 A movie poster is a poster used to advertise a film. Studios often print several posters that vary in size and content for various domestic and international markets. They normally contain an image with text. Today's posters often feature photographs of the main actors. Prior to the 1990s, illustrations instead of photos were far more common. The text on movie posters usually contains the film title in large lettering and often the names of the main actors. It may also include a tag line, the name of the director, names of characters, the release date, etc.  Movie posters are displayed inside and on the outside of movie theatres, and elsewhere on the street or in shops. The same images appear in the film exhibitor's press book and may also be used on websites, DVD (and historically VHS) packaging, flyers, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, etc.

 A teaser poster or advance poster is an early promotional movie poster, containing a basic image or design without revealing too much information such as the plot, theme, and characters. The purpose is to incite awareness and generate hype for the film. A tagline may be included. There are some instances when teaser posters are issued long in advance before the film goes into production, although they are issued during the film development

 For a film with an ensemble cast there may be a set of character posters, each featuring an individual character from the film. Usually it contains the name of the actor/actress, with or without the name of the character played. It may also include a tagline that reflects the quality of the character.

 Every film poster has a very similar layout. You always expect the same things when looking at a film poster. The codes and conventions for a film poster are:  - Main picture  - Title  - Release date Not on all poster but on some you expect things like:  - reviews  - main actors  - production companies logos  - director  - age rating  Connoting colour scheme  Film/Facebook website  Credit block These things help the decoder find out about the film

 The main purpose of a movie purpose is to advertise a movie, attracting its target audience to the cinema screens.  It needs to connote the genre of the film through the design and theme such as the use of dark colours in a Horror.  It needs to be eye-catching with a visual persuasive text in order to make the audience want to see the film.  It can’t give any major key points of the plot away but instead give a general feel and tone of the film  Posters should have Images, Film Title, Credits, Actors names, look interesting, give indication what film may be about, Masthead, Directors names, Reviews, Taglines  There are a range of different types of movie posters such as Teaser Posters, DVD release and Cinema Release Posters

Colour scheme connotes fear and evil. Release date. Tag line “New decade. New rules.” The red text symbolises blood and gore relating to the horror genre. The main image is simply a picture of the masked human who plays the “Scream” Character in the movie, this will draw attention to the poster as everyone will be wondering who is behind the mask logos