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.
We came very close to declaring there was no “best” Movie Poster of the Year for 2007. Our annual pick for the best one-sheet for the year was coming up blank — there seem to be few choices for great movie posters. Looking at key art led to the same conclusion as looking at the movies themselves from the past 12 months: 2007 was not a great year for movies.
This past year, many marveled at the blockbuster eve candy of those sweaty 300 Spartans. Michael Bay’s Transformers was labeled a success mostly because the film was not as bad as many expected it to be. Many people searched eBay for a Spider-Man 3 lenticular 3D poster, which was as hard to find as a good review for the movie itself. Animation continued to be a dominant box office staple — three of the top ten grossing films of the year were Shrek the Third, Ratatouille, and The Simpsons Movie.
Vintage advertising showed its influence with the dime-store pulp of the Black Snake Moan poster. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez wanted you to know how much they love the 1970s exploitation double-bills with the Grindhouse poster campaign. Were they trying to recreate the haphazard aspect of 70s B-movie advertising by creating a Planet Terror poster with Cherry Darling’s gun replacing the wrong leg?
Speaking of vintage, we liked the smokey distressed look of the 3:10 to Yuma movie poster, but is the sweeping (and blurry) duster jacket pose too Bob Fosse?
And speaking of blurry, some singled out the Michael Clayton movie poster as a good movie poster, but the blurred image of George Clooney with large typography seemed to fall into what some film ad creative directors call “book cover” design.
Artist Drew Struzan got to finish his own rejected poster design illustration from 25 years ago for the 2007 (limited theatrical, followed by DVD) release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut. The new Blade Runner DVD release features interviews with Blade Runner poster illustrators John Alvin along with Drew Struzan — a rare opportunity to see and hear film poster illustrators speak about their work. Alvin has some interesting comments about one-sheet design in the DVD’s Promoting Dystopia: Rendering the Poster Art documentary interview.
Topping many film critics best-of lists, Juno was labeled as “this year’s Little Miss Sunshine”. The Juno movie poster took that label literally by following the Little Miss Sunshine one-sheet example of “branding” itself via a strong color element (orange stripes in this case).
Was there a trend for 2007 movie posters? Our vote would be what we will call Big Sky Country, especially when looking at indie film posters. Lots and lots of big fields and big skies. All those vistas are not really a new trend, but there seemed to be fewer big heads floating in those skies lately.
Which brings us to our pick for the top movie poster of the year — The Savages movie poster illustrated by comic book artist Chris Ware. The movie tells the story of the dysfunctional relationship of a brother (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and sister (Laura Linney) dealing with their elderly father. What is interesting about the poster is all the things generally considered no-nos used in the one-sheet that don’t seem to take away from Ware’s illustration. Blue type against a blue background? Check. Overused Bank Gothic typeface set too small for copylines? Check. Rounded corners à la web design conventions influencing print design? Check. Reminiscent of another comic book artist illustrated movie poster featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman — the Happiness movie poster by artist Daniel Clowes? Check. Overbearing title treatment? Check. Inconsistent type justification (using centered, left, and right justified text)? Check. And failing to pass the gold standard test in film advertising ad critique smack-downs: Would your mother understand it? Check.
What we do like about the Chris Ware movie poster illustration for The Savages is that it is different than most key art campaigns (mainstream, indie, or otherwise) — it evokes a real feeling and direction about the characters. The trademark Chris Ware style of detached “coldness” is (literally) on display in The Savages one-sheet. Ware was an interesting choice to illustrate The Savages movie poster, since a common observation about his work is that his cartooning isn’t as strong as his writing, or at the very least, his artwork is overrated. It would be easy to criticize this top movie poster choice as yet another fan-boy sucking at the Chris Ware teet, but anything involving an alternative “comix” inspired illustration in a film advertising movie poster campaign deserves support.
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
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.
It’s the end of the year and that can only mean one thing: We give out another award to Lionsgate marketing and Art Machine film ad agency just like we did last year. This year-end poster recognition is also known as the 2nd Annual Posterwire.com Movie Poster of the Year Award.
There were a few notable pieces of film poster key art from 2006. The “cut-out” teaser campaign for the movie Brick was interesting. A star sell here and there. The continued glut of animated films (and their posters). The “What can we get away with?” gore of modern horror posters. There were plenty of movie poster controversies, both real and fake.
An obvious choice for movie poster of the year might be the series of one-sheets for the film V for Vendetta. We love that each poster embraced a slightly different style and variation of vintage “propaganda” poster art, but a slight criticism might be the ad campaign felt a bit unfocused and like an exercise that only graphic designers and “fan-boys” would really appreciate.
Our choice for the best one-sheet of 2006 is the Hard Candy movie poster.
Technically we are a year off — the film Hard Candy (now available on DVD) first premiered in January 2005 at the Sundance Film Festival, but it wasn’t released domestically until April 2006.
Created by Art Machine for film distributor Lionsgate, the Hard Candy one-sheet features an image of a young girl (with an obvious “Little Red Riding Hood” look) as “bait” in a very large and lethal looking bear-trap.
One reason we admire this piece of key art is that it met the challenge of selling the film’s difficult subject matter visually: How do you design a piece of key art to market a film about an apparent “sexual predator” and an “innocent” underage girl and the twists and turns of their encounter? That logline doesn’t exactly beg for a “Big Heads Floating in the Sky” star-sell movie poster. (Although the other Hard Candy movie poster might fit that bill.) This leads to why many feel that smaller independent films can have a distinct advantage when creating a marketing campaign: without the benefit (or burden?) of big stars and big budgets, these types of films have an opportunity of being more creative in their advertising out of sheer necessity. That’s not to say all smaller films automatically have superior movie poster designs or better marketing — any film ad campaign can buckle under the three Rs of the movie marketing design process: “Review. Revise. Reject.” And larger films do use a bit of conceptual imagery on occasion, especially in the realm of teaser posters.
We may look like a “flog” heaping so much praise on Art Machine and Lionsgate, but they have produced several great one-sheet designs in recent years and picked up a few awards along the way. (They have had their share of misfires as well.)
The STARZ television network is running highlights from The Hollywood Reporter 2006 Key Art Awards ceremony this month. Hosted by comedian Kevin Nealon, the 2006 Key Art Awards honor the best in film marketing, most notably film posters and movie trailers. This is a rare opportunity to see portions of the annual film marketing awards ceremony, as this is the first year the Key Art Awards have appeared on television. The special features highlights and interviews with the creators of this year’s award winning movie posters and film trailers. Check the STARZ movie channel schedule to tune into the film advertising awards special.
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.
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:
Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences releases an official Academy Awards poster to promote and commemorate the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony — the Oscars. In past years, the job of designing the “Oscar poster” has included an interesting spectrum of designers — from comic book illustrator Alex Ross to legendary graphic designer Saul Bass (and maybe a lesser known designer or two).
For the first time, the 78th Annual Academy Awards poster will come as a pair of designs based on vintage photographs. Entitled “Black Tuxedo” and “White Gloves”, the two official posters were designed by Joan Maloney of the San Diego design firm Studio 318. Each shows a cropped archival photograph of an actor holding the gold Oscar “moments after receiving the award”.
“We loved Joan’s idea of cropping the archival photographs down to just the torsos of the two performers, with their hands cradling their statuettes,” said Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis. “It transformed them from pictures of particular individuals at specific historic moments to images that convey the experience of capturing a dream.”
For some reason, the Academy has chosen not to say which two actors are seen in the “headless” photographs. (In case you were wondering, the poster images are of Cary Grant clenching his 1969 honorary Oscar and Julie Andrews with her 1964 “Mary Poppins” best-actress Oscar. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone.)
Speaking of Cary Grant and secrets, is it just us or does the male “Black Tuxedo” poster look just a bit phallic? Maybe we are seeing things with so much talk about Brokeback Mountain and the Oscars lately.
