Poster Presentation – Framing, Mounting and Light Boxes
Poster presentation is a most important aspect that should be taken into consideration when hanging a poster of your favorite movie on a wall. Appropriate presentation that matches with the rest of the room decor can help bring about the movie experience, but not only.
Presenting your newly acquired movie poster by framing or mounting will result in a more attractive finished product in any room. In particular, framed movie posters are most appropriate in a ‘shared’ room home theater e.g. a living room or a bedroom home theater.
However, mounting and in particular framing a poster, offers a further important advantage – it also represents an important step towards helping your posters stay nice for much longer.
While both frames and mounts offer a great way of presenting a more attractive finish in any room, yet in the case of a dedicated home theater room, the ultimate in movie poster presentation is the backlit poster light box. The use of a backlit box will better help bring about the cinematic ‘feeling’ into your home.
Movie poster light boxes add a unique finishing touch to your home theater, or in that case, anywhere you want to display your favorite poster.
The Poster Light Box:
The classical way to illuminate movie posters for display is from behind. Most poster light boxes operate in this manner by having a light source mounted on the rear side of a box frame. A diffuser plate is used to help eliminate the formation of possible hot spots of light over the movie poster area.
These poster light boxes are also referred to as ‘backlit poster boxes’ and are normally designed to take 1 Sheet posters. The latter are typically 27 inches in width by 40 to 41 inches in height, depending on whether the poster is a pre 1983/1985 or otherwise. (More information on movie poster sizes is available at http://www.practical-home-theater-guide.com/poster-sizes.html).
Take care, however! Not all one-sheet size movie posters are best suited for display in a backlit poster light box. Why?
One sheet comes in either single-sided or double-sided prints, with the latter being designated as ‘DS’ 1-Sheet. While it is possible to mount either type in a poster light box, yet the best posters to use in a backlit poster light box are double-sided posters.
DS 1 Sheet posters have printing on both the front and the back of the paper stock, with the printing on the backside being in precise alignment with that on the front and a mirror image of the printing on the front side.
Light from behind the 1-sheet poster will have to pass through both prints, with the poster acting as if it is a strip of film. The two prints on either side of the poster will render for a more robust and rich illumination of the poster artwork.
That is not to say that the cheaper and more common single-sided posters are not suitable for use in backlit light boxes. It is just that one-sided 1-Sheet posters look somewhat washed-out when illuminated from behind.
