Frequently Asked Questions
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I can't find your poster for _________ on any of the online poster sites. Can you please sell / send me one or tell me where I can buy one?
Unfortunately Australian posters are only produced for the theatres and not reprinted for the general public. I wish I'd thought of stealing a few hundred of the Motorcycle Diaries ones from Dendy, I'd have made a small fortune by now. Best place to try is the local Australian distributor listed as the client on the poster's page, who MAY have a few copies kicking around their storeroom if it's a relatively recent release. You could try Phil Edwards at www.cinemarts.com as he manages to get his hands on some of them, and he credits me by name. I would love to send you a spare copy of mine, but after a disastrous flood in my sunroom I don't have anything left that's not at least partly a gungy mess in a soggy plastic tube.
How can I get into making film posters?
Okay, firstly we call it key art, not film posters. It sounds Far More Important and we can also make believe we'll still have jobs in five years' time when no-one prints posters anymore.
Basically any design skills are secondary to your ability to analyse and dissect a film, and interpret the film in a creative way (this is a good thing as I - obviously - cannot design for shit). Which takes a lot of watching and discussing films - the design bit is just a simple spewing out of ideas you've already worked through in your head. Stay away from blockbusters and immerse yourself in stuff with ideas. Watch The Cremaster Cycle. Watch The Holy Mountain. Watch The Seventh Continent. Hell, watch Inland Empire. Anything that makes you think 'what the?' but is obviously dripping with ideas just beyond your grasp is a good place to start. Watch stuff in other languages and turn off the subtitles. Analyse and interpret, and work out what you want to say about what the film wants to say. Think about who would enjoy the film and what they would enjoy about it. Roll it all up and design 'posters' for everything you watch (if only in your head). Visit www.IMPAwards.com regularly.
I'd suggest trying to do book jackets or cd covers as well, given they are solely metaphorical and ideas-based, rather than measuring actors' heads to avoid getting shouted at by their agents, which is dull. Short film-makers always want posters and dvd slicks for their films whether they need them or not, so that's a good place to start. Hassle the local film school or theatre companies for work. You may be doing stuff for free or cheap but it's all about getting contacts and a portfolio up together. Don't think of it as selling your soul. That comes the first time you have to disregard everything I've just said and stick three actors' heads floating in the sky.
How long does it take to design a poster?
Bit of a piece of string question, that one. It actually is largely a question of 'how long does it take the creative teams to agree on one design?'... for instance the Little Fish poster took over 6 months and I did 30-odd designs, and we ended up going with the first one I'd done, of course. Whereas for Macbeth it was basically the first design I did and it was at the printers about four days after I'd started it. I vastly prefer the second option, because I get paid the same.
What is your favourite poster and why?
Of my own? I like the Tarnation poster vastly more than anything else I've done, and not only because I think it's the best film I've worked on. I think it's pretty unique for a film poster, and I think that people who really get the poster will really get the film, and those that don't, won't - that's part of the aim of the excercise. If you want to know about other people's posters then, Anatomy of a Murder by Saul Bass is obviously one of the greatest poster designs ever, so that's what my head says, but my heart says I really love the poster for Live and Let Die by Roger McGinnis. It's a perfect montage that's exactly the sort of poster James Bond films need.
What inspires you to make the posters?
Sounds obvious but the answer is the films. I get bagged by other designers for not having a 'style' - but you have to respond and design to suit the film. The film is always the most important thing. And even if you hate it, you have to analyse what people who will like it would want to see on the poster, that will attract them to come along and pay their $15. So there's a gut response but you have to have a really strong marketing instinct. It's not art - graphic design is about selling stuff and all the technical skill in the world will not help if you don't understand sales and marketing.
My computer keeps crashing when I design posters. Do you have any technical advice?
Technically, design at 350x500mm @300dpi (or if you're in Europe, A1) in Photoshop and then run the image at 200% in Indesign and add text there or via Illustrator. That way your computer will survive the process and no-one will ever notice that the resolution is 120dpi or less. Remember people rarely stand closer to a poster than 1m (or the height of the poster) so resolution is not that crucial for the image. Oh and don't use Quark, it's the 21st century for Christ's sake.
