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.
The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog has a fantastic collection of images of vintage Mexican Lobby Cards from “the golden age of Mexican Cinema”. The online selection of lobby cards from science fiction, horror, and other genre films highlight an ongoing Los Angeles area exhibit of artwork from Mexican cinema. (via Boing Boing)
We’re not really trying to pick on Sharon Stone… (If we were, we might ask, why is she auditioning for American Idol with a microphone in hand?) Nor are we interested in mentioning Basic Instinct 2 again. But the IMP web site recently pointed out the new Basic Instinct 2 Korean poster features an altered version of the original Basic Instinct 2 poster key art. The Korean poster uses the same artwork, but replaces Sharon Stone’s head with a different headshot with wet hair. The only problem is they forget to also replace the original (and dry) hair reflected in the mirrors behind her. Oops.
Photoshoping an actors head onto a different body pose (or a completely different person — a body double) happens all the time, and is known as a head strip. This can be taken further when an actors image is composed of many different “parts” — a face from one image, hair from another pose, body from yet another, etc. — resulting in a sort of “Frankenstein” creation as the final result. This sometimes doesn’t work that well. There are a variety of reasons why actors may find their heads moving from body to body double, the most common being that they haven’t posed for special shoots that some movie poster concepts might require. As an actor reaches a certain popularity, the likelihood of that movie star being unavailable for a needed marketing photo shoot increases exponentially. The solution is a head strip.
Two recent one-sheets have embraced a familiar “Andy Warhol style” of silkscreened artwork. This familiar pop art panel technique created by the legendary artist can be seen in the recent Madea’s Family Reunion movie poster and the Factory Girl movie poster (which isn’t surprising for Factory Girl, as it is one of several films to cover Andy Warhol’s life).
A cultural icon (at least for “15 minutes”) and the definitive artist of the American 1960s Pop Art movement, Andy Warhol was a true pioneer, who focused his experimental nature into art, music, and film. His embrace of painting and silkscreening supported his interest in mass produced art featuring mass produced items — including illustrating everything from soup cans to celebrities. Warhol even had assistants working at his art studio (known as “The Factory”) producing countless copies and variations of his silkscreen artwork. This serialization of his art, most notably of Marilyn Monroe, was often presented as several different proofs together as one piece, resulting in his familiar spilt-screen multiple panel style artwork.
Taking Warhol’s embrace of consumerism as subject matter further, a psudeo “Warhol style” can be applied to your favorite photos, even images of your pet. You can find several tutorials attempting to achieve a “Warhol effect” in Photoshop, or even try your hand at coloring Marilyn Monroe online in a Warhol style.
