Everything outside the film that shapes viewer expectation — poster, trailer, reviews, ratings. Frames what audience believes before lights dim. Genette's concept.
Before the first frame flickers, the viewer has long since built up expectations—through posters, trailers, critical reviews, word-of-mouth. This is the paratext: everything that surrounds the film without being part of the film itself. On set or in the edit, we often work against or with this invisible pre-determination without consciously managing it.
In practice, this means concretely: the director shoots a subtle psychological drama, but the marketing poster shows brightly colored action poses. The viewer is already sitting in the cinema, annoyed. Or vice versa—a horror film is stylized into a "must-see of the month" through rankings and reviews, and the audience expects jump scares instead of atmosphere. What we achieve on screen is pre-filtered by external frameworks.
The most important paratextual elements are trailers (often crucial for tonal expectations—quick cuts vs. slow pacing), film posters and key visuals (set genre signals), official synopses (plot determination), critic reviews and star ratings (massively influence anticipation), making-of material and interviews (create an insider view, but can also destroy suspense), and social media buzz (crucial in contemporary times—a hashtag can completely redirect expectations).
As a cinematographer, I must admit: we weren't interested in this for a long time. We thought our visuals spoke for themselves. Today, I know that a carefully lit moment has a completely different effect if the poster has already framed it as an "action blockbuster" moment. The paratext is the invisible prism through which the viewer sees our work—before they even start watching.