Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
Since it’s the end of 2005, why not have a 1st Annual Posterwire.com Movie Poster of the Year Award? (Well, we can think of a lot of reasons why we have no business doing things like that, but still…)
It’s difficult to define what constitutes “best”, or even what makes a “good” movie poster. Is it what’s most visually appealing? Strongest conceptually? What helped market the film best? (Which would be a good movie poster’s ultimate goal.) If asked what artwork they liked best, the average movie patron would simply pick the poster for their favorite movie of that year. (This explains why so many Titanic movie posters graced the walls of more than a few teenager’s bedrooms years ago… Yes, we’re still taking shots at Titanic.)
The best looking poster of the year might go to one of the Sin City teasers, such as the Sin City Nancy character movie poster — even if the studio kept re-doing it and tweaking the color scheme. (It’s a forgone conclusion that the sex appeal of Jessica Alba is a good marketing device.)
One of the best conceptual movie posters of 2005 was for Inside Deep Throat. It’s a difficult challenge to market something so overtly sexual as a documentary about the most famous porn film of all time. And while a big pair of red lips is nothing new, we really like the (ahem) placement and layout of the Inside Deep Throat title treatment. Speaking of concepts, this also reminds us of a different kind of porn, which is represented well in the artwork for Lord of War.
But ultimately, our choice for the best movie poster of the year is the Saw II teaser poster. It fulfills all of the previous qualities we mentioned. The artwork is very well executed (and very creepy looking) — we’ve always enjoyed the fact the Saw posters used a clean white background (normally a staple of comedy movie posters) to give it’s “parts” that much more visual punch. And as far as concept, who doesn’t enjoy the dark wit and parody of the two fingers representing the “Two” of the sequel’s title? The two fingered sequel poster being another common staple of film key art. (And to take this idea even further, the Saw 2 poster itself has already been parodied.) Finally, if there is no such thing as bad publicity (especially when it’s free), then no other poster this year made the news for being banned by the MPAA, which was the case with this Saw 2 one-sheet. The MPAA approved revision of the teaser poster is still effective. We have no idea if the banned artwork was just a bit calculated or not, but the result certainly didn’t hurt the film by getting it that much more exposure. (To be fair, it probably didn’t generate any additional business for the film, but since the key art is only a tiny part of the overall marketing effort, it’s important to note that it meets the criteria of “every little bit helps”, especially when trying to generate awareness of a lower budget horror film.)
A well-designed, clever horror poster that generated it’s own small controversy and buzz — that sounds like a winner to us.
It’s a Wonderful Life may be a cherished Christmas holiday classic, but Jimmy Stewart seems to have had one-too-many drinks of egg nog in one of the film’s promotional lobby cards. “America’s Favorite Feller” is looking a bit out of it in the It’s a Wonderful Life movie lobby card. (Character George Bailey also seems to be getting his flower pinned on by a pair of awkwardly placed arms.)
This lobby card is the first in a series, known as a title card. A lobby card set is a collection of 8 promotional images (usually measuring 11″x17″) printed on card stock. First seen in the early 1900s, lobby cards, like many other forms of printed film advertising, were no longer produced by the film studios by the 1980s.
There’s an old adage among film advertising art directors when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy writer.”
There’s also an old adage among film advertising copywriters when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy editor.”
(I guess this “At least I’m not…” downhill progression continues until it ends somewhere around working at the front gate on the studio lot.)
The weblogs Defamer and The Velvet Blog have picked up on the frustration of virgins everywhere when a keen-eyed observer noted the missing hyphen in the title on The 40-Year-Old Virgin one-sheet, only to see it return on the DVD key art. (That missing hyphen would translate to 40 One-Year-Old Virgins versus a single 40-Year-Old-Virgin.)
We’re guessing execs at the studio didn’t really care about the proper punctuation, and simply went with the all-governing mantra of what “looked better” (to them). We’ve never heard of any film ad exec ever breaking open to read an ad placement company’s “style guide” — unless it’s spelled out in a “contractual”, anything is possible when it comes to copy on a poster.
Sniping aside, this type of punctuation pain isn’t exclusive to copywriters and proofreaders — many a graphic designer has cringed at all those “foot marks” (') taking the place of a proper “apostrophe” (’) in titles/logos/copylines/etc.
Peter Jackson’s King Kong may be getting all of the attention of late, but a lot of 30somethings may remember the 1976 remake of King Kong — or at least it’s menacing looking movie poster. Courtesy of infamous producer Dino De Laurentiis, the 1970s Kong film wasn’t short on the hype and bombast, even in it’s tagline:
The most exciting original motion picture event of all time.
Interesting copyline considering the film is a remake.
Perhaps the most effective part of the film’s ad campaign was the 1976 King Kong movie poster, featuring a memorable depiction of the giant ape by illustrator John Berkey. A science fiction illustrator who was best known for his impressionist style paintings of spaceships, Berkey was commissioned to do a King Kong illustration by Paramount Pictures even before filming had begun. An interesting choice for the Kong poster key art — Berkey produced a poster far superior to the film itself — the savage looking Kong straddling the two towers of the World Trade Center looks even more arresting than it did in ‘76. Since this artwork was pre-production, it bears little resemblance to the De Laurentiis remake: Kong looks nothing like he does in the film, both in size and appearance, and the daytime scene depicted on the World Trade Center doesn’t reflect the nighttime of the WTC scene in the film. (Would that kind of disparity be tolerated by film fans in modern Hollywood film posters?)
This King Kong poster was also the subject of a “remake” when the U.S. distributer of Godzilla vs. Megalon hoped to ride the wave of King Kong publicity with a Godzilla vs. Megalon poster depicting similar artwork of the two Toho monsters battling atop the two World Trade Center towers. (Which doesn’t actually happen in the Godzilla film itself.) Of course, King Kong and Godzilla have battled each other before, but we’ll save that for another time.
Sony Tri-Star is running a “Create a Silent Hill movie poster” contest:
Think you’re a fan of Silent Hill? Prove it. Design your own movie poster! Everything you need is right here — photos, titles, key guidelines, etc. The winning poster may be printed and may be distributed to theaters. So get those creative juices flowing, design and submit your poster by January 3, 2006. Then get all your friends to vote for your poster starting January 4, 2006 because the winning artist gets $2,500 cash, 25 passes to see the movie, and more.
We are not fans of “design our movie poster” contests run by film studios — at least the kind that dangle the idea the winning design will be used as the film’s official one-sheet.
There are many reasons for our reservations, but one that comes to mind is this type of “contest” doesn’t do anything to help the “Photoshop crap” criticism that is commonly directed at modern Hollywood one-sheets. This type of competition plays into the “Anyone can design!” stereotype that infuriates so many art directors and designers in all corners of commercial art. (See the always enjoyable Clientcopia for examples of this frustration.)
To our knowledge, no film studio to date has released a “contest poster” design as a domestic one-sheet in theatres. There have been movie poster contests in the past, most notably for the Resident Evil series (also released by Sony). Perhaps this contest will result in the first fan poster to reach your local theatre lobby. (Fingers crossed!)
The practice of leaving key art marketing decisions in the hands of the “audience” is nothing new. (Many Hollywood film one-sheets are run through public focus groups, just like the films themselves.) But the idea of one-sheet contests may have first started back in 1995, when Fine Line Features ran a “Pick Our Poster” web contest for their film The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. The studio posted two final poster designs (created by the ad agency working on the film) on the film’s official website, and invited viewers to vote on their favorite design. The winning design was set to be printed and released to theatres as the film’s one-sheet. The voting came and went, and a winning design was chosen… Until, at the last minute, the studio completely changed their mind, ignored the contest results, and printed a new third design that combined elements of the two contest posters, having nothing to do with the contest itself. Ironically, that poster contest result gave the public a real taste of the three Rs (“Review. Revise. Reject.”) in the film advertising key art poster design process that so many one-sheets go through.
The Sony film advertising execs seem to have learned from this type of mistake, as the Sony / Tri-Star Silent Hill poster web site clearly states: “The winning poster may be printed and may be distributed to theaters.” (Emphasis ours.) The contest does offer just a bit of interesting insight into some things considered when creating a movie poster, including guidelines imposed by the MPAA for key art:
Studio Guidelines
In order to become an official movie poster suitable for all audiences the poster must follow the guidelines listed below:
1. No nudity or sexual activity
2. No gun to camera/no shooting to camera
3. No gun to victim/no shooting to victim
4. No more than 2 guns may appear
5. No reference to drugs/drug paraphernalia
6. No offensive language or gestures
7. No blood
8. No violence towards women
9. No cruelty to animals
10. No mutations/mutilations/cadavers
11. No excessive violence or brutality
12. No rape/molestations
13. No people on fire
14. No people in explosion/people blown out of explosion
15. No exploiting/capitalizing on rating (i.e., “R has never gone this far”, “Banned in Boston”)
16. No demeaning of religion, race or national origin
So all those designers and “Photoshop gurus” out there who have dreamed of designing movie posters, Sony is giving you your chance… maybe.
