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.
Sony Pictures has released a three dimensional teaser movie poster for Spider-Man 3. The Spider-Man 3 lenticular movie poster features the chest torso of Peter Parker’s red Spider-man suit that morphs into the black and white “symbiote” costume (which will presumably end up as the basis for the villian Venom). The Spiderman lenticular poster 3D effect happens when the viewer changes angles when looking at the poster.
A 3D lenticular movie poster image is created by a convex prism lens over the surface of the printed poster, which shows different parts of an image depending on the perspective of the viewer. The process has been around since the 1900s, but has become more popular in recent years as a collectible item. Past movie poster lenticulars include Species 2, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
While lenticular movie posters tend to be popular with collectors and fans, film studios do not create lenticulars very often. This is due to several reasons: they are more expensive to produce, they require (for best results) being backlit in a movie theater lightbox frame, and most importantly, smaller poster details (such as text) are difficult to read.
Written by Rudy Franchi and Barbara Franchi of The Nostalgia Factory, the book Miller’s Movie Collectibles is a guide to collecting movie memorabilia, with an emphasis on vintage film poster one-sheets. The book is nicely illustrated (over 300 full-color photographs) and categorized, offering information on movie poster sizing, collecting terminology, specific illustrators working in the field, genre films including the Star Wars saga, and other background on movie poster collecting.
A passage from the Miller’s Movie Collectibles guide:
“This book outlines some of the major areas of movie memorabilia, highlighting trends and warning of any potential land mines buried deep in the field of cinema collectibles. With over 65 year’s combined experience dealing with the topics discussed, the authors would advise collectors to regard acquiring this material as a hobby, and to temper their passion with common sense and caution.”
If you’re interested in the collecting side of movie posters, this book would be a great place to start.
A one-sheet refers to the standard U.S. sized 27″x41″ movie poster, usually printed on paper stock. Modern posters are rolled, while most older (pre-1985) film posters were folded. Modern one-sheets can also be printed on both sides, called double-sided, which improves the poster’s appearance in theatre lobby back-lighted poster frames. Speaking of sizes, what is misleading is the one-sheet size isn’t necessarily consistent or standard, and can vary by several inchs. This is especially true of some borderless full-bleed posters, which may be 26″x40″ or smaller. The sizing can also change between film studios, with each film company in-house ad production group following it’s own sizing and printing standards.
