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.
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.
Korean cellphone provider SK Telecom has introduced a new service that allows people to walk up to a movie poster and use their cell phone to purchase movie theater tickets via the poster itself:
SK Telecom presented ‘U-theater service’ that allows people to get movie tickets by scanning RFID tag attached on the movie poster with their cell phones. They can view short movie highlight video clips, reserve seats at a cinema, download movie soundtrack for ring-tone and etc. If you purchase a ticket, you receive a confirmation number through SMS and there is no need for extra ticket printing process.
This interactive poster via mobile phone idea has been around for a while — in many countries, users can download trailers and other digital content to their mobile phone from posters and other outdoor advertising.
Access to this type of technology is not as widely available in the United States when compared to Europe and Asia. For that, you can thank American cellphone providers for “carrier locking” the types of technology, content, and access in the U.S. marketplace. However, the U.S. may catch up eventually.
With all the recent events in Lebanon, we came across this post on The Sulla Institute weblog:
I saw the flag used by Hezbollah and it occurred to me that it looked as if it was inspired by the movie poster for the Otto Preminger film EXODUS. Very odd… that was a movie that portrayed the Jews creating the state of Israel in a very heroic light.
Yes, that is odd… and a bit of a reach… just like all those arms reaching for a rifle (or an AK-47 assault rifle in the case of the Hezbollah flag) in both designs.
The Exodus movie poster was designed for the 1960 film by legendary graphic designer Saul Bass (Bass also designed the film’s title credits). The Exodus poster remains one of the more interesting Saul Bass movie poster designs — particularly for his ability to blend an illustrated graphic (the silhouetted arms extended with the gun overhead) with a photographic element (the fire burning away the image of the poster).
The yellow Hezbollah flag design features:
Across the top is a quotation from the Koran, from which Hezbollah took its name — “Verily the party of God shall be victorious” — and at the center is an AK-47 in silhouette, in the hand of the Shiite martyr Husayn, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad. In the background is a depiction of the globe, suggesting Hezbollah’s role in the worldwide umma, or community of Muslims. Along the bottom of the Hezbollah flag is written “The Islamic Revolution in Lebanon”.
We will leave it to others in the “blogosphere” to determine the value in saying the Hezbollah flag is “ripping off the Jews” by comparing it with a movie poster designed by a Jewish graphic designer for a movie about the creation of the state of Israel. (The imagery of a gun raised overhead isn’t exactly a singular idea or uncommon image.) It does give something for political pundits to link to on their weblogs. It is interesting how movie posters can sometimes be associated with current events, controversies and politics.
Tartan Films is running a contest on MySpace (the uber social networking web site) to choose the one-sheet for the U.S. domestic release of the Korean film Lady Vengeance (originally titled Sympathy for Lady Vengeance). MySpace users can cast their vote for their favorite Vengeance poster (among a listing of 7 proposed one-sheets) by leaving a comment on the contest page.
In our opinion, the best Lady Vengeance poster would have to be the original foreign Sympathy for Lady Vengeance teaser poster, which isn’t up for contention in the online MySpace “Movie Poster Thunderdome”.
We won’t rehash our feelings about movie poster contests, but we do believe you’ll be seeing more of this “online focus group for film advertising” trend in the future. After all, why should the studios recruit teenagers and out-of-work actors found during a weekday visit to the Media City Center mall in Burbank California to fill out comment cards/surveys on movie poster concepts when they can do it online so much more efficiently?
Here is a great Flickr photoset of foreign movie posters from the films of iconoclast director Luis Buñuel. (Thanks Ray.)
The Russian site Kino-Express has an interesting gallery of Thai Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire foreign teaser posters. (via JoBlo.) These latest character teasers continue the darker tone of the later Potter films and accompanying key art — although the ethereal blur effects and teenage characters almost give it a WB network teen angst feel.
The promotional push for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire includes countless international movie posters from different foreign markets. The artwork for some foreign release posters for U.S. films are also created stateside — not by personnel in the foreign countries they are destined for. Most U.S. film studios have international marketing departments that work independently of the studio’s domestic marketing, creating artwork exclusively for overseas film posters. International marketing’s work can range from creating foreign versions of film title logos to generating completely new artwork geared for overseas audiences. Their work usually results in a single “International” poster design, which is then reformatted and tailored to each foreign market. (Such as being reworked into a Britsh Quad format for the United Kingdom market.)
Two marketing departments (domestic and foreign) working independently of each other within the same film studio, on the same film projects, often at the same time, can result in inter-company rivalries. While domestic marketing is generally a higher priority within the studio itself, it should be noted that the majority of a U.S. film’s grosses will come from overseas markets, and international posters will be seen by a much larger audience. (We haven’t even gotten into the place of home video marketing in this motion picture studio hierarchy yet.)
Here’s something you don’t see every day: A new Drew Struzan illustrated movie poster that isn’t for a George Lucas film. Ain’t It Cool News reports Struzan has created the poster for the new Spanish film comedy Torrente 3: El Protector. The film is the third in a series of comedies about a “horrendous Spanish detective”.
You might look at the Drew Struzan Torrent 3 movie poster illustration one of two ways: getting work doing traditional illustration for modern-day Hollywood one-sheets is extremely limited or illustrator Drew Struzan has a history of embracing varied film projects that you might not be aware of. (He is, after all, a true “work for hire” illustrator who has done more than illustrate Star Wars one-sheets.)
We’re not sure how well Struzan’s tradmark “kissed by the sun” warm color schemes or color penciled air-brush techniques work as an illustration for a Spanish comedy (a fan boy over at Ain’t It Cool News nicknamed the poster Jake and the Fatman: The Movie), but it certainly makes for an interesting illustration — right down to the hair on star Santiago Segura’s chest.
The Shaolin Chamber has a great collection of Hong Kong movie posters from the legendary Shaw Bros. movie studio. The Asian film studio was like the Warner Bros. of the East, right down to the similar name and company logo. (You might remember the appearance of the “Shaw Scope” logo at the beginning of Kill Bill: Volume 1.) The company has an impressive back catalog of kung fu films, which continue to influence filmmakers today.
The Shaw Bros. film slate wasn’t limited to action or martial arts films — they produced films in a wide range of film genres, ranging from exploitation to the bizarre. What’s interesting about these Shaw movie posters (and most Asian film posters in general) is that the typography of the posters becomes another interesting visual element, since domestic viewers cannot understand the language of the titles. You don’t “read” the title, names, and copy, so they become even more integrated into the poster’s visual layout. (This is one reason graphic designers check their composition by squinting and/or turning their designs upside-down — to keep from “reading” the type as opposed to seeing it as shapes working as part of the layout.)
Each year, the world of cinema descends on the Cannes Film Festival in France. JoBlo.com has posted pictures from the infamous Croisette boulevard, which is covered with billboards and movie posters for many upcoming new movie releases. This year, there seems to be more Hollywood advertising at Cannes than ever before:
“Everywhere you look, there’s a poster for a studio picture. The studios have certainly upped the ante this year.”
Foreign posters represent some of the most interesting, and in some cases, strange examples of film advertising artwork. Perhaps the best example of this combination would be Polish movie posters.
Polish posters for American films exhibit that rare trait of absolutely no interest in marketing a film in a conventional way. In other words, a Polish film poster is first and foremost an abstract piece of artwork. This can be both fascinating and sometimes a bit disturbing at the same time.
Unlike it’s U.S. counterpart the one-sheet, the standard UK movie poster size is known as a British Quad (or sometimes as a UK Quad or Quad Crown) and measures 40″ x 30″. The British quad movie posters are a favorite among collectors, especially since they usually involve changes and alterations from the film’s U.S. domestic key art in order to fit the quad’s horitzonal format, or sometimes completely different poster artwork.
