I have a long term appreciation for movie posters. The best of them are works of art in their own right, and there is something fascinating about the process of trying to encapsulate a whole movie’s worth of storytelling in one eye-catching image.

As a youngster I collected film poster postcards: they were 20p each and were sold at a small shop round the corner from the Odeon cinema in the centre of Liverpool. I would pick up a couple every time I went the movies. I had them displayed on my wall in my first year at university — they were probably 100 or so by the time I had gathered all the ones I wanted — they formed an interesting visual collage that I can still remember today. It was fun to arrange them into an aesthetically pleasing order — and each new one would lead to a few minutes of re-arranging as the colour scheme and flow would be altered quietly by the arrival of Ghostbusters or Batman.

Now I’m a well into my grown-up years, I’m not allowed to do things like this anymore (!)— pinning favourite images to the wall. At some point in your late twenties, blue tack becomes banned and picture frames become socially compulsory. But I still have a couple today salvaged in my study — Breathless and Alphaville — two iconic movie posters that have, for one reason or another, lodged themselves in the affectionate area of my brain.

So I thought I would use the recent release into the world of our festival poster for Something Pointless to talk about a couple of wonderful posters that have etched into my memory.

The first picture that pops into my head — and I would imagine yours too — is Roger Kastel’s poster for Jaws. It’s an iconic image, that both makes you want to see the film and not see the film at the same time! It was created in oils and really sums up Spielberg’s terrific movie so well. The exaggerated shark dimensions and the emergence of a unseen terror from below are the elements highlighted to entice you into the cinema. I have remained fascinated for years by the decision to use the word “terrifying” twice in the strap-line. It’s considered lazy writing practice to use the same word again in such proximity. It’s why I often end up reaching for the Thesaurus when my own vocabulary reaches its limits. But here the repetition works so well. Terror is what is emphasized here: so it re-enforces this facet. Another example that established rules and writing norms can and should be broken for the right idea.

Even today when I go near the sea, this image always jump into my head. Even if the coast of the UK is not known to house too many Great White sharks. Spielberg often cites this image as one of the key reasons Jaws went on to be such a commercial success and social phenomenon. It’s a stupendous image and a very clever piece of movie marketing.