CM: Late Night 'Shopping

Those people who know me as more than the editor of Impact will note that I have a parallel career in design. So when a film starts to promote itself on the billboards of the local multiplex, I often take an interest in the marketing as much as the actual product. Many a film has been sunk not by the acting or script but through bad choices in the way it’s sold to the public. Posters are a hugely important tool in telling the potential audience what your film is about and setting a tone that will pull them through the doors. Not every film can have a truly iconic image for the ages, but all of them need to attract your attention in a competitive market-place.

But, with my design-hat tilted stylishly across my brow, it’s somewhat inevitable that from time to time I’ll look at a cinema poster and quietly mutter “I could do better than that…” Sometimes it’s an idle boast, merely because I don’t like the creative choices that have been made, but more and more I’m starting to mean it. I couldn't just do a decent job... I’ve literally been paid to do it better and done so successfully. 

A well-trod and tired formula is one thing. We’ve grown accustomed to the faces of Schwarzenegger, Cruise, Cage and a dozen rent-a-DVD names gazing out of the poster with stereotypical and generic furrowed brow and some type of weapon in hand.  We’re now more than familiar with the posed shot of the film’s big name being SO big that the poster will stand them with their back to ‘camera’ and them glancing over their shoulder  in a meaningful way. It’s hard to knock the work of people like the legendary Drew Struzan, the artist behind the amazing painted Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings imagery… but his ensemble illustrations have been copied and copied by inferior artists to the extent they are almost interchangeable.

No, the point is that over the last year alone the actual quality of some of the poster images for major motion pictures has been shockingly bad on a technical as well as becalmed on a creative one...

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