When I was growing up and learning that the movie theatre was my sanctuary, pretty much the only way to see a film poster was actually outside the cinema itself in one of those glass or thick plastic frames.
I suppose you can also include the small black and white newspaper ads for the artwork, but there was nothing as exciting as standing in front of a poster like this, wondering what the film will be like and what adventures you will see.
Since those days, the film artwork has moved on, evolved, improved and then regressed and so on. Mostly nowadays film posters….well they just arent as exciting as they used to be but thats just my opinion, I miss the days when film posters were in fact what I call works of art. But now and again you will come across one poster that impresses you a lot. For me this next poster is one of them. For the Eric England film Madison County with its 1970s horror film style artwork. I love it. The poster is designed by Tom Hodge from The Dude Designs) just in case you wondered and whilst I dont own a print of it. One day I shall and it will sit proudly on my wall.
Isnt that cool artwork. I think it is. Love it, But the main reason I am writing this article is because over the past couple of years, I have seen independent films go the extra mile when it comes to artwork for their films. The first one is the 2012 David LG Hughes film HArd Boiled Sweets which didnt just go for one poster but went for a series of character posters, each with a similiar format but a different character on each poster. I love it when a filmmaker (and the photographer) goes that little bit further to give the project that little extra bump.
So here I share with you the character posters for the film Hard Boiled Sweets.
Fantastic work there that does sum the film up pretty well, with its variety of strange and wonderful characters within the film.
Which is your favourite Hard Boiled Sweets design? Tell me
But the main reason I wanted to write this today of all days is that this morning I found another independent film that has gone the character poster route and I love it. That film is ‘Rose’ and based on a very true story about a real woman and the very hard life she went throughNot an easy film to watch but a film that everyone should indeed watch. But for more on the film itself you can check out @rosethefilm on Twitter of search on Facebook for Rose The Movie and itll come up. As an added note, the film is available on Amazon.Com. But lets check out these characters posters for the film Rose. I think they are fantastic. So great work to Kemal Yildirim and the team at ‘Rose’ for taking that extra step with this marketing.
What do you think? Which one do you like the best? Do you like it when a filmmaker or film company decides to that extra mile with its artwork or dont you care? Tell us in the comments below.