Several poster artists who went on to work on a number of classic designs have built up cult-followings (see Designers & Artists below) and are very much in demand by collectors. Up until the 1960s, film posters typically featured hand-drawn illustrations, almost always focusing on portraits of the principal cast, but the use of photographs and other types of design became more popular as the tools improved, allowing for further experimentation by the poster designers. Today, this means that the latest Hollywood blockbuster may have tens of thousands of posters printed for use in multiple territories, while small independent films may only have a few hundred in total.
The number of copies of a poster depends entirely on how popular a film is and how many cinemas it’s shown in. The mere fact that some of them still exist at all is something of a miracle, particularly for some older posters that were only printed in small numbers. The other point to mention is that these posters were only meant to be used for the short period that they were displayed in the cinema whilst the film was playing.
Crucially, these posters have not been meant for sale to the public – that is, they were never intended to be obtainable to buy commercially. The poster is designed either by the marketing team within the studio or, as is often the case, by an external agency that specialises in print design for film. Quite simply, an original film poster is an item of printed marketing material that was specially commissioned by film studios and distributors to be displayed in and around a cinema (movie theatre) to advertise the release of a given film. As many collectors will reluctantly admit, it’s an addiction that cannot be cured. I don’t believe my collection will ever be complete as, 17 years down the line, there are still many older posters I’m yet to find and still more to be discovered. I’m aware of others that feature several times the number of posters as well as containing single items that are worth more than my entire collection put together. My collection is definitely in the minor leagues as far as film poster collectors go. There were breaks from serious collecting, whilst I was at university and then a couple of years living and working in Italy, but once I moved back to the UK the obsession returned with a vengeance. In the early days, when still a student, I contented myself with buying easily affordable titles, but after graduation and my entry into the world of work, I was able to expand my purchases to more desirable, harder-to-find pieces. Two weeks later I received my first purchase, which was the British poster for Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’.įrom then on I was hooked and the obsession was fuelled by visits to specialist film fairs at places like Birmingham’s NEC, which is where I had my first physical encounter with poster dealers. After calling the number and speaking to a gruff bloke who reeled off a list of posters he had available, I made my selection and sent off a cheque. Like any teenager, I’d always had art of some kind on my bedroom walls ( Athena was one of my favourite shops growing up) and, being a film fan from an early age, the posters were a natural progression.Īfter several months of getting the posters for free, and thus not having any choice over the titles, I came across a notice in the back of a film magazine advertising posters for sale. The collection began in 1994 after a friend who worked in a local cinema gave me a stash of used posters. I also hoped it might become something of a reference site for fellow collectors as well as designers, illustrators and film fans. The site came into being because I wanted a way to view my collection without having to continually handle the posters and risk damaging them.
Film on Paper is an archive of original film posters featuring the collection of me, Eddie Shannon, an interaction designer, film fan and slave to three cats, currently living in York, UK.