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.
Four new teaser posters for the upcoming film V for Vendetta have been released. The movie, based on the Alan Moore comic, follows a freedom fighter known only as “V” who uses terrorist tactics to fight against a totalitarian English society. What makes the teaser posters interesting is the key art in each one-sheet embraces the style of political propaganda posters from the past — most notably Soviet.
Our favorite V for Vendetta teaser poster of the four features a silk-screen style limited color palette. The fan-boy site Ain’t-It-Cool-News labeled this poster as “Spanish & Argentian” in style. Not sure about that one — the bottom line is it’s recreating a poster style common to political propaganda posters from the past. (Reader Martin S. identifies this teaser as more Russian Leninist than the idealized Stalinist style.) AICN also identifies this Vendetta teaser as “German Expressionistic”, but it seems more inspired by the Russian Photomontage style as seen in this Russian propaganda poster. Since art history was never our strong subject, it’s hard to classify the specific style of each of these four teaser one-sheets. We invite everyone to share opinions on this in the comments section.
The poster as a piece of political propaganda has a long history across different cultures and regimes, including Chinese, American, Soviet, and Nazi.
We sometimes get email with questions about one-sheets. We’re happy to answer any movie poster related questions that we’re fortunate enough to actually know the answer to. (Or at least think we know the answer to.)
Marvin J. writes:
Why, in an ensemble shot, are the actors’ names not under their proper photos? Is this some Hollywood superstition? Or is it because it’s too much like a news caption and therefore too “linear”?
As with most things involving actors/talent in motion pictures, the names and likeness of actors are controlled by their almighty contract. The actor’s contract includes what can and can’t be done with their name/likeness on a movie poster one-sheet (and all other film advertising). These advertising provisions in contracts (sometimes called “contractual” or “contractuals”) that relate to one-sheets dictate things such as whether an actor’s name must appear above the film’s title (“above title credit”), the location and order of their credit (such as “first billing” or “top billing”), and even the size of their own likeness on the poster in relation to their co-stars image (“equal likeness“).
The order of actors names may be set in stone via contractuals, but the design/layout (at least in some regard) of the movie poster is not. This is the recipe for the not-so-uncommon phenomenon of actor credits not lining up with their image on a one-sheet. For example, Keanu Reeves may be getting top billing over his costars in The Matrix — his name appears first on the left side of the poster for the above title credits — but that doesn’t mean his face/image will be first on the left side of the layout. This disparity between names and faces often appears in the ever-popular “Flying V” movie poster layout (also known as the “Scream Layout” or the “Miramax Layout”). This group line-up would put the top billed star front and center on the poster, flanked by their costars, but the actor credits (from left to right) wouldn’t necessarily fall in that same order. You’ll also see the credit order versus actor groupings battle in movie posters for ensemble dramas. There are many other variations and solutions to this type of credit billing problem — for example, a star’s name could appear in the middle and above the costar’s credits and be considered top billing. (Although it doesn’t always solve the problem).
Since film advertising art directors are already limited in what they can do with regards to actor placements (both in name and likeness) in one-sheet layouts, it’s understandable that most film account executives overlook this minor credit lineup “glitch”. This is just one of the many hoops that film key art has to jump through (like the film’s themselves) before it reaches your local theater lobby.
Let the finger pointing begin. In interviews about the release of his film The Island, director Michael Bay laid some blame of the film’s box office disappointment on the film’s marketing, including The Island one-sheet:
Bay bemoaned that the movie had low awareness. Even before it opened, he had sharp words for the marketing campaign, complaining in a Times interview that the effort wasn’t generating interest and that a poster made costar Scarlett Johansson look like “a porn star.”
So much for the commentary on the look of star Scarlett Johansson in a piece of key art. Considering Bay’s directing style and reputation, there seems a bit of hypocrisy there.
As the gossip site Defamer.com points out, one of the seven stages of box office grief is to blame the marketing department at the studio. It’s a very old ploy, that sometimes has no basis in reality, but still popular nonetheless.
In 1995, the executives at Universal fired the head of studio marketing as a response to Kevin Costner’s mega-flop Waterworld. Nevermind that the marketing chief wasn’t solely responsible for the advertising campaign of the Waterworld film, as he was newly installed in the job after that film’s campaign had already been underway. And it’s the job of studio publicity (not advertising) to manage the news/media campaign associated with the film, for better or worse. In the case of Waterworld, the negative news stories and coverage of the film’s infamous production problems helped “drown” chances of box office success. (For the record, Waterworld eventually made a small profit through foreign sales and other markets.)
Good film advertising essentially works in two ways: to help generate buzz or to help minimize damage. For example, when Sony executives got their first look at the 1998 soon-to-be stinker Godzilla, the first thing they did was immediately increase the number of ad buys (TV commercials) before the film’s opening. This was already on top of the film’s massive ad campaign. They threw more money at the problem — they “bought their opening weekend”.
But with millions of dollars devoted solely to a film’s ad campaign, a movie’s marketing plan begins to look more like a catastrophic disaster insurance policy than anything else. Does a Hollywood film live and die based on it’s marketing? Returning to Bay’s bashing his film’s one-sheet (which he likely had approval over), what 27″x41″ piece of artwork can help carry that kind of burden? Has anyone ever seen a film because of, or in spite of, the look of a movie poster?
There’s a common saying among movie poster designers and art directors when designing film title logos: “When in doubt, use Trajan.”
And why such a mantra? “Clients love it. They love it’s elegant look and always gravitate towards it or similar style typefaces.”
A better illustration of the use of the Trajan typeface in movie posters can be found in the excellent short film available from the stock agency Veer: “Etched in Stone” by Cheshire Dave.
Trajan was created by font designer Carol Twombly in 1989. As mentioned in the Veer “Etched in Stone” short film, the type is based on the classic etched style of ancient Roman era serif lettering. As a display typeface, it’s influence is wide reaching in the world of one-sheet logotypes — even film logos that aren’t technically using Trajan are using similar looking fonts or typefaces derived from the Trajan lineage.
Speaking of type, if you need help in identifying the likes of Trajan (or any other typefaces used in movie posters and elsewhere), look no further than the Type Identification forum over at the great site Typophile.com. You can also try IDing a font by uploading an image sample to WhatTheFont.
Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a move which will affect our regular schedule of weblog postings for the next few weeks. Meanwhile, head on over to Latino Review to see a round-up of new teaser movie poster one-sheets, including for the film Basic Instinct 2 (?).
Each year, the film industry trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter holds it’s awards ceremony for film advertising and marketing, known as The Key Art Awards.
The phrase key art is a general movie industry term, referring to any artwork or imagery created to market a film, most notably a movie poster one-sheet.
Key Art Awards are given to the best movie posters, trailers, and other pieces of film advertising in a number of different categories. Special recognition is also given to selected projects and individuals who have contributed to the field of film advertising.
You might think of the Key Art Awards as the “Academy Awards of Film Advertising” or the “Oscars for One-sheets”.
During last night’s 34th Annual Key Art Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian Kevin Nealon, some notable movie poster winners included:
Best Action Poster: Open Water, Best Comedy Poster: Sideways, Best Drama Poster: Ray, Best International Poster: Saw, Best Teaser Poster: Saw
You can see a complete list of Key Art Award nominees at The Hollywood Reporter website. More importantly, you can also buy a copy of the highly coveted 34th Annual Key Art Catalog, which is the print catalog companion to the awards, showing all the movie poster submissions. (It’s also a reason many attend the ceremony; to get their complimentary copy of the $50.00 catalog.) Buy your copy today and you can see what every art director and ad executive in Hollywood will be thumbing through to copy get inspiration from for next year’s batch of movie poster designs.
As some of you may know, there is nothing we love more than discussing hidden imagery in movie poster one-sheets. It’s like Hollywood’s version of a hidden 3D poster you saw at the mall as a kid: stare at it long enough, and you are bound to find something. An impressive variation on this “hidden gem” idea is when the extra discovery actually contributes to the design of the poster itself. This idea brings us to the U.S. domestic one-sheet for the Oscar winning film Silence of the Lambs.
When a designer hides or adds a less than overt element to a composition it is sometimes called a secondary image or second read. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo. You’ve looked at something countless times only to discover something new (or like most of us, have it pointed out to you). In the Silence of the Lambs movie poster, Jodie Foster’s face is given a high contrast treatment with a large moth placed over her mouth. Looking closer at the moth, we notice a subtle skull on the head of the butterfly — the so-called “death’s head” moth from the film. A striking image, which matches the dark tone of the film itself.
In the Silence of the Lambs image, the ambiguous skull on the moth is actually made up of seven naked female bodies. The image of the “skull orgy” originated in a portrait photograph by Philippe Halsman of Salvador Dali, entitled Salvador Dali In Voluptate Mors. (The photo itself was inspired by surrealist Dali’s gouache Female Bodies as a Skull painting. Dali later translated the same idea into his own live sculptures.) The Lambs one-sheet was created by the (now defunct) film ad agency Dazu, and the skull image idea was reportedly given to the agency by director Jonathan Demme specifically for use in the film’s poster artwork.
IGN FilmForce has released the teaser poster for the upcoming horror sequel Saw 2. The Saw 2 poster is a sequel in itself, following the look of a previous series of one-sheets from the first film. For such a gory concept (digits as digits), there isn’t much blood to be seen in this horror film poster. Why?
One thing you may not know about movie posters (and film trailers) is that the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has approval over them. The film industry trade group, which assigns film ratings to all U.S. domestic films bound for a theatrical release, also has control over the content of one-sheets and trailers sent to movie theaters. As with all matters involving the MPAA, this involves some de facto censorship on the part of film studio marketing departments in an effort to comply with undefined and arbitrary rules imposed on advertising.
For example: Blood.
The MPAA hates blood, and doesn’t want to see much of it on one-sheets and in film trailers. Have you ever wondered why Miramax spent countless dollars to digitally change all of the red blood to the color black on Uma Thurman’s yellow jumpsuit in trailers for Kill Bill: Vol 1? To avoid a “red band” trailer label from the MPAA, Uma goes from being a bloody mess to just a mess.
The MPAA also isn’t a fan of guns. Sometimes they choose to impose a rule that a character cannot be holding more than one gun at a time. (Example: One of Lara Croft’s trademark dual pistols conveniently falls under a shadow in the Tomb Raider poster to meet this requirement.) But like all oversight by the MPAA, these rules are not consistent. (Example: Is Niboe free to hold two guns in The Matrix Reloaded?)
But getting back to films like Saw 2, it’s interesting to note that the (literal) life blood of horror films is largely absent in recent horror film movie poster artwork.
A sometimes thankless job in a niche industry, the film advertising copywriter is employed to hone a film’s creative direction into a phrase or sentence, known as a copyline or tagline. Copylines appear in movie posters, film trailers, and other material used to market a motion picture. A well thought out piece of copy can help deliver that extra edge a studio executive is looking for in the film marketing sweepstakes.
The most famous and well-known copyline would have to be:
“In space, no one can hear you scream.”
The tagline appeared on posters for the Ridley Scott sci-fi horror touchstone ALIEN, and was written by copywriter Barbara Gips for 20th Century Fox. The line does exactly what it was designed to do: advertise the fact the film combines the two genres of horror and science fiction.
A copywriter, often working on a freelance basis, can be called on to generate hundreds of taglines over the course of a film poster’s design/revision process, which can last anywhere from a few months to over a year. You’d be surprised how much work it takes to get to a single line, even when it ends up being a quote taken from the film itself, such as the famous tagline “They’re here.” from the film Poltergeist.
For film trailers, the copywriter is given a few sentences to summarize a film’s plot in conjunction with the appropriate trailer imagery. (The shorthand for trailer copy seems to be: “In a world…” [setup film's plot] “…but now…” [setup film's conflict]. Regardless, the trailer voiceover copy will sound better coming from “the voice of God” Don LaFontaine. Trailers get a better explanation in an “entry” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)
What are some of your favorite movie taglines?
With the recent announcement of another Jaws Special Edition DVD release of the Steven Spielberg classic film, Guido Henkel of DVD Review notes the Jaws DVD cover design “features the crappy new cover art that disgraced the previous release, showing a Mako shark as opposed to a Great White.” This kind of criticism seems a bit unfounded, since the shark as depicted in the poster art has never been a Great White or Mako shark, just an ungodly sized set of teeth bearing little resemblance to any real type of shark whatsoever. The artwork used in the Jaws DVD releases is a reworking of the original Jaws one-sheet art. (The updated DVD art was reportedly done by noted movie poster illustrator John Alvin.)
The original Jaws one-sheet was created by film advertising legend Tony Seiniger. Known as the “New York Yankees” of film advertising, Seiniger Advertising was one of the biggest forces behind movie posters for several decades. And no “Yankees” team would be complete without a George Steinbrenner, in this case company head and namesake Tony Seiniger. The Jaws artwork itself was painted by illustator Roger Kastel, and remains an icon of film related key art. It also launched Seiniger as the premiere ad design house in the film industry for many years. Despite the countless sequels, the original image of “Bruce” the shark about to devour the disproportionately sized nude swimmer remains an effective image.
