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.
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).
Actress Keira Knightley, in a recent interview, reminded everyone how her breasts were “digitally enhanced” back in 2004 for the King Arthur movie poster:
“I remember we had an interesting discussion when they said, ‘We want to make them slightly larger and you’ll get approval’ and I was like, ‘OK, fine.’ I honestly don’t give a shit.
But then they showed me the first copy and these things must have been double-Es — and they were down to my knees.
And I was like, ‘I don’t mind you making them bigger, but don’t give me droopy breasts. They look like your grandmother’s tits.’”
Keira seems to be trying to make a point about Hollywood’s attitude about actresses and how they are marketed (News Flash: Americans like large breasts), but she goes on to admit she does have final approval over how she is portrayed in key art. In the same interview she says about appearing on magazine covers:
“I did one magazine and found out you’re not actually allowed to be on a cover in the US without at least a C cup because it turns people off.”
While that sounds more like something she heard from an intern at a magazine cover photo shoot rather than an industry wide rule, it remains to be seen how each and every magazine art director chooses to depict Knightley on a magazine cover. What is true is that images of actors (all actors) are retouched in one way or another when appearing in film print advertising. Most of the time this goes unnoticed, sometimes not.
Looking at the special shoot image of Keira Knightley used for the King Arthur one-sheet, it’s not surprising the art directors and film execs involved decided to rework her figure, as her chest appears to be flattened by a tight leather strap costume. Did the studio go too far? Hard to say. Perhaps next time they’ll be able to highlight Keira Knightley’s abs instead, which don’t seem to need any enhancing.
The weblog Ironic Sans points out that movie posters for the new Ivan Reitman comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend are using the same Uma Thurman head strip on two different bodies.
“Someone grafted the exact same head onto this poster, too. If they weren’t going to do a good job, couldn’t they at least make it less obvious that it’s the exact same head?”
It’s interesting the Ironic Sans site chooses to focus on the “cloned Umas” while giving the less than ideal Luke Wilson’s body double on the My Super Ex-Girlfriend poster no mention. It is all another example of how difficult a movie poster body double / actor Frankenstein creation can be to pull off.
Using the same head on different bodies isn’t uncommon (and sometimes a necessary evil). A possible explanation in this case might be that the head shot in question was the only “approved image” of Uma Thurman available for use at that time. Or perhaps a deadline forced the second poster artwork to use the same head shot. Or… we could speculate endlessly.
Most well-known movie stars have approval (either contractually or as a professional courtesy) over ALL photography of themselves available to a film’s marketing campaign. For example, when images from a film (in unit shots, special shoots, etc.) become available, the images are first given to the actor for approval. Contact sheets (also known as proof sheets) of all the photography are sent to the actor, which are then sent back with a lot of red Xs — known as “kills” — marked through photos that the star (or more likely, their manager) don’t want used. This can be frustrating for designers working on the project if some/most/all of the best shots are “killed”. This power to “kill” can be taken a step further when a star (or producer, director, etc.) has approval over the movie poster design of the final one-sheet. This is why one of the first questions asked by many art directors on many key art projects is: “Who has approval over this movie poster?”
The Hollywood gossip blog Defamer.com points out that the new Just My Luck movie poster showcases Lindsay Lohan winking at the camera, which signals the message that Lohan will be showing you a fantastically good time in said movie. In fact, Lohan seems to be sending out this signal with a wink of her eye quite a bit. It remains to be seen as to whether Lindsay can trademark “The Wink” as a movie poster marketing look (see the Herbie: Fully Loaded poster and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen poster). What’s interesting about the Just My Luck poster is that she has a paparazzi photographer to thank for her one-sheet movie poster image:
Lindsay Lohan may have had problems with the paparazzi, but that doesn’t mean she won’t use their help in promoting her new movie. I’m told that the photo of the 19-year-old starlet on the poster for ‘Just My Luck’ is actually a paparazzi shot from more than a year ago. Lohan sat for an official photo shoot for the poster — she even wore a red wig for it because she had gone blonde by then — but a source tells me the images were rejected because “they were too high style.” The studio asked for another shoot, but someone suggested a paparazzi shot of a winking Lohan. Not only did everyone apparently agree that the pic captured the movie best, but it even inspired the film’s tag line: “Everything changed in the wink of an eye.”
The paparazzi photo of Lindsay Lohan used in the Just My Luck movie poster was taken over a year ago on Madison Avenue by New York Post photographer Larry Schwartzwald. As always, he wasn’t the only celebrity photographer there to capture Lohan out shopping. Since paparazzi photos (and most any other type of news photographs or “photocalls”) are available for sale and licensing by publications and other outlets, it’s not unheard for a film studio to use this type of third party photography of actors. Although, this type of candid photography tends to be an image source of last resort.
First a disclaimer or two. We are very biased when it comes to the subject of Bettie Page. (Also, some links and images in this post are NSFW.) Who is Bettie Page, you may ask?
Bettie Page is the most photographed model of all-time.
How is this “original supermodel” claim possible? It is a bit dubious, but the statement is derived from the prolific career of Bettie Page as the premiere pin-up model (and Playboy Playmate) in the 1950s. (It also helps to understand a bit about the history of mail-order pin-up photographs, “camera clubs”, and men’s magazines from that time period.) “All-time” claims aside, the impact of Bettie Page is too broad a topic to discuss in a weblog about movie posters, but needless to say: even if you have never heard of her before, you are probably aware of her influence on beauty, fashion, modeling, sex, and pop culture — even if you didn’t realize it.
Her life story is finally coming to the big screen via the dark haired bangs of actress Gretchen Mol in the movie The Notorious Bettie Page. The film covers the modeling career of Bettie Page, including the controversies surrounding her sometimes risque fetish photographs.
In The Notorious Bettie Page movie poster, we see Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page, leaning against the oversized typography of the film title treatment against a bright yellow-orange background. At least, it used to be an image of Gretchen Mol. When we compare the poster to the original photograph of the actress, we can see this Bettie Page has had quite a bit of retouching. While the real Bettie Page never needed any retouching (nor does Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page for that matter), a fact of modern life is everyone (and we mean everyone) in advertising is retouched in one way or another. You can bet that unless the image is an editorial/news photograph, it has been altered in some way. (Sadly, sometimes news organizations do alter photographs.) In this case, the poster image of actress Mol as Page has literally been painted into existence. This happens quite often in film poster one-sheets. When working with varying levels of quality of source material — a dark and blurry unit photograph for example — the retoucher, working on the final “finishing” stage of the key art, can be called upon to create all kinds of things in Adobe Photoshop. Looking at the original Gretchen Mol photograph, we can speculate that the photo was a bit out of focus and grainy, requiring extensive “painting” in the final stages… Or maybe the account executive in charge of that campaign was simply over zealous in having the composition retouched. Or perhaps a mixture of both?
The majority of movie poster artwork is created using elements from two sources: unit photography and special shoots. (And the third source would be various incarnations of stock photography, often combined with the first two sources.) We’ve covered the topic of special shoots before — photography shot especially for advertising and promotional campaigns.
Sometimes key art photo shoots can involve complete sets and props, often re-using the film’s actual sets for the special shoot. In some cases, the studio advertising department goes to the expense and trouble of creating sets exclusively for a film poster photo shoot. For the Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction movie poster, the sequel’s star Sharon Stone is depicted in a (somewhat visually “busy”) scene sitting on a bedroom chair, surrounded by various elements of danger and mayhem: cracked mirrors, a mysterious hand, her signature crossed legs, etc. Looking at some of the Basic Instinct 2 photography, we’re going to assume this was taken on the film set. What’s interesting is we can see the original photograph that became the basis of the Basic Instinct 2 one-sheet, and how that original image was changed to reach the final key art. (The French teaser poster offers a stripped down version of the same photograph as it’s poster image.)
This is essentially how some movie poster concepts begin — the entire design process might be set in motion by a film advertising art director being handed a CD full of special shoot and unit photography image files and asked to begin design work using those raw images. Ideally, the movie poster design process begins with a proper conceptual stage, starting with sketch concepts and research — but that isn’t always the case. One scenario that prevents a singular concept/design/execution process involves one ad agency beginning work on the ad campaign, only to lose the job months later to a different ad agency that starts work much later in the film campaign design process.
The New York Times has an interesting article about one of the teaser posters for the new horror film Hostel using a daguerreotype. (You might be asking, what the hell is a daguerreotype?)
A daguerreotype is a photograph created through an “early photographic process with the image made on a light-sensitive silver-coated metallic plate.” (This early photographic process was common in the 1800s.)
For the Hostel teaser poster, Lionsgate executive VP of marketing Tim Palen was looking for a different type of image to market the gory film:
Palen figured that a poster with mangled bodies wouldn’t do the trick. So he dropped by the airy, tastefully decorated Manhattan studio of the Australian photographer Mark Kessell… But it was Kessell’s “Florilegium” (or “collection of floral images”) daguerreotypes that caught Palen’s eye. Each image is a close-up of a surgical instrument, so poetically rendered that it seems almost organic. Some of the macabre implements resemble exotic flowers.
“We were sort of blocked, and all the pieces fell into place once I saw that image,” Palen said. A deal was made to use that daguerreotype, which actually shows a surgical clamp. It now appears in theaters and on widespread promotions.
The rest of the NY Times article follows the vein that fine art may be the answer to the Big Heads Floating in the Sky movie poster cliche. Considering that most smaller films don’t follow that star-sell formula (horror movies usually don’t have stars to market with “big heads” in the first place), the idea of using a conceptual image or piece of “fine art” in a movie poster isn’t really a revelation. (Thanks to Jay for the original link.)
Steve Carell is The 40-Year-Old Virgin. As the title suggests… Well, the title pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the film’s plot. More importantly, let’s discuss the funny portrait photograph used in the The 40-Year-Old Virgin movie poster.
Reader Martin S. writes:
Maybe you can explain why the poster linked above feels so different from other posters, it’s like so vacant, with a sort of Devo-ish image. I don’t know, I think it’s incredibly attention-getting.
The look and effectiveness of The 40-Year-Old Virgin poster can be summed up in one simple phrase:
Perhaps you remember it from your childhood. Maybe it was offered at your local mall. Regardless of when/where/how, the trappings of the cheesey family portrait remain the same: the innocuous muslin backgrounds, posing on the little round swivel chair, the photo subject looking away to the left (or right) of camera, and of course, the forced smile. As with all things schmultzy, it’s only a matter of time until the “Sears Portrait Studio” look is re-appropriated.
The “ironic” family portrait photograph became popular among rock and alternative bands, a famous example being when the Red Hot Chili Peppers visited their local portrait studio for band photos. But the trend wasn’t limited to music: the creators of South Park (Matt Stone and Trey Parker) have also made a portrait studio visit.
For The 40-Year-Old Virgin poster, posing the subject via “Stepford”-ized portrait photography, the goofy expression, not to mention the photo’s slightly skewed bright color palette, gives actor Steve Carell just enough punch to make this a really memorable image — which is saying a lot for a movie poster that relies on a simple image of the film’s star. (The “Better Late Than Never.” tagline helps too.)
Movie posters are often designed using photography shot especially for the film’s one-sheet campaign and other film advertising key art. These photo shoot set-ups are known as special shoots. The shoots usually involve photographing the actor(s) to be featured from the film in various poses and situations conceived by film ad agencies working on the ad campaign. Sometimes special shoots are acquired by the unit photographer working with actors on the set during a film’s production. But more often than not the special shoots are executed by a photographer shooting the actors against neutral backgrounds during a film’s post production.
For example, while Uma Thurman was trying to KILL BILL, she offered two films worth of character poses when being photographed for the film’s key art campaign. While most of her looks came straight from the film, there were a few concepts that never actually appeared in the Tarantino series. (We don’t remember the scene where Thurman’s character “The Bride” wields her Hanzo sword while wearing her wedding dress, but it still looks good for a photo shoot.)
