Avengers Assemble - TueVie Day

The Avengers movie poster successfully advertised one of the biggest blockbusters of 2012 with the help of previous Marvel franchise movies that had short teaser clips after their credits - all of which were leading to Avengers Assemble.

Today we're going to analyse some of the design choices made within this movie poster to better understand the relevance of it to the movie content.

Critique

Character Fame

Each superhero in this poster had feature movies created for their character's storyline, except Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and all of the original cast from these previous films were kept with the exception of The Hulk who was played by Mark Ruffalo (played in two previous Hulk movies by Eric Bana and Edward Norton).

The popularity of each feature movie character most-likely lead to their apparent visual rank in the poster: Iron Man stealing the most focus (as the most famous character in the franchise) leading all the way back to a more discreet Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who has been cleverly positioned in the centre of the poster - this is an illustrative representation of his relevance to the other characters as the one that brings the superheroes together.

The Scene

The scene presented is almost lifted straight out of the movie content, featuring a beam of light above Stark towers (a focal point in the plot) and the destruction of a city - an expected setting for almost all Marvel movies.

Interestingly the good guys are all featured within this illustration but the enemy is not - a deliberate choice to add mystery to the enemy’s identity or to avoid confusion the potential confusion that the enemy is a part of The Avengers?

Appearance

The poster does look a bit unimaginative by just placing all of the superheroes standing together, almost as if they were photoshopped straight out their feature movie scenes and placed together. 

On the other hand, what the poster lacks in imagination it makes up for in quality of appearance as the filters applied give it a hand-painted look - a homage to the paper format this story originally came from?

In all honesty you wouldn't expect as good of a poster as this is to have been produced for such a big name franchise anyway as you'd presume that the Marvel company would've generated enough hype through trailers, entertainment media, and their fan base that a poster wouldn't have provided anything more other than a pin up for die hard Avengers fans.

Summary

If you have seen the Avengers then you will agree that the poster gives good insight into the storyline minus an appearance of the archenemy, which adds mystery as to who it is unless you follow the films and their end of trailer clips.

Overall I admire the artist's attempt at re-creating the hand-painted medium that historic poster artists previously used but in a digital format, giving the poster more association with the illustrated comic books.

The film itself is very entertaining and worth watching if you are a fan of big action scenes and previous Marvel movies. Just for your entertainment, here's the official Avengers trailer:

The Matrix Movie Poster - TuVie Day

Today we’re taking a look at the promotional poster for a movie that transformed many people’s perceptions of reality and left many questioning the validity of our existence. Starring Keanu Reeves & Laurence Fishburne, The Matrix is going under the microscope in today’s TuVie Day!

The Matrix is one of the must see films that made an impact in the 90s when it was first released because of the way it took what you’d perceived as real life and made it appear like a piece of software in a complex computer program (The Matrix) - a virtual reality.


One of the reasons for The Matrix’s massive impact at this time was the boom of computer usage in households in addition to the fact that there had been no movie made like this before its birth. It was therefore inevitable that forum user handles began appearing over the internet as Morpheus, Neo and Trinity - the lead characters from the film, after its launch.

The Storyline

Without giving too much away, the basic storyline involves a hacker named Thomas A. Anderson (Reeves) who moonlights as a hacker whose alias is displayed as Neo. His online quest for “The Matrix” leads him to connect with Morpheus (Fishburne) who is initially described as a terrorist in the virtual reality, however, he is later discovered as the leader of a mercenary group who have been searching for Neo outside of this virtual reality.

To explain The Matrix Morpheus compares it to Alice In Wonderland and gives Neo the choice to remain in this virtual reality by taking a blue pill or find out what The Matrix is by taking a red one (chasing the rabbit down the hole to Wonderland).

Actual reality is a much poorer world in appearance where hard graft is needed to survive against technology that the humans had initially created. In this world where technology is self-maintaining it still needs human life as a source of power, which leads to humans being manufactured by the machines - a complete reverse to our current situation where we manufacture machines for use.

As I said I don’t want to give away too much about this film and its a hard one to explain, however, all I will say is that the story continues to show Neo as “the chosen one” who has been woken from the virtual reality in order to help save the human race from the machines that rule that world.

The Matrix Movie Poster Critique

The Matrix movie poster designed by Concept Arts

In overall appearance The Matrix movie poster is very striking with the lead character or Neo given primary focus alongside his leather wrapped colleagues. Almost none of the plot is given away in this poster, however, themes within the film are presented e.g. the falling lines or text that look similar to binary code are placed on the background to the characters. In the film we realise that this virtual reality is made from this code, therefore, the designer’s choice to place it on the walls (an element of this virtual world) is a subtle hint at what The Matrix is.

The fragmented logo of the movie has a similar appearance to an image that is loading on an old PC line by line but also looks like it is struggling, which subtly displays the technology theme. Additionally, the clear evidence of guns gives away the fact that this is an action movie, confirmed by the subtitle containing the word “fight”.

The photoshop cutouts of the characters is somewhat laughable when you consider the budget that would’ve been spent on the film’s content. You’d think that a slightly more exciting and imaginative representation of The Matrix could have been created rather than just having the characters standing around with guns, however, action film posters of the late 90s followed a very similar format so you can’t entirely knock it.

Summary

To summarise I’d have to say that not only is the movie well made but the poster is well structured for its time. I’d like to see a more imaginative representation of this poster created by an artistic fan as I feel with the current technology available to graphic designers there is something more impressive to be made that will give this film justice.

This week The Matrix gets an 8 out of 10, mainly because the poster’s design isn’t as imaginative as I feel it could be to present the great themes within the story.

If you haven’t seen The Matrix before, here’s the movie trailer for your enjoyment:

Sexy Beast Movie Poster

As a fan of British gangster movies I got to see a great one created by the Film on 4 company, which was a perfect combination of edginess and comedy like the kind you’d find in Snatch. The movie I am referring to is Sexy Beast, which is brought to life with the terrific performances of Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley (otherwise known for roles such as Ghandi and soon to be in Iron Man 3).

The Storyline

The storyline of this movie is a classic heist plot where Don Logan (Kingsley) is sent by the mob to convince an old-time gang member, Gal (Winstone), out of retirement for a job that he is reluctant to take part in. The comedy comes from various angles but none more memorable than Don’s methods of persuasion that only make you laugh but also strike moments of fear from his unpredictability.

Without giving too much of the story away I’d have to recommend this classic film to lovers of this genre but if you take great offence to the C word you might need to re-consider it – you have been warned.

Sexy Beast movie poster created by Empire Design

Movie Poster Critique

The movie poster for Sexy Beast is totally reflective of the opening scene where Gal is living the high life. The image of Winstone lounging back on a floating armchair inside of a cocktail glass is one that contradicts the film title itself and additionally after watching the film I’ve noticed the subtle connection of the red fluid at the bottom of the cocktail glass and the by-line “it’s hard to say no”. Its down to you to watch it to notice the giveaways in the poster too.

I’m torn between deciding whether or not the cocktail glass image is artist’s representation of the film or pieced together from images in Photoshop. Whichever it is, I’m drawn to the smooth appearance of the whole image like film posters from the 80s.

Summary

Overall the poster for Sexy Beast is a great piece of work that perfectly reflects the themes inside of the film without giving too much of the storyline away. I wish more movie posters were this clever these days rather than just taking a scene from the film with no subtleties like those I’ve explained. I know it goes against my stance on posters that don’t give away the film clearly enough but this one is composed with such finesse that I would have to admit more like this could sway my overarching opinion on the matter.

The movie gets a 10/10 from me. It ticked all the right boxes that a British gangster film should and the poster is impressive in its portrayal of the film. If you haven’t seen Sexy Beast before, here’s a trailer:

The Boxer Movie Poster

It’s been while since we’ve had a Tuesday movie poster review (TuVie Day) so let’s kickstart the habit with a film I recently caught on Sky Movies called The Fighter. Staring Mark Wahlberg (famously known for performances in flicks such as Ted), Amy Adams, and the best Batman in history Christian Bale; this film is one for you aspiring boxers out there who love to see inspiring true life stories reach the big lights of Hollywood.

Image courtesy of BLT Communications, LLC

The Storyline

The film follows the story of Micky Ward – a junior welterweight professional boxer, and the journey that lead to his professional career as a boxing superstar. What captured my attention most was the relationship between Micky and his brother Dicky, who was said to have trained Micky all the way through to his professional status. With family problems being a persistent theme throughout the movie, the reality of the story and performance of the actors makes you feel closer to the characters rather than the rose-tinted nostalgia of the Rocky series, which fails to captivate you on the same emotional level but is set around the same time period.

Movie Poster Critique

The Boxer’s poster is a personal favourite due to the fact that I am a gigantic photography geek and a fan of monochrome imagery. The artist’s choice of presenting the lead character in the boxing ring at the moment he has been awarded the win from a bought with one of his challengers gives a simple, clear pre-cursor of what to expect from this movie – as you can tell from previous articles I’m not a huge fan of mystery. The typical display of main characters by using angled headshots is nothing new at the head of the poster, although the contrast between the clear typography and the grainy effects of noise added to the images creates an old vintage feel mixed with modern day style – an excellent way to show that the storyline is of historical content.

Summary

Overall I’d give the film a 4 out of 5 as the quality of the actual boxing scenes disappointed me. It’s possibly because I am used to the edginess of fighting scenes such as those in Warrior and The Bourne series. Just in case you haven’t seen the film before here’s the trailer:

Blade Runner Poster Review (TuVie Day)

Directed by the brilliant Ridley Scott, Blade Runner is a fascinating film that was way ahead of its time and a good portrayal of the future city scenery that would be adopted by sci-fi films to follow in later years such as The Fifth Element and plenty of others.

The story follows the life of a Blade Runner named Deckard (Harrison Ford) – an agent that tracks down engineered humans, known as replicants in the movie, and terminates them in the year 2019. It’s a fairly standard cop hunts villains type of movie, however, they are also hunting for him, which adds another element of excitement to the plot.

Movie Poster Analysis

John Alvin, who also created the Gremlins and Star Wars Anniversary movie posters, created the movie poster for Blade Runner. The poster is an impressive piece of artwork, which identifies the replicants and the humans clearly and separately by adding sharper detail to the illustration of Deckard’s face in comparison to Rachael (the female character on the right) who is illustrated as a replicant through less sharpness and slightly thicker watercolours. She also looks similar to the Anime illustrations like Astro Boy.

The awesome scenery of the city tops is illustrated well to provide the reader with the futuristic element of the film and the punchy one liner “Man Has Made His Match…Now It’s His Problem” subtly opens you up to the theme of androids effectively.

Overall, the movie is perfectly illustrated in this poster and doesn’t leave too much to the imagination so as a first time viewer of it you’d get the gist of what it is all about.

The Fall Movie Poster (TuVie Day)

Last weekend I stumbled across this movie, as my folks were half hour into it when I walked through the front door and sank into the couch ready to be captivated. To be honest it’s less about the poster this week than it is about the beauty of this great film that in its own right is a fantastic piece of visual art.

The locations and scenes within the movie are wonderfully directed, transporting you from a 1920s infirmary to a fantasy world and back through the stories of a stunt man to a little girl who has also been admitted for a broken arm.

I don’t want to give a great deal of the plot away other than that but if you watch the trailer you’ll get a great idea of what the film is about and witness a handful of the incredible scenes that combine to form this awesome movie.

The poster for The Fall is actually very reflective of the themes and scenes within the movie from the Taj Mahal outline to the butterfly nose. The main character in the fantasy story, “The Masked Bandit”, is displayed to the left with the little girl from the film’s eyes in the centre of the poster, making this design one that gives you everything from the film but no clear idea of the relevance they have. This is definitely one you will have to watch to find out more.

Check out the trailer for The Fall below:

TueVie Day - 500 Days of Summer

If you've been following my blog series you'll have noticed that every Tuesday is Movie Day, which is why I've decided to re-brand as TueVie Day! Appropriate right?

So, this week we’re going to look at a great film poster for a movie that is ideal for couples or if you’re in a feel good-ish mood you could watch this on your own too: 500 Days of Summer. The storyline is fairly good and entangles a love scenario with a pursuit of happiness story, starring the beautiful Zooey Deschanel and the very cool Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Looking at the film poster, its design is simple with Joseph Gordon-Levitt wearing a plain white T-shirt that has the title of the film and scenes of the movie placed on it. Features of the T-shirt have been maintained through the design, i.e. a crease is visible through the movie scenes to make it look like it was actually a printed design.

Although the design gives away the fact that it is a romantic movie, there is not much giveaway of the actual storyline, however, the scenes provided are typical of films of this nature, which have proven to sell seats in the past. What is unique is the choice of light blue and white with a grainy gauze over the design, giving it a vintage indie-style appearance (appropriate for the film style itself).

Overall, I enjoyed the film and suggest you take a look at the trailer below to get an idea of how fun the film is.

 

Movie Day - Warrior

Last weekend my brother introduced me to this film on Netflix. It had good reviews and was about MMA so instantly I was hooked. I was cautious about this one though after being bitterly disappointed with Channing Tatum's efforts at MMA in Fighting.

Starring Joel Edgerton as the man fighting to keep his family's roof over their heads and Tom Hardy as an absolute animal (pre-Bane) who is fighting to support his departed military comrade's family, whilst rivalling his brother over dark family history, this film is inspirational to those who train for any contact sports from the training through to the fights themselves.

The movie poster for Warrior is similar to the promotional boxing posters advertising big upcoming fights. This is achieved using a blacked out environment with a small light source on one side of the actors. Each image is of course shot separately and then stitched together with black space in between them for the text to impact in the way that it does.

The black and white theme is very strong and gives you a sense of the drama involved with the storyline. Somehow there is mild warmth provided with the orange/ gold "FIGHT FOR FAMILY" line, which is appropriately placed in relation to the character. Perhaps an effect that colour has on our beings at a subconscious level.

As a comparison, here's the Tyson vs Holyfield fight poster, which is a similar fight promotion poster that the Warrior's film poster is based on.

 

Movie Day - Juno

There's an odd feel good factor behind watching films like Juno because of the real life theme of pregnancy and the trials and tribulations appended to it. It's okay it all works out in the end if you haven't seen it yet (apologies for the spoiler but really, how did you think a teen movie on pregnancy would end?).

The film has this overall "indie" appeal about it - that means it had a low budget quality about it, which is not uncommon considering its a Michael Cera and Ellen Page movie. This effect is clearly sought after as the choice of soundtrack, featuring the likes of Sonic Youth and The Moldy Peaches, combined with the 3D sketchbook font, similar to the 16 and Pregnant MTV series, gives a cool hipster-style feeling to it all. To top it off the choice of dry humour definitely worked with the characterisation of Juno and her relationship with her family.

Image Credit

From a design perspective, the Juno film poster was perfectly in line with the film's themes and 'artistry'. The title for one is the exact font used in the film, not unusual but still nice to look at and suggestive of the movie's indie effect. I'm not sure if its intentional but Nike's product placement is clear on this poster with Cera's trainers. Who knows? Maybe I pay attention to marketing messages too much.

The colour choice of the poster is orange on white, related to one comic theme within the movie of Tic Tacs, however, it is a colour tone I've seen used in film posters similar to this style of movie such as Adventureland and Little Miss Sunshine. It's probably a feel good colour that entices that type of audience to watch these types of film. After all orange spectrum colours are emotionally connected with happiness.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the Juno trailer:

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Movie Day - Burn After Reading

I'm no film critic but Burn After Reading was a star-studded delight of a spy comedy. It had me bursting with laughter at every riddiculous scenario it could think of. The Cohen Brothers really managed to put something together that stretched each of the cast member's talents to its truly surreal realm. Brad Pitt of course had his signature 'I must eat in this film' move though.

The way this movie was first publicised to me left little to the imagination. Instead it left me admiring the wonderfully creative font and simplistic design of its film poster. The red background has the effect of a roller painted wall as it has squares of slightly different shades, similar to the kind you'd get when painting the outside of a plastered wall unevenly. The contrast of the clean text makes the message stand out better, ideal for a film poster.

The only spy related imagery of the poster is from the silhouette of the handgun on the left and the binocular holding person on the right. Unless you'd seen the film you wouldn't make these connections, which on review tie in with the message: "intelligence is relative". Personally, after seeing this poster I thought it was reflective of the plot for American Beauty.

I'm a big fan of simple movie posters that captivate their target audience, however, I prefer to have a little more suggestive imagery of the plot or at least the genre of the film, as binoculars and guns could be tied in with other genres e.g. action.

Overall, its font makes it an inspiring design as I'm a firm believer in keeping design simple. Where it falls down is in delivering its message clearly enough. There are lessons in typography that can be learned as the title of the movie is coloured differently from the cast, yet perfectly slotted in place with the rest of the text. Someone create an event poster may pull some inspiration from it as there are some many different messages that need to be conveyed in text with limited space at times.

I'd recommend watching this film too. Just take a look at the trailer for it below:

Movie Day - Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry is another of the classic films that everyone knows because of it’s iconic scene where Clint Eastwood is looking down at the baddie and utters the memorable words “do you feel lucky punk?” This scene is very much like the image portrayed in the film poster.

What I love most about the poster is the cracked glass layover effect, which makes it look like Eastwood has shot through a panel of glass. The illustration below the coloured image has a silhouette effect similar to those found in the Reservoir Dogs art, giving a strong visual impact in addition to a snippet from the movie itself.

Overall, the movie’s great and the poster grabs your attention leaving little to the imagination as to what to expect from the film itself. If you were a fan of his previous films you would imagine it being a western film in the city. Below the poster is the classic scene I was talking about earlier.

Image Source

Movie Day - The Dark Knight Rises

Two weeks ago I watched the outstanding Dark Knight Rises film, Christopher Nolan's final instalment of the awesome Batman trilogy. I understand that it has a completely different and darker take on The Caped Crusader compared to its previous versions; however, in my opinion this has been the greatest of all the Batman films created…ever!

The artistic creation of the film poster for this great movie managed to keep the majority of the plot on the Q.T. until its premiere. Now that I’ve seen the film it makes much more sense to me and for now I don’t want to give too much away as I know there’s still people out there who haven’t seen it. All I’ll say is that the “Rise” is quite literal and the poster reflects that particular scene.

So for your enjoyment here is one of the official Dark Knight Rises film posters, followed by the movie trailer:

Image Source

The Dark Knight Rises Movie Trailer

Movie Day - Chariots of Fire

To continue the Olympic theme throughout my blog this week, I've decided to make this Tuesday's film poster of the week an iconic movie in Olympic circles (or rings). This week's film poster is Chariots of Fire.

Image Source: http://www.impawards.com/1981/chariots_of_fire_xlg.html

This beautiful photograph depicts the famous scene of the runners on the beach, a key scene used in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics where Mr Bean was added for good old British laughs! It's an inspirational photo for aspiring athletes and one which summarises the movie in a simple fashion. In case you've never heard of it, here's the trailer:

Movie Day - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

This week I decided to make an effort to find one of the worst films created with something cool about the artistic work put into its film poster. Today's example is an absolute beauty and reeks of a horror movie on a tight budget making it a good cult film if you're going to get technical. This week it's Attack of the Tomatoes.

Image Source

There's a couple of features I really like about this film poster. I love the retro font that's been created as it reminds me of great films like The Running Man and Tron in addition to the Pac Man gaming generation. What I also love is the print quality as its like a classic comic book overlay. It's a poster that would attract me to watch the film only to discover it was a total stinker. For your pleasure though, here's the trailer:

Movie Day - Pulp Fiction

This week's inspirational movie poster is from one of Quentin Tarantino's hit films Pulp Fiction. This creative piece of work depicts an image of Uma Thurman that sums up the theme of the movie with objects relevant to the plot placed on the bed in front of her.

The title Pulp "Fiction" is played with in the design to make it look like the cover of a well read and travelled paper back novel. Even the corner is "dog eared".

Image Source: Google Images

The reason for this film poster's inclusion is the Cult packaging it applies to a non-cult film. I love the font used and the imagery is one that always rings to memory when thinking of Quentin Tarantino, a similar memory commitment that many of his fans also potentially share.

One of the artistic companies behind this historic film poster is Tarhan Creative who also created poster artwork for Kill Bill, Chicago, and the Scream movie franchines. The other is Indika Entertainment Advertising who are responsible for the film posters of Oceans Eleven and Snatch.

Tuesday is Movie Day

That's right, today is the second installment of Movie Tuesday. This is a chance for me to find my favourite film poster from the collection of movies I've admired the artwork for. The majority of these posters are the hand painted variety rather than digitally created ones, which I prefer to some degree because of the vintage feel it gives to the movie.

This week gives praise to one of the coolest films from the 50s which probably became the kindling for men with fantasies of giant women. That's right this week's favourite is from the movie "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman".

This film poster is a good example of explaining the plot through art in the simplest way possible. Of course it wasn't too hard back in the 50s as the plots weren't as ellaborate as they are now. 

The poster has a James Bond-esque feel to it which is part of the reason as to why I find it one of the most inspirational print pieces out there. Everyone is so caught up in digital arts these days that it would be refreshing to see some creativity take some talent from the past and repurpose it. Imagine a business card with this kind of artwork applied. Impressive right?

This film poster was created by the great Reynold Brown. As you can see from the link, plenty of his works revolved around the 50's fashionable sci-fi movies. Check him out.

Tuesday is Movie Day

I'm thinking that Tuesday is the day that we begin sharing inspirational and icononic movie posters by renowned artists. This week's favourite is by the world class Drew Struzan, a great inspiration to print artists everywhere.

His authentic hand painted movie posters have withstood the tests of time and still inspire print artists today looking to compete in the digital age. Today's favourite is from the classic movie Bladerunner.

More incredible works from his portfolio can be found at http://www.drewstruzan.com/