Monday 8 August 2011

A Lost Art



What’s happened to the art of movie posters?

Promotional material for films used to be creative, artistic and engaging. Right up until the late 80s most poster art was hand drawn... from the silent era of Birth of a Nation to modern classics like Jaws, The Goonies and Star Wars...

These days we’re suffering boring, mundane and generic posters. I'm in Australia where the quality is far worse than anywhere else and you only have to check out the region 4 dvds of Just Friends, You Me & Dupree and Georgia Rule to see what I’m saying.


So what does this say about us? Have we come to a point in evolution where we accept mediocricy as a standard? (this spans a lot of mediums) It’s concerning that bland stamping of poster art is appealing to people. I mean surely its working otherwise the marketing department wouldn’t do it, right!?? A friend of mine directed a film a few years ago and shopped it around at festivals with some really creative artwork. When he eventually sold the film to Fox they insisted that the point-of-sale artwork be dumbed down in order to sell. The result was hideous.

Am I alone?

I mean sure, there ARE some awesome posters out there... but generally speaking its pretty damn crap! The cinemas and video stores are plastered with meritocracy.

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