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LAMPs Introduction to
International Movie Posters

Because the world of poster collecting is SO... ENORMOUS.... Most collectors pick a specialty area to collect.. such as all the posters by an actor, or director or genre or artist, etc...

Years ago, it was pretty rare to find posters from other countries. BUT... the internet has opened up another area that had been mostly ignored. Whatever area that you collect, the ability to acquire posters from around the world has opened up a FANTASTIC new world to collectors.

For collectors that love the artwork, artists such as Ballester, Belinsky, Brini, Casaro, Chantrell, Ciriello, Ferrachi, Grinsson, Martinati, Mascii, Nistri, Pulford, and Soubie have produced some UNBELIEVABLE arwork..... or the bizarre renditions from Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland or Russia.

For genre collectors, whether its the great crime posters from Germany, Italy, Japan or the love stories from France, Greece or Spain, the selections are PHENOMENOL.

Even if you are a collector of a certain actor... you won't believe how much the International posters can expand your collection... Sue loves Robert Redford and especially Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. My favorite in her collection is this Polish version with the unusual artwork showing Redford and Newman shown here. The US versions seem so...... BORING... in comparison.

Whether you like small posters because you don't have a lot of room, (most countries also have small sizes) OR WHATEVER area that you like, International posters can usually give you many many hours of new found enjoyment.

OK... Now What!!

Well, if you're wanting to look and see some of what is out there.. you might want to start with our archives. Here's a couple of ways to go:

If you want to see by country, just click and look.

If you want to look by genre, you can either go to our Genre article to see all the different genre that we're trying to identify for you OR when you see a certain movie that you like, open the record. At the top of the record shows the genre, click on it and it will list all the titles we have identified for that genre.

If you want to look by director, click on a film by your favorite director, then click on his name. We have a database for directors to show you their other films

We have just started marking major stars in our Legends Section, AND we're filling in with their biographies.. (there's SO MANY... we'll keep adding on)

What About Identifying International Posters

Hopefully, you have already had the time to look through LAMP-International to see the the countries that we're compiling information on... BUT what if you have a poster that you DON'T KNOW where it's FROM!!!!

Let's take a look at several ways to try to help you identify the country where a poster was issued. One way is to look at the bottom border information. Sometimes it can be easily distinguished, such as: Industria Argentina, printed in Mexico, etc.... OR look for a printer or lithographer. Quite often there is the city or country in the address.

Another way to narrow down which country issued a certain poster is by size. It may be easy to identify major sizes such as a British Quad or Japanese B2 poster, but some posters may not be as easy to identify. We have compiled a International Poster Size Chart to try to help.

Sometimes it's easy to identify the country because certain countries have ratings boxes or censorship stamps on them. For example, New Zealand doesn't normally issue their own material but use Australian or US material and place their ratings stamp on them. Some countries like Canada use a seal, stamp, stick or snipe. We are working on a Seal and Stamp Section now. We will be connecting it as soon as possible. For now, you can check the individual countries.

Sometimes you have to look for other clues... For example, some posters have catch phrases on them. When the phrase is about the upcoming release, it's called an Advance (or Teaser). These could be like Coming Soon or even just a date. Other phrases will be longer like... In Theatres This Fall, etc. US releases will normally use the word 'Theatres or Theaters' while International releases will use the word 'Cinema' in the phrase instead.

Another way is looking at the distributor logo. The logos across the bottom of the poster are VERY important. The logo on the far right on the bottom is normally the distributor. (Usually the far left is the production company). The other logos in between can be other participants, ratings, sound system logos, etc. Look for International distributors, i.e. all Disney Companies (Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, etc.) use Buena Vista which is their own company. For International releases, they use Buena Vista INTERNATIONAL...... Sony and Columbia will use Sony Pictures INTERNATIONAL..... Paramount and Universal own their own International distribution company called United International... or UIP. We are working on a section on the International Distributors... we hope to have it online soon.

Newer poster releases sometimes include a website where someone can go find out more about the release. If the studio is releasing the poster, it quite often has the .com URL, but if it's released by the distributor, quite often it will have the country code as the URL extension. This country extension can help identify the country, such as a release of Spiderman had the extension 'spiderman.cn.kr'. This automatically identifies the country..... What do you mean you don't know your country extensions????? OK... for those of you who HAVEN'T MEMORIZED the 250 country domain extensions, we have compiled them FOR YOU... Look them over... we will test you on them later

We hope this gives you some ideas and things to look for when collecting International Movie Posters and we look forward to providing you more information in the future.

Please let us know if this is helpful or any other areas that we may have overlooked.

ed

 



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