Creating a movie poster

This is a great post and thanks for all the great input and Ideas. Its great to see everyones art and Ideas come to life.

Hey Prodigi this is my first attempt at a poster for a movie that we want to make. It has a lot of color but is suppose to convey coming out of the mist.

I bought the name a while ago and wrote a two page synopsis for it and we are starting to develop the project. I want to have something to show even though we don't have actors lined up. I am trying to get some interest in the project. I'm not trained as a artist or in graphics, just self taught but would like some feed back anyway.

It can be viewed on the site and I did it at poster size.

www.touchofthedragon.com
 
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Michael... Have to agree with Prodigi. I'm not sure this is fixable and probably better to start with a new concept. Review all the previous posts and you'll get a good education about "do's" and "don'ts". Then, I'll bet you'll immediately see what he's talking about...and why. This is a great thread !
 
Prodigi and FrankC thanks for the info. I'm going to shoot a friend of mine in his sparing setup while using sowrds soon and will be making a new poster from these photos. I wanted to just use some text and get use to the layout but I had fun and got some experience in Indesign and the flow between it and Photoshop.
I will repost when I have a new version.
Thanks!
 
okay so here is the final White Knuckles poster. the director fell in love with the imagery and we discussed ways to improve its capacity to entice. so we added the quote at the head and some descriptive copy cascading to the title.

wkskypostergx9.jpg
 
you know, the way you describe it is exactly how i submitted it to the director, who is a close personal friend i should add. this cascading version was the "alt" which, you know, he preferred. we went back and forth, to be honest. not that either of us really know what we're doing. just kind of intuiting our way thru it. if only we had the money to hire a pro. both of us look forward to getting a more suitable quote on their too. i guess we could just invent a "david manning" until something better comes along, right? ;)

anyway, i love that you can put into words the stuff I just kind of haphazardly "feel" my way toward a conclusion. i definitely would buy said book! thanks justin!

wkskyposteraltgi9.jpg
 
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Don't know if anyone cares what I think, but I think the increasingly indented text is much, much better. The one with the 3 lines left-aligned looks overly rigid- the text becomes a 'structure'- a singular, architectural form like scaffolding, which overpowers the otherwise organic backdrop, rather than 'floating' in it, like water. Not to say that you couldn't tweak further, in terms of positioning of the three lines.

Kris
 
Hey Zak... I like it, but I am not sure about the picture... I am guessing that it has a bit too much detail for the small white letters... not sure it that's it
definitely keep the trees in it.
 
USLatin said:
Hey Zak... I like it, but I am not sure about the picture... I am guessing that it has a bit too much detail for the small white letters... not sure it that's it
definitely keep the trees in it.
Click to expand...

yeah, this small it's no good, but at full size 27"x40" the billing block (if thats what you're referring to) is perfectly legible.
 
USLatin said:
Hey Zak... I like it, but I am not sure about the picture... I am guessing that it has a bit too much detail for the small white letters... not sure it that's it
definitely keep the trees in it.
Click to expand...

Any poster displayed on DVXuser should have illegible billing blocks. Zak is designing for 27"x39". A 10 point font, which is perfectly legible on 27"x39", won't scale down to a low-rez image.

If you read earlier posts you'll see that someone (I think Rubber Square) pointed out that the billing block on my poster for A Lonely Place For Dying was too big. They were right. I scaled it up to avoid the critique.

I think this proves we'll be screwed either way until we're all working on 50" displays. :cry:
 
Zak Forsman said:
you know, the way you describe it is exactly how i submitted it to the director, who is a close personal friend i should add. this cascading version was the "alt" which, you know, he preferred. we went back and forth, to be honest. not that either of us really know what we're doing. just kind of intuiting our way thru it. if only we had the money to hire a pro. both of us look forward to getting a more suitable quote on their too. i guess we could just invent a "david manning" until something better comes along, right? ;)

anyway, i love that you can put into words the stuff I just kind of haphazardly "feel" my way toward a conclusion. i definitely would buy said book! thanks justin!

wkskyposteraltgi9.jpg
Click to expand...

Zak -

Damn! I love this version. I think the copy reads so much easier. The only tweak I'd make is scaling up the size of the logo so the copy and the word "white" are the exact same width. However, the logo would overlap with the branches, so you'd need to move all the text up a bit. There is a hole in the branches up a tad where the enlarged logo could fit. I'd also consider moving the "a film by sabi" to be right justified with "knuckles."
 
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A few general questions...

What size should the standard poster be? Like, what are the frames in the theatres? I've heard 27x40, 27x39, 27x41...

And, why, if there is a standard size frame in a theatre, are there so many variations (obviously not quads, banners etc).

And, does anyone still do the double-sided poster (with the back printed in reverse for stronger colors when backlit)?

Has anyone seen a unique printing technique (like varnishes, foils, etc - we've all seen the lenticulars) or unusual paper used for mass-produced posters?
 
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