Graphics Research

Art house films have serious content and therefore usually strong massages to get across to the audience. Most of this is to raise awareness of an untouchable subjects, a topic that’s a taboo e.g.: homosexuality, rape, drug abuse etc. Sometimes this is put in an entertaining context; which shows big difference within the subject of the film. For this reason is why most art house films are not belonging to one genre. Of course there are exceptions like Amelie, and Little Miss Sunshine, the subject of these are not that ‘heavy’ but the graphics of the posters contain similar elements. These graphic elements of the campaigns, has to be shown all throughout the images of the film. This is often achieved by big, outstanding differences on the pictures, or the strong, complementary colours.

These two, is the poster and a picture from the film; Requiem for a dream. This poster has an extreme close up picture and a long shot on it, this is creates an interesting contrast within the poster, it grabs attention and suggests something being stretched beyond its limit in the film. The image from the film has a big colour contrast between the black and the white.

Almodovar’s Volver is about a heavy rape subject, put into a comical context. The most obvious element on the poster is the happy, very strong colours; everything on this poster is a bit over the usual. Still the colours are happy; the face expression of the main character is quite dark and serious, this is crating the contrast. The other picture I chose because it shows the clothing in the film, every piece that Penelope’s wearing is quirky and unusual.

Almodovar’s Bad Education is also about a heavy subject in comical context, but this one is about child abuse and homosexuality. I find the posters both interesting, because they both different for others and from one another. One is a black and whit picture of the child that has been abuse with a red circle in the background, to emphasize him and in a way make him a target. The colours have strong meaning but are not that contrasting. The other poster is the same person shown as a man and dressed up as a woman, which is a huge difference between the actual meanings of the picture.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fantastic film Amelie, has a surprisingly simple poster, it is the main character, Audrey Tautou with a quirky look on her face. The ‘rule’ is still followed by the complementary colours of red and green. The other picture is from the film, similar kind of look and the red umbrella give an interesting and different image. I like this because Amelie id different from the others as it has an entertaining purpose. The feature that gives the film away to be an arthouse film is the warm colour filters on the whole film and of course the quirky story.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s other amazing film Delicatessen, which made him famous has a simple poster too. It just has a gold pig hanging and a red background, which is quite quirky itself. The colours are highly saturated. The other picture is a scene from the film, it is very weird as the characters playing music on the roof, and on of them is using a saw for that. The colours are very warm and have a sepia effect as the colour balance is more to the red and brown colours and also it is highly contrasted as well. Because of these colours the films looks old and that it was set in the past, but little hints of the film tell that it is set way away in the future.

Little Miss Sunshine is a bit more known arthouse style film than the others, probably because it is in English. Maybe that’s why that the poster is a bit more ‘Hollywoody’. Although the family bus and the block yellow background suggests a bit of weirdness, but not that strongly. With this film are the story and the odd characters that make it weird and quirky. There is also a shot from the film that shows a similar kind of contrast than the other arthouse films. On this shot there is the contrast between the two different characters the happy little sister and the miserable, ant-social older brother, and that they are very close to the camera while the rest of the family is far in the background. Lastly there is a high contrast between blacks and whites again.

Ethernal Sunshine of the spotless mind is an incredibly clever and weird film, packed with Hollywood starts such as Jim Carry and Kirsten Dunst which is unusual already. The poster is weird but again in a more Hollywood-like way. The couple on laying on the surface of a frozen lake, with the crack anther them and the women with the blue hair seems like it is all in Jim Carry’s head. The layout of the poster is very interesting, the orange and blue are complementary colours which leads back to the idea of contrast. There is something different in this film, but so as al arthouse films, that is another proof of why they can’t be categorized into one genre. The whole film is very weird and confusing but brilliant. The other poster is more normal, shows a connection between a couple as they are holding hand in a close up shot, the background is out of focus, we had the idea of creating a similar shot in our trailer.

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Donnie Darko has a whole different atmosphere present on its poster, that’s because it was marketed wrong. It was classified as a thriller, but most certainly it I not, these is another proof that these film are not really fitting into one genre. Donnie Darko’s poster and editing still show elements of the posters previously looked at. It has high contrast and strong colours the only problem that it is too dark, so it suggests a horror movie.

Quentin Tarantino’s best movie, Pulp Fiction can not be categorized into one genre, due to the complex, overlapping stories. This is why there are not all the important characters on the posters, only the strongest ones. The first poster is a legendary poster with Uma Thurman; it has not got any special features like all the others. The only unusual thing about it is the posture of the actress on it. They all suggest violence with the guns. The other one is an image from the film that became a poster; it has high contrast and also a contrast between the black and the white character.

Analyzing all these poster and different types within the same genre, our team should aim to pick up on some of the main elements of these posters and transform it into our marketing campaign. This involves using strong, contrasting colours, scene that hint a bit of the genre and the story of the film. Maybe some romantic elements and some contrast between comical and serious. I also think we should create a series of posters product designs. We should also pay attention of what our characters are wearing, so the colour of the clothes should contrast and outstand or be unusual.