简体中文
EnglishWhat Is the Scope of Film on Paper's Poster Collection?
Updated
Film on Paper is a movie poster archive of over 2,000 posters drawn from the UK, USA, Japan, Thailand and beyond. Its scope is defined less by a single national cinema than by variety: posters from multiple countries, films spanning decades, several genres, and more than one physical format — from US one sheets to Japanese cinema programs. If you want to know whether a particular kind of poster might appear there, the collection's range is the answer, and the individual entries show how much detail accompanies each item.
What the collection covers
The site describes itself as "a collection of over 2,000 film posters from the UK, USA, Japan, Thailand and beyond." That geographic spread is the first dimension of its scope. Rather than concentrating on one territory's output, it brings together posters produced for different markets, which means the same film can appear in more than one national version.
The second dimension is time. Entries in the archive include films from the 1970s through the 1980s and beyond — the Jaws program is dated 1975, while the Blades one sheet is from 1989. The collection is not limited to a single era of filmmaking or poster design.
The third dimension is genre. The archive's entries cover horror and thriller (Jaws), comedy and horror (Blades), and other categories, so it is not restricted to one kind of film.
Formats represented
Film on Paper's scope includes different types of poster and printed cinema material, not just one standard size. Two examples from the archive show the range:
| Film | Year | Type of poster | Origin of poster | Size (inches) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jaws | 1975 | Program | Japan | 8 4/16" x 11 10/16" |
| Blades | 1989 | One sheet | USA | 27 2/16" x 40 15/16" |
The Jaws entry is a Japanese cinema program sold at screenings, while the Blades entry is a US one sheet. The archive also notes single-sided (SS) versus double-sided (DS) printing where relevant — the Blades one sheet is listed as SS.
What each entry tells you
Scope is also about how much information accompanies each poster. A typical entry records:
- Title and any alternate titles (for example, Jaws is also listed as Les dents de la mer in France)
- Year of film and year of poster
- Director and starring cast
- Country of origin of the film and of the poster
- Genre(s)
- Type and style of poster
- Designer and artist, where known
- Size in inches, and SS or DS where applicable
- NSS number and tagline where present
Entries are dated and categorised under "Poster Archive," and each has a permalink. The Jaws entry, for instance, identifies the cover artist as Roger Kastel and explains that the image was originally commissioned for the paperback cover of Peter Benchley's novel before Universal bought the rights for the poster.
Beyond the posters
The site also carries articles by Sim Branaghan, author of British Film Posters: An Illustrated History. That editorial layer sits alongside the archive and is part of what the site offers, though the poster collection itself remains the core.
How to use this to judge fit
If you are looking for a specific poster, the collection's value lies in its breadth rather than completeness in any one area. It is strongest as a reference for seeing how a film was marketed in different countries and formats — a Japanese program next to a US one sheet, for example — and for the production and artist details recorded with each entry. If your interest is narrowly a single national tradition or a single poster format, the archive will cover it only as part of a wider, multi-country, multi-format collection.