Poster Culture of Bollywood
Apart from developing an audio and video language to reach to the audience, the popular Hindi Cinema or Bollywood as it is popularly called, developed a unique visual language too,during the 1930s, through the magnificent, larger-than-life hand-painted film posters. The large banner paintings,either in the form of a collage,or over-sized cutouts of actors and actresses ,were the first major tools to promote a film. Although, the exact origins are relatively unknown,but it is widely believed that the first movie to use a poster for its publicity was KALYAN KHAJINA (1924), whose poster was designed and painted by the Director,Baburao Painter himself.
In the ‘Golden era of Bollywood’, when classics such as Mother India (1957) and Mughal-E-Azam (1960), were made, the hand-painted posters were the major way to promote a movie before and after its release.
These larger-than-life movie posters were created by talented film poster artistes, who laid the foundation for hand-painted poster culture. The hundreds of film poster artistes used a wide array of locally available colours and by mixing them with linseed oil, they created magnificent designs having broad visible brush strokes and with an interesting use of colours and typography made such posters which captivated the onlooker’s attention. These artistes attempted to capture the essence of the plot of the film and used to potray certain characters with specific colours and hues, for example:-pink was the colour of love and was used liberally on the leading couple, whereas blue was the colour given to the villain. Later, when the hindi cinema was drifting towards the action genre , these artistes started using bright and bold colours such as red to give a more dramatic look to the posters. The bollywood film poster artistes not only played with colours but also added highlights of the such as the dancing figures of songs .During the 1970s a new graphic style was started which used bold exaggerated
In the ‘Golden era of Bollywood’, when classics such as Mother India (1957) and Mughal-E-Azam (1960), were made, the hand-painted posters were the major way to promote a movie before and after its release.
These larger-than-life movie posters were created by talented film poster artistes, who laid the foundation for hand-painted poster culture. The hundreds of film poster artistes used a wide array of locally available colours and by mixing them with linseed oil, they created magnificent designs having broad visible brush strokes and with an interesting use of colours and typography made such posters which captivated the onlooker’s attention. These artistes attempted to capture the essence of the plot of the film and used to potray certain characters with specific colours and hues, for example:-pink was the colour of love and was used liberally on the leading couple, whereas blue was the colour given to the villain. Later, when the hindi cinema was drifting towards the action genre , these artistes started using bright and bold colours such as red to give a more dramatic look to the posters. The bollywood film poster artistes not only played with colours but also added highlights of the such as the dancing figures of songs .During the 1970s a new graphic style was started which used bold exaggerated