Two Posters, One Movie
Since I’ve spent the past week trying and more or less failing to create a decent print advertisement in Photoshop, I suppose I have more sympathy for what print advertisers go through. Nevertheless, I’m fairly consistently irritated by movie posters. These days, posters often consist entirely of the principle characters’ heads, and maybe some dramatic lighting. With that in mind, I wanted to focus on two posters I think more or less fail in one way or another. Up top, we have a banned-by-the-MPAA poster for Kevin Smith’s upcoming Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and below that, we have the poster that was accepted.
The reason I don’t like the top poster has nothing to do with the obvious suggestion of sex which apparently lead to the MPAA not accepting it. It’s the problems I listed above that irritate me: it’s generic, it features the heads of its two principle actors and literally nothing else. It has a pretty good color scheme, but that’s not really enough to be visually interesting. Where I think this poster succeeds, though, is in selling the movie. A person looks at this poster and sees two actors that they will (if they are in the target demographic for the movie) recognize from The 40 Year Old Virgin. And, generic though it is, the poster resembles the poster for that movie and Knocked Up. Since all the movies are raunchy, R-rated comedies, it seems safe to assume that they have the same target demographics, and associations between them would favor Zack and Miri. So, I don’t like it, but I think it’s effective. Or it would be, if it could be shown outside of Canada.
The second poster has exactly the opposite problem: I like it, but I’m not sure it’s effective. What I like is that it’s unusual looking. But I’m not sure that Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks are big enough stars that people know who they are without seeing their faces. I’m also not sure people bother to read the text, or, upon seeing commercials for the movie, will connect the poster they saw to the movie. Further, it doesn’t really catch the eye. It all seems a very diffcult balance to strike: either you create a movie poster that is boring, but does its job, or a poster that is interesting and a bit different, but doesn’t.
I don’t get this ad. I think its crazy that they just put stick figures in the ad and want you to use your imagination. I guess that may work, but I don’t know if i would even bother with it. I know who Seth R is but not that girl. I would just aasume that it was another one of his types of movies and leave it as that. I think they could of put more effort towards it.
Have you seen the original poster for “Good Luck Chuck”? It is the exact same concept. They also had to change the poster because it was to “sexual”. I think more people would see the movie if the original posters were kept. I don’t think this movie will have a problem because it has got three things going for it. 1)Kevin Smith
2)Seth Rogen
3)Porn Comedy