A new approach to Cameroon Movie posters.
I was once browsing the internet and I came across a certain Cameroon movie poster that got my attention, I immediately went in to search for that movie. That same day, i stumbled over another Cameroon movie poster, i just swiped and passed, but something stroke my mind, i went back to look at the poster. I took the movie poster of the movie that got my attention and that which didn’t grab any from me, I tried to do some comparison between these posters and i thought, if that movie poster could grab my attention, that means it didn’t work just for me that way, it happened to others as well, same thing for the other poster. So it got me thinking. Most Cameroon filmmakers get to neglect the importance of a movie poster.
Since the inception of cinema, movie posters have been used to promote buzz. I have noticed, the one thing that is mostly overlooked in movies is the movie poster, it’s not just the promotional material. A movie poster is the most important feature of a movie, this is the main design element that captures a person’s interest. The challenge is to design a poster that has the right balance which conveys the movie theme. Too many elements in the design of the poster will force the viewer to overthink. People will find it difficult to interpret and just pass over it. The absence of major elements in the poster, will cause a lot of lack of interest, because it didn’t passed out the message. Using an example of the two Cameroon movie posters I came about from the movies “A man for the weekend” by Bluerain Entertainment and “Butterfly” by Toboh Entertainment Empire.
Take the movie “A man for the weekend” by Bluerain Entertainment; What attracted me on this poster is the story behind it.
When you look at it, you see a gentleman holding a lady in a comfort and protective way; from that, you can say the movie has romance, the photograph of the characters was well chosen. Just about every main element of the movie is in that poster. Knowing that Bluerain Entertainment budgeted a lot for this movie, they took the chance to go big. They wanted the viewers to see that they will definitely find romance in the movie and it paid off. As of when the movie was released, A man for the weekend has been the only Cameroonian movie that has been able to have a very huge international following.
Let’s look at the other movie poster from the movie “Butterfly” by Toboh Entertainment Empire
this is really an amazing movie, it has a wonderful content, very interesting but when I look at the poster, it doesn’t reflects anything, the poster has a feeling of a horror movie. Looking at the poster even one just sees random characters, can’t even guest who is the main character, you see the title of the poster as well, by the way very bad choice of font type and to spoil everything the poster doesn’t even reflects the title of the poster. Just looking at the poster I’m confused. Amazing content but bad packaging, automatically making the product lame. With this type of a poster, it will be difficult for someone to watch this movie.
The problem with most Cameroon filmmakers is the fact that they don’t budget for their movie poster when drawing the budget for their movie. “ They always have this feeling that the product will sell itself” as said by Derek Agendia. They turn out giving the poster design to one graphic designer that doesn’t have a clue or understand the concept of their movie, there by doing a rough work. The movie “A man for the weekend” talks about romance and comedy, that can be found on the poster, for the movie “Butterfly”, it talks about the pride of a woman, the poster doesn’t reflects it, but looks like a horror. Some of these filmmakers invest little or nothing when it comes in making their posters. When a movie poster is made for a movie, not just a single version that is been made but at least 3 different versions is been made. Still using “A man for the weekend”as an example, Bluerain Entertainment made several versions of their poster which was used for a particular purpose. These filmmakers really neglect the importance of a movie poster, they fail to understand that the movie poster itself can cause a huge number of people to have interest in their movies. I once asked a female entrepreneur about what can make her watch a movie she has never heard of, she said “ The quality of the movie poster”, from her reply, and the reactions from others, it really shows that a movie poster is not just about the design behind it but the story in it. Cameroon filmmakers should start investing on the quality of their movie posters if they want to have a huge number of followers. A bad poster will send people away, but a well designed poster can create hype over the movie.
My advice to Cameroon filmmakers is, they should have a new approach to movie posters and they should choose their graphic designer wisely.
