History of film Posters

Film posters where originally porduced exclusively for theatre exhibition and as soon as the film posters where taken down they had to be sent straight back to the distributor.

A nation-wide operation named the Nation Screen Service was where film posters in the United States where usually returned to, this service was responsible for the printing and distribution of film posters between the different studios between the years of 1940 and 1984.When the NSS recieved these posters, they generally re-used these posters by sending them back out for use in another theatre. During these time periods it was normal that a film could stay in circulation for several years and so this resulted in many film posters being badly worn before they where eventually stored away in the NSS warehouse, however usually they had to be thrown away due to them being badly worn, so much so that it was not possible they could be used again.Although most film posters ended up being thrown away by either the NSS or the theatre owners some ended up being collected.

During the beginning of the 1980's American films studios began taking over the production and distribution of their film posters from the NSS and the production process and distribution of film posters became decentralised.