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.
There’s an old adage among film advertising art directors when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy writer.”
There’s also an old adage among film advertising copywriters when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy editor.”
(I guess this “At least I’m not…” downhill progression continues until it ends somewhere around working at the front gate on the studio lot.)
The weblogs Defamer and The Velvet Blog have picked up on the frustration of virgins everywhere when a keen-eyed observer noted the missing hyphen in the title on The 40-Year-Old Virgin one-sheet, only to see it return on the DVD key art. (That missing hyphen would translate to 40 One-Year-Old Virgins versus a single 40-Year-Old-Virgin.)
We’re guessing execs at the studio didn’t really care about the proper punctuation, and simply went with the all-governing mantra of what “looked better” (to them). We’ve never heard of any film ad exec ever breaking open to read an ad placement company’s “style guide” — unless it’s spelled out in a “contractual”, anything is possible when it comes to copy on a poster.
Sniping aside, this type of punctuation pain isn’t exclusive to copywriters and proofreaders — many a graphic designer has cringed at all those “foot marks” (') taking the place of a proper “apostrophe” (’) in titles/logos/copylines/etc.
In addition to releasing the teaser trailer for the fourth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Warner Bros. has also released the teaser poster for the new Potter film… twice.
The Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire teaser poster features a smoke laden silhouette of Harry, wearing his “Triwizard Tournament” cloak with the appropriate Potter 4 back lettering. But it seems several fans on various Harry Potter web sites noticed the copyline at the top of the teaser poster was missing a comma: Difficult times lie ahead Harry.
Faster than a marketing exec can say “Damn you obsessive grammatically correct muggles!”, the studio published a new revised version of the advance one-sheet on the film’s official website, with a comma magically added: Difficult times lie ahead, Harry.
Which just goes to show you that even Warner Bros. domestic marketing is out there reading comments on the fan sites, forums and weblogs.
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?
