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.
Just in time for the holidays we managed to get our hands on the new coffee table book Art of the Modern Movie Poster: International Postwar Style and Design. This movie poster design book certainly has to be one of the largest (and one of only a few) books on movie poster design as an art form. Weighing 8 pounds with over 500 pages, the book features 1500 movie poster images from 30 countries over the last 60 years. Also featured are profiles of movie poster artists, including legendary illustrators Saul Bass and Bob Peak.
From the book publisher Chronicle Books:
Art of the Modern Movie Poster — Critically authoritative, visually stunning, and physically massive, Art of the Modern Movie Poster is the first and last word on post-WWII film poster design. Showcasing fascinating examples from 15 nations, this collection of more than 1,500 exemplary designs is a must-have for film buffs, design and poster aficionados alike. The posters are organized by country of origin, offering an intriguing glimpse into each region’s unique visual sensibility and sometimes unexpected takes on familiar films. Gathered from the renowned collection of the Posteritati Gallery in New York—one of the largest holdings of international film posters in the world—this volume is the definitive survey of both film and popular graphic art in the modern era.
The book was created by designers Judith Salavetz and Spencer Drate, writer Dave Kehr, with images from the movie poster collection of Sam Sarowitz and his Posteritati Gallery in New York. The group previously collaborated on The Independent Movie Poster Book.
The official Chronicle Books blog features a post by designer Suzanne LaGasa about various cover design concepts for the Art of the Modern Movie Poster. You can see their exploration of book jacket designs before they finally settled on a “patchwork grid” cover design.
A gallery show for the book’s release is currently on display at the Lincoln Center’s Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery in New York City through January 4th, 2009.
Sam Sarowitz (owner of our favorite movie poster art gallery Posteritati) is releasing a new book called Translating Hollywood. The poster book takes a look at the different foreign movie posters for popular films. The book highlights examples of interesting (and somewhat surreal) foreign movie one-sheets from around the world, including samples from the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and of course the ubiquitous posters of Poland. What sets the book apart is the foreign posters are compared to the original domestic one-sheets to draw a contrast between cultures and marketing. Look no further than the comparison between the U.S. and the Polish poster for the Dustin Hoffman film Tootsie for an example of this. Our favorite poster from the book would have to be the Japanese Army of Darkness movie poster (which is yet another example of the King of the Mountain pose) which makes several changes to the original U.S. key art, including the addition of several Bruce Campbell soup cans.
Author Sam Sarowitz will be having a Translating Hollywood book signing at his Posteritati gallery in New York City on May 7th.
During the last annual Saw III Halloween Blood Drive, the American Red Cross directed the film studio Lionsgate to remove Red Cross logos from the uniforms of the infamous Saw nurses in that year’s Saw III Blood Drive posters. At the time, the red cross logo revision made it very clear that the American Red Cross was not affiliated with the annual Halloween holiday blood drives organized by the studio to help promote the Saw film series.
What a difference a year makes.
For the upcoming release of Saw IV and the annual 2007 Saw IV Halloween Blood Drive, not only has Lionsgate returned with a new Saw Nurse Blood Drive poster, the motion picture studio managed to officially partner with the American Red Cross for this year’s charity blood donation drive event for the first time.
The SAW “Give Til It Hurts” blood drive has become a key element of the SAW franchise, as much a part of the horror hit’s annual rituals as its Halloween premiere date. Since the first SAW blood drive in 2004, SAW filmgoers have donated nearly 38,000 pints of blood to help save as many as 112,500 lives. Collection totals have doubled year after year: during the 2004 inaugural drive, 4,200 pints were collected, in 2005, 10,000 pints were collected, and in 2006, 23,493 pints were collected, resulting in tens of thousands of lifesaving blood transfusions.
Ironically enough, within days of this partnership announcement, the Red Cross in turn found themselves being sued for misuse of the Red Cross logo by the company Johnson & Johnson, which alleges the charity is licensing the red cross logo for “commercial purposes”, which they believe violates their trademark. The Red Cross does not agree. Confused yet?
The new Saw Halloween Blood Drive poster (as does all the previous blood drive posters) features photography by the co-president of Lionsgate theatrical marketing, Tim Palen. Palen has released a new book featuring his film advertising photography, including his work for the aforementioned Saw poster series. His book is appropriately titled Guts:
Award-winning fine art photographer Tim Palen serves up a visionary collection of images in his debut book collection GUTS, culled from his work in and around the marketing of six cutting-edge horror films. The 110-page book includes movie and event posters, production stills, outtakes, and location photos. The cover image — a photograph of red, glistening meat — telegraphs both the nature and sensibility of the work inside: sensual, sophisticated and veined with a drolly macabre sense of humor.
Guts: The Art of Marketing Horror Films features Palen’s image work for Lionsgate horror film releases including Saw and Hostel, along with editorial photography, such as a photo of Hostel director Eli Roth titled “Eli Roth Has the Biggest Dick in Hollywood” (not safe for work).
Author Tony Nourmand (with designer Graham Marsh) visits what many consider the most important decade in film history with the movie poster book Film Posters of the Forties: The Essential Movies of the Decade.
Why are the 1940s so important in the spectrum of movie going, and by extension, the movie poster key art created during that decade? Having two of the top films (at least according to a few) of all-time — Citizen Kane and Casablanca — is reason enough to label the 40s as the latter part of “golden age” of film. The forties also saw the birth of the most beloved holiday film of all-time, It’s a Wonderful Life. And perhaps the most interesting film trend from the era: the rise of the darkest of movie genres — film noir.
Like all of the other volumes of the Essential Movies of the Decade poster book series, this edition features countless pages of color reproductions of movie posters from the 1940s. During this period, film studios hired the best artists they could find for their poster illustrations, including the likes of legendary pin-up artists Alberto Vargas and George Petty.
As we are constantly reminding everyone, there is nothing we like more than “Exploitation” movie posters from past decades. Whether it’s 1950s drug panic films or blaxploitation from the 1970s, the exploitation genres rely on what serves low budget film advertising best: sensationalism. When you take that trait and apply it to a relatively cheap advertising medium (such as one-sheets), movie poster magic can result. More importantly, exploitation posters are a prime example of an advertising campaign overcoming the limitations and quality of the films they are selling. This “saved by advertising” approach is something that Hollywood still tries to replicate to this day.
The Reel Gallery is continuing their movie poster book series with the Exploitation Poster Art book by Tony Nourmand and Graham Marsh, along with an accompanying auction of vintage exploitation one-sheets at Christie’s. From the Exploitation Poster Art website:
Sex, drugs, delinquency, Black power, alternative culture and, of course, rock and roll: these are just some of the themes which have attracted the attention of the cinema’s bottom-feeders over the past eighty years. A few of the resulting films have become cult classics, but most were simply tacky — few would probably now want to sit through two hours of High School Hellcats or Prison Girls. The posters produced to promote them, on the other hand, are wonderful period pieces that vividly evoke the social fears, temptations and taboos of bygone eras.
Variety reported today that Steven Spielberg has stepped in to produce yet another 50s science fiction remake — When Worlds Collide. The original 1951 sci-fi film chronicles a group of scientists who discover a rogue planet set on a collision course with Earth.
We’ll use this bit of film production news as an excuse to post a big image of an original When Worlds Collide movie poster from 1951. Is there anything more entertaining the the ernest visual hysteria of 1950s sci-fi movie posters? If you enjoy those type of B-movie epics, you might also enjoy the books Science Fiction Poster Art by Tony Nourmand & Graham Marsh and Attack of the B Movie Posters by Bruce Hershenson.
Continuing his film poster pictorial book series, Tony Nourmand journeys back to an early film era with Film Posters of the 30s: The Essential Movies of the Decade.
A common theme for films from the period was escapism, mostly in response to the Great Depression of the time. The book covers movies of the 1930s by organizing the film poster one-sheets by genre, such as: romance, adventure, comedy, war, and so on. The book includes over 240 images and features work by internationally famous artists including Albert Hirschfeld, Alberto Vargas and James Montgomery Flagg.
As shown on the book’s cover, the 1930s decade features three of the most timeless films of all time: The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and King Kong. Those popular films have used many different one-sheet “looks” through the years, with posters that differ from their initial ad campaigns from the 30s. For example, the original 1933 King Kong film has had many one-sheet variations through it’s many re-releases.
The first book devoted solely to movie poster one-sheets for independent films, The Independent Movie Poster Book features over 200 full-color one-sheets. The artwork featured in the book are from the collection of the Posteritati Gallery in New York City.
The book chronicles images from the independent movie explosion that began in the 1980s, when independently produced and distributed films became synonymous with quality, variety, and artistry. The one-sheets for these films often reflected the freewheeling cultural sensibility that distinguished the films and their creators from their big-budget Hollywood counterparts — provocative, enigmatic and unpredictable images that signified unusual stories and original characters. A diverse selection of “indies” are represented, including: critically acclaimed dramas like Breaking the Waves, vivid design of foreign films like Pistol Opera, and a pre-Hollywood Wings of Desire.
In addition to hosting images from the book in their NYC gallery, Posteritati has also made images of movie posters from the collection available on the web in an online gallery.
Written by Rudy Franchi and Barbara Franchi of The Nostalgia Factory, the book Miller’s Movie Collectibles is a guide to collecting movie memorabilia, with an emphasis on vintage film poster one-sheets. The book is nicely illustrated (over 300 full-color photographs) and categorized, offering information on movie poster sizing, collecting terminology, specific illustrators working in the field, genre films including the Star Wars saga, and other background on movie poster collecting.
A passage from the Miller’s Movie Collectibles guide:
“This book outlines some of the major areas of movie memorabilia, highlighting trends and warning of any potential land mines buried deep in the field of cinema collectibles. With over 65 year’s combined experience dealing with the topics discussed, the authors would advise collectors to regard acquiring this material as a hobby, and to temper their passion with common sense and caution.”
If you’re interested in the collecting side of movie posters, this book would be a great place to start.
In the 1950s the motion picture industry did battle with it’s newest and biggest rival: television. This meant trying everything from gimmicks (“in 3D!”), genre films (such as horror and science fiction), to a bit of sex appeal (courtesy of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean).
In Tony Nourmand’s book Film Posters of the 50s: The Essential Movies of the Decade, the movie poster takes on a vital role in advertising films of the time: getting people to leave their home (and TVs) and into to the movie theater. Whether it was the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet or the emergence of designer Saul Bass, some consider the 1950s as part of the “golden age” of film poster art. The fifties certainly marked the transition into the modern equivalent of the so-called “star sell”, where big name movie stars began to drive film advertising (and film production in general).
