25 or 35 percent of the average height of each letter in the title logo.
[33] Inclusion in the credits and the billing block is generally a matter of detailed contracts between the artists and the producer.
The Hollywood Reporter defines the term "key art" as "the singular, iconographic image that is the foundation upon which a movie's marketing campaign is built.
