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.
Readers and would-be Adobe Photoshop gurus over at the Something Awful forums recently pointed their weekly “Photoshop Phriday” remix thread at modern movies illustrated in a “Grindhouse cinema” movie poster style. In this case, Grindhouse being the popular label for the low budget film and exploitation movie poster style popular in the 60s and 70s.
It is always interesting to see modern movies re-interpreted through a different style of key art — this film poster remix for Little Miss Sunshine is a particularly good (and disturbing) example.
By now most of you have probably heard about the controversy surrounding Captivity billboards as part of the film’s outdoor ad campaign in Los Angeles and New York. Captivity is a horror (some say “torture porn”) film starring Elisha Cuthbert. The billboards (featuring key art designed by Art Machine Digital) depicted four panels with the headlines “Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination” along with the appropriate modern horror florescent lighting color scheme and scary visuals:
This film outdoor campaign outraged some residents in the Los Angeles area. In some sort of modern ad speak for “My dog ate my homework”, CEO Courtney Solomon of After Dark Films (the studio that produced the film) claimed the wrong files were sent to the printer and all the executives were in Las Vegas attending ShoWest at the time. We have no idea whether this was the case or not, but we don’t think the Adobe InDesign final production mechanicals sent to the printer were labeled “TOO SCARY. PLS DO NOT USE. FOR YOUR FUN ONLY!”.
And if you have wondered how film execs really talk, Solomon went on to muse:
Personally, I wasn’t going to go with this campaign. I thought it was OTP (over the top). Nothing like this can ever happen again.
Is this “OTP” quote meant to publicly lay blame elsewhere, like he (the CEO) was some sort of “lone voice of reason in a wilderness of ‘oh no, we’re producing this sucker whether you liked the comp or not’ ad design approval craziness”?
Although the offending outdoor billboards were eventually removed (and replaced by a not-as-OTP “Captivity Was Here” billboard), the proverbial outrage pile-on had already begun.
Speaking of pile ons, one thing that is being held captive is a rating for the film. The MPAA has put a one month hold on the ratings process for Captivity, which puts the May 18th release date in jeopardy. According to MPAA Senior VP of Advertising Marilyn Gordon:
“The sanctions in this case are severe because this was an unacceptable and flagrant violation of MPAA rules and procedures. After Dark Films presented their ads for approval, as all companies are required to do if they wish to receive an MPAA rating. However, their ads were summarily rejected for their graphic depiction of a woman’s torture and death. Yet After Dark proceeded to post them on billboards anyway, and these ads appeared in some of the most prominent public locations in Los Angeles and New York. It is now up to After Dark Films to restore good faith with the MPAA.”
The MPAA is technically a trade group — it was created to “advance the interests of movie studios” (it sues alleged movie file sharers on behalf of the film studios, for example). What most people do not realize is that those “interests” being represented are those of the six major studios: Sony, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros. Since the smaller studios responsible for Captivity (Lionsgate and the producer of the film, After Dark Films) are not “signatory” agencies of the MPAA (and this sort of ad approval controversy has happened before), it’s not surprising the MPAA came down hard on the “little guys” in this case. All studios voluntarily submit films (and ad materials) for review by the MPAA, otherwise they cannot advertise in most outlets or be shown in many North American theaters. It remains to be seen how this will effect the release of Captivity, or if this bit of publicity will help the film gain any useful “OTP” exposure.
An interesting film poster key art subject matter are the many creatures (and monsters) found in the “wild kingdom”. In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, we thought we would post a few images of movie posters featuring all matter of animals inflicting various types of terror, horror, and mayhem. So here is a poorly written paragraph with a lot of movie poster image links:
The deadly creature menace goes all the way back to the prehistoric era of dinosaurs (and in this case, fur bikinis). Many victims become worm food. Battle against an empire of ants. Overcome a swarm of angry bees or a single fly. There are creepy spiders. Dirty rats. Not so harmless birds. It may be raining cats and dogs. There are plenty snakes (without a plane). Kissing a few frogs might be dangerous. Watch out when the fish are biting. Speaking of biting, what is the difference between a crocodile and an alligator? An octopus may be one of the largest sea creatures, but the scariest of all sea life will always be sharks. Then again, some work really hard to avoid pigs. Others wonder if man descended from gorillas or (space?) apes. And don’t forget the lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!
Then there are the most dangerous creatures of all: man… or is it woman?
One of the most popular promotions for the Saw movie franchise has been the annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive. This event seems to be a sly nod to the 1950s exploitation film era practice (pioneered by director William Castle) of warning the audience of the dangers of said horror film, complete with costumed medical personnel hired to appear at theaters to handle any audience medical emergencies that may arise from the “terror” depicted onscreen.
For the Saw and Saw II film releases, Lionsgate invoked their own image of medical personnel, in the form of a “Saw Nurse” appearing on the Halloween Saw Blood Drive poster and Saw II Blood Drive poster. Both promo posters were created in-house at Lionsgate, featuring the photography of Lionsgate President of Marketing Tim Palen. Keeping things in the studio family, Senior VP Erika Schimik appears as the nurse in both of Palen’s first two blood drive posters.
For the 2006 3rd Annual Saw 3 Blood Drive, the studio released a set of Saw nurse promotional posters featuring new photography by Tim Palen of several different “Saw Nurses” (including Erika Schimik making her third appearance). The five Saw III Nurse posters each feature various poses and groupings of gothic Saw nurses, ready to handle all the bloodletting needs.
Unlike the 1950s exploitation counterparts, these posters actually promoted something helpful: a real life blood drive that encourages fans to donate blood. For the 2004 1st Annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive, the blood drive collected 4,200 pints of blood. The 2005 2nd Annual Saw II Blood Drive garnered 10,000 liters of blood. The upcoming blood drive hopes to top the previous two in the amounts of blood “taken”.
Speaking of bloodletting, despite the good work of the annual Halloween promotion for blood donations, it seems the American Red Cross may not have appreciated the Saw nurses wearing the iconic (and trademarked by international treaty) Red Cross logo on their sexy uniforms. In response, Lionsgate has removed all the red crosses from the uniforms in a revised set of Saw III blood drive posters, with the creepy nurses no longer appearing to be working for the Red Cross, but still wanting your blood. For some reason, Lionsgate has a knack for creating banned Saw posters. Apparently having a movie poster banned or “censored” is a modern badge of honor.
The International Red Cross is fairly aggressive about stopping outside parties from using the red cross logo beyond use as a protection symbol established by the Geneva Convention. Some companies are allowed to use the red cross logo if their products existed before 1905, such as products produced by Johnson & Johnson. Since most people identify the logo as a universal symbol relating to medical care and aid, the red cross logo has appeared in everything from video games to lifeguard t-shirts — but in this modern age of intellectual property litigation, companies have been removing the red cross logo to avoid possible infringement:
A red cross symbol is not a generic symbol for first-aid, emergency, hospitals, healthcare or medical services, products or personnel. The red cross symbol is a trademark owned by the American Red Cross and protected by federal and state trademark law, unfair competition law and anti-dilution law, and it is also protected by federal criminal law (See 18 U.S.C. 706, 917). The American Red Cross vigorously pursues those who infringe American Red Cross trademarks.
Red cross logos aside, don’t forget to donate blood: “This Halloween, Give ‘Til It Hurts.”
In the new documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, filmmaker Kirby Dick takes a look at the MPAA and controversies surrounding the film ratings system. The documentary investigates why the mysterious MPAA film ratings board can be an endless source of frustration for filmmakers. From the film press release:
This Film Is Not Yet Rated asks whether Hollywood movies and independent films are rated equally for comparable content; whether sexual content in gay-themed movies are given harsher ratings penalties than their heterosexual counterparts; whether it makes sense that extreme violence is given an R rating while sexuality is banished to the cutting room floor; whether Hollywood studios receive detailed directions as to how to change an NC-17 film into an R while independent film producers are left guessing; and finally, whether keeping the raters and the rating process secret leave the MPAA entirely unaccountable for its decisions.
The IFC web site (the Independent Film Channel is releasing the documentary) is hosting two This Film Is Not Yet Rated movie posters. The two one-sheets each feature a naked torso (one male, one female) with the film title treatment (based on the design of an MPAA ratings logo) being branded into the subject’s skin. The IFC web site and promotional materials featured these copylines about their print campaign:
“Take a look at the ad they wouldn’t let us place.”
“See the poster they wouldn’t let you see only at ifc.com”
With headlines like that, one might assume the “they” in this case would be the MPAA, which approves all theatrical key art for films being rated. This movie poster approval process can result in one-sheets being banned, which we have covered several times in the past. In the case of what the IFC is calling their “uncensored” This Film Is Not Yet Rated movie posters, were the female branded and male branded versions of the one-sheet submitted to (and rejected by) the MPAA’s Advertising Administration?
The answer is no, these ads were never submitted to or censored by the MPAA. The “they” referenced above turns out to be various newspapers and media outlets around the country refusing to run the ads. According to Evan Shapiro, executive vice president and general manager of IFC:
The NY Times and The LA Times (among many others) both rejected our ads, because they said they were “vulgar”. Also, we had to alter the artwork for outdoor, as Clear Channel would not allow a clear shot of an ass.
However, Premiere Magazine and Time Out NY allowed the ads, as is, as did all of the alternative weekly publications, such as the Village Voice and the Boston Pheonix.
Originally This Film Is Not Yet Rated was given an NC-17 rating, meaning it could not play in many theatres around the country. After a failed ratings appeal to the MPAA’s CARA (Classification and Ratings Administration), the producers decided to release the film (natch) unrated. With the movie being unrated, the film key art is not subject to any approval by the MPAA, since the film and it’s advertising do not carry an MPAA rating.
This “ad they wouldn’t let us place” claim seems a bit misleading — while making statements like “the poster they wouldn’t let you see” and labeling these posters as “uncensored” may be technically true, wouldn’t many assume they were referring to the MPAA given the film’s subject matter? The LA Times refusing to run an ad featuring a bare female ass isn’t exactly the same thing as an unchecked governing body censoring content from the public.
A documentary film about problems with MPAA ratings system, which is being released unrated because of the very ratings system it criticizes, being marketed with “uncensored” movie posters “they wouldn’t let you see”… Is this what advertising executives refer to as branding?
The official site for Troublemaker Studios — the production company of director Robert Rodriguez — has released a set of what they are calling “limited-edition” Grindhouse teaser posters. Gindhouse is the double-bill feature ode to exploitation films from directors Robert Rodreqiuz and Quetin Tarantino, with each creating their own movie as part of the double feature. Rodriguez is directing Planet Terror and Tarintino helms Death Proof.
Released as exclusive posters at this year’s Comic Con, we are guessing “limited-edition” means “not approved by the MPAA and will not be displayed in theatres“. Since there is no MPAA rating on the posters, perhaps the studio isn’t submitting these as theatrical one-sheets to the MPAA’s Advertising Administration. (We have no idea if any of these are destined for your local theater lobby — would the MPAA have a problem with a poster of actress Rose McGowan’s amputated leg replaced with an assault rifle?)
In the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, director Rodriguez “dissects” the three Grind House teaser posters:
THE VEHICLE “It’s a slasher movie with a car instead of a knife,” says Rodriguez of Tarantino’s Death Proof, which stars Kurt Russell as a psychotic stuntman. “We did that poster as a silk screen. We wanted to imply an alternate film universe.”
THE GUN In Rodriguez’s zombie-esque feature Planet Terror, Rose McGowan’s go-go dancer-turned-amputee sports a unique fake limb. The poster’s aged look, Rodriguez says, was achieved by the high-tech means of “dragging it around a parking lot.”
THE NEEDLE The director is tight-lipped about why actress Marley Shelton is holding a hypodermic needle in another Terror poster. But he’s more verbose on the subject of Grindhouse sequels: “Yeah, there may be a couple. One might be kung fu. One sexploitation. They’re a blast to make!”
The term grindhouse refers to the exploitation genre of films and movie theaters that showed those types of films in the 1970s. The Weird World of Seventies Cinema defines grindhouse as “inner-city theaters in disrepair since their glory days as movie palaces in the ’30s and ’40s. Known for ‘grinding out’ non stop, triple-bill programs of B-movies. By the late ’60s and into the ’70s they specialized in movies with sex, violence and other taboo subject matter.” This grindhouse cinema has long been an influence for director Tarantino.
The Grindhouse teaser posters and their artwork have embraced all the trappings and style of vintage 70s exploitation posters, including the previously mentioned screenprinted look, distressed edges, poster folds (which seem to be popular recently), and the colorful sensationalism of exploitation movie poster art. We especially love the screenprinted Death Proof movie poster, which replicates the cheaply produced screenprinted posters that were used by some theatres and drive-ins, complete with a blank space at the top of the poster that allowed the local movie theater owner to print their own local theater name, address, showtimes, etc.
Dimension Films has just announced the studio will be producing a remake of the 1978 film Piranha. The original Roger Corman B-movie was directed by Joe Dante (and written by John Sayles), and features flesh-eating piranha fish being released into a summer resort’s rivers. On the surface, Piranha is nothing more than a Jaws rip-off. (Although, the tongue-in-cheek horror film does have its fans — including Steven Spielberg. The film even generated a sequel directed by a young James Cameron.)
The Piranha poster also follows the Jaws poster formula: swimming beauty on the water, in danger from said creature (with large teeth) from below. The Piranha poster illustration does invoke the right look — another example of how exploitation poster artwork was the great equalizer when compared to the advertising of big budget counterparts. After all, hiring a good illustrator wasn’t beyond the expense of lower budget films.
The illustrator giving the Piranha key art it’s teeth was artist John Solie. No stranger to exploitation film posters, Solie illustrated posters for some interesting 1970s films, including Candy Stripe Nurses, Shaft’s Big Score, and Soylent Green. Solie, speaking about his time working for Roger Coreman’s New World Pictures:
If they gave me as much of a free hand as possible to do the work, I didn’t care whether I was working for a B-movie company or a major. At New World, I’d go to lunch with the art director, he’d tell me the story of the movie, I’d make a drawing on a napkin, he’d approve it and I’d go home and do it. I never saw any of the movies, but I made the movie ads and they made a lot of money!
In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, it seems appropriate to post a few horror film posters this week. Our first horror one-sheet is what we like to consider The Scariest Movie Poster Ever.
The 1974 film Abby is the story of a female marriage counselor who marries and becomes possessed by an evil spirit — the Demon of Sexuality. The film, by exploitation producer Samuel Z. Arkoff and director Willam Gridler, was reportedly to be titled The Blackorcist. (Not surprisingly, the film was the subject of a lawsuit by the film studio Warner Bros. as being a rip-off of The Exorcist.)
As for the Abby movie poster itself, when you mix such a strange and scary image of actress Carol Speed with a few great low budget genres (Blaxplotation and Horror), it’s hard not to take notice. (This movie poster is also yet another example of the “Big Heads Floating in the Sky” movie poster layout cliche. Or in this case, a “Big Head Possessed by a Demon Floating in the Sky on Fire” film poster layout.)
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.
As we mentioned previously, posters for the just released comedy Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo embrace the time-honored tradition of the phallic symbol as a means of advertising. The city of Los Angeles being an industry town, drivers in Southern California are treated to some interesting film advertising billboards in this vein. This includes an “animated” outdoor billboard for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo:
For anyone still in danger of missing the point, one version of the sign on Sunset Boulevard has the crooked tower swinging up and down in the wind, presumably from flaccid to erect.
Nothing subtle about that. But the focus of the above mentioned New York Times article is the lead time required by outdoor advertising means billboards go up before a film gets it’s final rating. This is seen as a loophole by some to allow film marketing to target underage viewers without giving their parents ratings information. “The sweet spot for an R-rated comedy is the 15-to-17-year-old range.” Considering no parent gets their ratings information about films by driving down Sunset Boulevard and looking at billboards, this seems like a pointless complaint. The only goal for any outdoor film advertising is to pass what is known in the industry as the “40 Mile Per Hour Rule”: Are you able to identify the movie in the ad and read the film’s title while driving by it at 40 miles per hour? (In the article, Adam Fogelson, president of marketing for Universal, slows the rule down to “35 miles per hour”, but he’s obviously driving too slow.)
If there’s anything that can make vintage 70s adult movie posters better, it’s seeing them in Spanish. This Flickr image gallery of Spanish Adult Movie Posters of the 1970s (NSFW) makes for an impressive array of vintage porn artwork. As we’ve mentioned in the past, vintage exploitation and adult film posters often demonstrate an interesting style and visual sense. After all, there’s nothing expensive about having good design in bad taste.
Cable network Showtime is set to premiere the movie musical Reefer Madness this month. The cable movie is a film version of the hit LA and off Broadway musical Reefer Madness, which was in turn based on the infamous 1938 cult classic film of the same name.
While it’s origin is the subject of some debate, the 1938 anti-drug film was said to originally be conceived by a church group and was called Tell Your Children. The film fell into the hands of infamous exploitation filmmaker Dwain Esper, who retitled and recut the B-movie to help launch the “drug panic” genre of films of the period. The “grindhouse” film circuit became an early incarnation of “indie” filmmaking — independent roadshow filmmakers made and exhibited films that titillate by addressing such forbidden topics as sex and drugs, which the mainstream film studios were unable to do.
In the case of Reefer Madness, the film was nothing more than propaganda, complete with an “educational film” label to justify the topic being depicted. The film’s poster also illustrates another advantage that small-time producers had over their mainstream studio competition — it was relatively cheap and easy to generate a salacious and provocative one-sheet poster, regardless of a film’s budget. Decades before the era of movie trailers and film reviews across all media outlets, a film was judged by it’s cover, the movie poster. Who couldn’t resist the sensationalist images and copylines like:
The deadly scourge that drag’s our children into the quagmires of degradation. Your child may be next!
X-Rated: Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s offers a visual online gallery (and book) from the “golden age” of porn films in the 1960s and 70s, when x-rated movies actually played in movie theatres. The movie poster art created for these x-rated films remain kitsch classics, with many invoking a surprising sense of style and design.
Featuring posters from such not-so classic adult films as The Love Robots, Call Girls of Frankfurt, Blackmailed Wives, The Pro Shop, Flesh Gordon, Kiss Me Mate, Space Thing, Slaves of the Sin-dicate, Girls That Do, Come Play With Me, Depraved!, Hot Lunch, Danish Pastries, Maid in Sweden, and oh so many more.
