Minimalistic Movie Posters Are Cool

In this blog and on my Facebook and Twitter pages, I have highlighted many examples of minimalistic movie posters. In case you just surfed in and don’t know what they are, minimalistic movie posters are movie posters distilled to a single image or just a main image with only the most necessary background. Since words don’t really describe minimalistic posters here are some examples:

(FYI: The Dark Night Rises poster was done by artist Chaz Russo and his work can be found here. The Amazing Spider-Man poster was done by freelance graphic designer Matt Ferguson and his work can be found here.) I must admit that seeing these kinds of movie posters have turned me into a fan. What is it about such posters that make them so great? Here’s my two cents on the subject:

Not Created by Committee
One person created these posters. That person had an idea and decided to execute it. There was no market research done on the images. No suits were involved in the process.  If digital means were used to create the poster, it was used by someone who didn’t just learn how to the use the program at 9:00 AM on Monday and started making posters at 10:30 AM. It was just one person and his or her vision. Out of that came a thing of beauty.

Created by People with Talent
These posters were created by people with 1/100,000 of the budget of a Hollywood studio, yet they create something that makes you stop for a moment and look at something in a good way. Yet, the studios are drowning in money and when they try to make a minimalistic movie poster it turns out like this:

The above X-Men First Class poster is not a good movie poster, period. Yet, the artists who make the minimalistic movie posters time and time again make amazing posters. They have the mythical “it” and that enables them to meet the challenge that creating a minimalistic movie poster entails. Not to say that it is easy to create such a poster, it isn’t. After all, how do you decide which image to focus on and how do you stop yourself from putting in other images? I don’t know how they do it. Still, because of their talent, they create posters that surpass almost anything the studios create.

They Are Good Ads for the Movie
There have been times where I’ve seen the “official” poster for a film and thought “That’s nice” and wasn’t moved to see the film.  I’ll see a minimalistic movie poster for the same film and think “I WANT to see that movie.” Never mind the fact that the film is past its theatrical run and it’s only available on DVD. The minimalistic movie posters instill desire in me. The Photoshopped creations from the studios just don’t do that.

They Are Works of Art
Look at the examples of fan created The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man minimalistic movie posters and tell me that they aren’t works of art in and of themselves. Even if you know nothing about the movie in question, these posters look good enough to be displayed in any museum.  Through the artist’s knowledge of the film, as well as use of color and space, he or she creates a work of art. This one lone person, who has nothing more than talent, the right tools and access to the Internet, is able to create something beautiful. Whereas the studios, with all their resources, more often than not create something that ranges from pedestrian to downright dumb and many times, the movie poster isn’t even beautiful.

Just goes to show you, less is more, especially since committees aren’t known for creating great works of art.

Sources:
http://www.shockya.com/news/2012/01/16/the-amazing-spider-man-gets-three-fan-made-minimalist-posters/

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/10/21/adam-rabalais-art/

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/rorschachsrants/news/?a=51170

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Has the Well Run Dry?

Doing a blog like this gives me the opportunity to share interesting personal discoveries. Case in point, not too long ago I took my nephew to see Yogi Bear (in 3D). I had railed against the film in an earlier blog entry (see December 2, 2010 entry, Can’t the Powers That Be Leave Well Enough Alone) because I thought it showed a lack of imagination among studio executives. After all, just because the technology exists to make a movie with a computer animated Yogi and Boo-Boo doesn’t mean that such a movie should be made.

Well, I watched the film with my nephew and I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. It was an entertaining story. Dan Ackroyd was great as Yogi. Justin Timberlake was a very good Boo-Boo and the human actors looked to me like they had fun with their roles. So, the powers that be aren’t so bad for greenlighting Yogi Bear.

Of course, not all is sweetness and light in the Land of Blog. I learned that two previously successful films, one from the 1980’s and one from the 1990’s have either been remade or greenlighted. The films are Arthur and The Bodyguard.

The remake of Arthur is scheduled to come out in April. For those of you not familiar with the movie, the original Arthur is a comedy released in 1981 and starred Dudley Moore as a spoiled and boozy man-child millionaire who must choose between marrying for money or love. Liza Minnelli starred as the woman he ultimately chooses and Sir John Gielgud was Arthur’s erstwhile butler. I saw it when it first came out in and while I didn’t get all the jokes and lines, I liked the movie. The remake follows the same story line except that the 2011 version Arthur isn’t boozy and Helen Mirren plays Arthur’s nanny.

As for The Bodyguard, Warner Brothers recently approved a remaking this film. The Bodyguard came out in 1992 and dealt with a former Secret Service Agent who is hired to protect a pop star from a stalker. The original starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. The story has been updated, so instead of having the bodyguard be a former Secret Service Agent, the bodyguard is a former Iraq War Veteran and he has to content with the stalking via Twitter, Gawker Stalker and other Internet sites. So far, no actors have been chosen to star in the movie.

Good gravy! What has gotten into the studios? First they mine the comic books, then the sitcoms, now recent movies? It is one thing to redo Clash of the Titan because special effects are more advanced in the 2010’s then they were in the 1980’s. Arthur and The Bodyguard didn’t have any major special effects to begin with, so what could be improved about them? These films were both successful and good movies in their own right. Why couldn’t the studios leave them alone and greenlight a project that is not a remake or reboot? After all, there is so much talent and money out there. It is hard to believe that studio executives could not find, let alone fund, an original project.

Then again, I could be wrong. The new versions of Arthur and The Bodyguard could end up being just as good, if not better, than the original versions. Maybe they just needed some infusion of 21^st Century sensibilities and doing that would give these films a little something extra to make them better creations.

Yeah and if you believe that, then I could sell you some bridge in Brooklyn and afterwards flap my arms and fly to the Moon when you find out that I don’t hold the deed to such a structure.

Sources:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/02/22/greta_gerwig_finally_acknowledged_by_arthur_poster/

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/usmovies.thehollywoodreporter.com/warner-bros-remake-bodyguard

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082031/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103855/