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 Hollywood Reporter’s 37th Annual Key Art Awards were presented June 13th during a ceremony hosted by actor-comedian Jeff Garlin. Highlights of the 2008 Key Art Awards included a “Best in Show” award to The Simpsons Movie in the Print category and No Country for Old Men in the newly-created “Best Campaign” category. The “Best Campaign” winner was selected by a panel of experts that included filmmakers David Fincher and Kevin Smith.
The Visionary Award, given to a filmmaker who “inspires movie marketers”, was presented to comedy director Judd Apatow:
“I’d like to thank everyone here who has done such amazing work. I’ve enjoyed my interactions with everybody. It’s one of the most fun parts of the process. This award brings me full circle because I started out thinking you were all f***ing a**holes.”
Looking back at the Key Art Awards of recent years (including this most recent ceremony), it seems clear that The Hollywood Reporter is struggling on how to define the entire enterprise. Award categories are constantly being added, changed, merged, or removed each year, which seems to give the whole process an air of confusion. Awards (such as Judd Apatow’s Visonary Award) are doled out to above-the-line talent in recent years in an effort to make the Key Arts ceremony more appealing. It may be more entertaining to sit through an awards ceremony where Apatow calls them “fucking assholes”, but it does push film advertising personal further into the background during the only occasion they even have a chance to gain any recognition. There even seemed to be a half-hearted attempt this year to tweak the name of the award ceremony itself to The Hollywood Reporter Movie Marketing Key Art Awards (since no one outside of the industry knows what “key art” means), but even that effort was inconsistent. One wonders what categories will be offered next year.
2008 Key Art movie poster winners:
ACTION/ADVENTURE/HORROR POSTER
COMEDY POSTER
DRAMA POSTER
FAMILY POSTER
To see the complete list of 2008 Key Art Award winners visit The Hollywood Reporter.
The Hollywood Reporter has announced the nominees for The 37th Annual Key Art Awards. The 2008 Key Art Awards will honor achievements in movie marketing in different categories including film posters, movie trailers, print ads, DVD packaging, new media and more. Film advertising agency BLT & Associates took the lead among agencies with 18 nominations. Director Judd Apatow will receive the Visionary Award, recognizing a filmmaker who inspires movie marketers. (The main Apatow inspiration seems to be the recent trend of the “Sears Portrait Studio” look in comedy film posters.)
“The goal is to honor the best work that is done in movie marketing, and the quality of the work that is done in this area gets better and better every year and moves into new areas every year,” said Bob Israel, chairman of the Key Art Awards Advisory Board and executive producer of the show.
Changes to the awards this year include Action/Adventure and Horror movie posters being combined into a single category, the elimination of the Teaser poster category, and the expansion of “New Media” categories.
Some of the 2008 Key Art Awards movie poster nominees:
ACTION/ADVENTURE/HORROR POSTERS
28 Weeks Later
The Number 23
Grindhouse
30 Days of Night
Vacancy
COMEDY POSTERS
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Superbad
Juno
Blades of Glory
The Darjeeling Limited
DRAMA POSTERS
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Black Snake Moan
I’m Not There
Zodiac
Premonition
FAMILY POSTERS
Shrek the Third
Ratatouille
Bee Movie
Surf’s Up
Alvin and the Chipmunks
The Hollywood Reporter’s Key Art Awards ceremony will be held on June 13 hosted by actor-comedian Jeff Garlin at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Century City, CA.
Share your favorite picks from the nominees in the comments section. To see the complete list of 2008 Key Art Award nominees visit The Hollywood Reporter.
Famed movie poster illustrator John Alvin has passed away. Here is a statement from his family courtesy of IMPAwards:
We mourn the loss of JOHN ALVIN.
From Blade Runner to E.T to Beauty and the Beast, John Alvin left behind a legacy of art that will forever be followed, appreciated and respected by millions.
John loved “making movie posters” because he, just to put it plainly, loved movies. Thirty-eight years and over 120 film campaigns show that his contribution to Hollywood was very integral in shaping the landscape of motion picture advertising. Along with Peak and Amsel, John is now a part of an elite group. A group that helped create the “Golden Age of Movie Posters.” An era of art that sadly will never be echoed through the halls of an institution but more through halls and cubicles of our industry.
We lost a giant in our field and there will never be one like him ever again. Ever. John leaves behind his wife ANDREA his beloved daughter FARAH and a forever indebted Padawan.
We love you John and will never forget you.
Really sad news. John Alvin was one of the most important movie poster illustrators in the modern age, and having met him personally, was happy to find him to be extremely thoughtful and a giving person. He will be missed.
The Hollywood Reporter’s 36th Annual Key Art Awards were announced at the Beverly Hilton on June 15th. The ceremony, hosted by comedian Rob Corddry, gave out awards covering a wide range of film advertising categories covering audio/video, print, and digital mediums. The ceremony included a few new categories and awards, including “Best of Show” awards chosen by the audience text messaging votes made during the evening. The night also saw the first “Visionary Award” given to director Robert Rodriguez, for being “a filmmaker who inspires movie marketers to create work at an even higher level.”
Another highlight was the RottenTomatoes.com “Tomato Topper Award” given to the film Step Up. The award is given to a film that received negative reviews but generated positive box-office returns, highlighting the role of film marketing translating to a successful movie release.
2007 Key Art movie poster winners:
ACTION-ADVENTURE POSTER
ANIMATION POSTER
COMEDY POSTER
DRAMA POSTER
HORROR POSTER
TEASER POSTER
INTERNATIONAL POSTER
To read the complete list of 2007 Key Art Award winners visit The Hollywood Reporter.
The Hollywood Reporter announced the nominees for The 36th Annual Key Art Awards. This year there are 34 award categories, covering film posters, movie trailers, packaging, outdoor advertising, theatrical standees, print ads, home entertainment and more. New film advertising categories were added for horror, animation and documentary movie posters, along with the (long overdue) web site design category.
“We retooled the awards this year to better reflect what movies are in theaters and where people are watching their advertising,” said Bob Israel, chairman of the Key Art Awards advisory board and executive producer of the show. “And we’re keeping an eye on the growing role of nontraditional media and how it’s being used for marketing.”
For the second year in a row, film studio Lionsgate leads the field among Key Art Awards nominees, which just goes to show you that we are not the only ones who devote too much attention to the studio’s marketing efforts. The most popular film nominees are Little Miss Sunshine, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and Borat, with each scoring seven nominations. (It’s good to see our own choice for the movie poster of the year earned a Key Art Award nomination in the Drama posters category.)
The Hollywood Report’s Key Art Awards ceremony will be held June 15 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, with actor-comedian Rob Corddry as host.
The 2007 Key Art Awards movie poster nominees:
ACTION-ADVENTURE POSTERS
Crank
Superman Returns
Poseidon
Apocalypto
V for Vendetta
ANIMATION POSTERS
A Scanner Darkly
Renaissance
Ice Age: The Meltdown
Monster House
Cars
COMEDY POSTERS
Running With Scissors
Borat
Thank You for Smoking
Nacho Libre
Little Miss Sunshine
DRAMA POSTERS
Clean
Hard Candy
Little Children
Pan’s Labyrinth
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
HORROR POSTERS
Descent
Saw III
The Hills Have Eyes
Pulse
Saw III
TEASER POSTERS
Hostel
Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion
Crank
Borat
V for Vendetta
INTERNATIONAL POSTERS
The Black Dahlia
Borat: Teaser
Borat: Teaser
The Prestige
Paris je t’aime
Have a favorite in the movie poster categories? Share your predictions for the winners in our comments section. To see the complete list of 2007 Key Art Award nominees visit The Hollywood Reporter.
Rap star and actor 50 Cent is revisiting the controversy from a year ago when Paramount Pictures (and Clear Channel) decided to take down billboards for his film Get Rich or Die Tryin’ due to protests. Critics and activists accused the film’s outdoor billboard ad (featuring the back of “Fiddy” holding a microphone and a gun) of promoting gun violence.
Fast forward to the present, and apparently 50 Cent hasn’t forgotten about the gun ad controversy. According to the entertainment news service WENN, the rapper is bothered by the Casino Royale posters for the new Daniel Craig James Bond film:
50 Cent is accusing Hollywood of double standards after seeing the new James Bond holding a gun in posters for Casino Royale - a year after billboards of him sporting a weapon caused a furore.
The rapper — real name Curtis Jackson — is appalled by the fact no one has raised a fuss about Daniel Craig’s gun-toting posters when he was castigated for posing with a weapon in billboards for movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
He says, “Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ comes out and they want to protest because they see a gun in my hand but James Bond comes out or Mr + Mrs Smith will come out with guns and it’s acceptable.
“You can see any kind of gun there is to see on the covers of films. You can go in Blockbuster and see every gun that was ever made.”
The rap star calls for one universal ruling about weapons in movie posters - and he’ll accept whatever the Hollywood film police decide.
He adds, “Let’s not start with 50 Cent and stop with 50 Cent. Let’s do it everywhere else and make it unacceptable period. I would gladly join the rest of entertainment if we get there.”
50 Cent (correctly) points out that there is no standard as far as the depiction of guns on movie posters. The MPAA and studios don’t really have clear guidelines with regards to guns in key art. In fact, what is and isn’t allowed on domestic one-sheets isn’t always clear and tends to change with the times (and political climate).
For example, as we’ve mentioned in the past, studios sometimes avoided showing a character wielding two guns on a U.S. domestic movie poster. This is why Angelina Jolie is holding the trademark “akimbo” dual pistols, but it is implied as only one hand gun is visible on the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie poster. You’ll notice Jolie’s left hand and pistol conveniently fall into a shadow on the one-sheet. Times change, or more accurately, the lack of consistency continues, and everyone from Jada Pinkett Smith to Kate Beckinsale happily wields two pistols.
Another example of “gun control” in posters: Back in the 1970s, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character would happily point his trademark .44 Magnum directly at the viewer on a Dirty Harry movie poster. But in later years, some studios avoided showing a large gun barrel pointed directly at “camera” on a one-sheet. Enter James Bond and the Goldeneye teaser poster, and suddenly it became acceptable again to point a large firearm directly at the viewer. Then everyone from George Clooney to Bruce Willis started giving the proverbial “stick ‘em up”.
Sometimes the rules can change as a movie poster is being produced. In 1999, shortly after the Columbine high school massacre, Sony Pictures was set to release the Jean-Claude Van Damme action film Universal Solider: The Return. Before anyone could even think to complain, the studio suddenly became “gun shy” and quickly revised the Universal Solder: The Return movie poster by removing all the rifles from the small row of soldiers at the bottom of the poster and had it reprinted.
Is 50 Cent right? Is there a double standard with regards to firearms on movie posters?
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.”
Movie poster illustrator John Alvin (think Blade Runner and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial movie posters) will be making an appearance this weekend at his one-man art show at the ArtInsights gallery in Reston Virginia.
While the art gallery will not be highlighting John Alvin’s past movie poster illustrations, the show will feature his recent licensed movie illustrations work, which are part of Alvin’s effort to “re-branded himself as a ‘cinema artist’, creating studio-licensed, actor-approved prints drawn from popular films.” We can appreciate this rebranding, as the market for traditional movie poster illustrators doesn’t really exist anymore, which everyone seems to have an opinion about.
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.
Virgins and illustrators ruled the world of movie poster key art as the winners of the Hollywood Reporter’s 35th annual Key Art Awards were announced in Hollywood on June 16th. Notable winners at this year’s ceremony in the movie poster categories include: The 40-Year-Old Virgin poster (which managed to overcome a premature hyphenation problem) as Best Comedy Poster and the Shepard Fairey illustrated Walk the Line poster as Best Teaser Poster. Illustration also drew in another win for the Lord of War poster as Best Action Adventure Poster.
Here are the 2006 Key Art movie poster winners:
COMEDY POSTER
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
ACTION ADVENTURE POSTER
Lord of War
INTERNATIONAL FILM POSTER
Batman Begins
To see the complete list of 2006 Key Art Award winners visit The Hollywood Reporter.
Fantasy artist Tim Hildebrandt, half of the legendary “Brothers Hildebrandt” illustration team, died on June 11th from complications due to diabetes. “Tim was an otherworldly artist. For 47 years, his captivating work fostered the dreams and fantasies of millions of fans, young and old.”
The Hildebrandt brothers (Tim and his twin brother Greg) have had a long and diverse career in commercial illustration, with subjects ranging from hobbits to pin-ups (NSFW). In the world of movie poster illustration, the brothers creations include the Clash of the Titans movie poster and Barbarella movie poster. Tim also designed The Secret of NIMH movie poster. But most will know the brothers from their contributions to the Star Wars universe, most notably an early Star Wars movie poster that would be a piece of iconic promotional artwork and served as one of the prototypes for much of the Star Wars art to follow.
What’s interesting about the Hilderbrant Star Wars movie poster is that it wasn’t used as a one-sheet for the initial Star Wars theatrical release in U.S. theaters — yet it is, for many, the first piece of artwork they remember for the film. Created as last minute alternate poster artwork, the Hildebrandt Star Wars poster art was an interpretation of a Star Wars movie poster design already created by artist Tom Jung. According to the Star Wars Poster Book, Lucasfilm felt the Jung artwork was “too dark”, and wanted another version:
“They hired twins Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, who were well-known fantasy artists at the time, to paint their own take on the Jung design. ‘The reason they called us is because Tim and I had just done the Lord of the Rings calendar, and we had a fan following.’ says Greg Hildebrandt. ‘We had come through literally overnight for them on a poster for Young Frankenstein. It wasn’t used, but we did it overnight, so they called us and said we need a poster fast.’”
Given the direction to make the image look “comic bookish”, the Hildebrandt movie poster (completed in just thirty-six hours) featured very stylized illustrations of actors Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, as the brothers did not have photo reference for the characters of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. In the end, 20th Century Fox opted to use the earlier “dark” poster art by Tom Jung instead of the Hildebrandt art for the Star Wars theatrical poster — the Star Wars “Style A” movie poster — which had a more accurate likeness of the two main characters. The Hildebrandt artwork did appear on many early Star Wars promo items, a consumer retail poster, and eventually as a U.S. theatrical poster for the Star Wars 15th Anniversary re-release.
The Hollywood Reporter recently announced the nominees for The 35th Annual Key Art Awards. The nominees are in 29 categories covering movie posters, film trailers, online advertising, TV spots, outdoor advertising, theatrical standees, print ads, home entertainment and more. In case everyone is not familiar with the term key art (and why it is the name of an awards ceremony for film advertising), The Hollywood Reporter defines the term as “the singular, iconographic image that is the foundation upon which a movie’s marketing campaign is built.”
One-sheet movie poster highlights include nominations for the Saw II one-sheet (our pick for the 2005 Posterwire.com Movie Poster of the Year), Lord of War, and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. All three of these movie posters were created by the design studio Art Machine, which led this year’s Key Art Awards with the most nominations for an advertising agency.
The winners will be announced June 16 at the Key Art Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian Kevin Nealon at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
Here are the 2006 Key Art movie poster nominees:
The Washington Post reports that The Road to Guantanamo movie poster (for the new documentary film about the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison) has been rejected by the MPAA:
The image that ran afoul of the MPAA is tame by the standards set by the amateur photographers of Abu Ghraib. It shows a man hanging by his handcuffed wrists, with a burlap sack over his head and a blindfold tied around the hood. It appeared in advertisements for the new film “The Road to Guantanamo,” a documentary with some reenacted scenes, that follows the fate of three British men imprisoned at Guantanamo for more than two years before being released with no charges ever filed against them.
What’s with all the banned film advertising lately? As we have mentioned before, the MPAA approves all print advertising material related to any film that carries an MPAA issued rating. Like most forms of regulation and censorship, the guidelines the MPAA follows are not always clear, but big no-nos for one-sheets include “depictions of violence, blood, people in jeopardy, drugs, nudity, profanity, people in frightening situations, disturbing or frightening scenes.” We’re pretty sure that the actual Gitmo doesn’t follow those same guidelines, however.
